Sony Classical Reissues Gould Playing Mozart

from the Presto Music Web page for the recording being discussed

Sony Classical recently announced a new batch of reissues from the back catalogs of both CBS/Sony and RCA Victor/BMG. That batch included recordings of Glenn Gould playing the eighteen piano sonatas composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, along with his two solo piano fantasias, K. 397 in D minor and K. 475 in C minor. Those familiar with this repertoire probably know that K. 475 if often performed as an “overture” to the K. 457 C minor sonata; but, in this collection, the fantasia and the sonata are allocated to separate CDs.

This new collection was released at the end of this past January, but Amazon.com does not yet seem to have created a Web page for it. Instead, it continues to offer the 2012 version of this collection, whose first four CDs duplicate the new reissue, along with a fifth CD, which includes a second recording of the K. 330 sonata in C major along with the K. 394 prelude and fugue in C major, and the K. 491 piano concerto in C minor with Walter Susskind conducting the CBC Symphony Orchestra. The options on the Amazon.com Web page are MP3 download (including a PDF of the accompanying booklet), the box of five CDs, and unlimited streaming. The four-CD version, on the other hand, seems to be available only from overseas sources, such as Presto Music, which has been offering it since this past December.

The original recordings were made at Columbia’s studio in New York between 1966 and 1974. Those familiar with Gould are probably well aware of his idiosyncrasies in interpreting the music of just about any composer from any century. However, those inclined to challenge Gould’s approaches to these sonatas and fantasias as being not “historically informed” might find themselves accused of “historic myopia.”

From a biographical point of view, Mozart was very much a “show-off kid,” even after his age had advanced into the thirties. It would not be out of the question to consider how Mozart’s ghost might have reacted, had he decided to haunt the Columbia studio. My guess is that he would have reacted to all of those idiosyncrasies, particularly the most extreme one’s, by whispering in Gould’s ear, “I wish I’d thought of that!”

Those that read my accounts of Sony’s The Bach Box of Gould recordings are already familiar with the extreme extents of those idiosyncrasies. Those unwilling to tolerate them should probably steer clear of his approaches to Mozart. Personally, I side with my imagined evocation of Mozart’s ghost. As I like to say, “The music is in the making;” and when it comes to making music, Gould was as capable of surprising listeners as Mozart had been among the stuffed shirts of Vienna.