Rendering the Prosaic Persuasive: Gould and the Performance of Bach's C-Minor Prelude (WTC I)

[1] Portrayals of the pianist Glenn Gould are often contradictory. Some hear in Gould's performances of Bach a deeply introspective, analytical, almost clinical rendering, whereas others celebrate the pianist's passion, virtuosity, and hypnotic ecstasy.(1) Some listeners and viewers are so caught up with the strikingly unique qualities of Gould's playing, his body, and his unconventional interpretations that they often claim that "the music" is lost in the haze. Yet many of these same critics also marvel at his ability to "X-ray" Bach's compositions, to reveal the inner voices and clarify his complicated counterpoint.(2)Example 1. Glenn Gould's performance of the Bach Prelude in C minor, measures 1-6,from Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (Girard, 1993)(click to view)[2] These seemingly oppositional perspectives of Gould, the self-indulgent versus the analytical pianist, can be seen to reflect not only the different stages of his career but also the conflicting perceptions of the same performance. Consider his 1962 interpretation of Bach's Prelude in C minor from Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 847), which is featured in both Francois Girard's 1993 film, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould and The Triplets of Belleville (2003), directed by Sylvain Chomet. In the former we hear and see Gould's recording as though from the inside of the piano, the hammers striking the strings and the dampers lifting in coordinated precision with the pianist's unmistakable rendition (Example 1). This juxtaposition-the sight of the piano's inner workings with the sound of Gould's disembodied and detached, almost mechanistic interpretation-evokes an analytical perspective, an "X-ray" of the performance that reveals Gould's calculated dissection of Bach's Prelude.Example 2. Caricatured Glenn Gould performance of the C-minor Prelude, measures 1-11,from The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet, 2003)(click to view)[3] In The Triplets of Belleville, by contrast, we see a cartoon version of Gould playing Bach's music on an old black-and-white television.(3) This caricature of the pianist plays on a low chair with legs crossed and long tangled fingers. His eyes are shut and his body sways as though lost in the moment (Example 2). As the work progresses, Gould's hands and elongated fingers cross over and under each other, visually twisting Bach's multiple voices into a disjointed tangle as a metaphor for the piece's impenetrable texture.[4] One might excuse these conflicting interpretations of Bach's Prelude and/or Gould's interpretation of the work, by recognizing that neither film director is a professional pianist nor a music theorist. But they might be onto something. A closer look at Gould's idiosyncratic performance both clarifies and obscures what traditional analytical techniques tell us about the C-minor Prelude. Gould's unique articulation and voicing clarify the musical texture in a manner that illuminates less tractable issues in counterpoint, hypermeter, and harmonic tension. Yet, by comparing and contrasting Gould's performative "X-ray" of the Prelude with that of other performers and editors, we will demonstrate how the pianist ultimately opens up new unresolved questions, while still generating what is, for many, an artistically compelling interpretation of this work.(4)[5] The C-minor Prelude, described by Tovey as an "arpeggio prelude," is harmonically driven (Tovey 1924, 26). With his characteristically detached articulation, however, Gould does more than merely outline the harmonic progression.(5) Consider the opening four measures: like its C-major predecessor, the C-minor Prelude uses a standard progression to establish the tonic (here, i-iv-viio7-i). But as opposed to David Ledbetter's claim that Bach intended this Prelude to help bring the "thumb and little finger into line with the middle three fingers" so that "all five fingers are equal," Gould distinguishes the notes on the first and third beats with a sharp accent (Ledbetter 2002, 136 and 151; listen to Gould's performance in Example 1). …