Track Listing

1. 1. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande, Allegro ma non troppo
2. 2. Szene am Bach, Andante molto moto
3. 3. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute, Allegro
4. 4. Gewitter, Sturm, Allegro
5. 5. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm, Allegretto

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123031 in Music
• Released on: 1993-03-09
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The Essence Of The Sixth
This Glenn Gould CD features a wonderfully fresh recording of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt. I'm sure I'm not alone in stating that Beethoven's Sixth is one of my favorite symphonies. To date with my classical collecting I've tried to settle on only one first rate version of each classical performance, but in the case of the Sixth I have three (so far) -- Bernstein/NYPO, Bohm/Vienna and the historic Toscanini/NBC set. One of my original reasons for buying these three different versions was to learn how classical performances differ from disc to disc, orchestra to orchestra. That same reasoning led me to purchase this album by Gould. In the exact opposite way that Stokowski expanded Bach's "Toccata And Fugue" for organ into a legendary modern performance for orchestra, Liszt has contracted Beethoven's Sixth and boiled it down to its essence for piano. Of course, one of the reasons that this works is Beethoven himself was a pianist. Liszt undoubtedly used this to his advantage when making this transcription. But Liszt adds some of his own flourishes as well to Beethoven's masterpiece. For example, the second movement has been expanded to over twenty minutes -- it is a full seven minutes longer here than it is on the Bernstein Century symphonic version. As far as Gould's playing goes, he turns in another magical, transcendental performance. Any fan of Beethoven's "Pastoral" will enjoy this CD.

Another Remarkable GG Recording...
This is a gorgeous recording wherein GG captures the realization of a gestalt--i.e., an overall unified aesthetic concept of the work of art from beginning to end: the individual movements are not considered as separate from the unity of the piece as a whole. The maintainence of an overall unity of vision in conceptual space-time is something which only a genius of GG's stature can achieve. To disparage his time scale as "too slow" is to utterly misunderstand his artisitic vision: this is what separates critic from cretin.

By the way, if a complete set of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies is desired, Leslie Howard's on Hyperion is the one to get.

Not one of Gould's best discs
Beethoven's Sixth is one of my favorites, and I also loved Glenn Gould's playing of the Fifth symphony, which is extremly sublime. But, I don't understand why his playing of the Sixth is so dull and cold. At some point it becomes so slow that you can hardly follow the main melody. I would recommend, for the Sixth, Cyprien Katsaris's playing of the Sixth, available on Amazon (ASIN: B000PJ7QAI, Teldec) or in a box set with other piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies.