Glenn Gould Speech (Excerpt from Radio Broadcast Interview with James Fassett)

There is one subject that has interested me, Gleen Gould, in connection with you for a long time especially last year,

when the...eh...when you played d minor Brahms with Leonard Bernstein.

And there is a...eh...people were record Bernstein made a speech before the audience,

saying that his conception and your conception collided more or less and he wanted to...

well I wouldn't say disassociate himself

Now it has interested me to find a explanation,

in what way two musicians, two artists of the caliber of you and of Mr. Bernstein

can approach a standard symphonic work like the d minor Brahms concerto

and have such diverse conceptions of the piece

that Bernstein in this case felt that he had to disassociate himself from...

I don't know that there's a satisfactory explanation. As far as what actually transpired last year,

I seemed to be the only person around who felt that Mr. Bernstein's speech was full of the best of good spirits, and great charm,

and I in fact I sat backstage giggling before playing the thing. I could hardly stop it when we started.

I thought it was delightful.

But there is no solution to this sense of collaboration that's demanded by a concerto.

Part of the concerto idea is of course the sense of non-collaboration,

the sense of willingness of the virtuoso, so called, to show off.

And I think it's this, it's the traditions that emanate out of that that prompted me to do what I did

because what went on last year was in no way a particularly unusual performance of that particular Brahms concerto

except for one factor, and that was that our proportions of tempi

and our proportions of dynamics tended to be scaled closer together than is usually the case

There was less, if I say exaggeration, I don't mean it critically of other people's performances,

but there was less exaggeration in that sense of the word,

there was less divergence between what could be called the masculine-feminine approach of the piano concerto between first theme and second theme, （

between the barking of the orchestra and the placidity of the piano.

It was a much more tightly welded unit, what I wanted to do.

Now, Lenny felt that in order to preserve the antagonism of orchestra for piano

there ought to be greater contrast, there ought to be larger dynamic spans and greater changes of tempi

and I was at that time, and still am, I must say,

in a Baroquish mood as far as even the nineteenth century concerto is concerned.

I was trying to bring a common pulse to the movements and to hold things together in that

if rather arbitrary, nevertheless for me very convincing way.

And this is what happened it was simply the meeting at two points of our particular metamorphosis

at which he was more in favor of the tradition which has accrued around the concerto style

and I wished at that moment to break with it.

You say at that moment?

I may change, I only imply that I

No, have you always felt that way?

About that particular piece I have.

I have not applied quite as extreme an analysis to other works of the same genre,

but I have about that particular work.

And... so I was very grateful for the chance to do this for the chance to exhibit it nationally,

so to speak, on the radio, and I was very grateful to Mr. Bernstein for going along with this,

I've only write that he should get off the hook himself.

Right. I want to come and hear you play in the 1970s see what happened.

Great I hope you can.

We've talked long time and I've enjoyed it very much. I hope you come again.

I will indeed.

Thank you, thank you Gleen Gould.