Dear Passerby： Thanks for the clip, it is a very captivating interview. What an unusual man and character!
I certainly disagree with what he said to Beethoven’s work. But in order to understand why he said what he said, I have to walk in his shoes. From his point of view, he adored fugue and canon, so that anything that didn’t have a contrapuntal form as fugue and canon are simply not well structured and not logical. The passage of Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto he referred as “tiresome idea” is obviously not in contrapuntal form. Eventhough it has other meanings, but he didn't care about that.
And think about the fact that he sings while he is playing, he simply can’t stop that. How frustrated he would be when he is playing the famous opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th symphony that he can’t sing along!
He only likes the things he feels comfortable with. His chair for example, when his chair got so beaten up over the years and was making squeaking sound during the performance and recording, he still insisted to use that chair! He didn’t like live performance, and so he abandoned the concert platform at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects. He is one that had the nerve to say whatever he didn’t like and not care about how others think. He is a mixture of extremely talented and messed up as well.
I do appreciate his interpretation of Bach. For example, I heard the Goldberg Variation before, but until I heard Gould’s 1981 recording of that piece, I said to myself: how could I not to fall in love with this piece before? It was Gould who leads me into Bach’s world.
It is very interesting conversation.
Thank you and have great new week!