Track Listing

1. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major ('Emperor'), Op. 73: Allegro
2. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major ('Emperor'), Op. 73: Adagio un poco moto
3. Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major ('Emperor'), Op. 73: Rondo, Allegro
4. Burleske for piano & orchestra (or 2 pianos) in D minor, o.Op. 85 (TrV 145, AV 85)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #105721 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1995-06-27
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.com
These two CBC television soundtracks are valuable additions to Glenn Gould's discography. His 1970 Emperor concerto, though not without its quirks, boasts an uncluttered directness largely absent from his studio version with Leopold Stokowski. By contrast, Gould puts on his best lily-gilding airs for Strauss's youthful Burleske, a work he never tackled in the studio. Within the limitations of the mono TV source, the sound is more listenable than previous bootleg incarnations of this material. --Jed Distler

Customer Reviews

GG does Strauss!...

The real star here is Strauss' Burleske. It's something like Lizst's first piano concerto: a portmanteau one-movement piece comprised of contrasting episodes. Strauss' piece has the humorous vein of Til Eulenspegiel's Merry Pranks. Gould sounds great, and it's really a wonderful realization of a rarity. Quite a substantial piece, it runs about 24 mins.

The Beethoven is okay. GG plays it very "straightly"--so much so, in fact, that Bazzana dispairages it as "conventional": faint praise indeed. Recorded in 1970 for CBC TV, the orchestra sounds very flat and two-dimentional; Gould's piano, however, sounds okay.

It's just such a damned shame that the recorded sound of GG's radical realization of Brahms' first concerto with Bernstein (1962) is too bad to tolerate, for Gould's performance was truly exquisite and superb.

As mentioned, this disc is worth having for GG's Strauss.