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thank you, Michael - greatly appreciated. Brian

Hi Moyet, Thank you for this criticism - it's always an opportunity to learn and improve for the future. If you listen to the whole conversation, you might find that it was more balanced than you initially thought, but it was not intended to be an interview, but a conversation - suggesting a balance between the two parties, rather than a more traditional Q & A format. At least, that's what we aim for. Still, point well taken. It's the guest that counts. - Brian

Agreed - they're wonderful in this film - everybody should see it!

Ahhh, too true. Stephen really does all the work and makes the interviewer's job a snap. Fortunately, I had my trademark "sky high coffee mug" with me, so I could sit back and enjoy Stephen's wit and wisdom. I wouldn't have wanted to miss a syllable!

@@BrianLevine-p5e Hi Brian I’m new to your channel - lots to explore. Any chance you could get the British musician David Sylvian on here. He was a pop star in the band Japan but has evolved into a composer of what I would regard as contemporary classical / electronic music. I would reccomend his album Manofon based around the poetry of R.S Thomas. He is reclusive but you might persuade him

. . . in a way that introduced Bach to tens of millions of music lovers who became ardent admirers of Bach's genius.

So true, Greta! It is a world at our fingertips . . . I hope you enjoyed the program and will check out some of our other great conversations with some of the world's most amazing artists. Happy listening! Brian

I totally agree, Stephen. Great music is evergreen, eternal. We still sing folksongs, Christmas Carols and hymns, and even nursery rhymes for our children that are centuries old. They never tire us, and the great artists of our own time like the Beatles are the same. They merge into our consciousness and enrich our lives forever. Thanks for your feedback and for sharing your White Album memories! Brian

Thank you, Todd, for introducing me to Sohyang. I was unfamiliar with her before your comment. She has a remarkable gift, and a pure voice, with an extended upper register. Her command of English is nigh unto impeccable, which helps a lot when she takes on a great song like Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I also checked out her performance of Adlophe Adam's O Holy Night, and found many of the same qualities. Great control, a sweet tone, a powerful belt and an extended upper register. The only thing I could wish for is for her to lose some of the syrupy arrangements, which seem cliché to me - but that may be the fault of the TV producers. Also, there are flashes of some really sweet and poignant head tones, but she uses that part of her vocal vocabulary too infrequently. Belting is great, but it works best in contrast with lyricism, I find - or at least that's my personal taste. I also am guessing that there is more of a lower register and an expressive chest voice among her natural gifts, but perhaps she could explore and develop them more fully as her musical journey evolves. She clearly has good ideas about style, and I hope she experiments more, takes some real interpretive chances and pushes herself musically beyond the natural comfort zone that she inhabits so exquisitely. Perhaps I haven't yet heard enough of her work and she may already be exploring new terrain, just as one of our other great Gould Standard guests, Cécile McLorin Salvant has voyaged far beyond her starting point as a more traditional jazz vocalist into thrilling, uncharted territory with her last albums, Mélusine (a stunner) and Ghost Song. This isn't really a fair comparison, but if you listen to Sohyang's O Holy Night, and then Mariah Carey's Gospel-infused interpretation of the same song, I think you'll see the potential of a young artist with a truly formidable gift to take a great piece of music and really make it her own. Again, this is no criticism of someone who really has a special talent - just a hope for amazing things to come as she continues to find her own unique path - a path as individual, personal and special as the exceptional vocal gifts she possesses.

@@BrianLevine-p5e Sohyang has actually been singing in earnest since she was about 18. She is now 46, believe it or not! She sang all the songs I listed in 2015 when she was 37 and refuses to sign with any big labels due to being a sincere Christian who is concerned that Hollywood would destroy her spiritually. She just turned down Sony Music US in 2020 and many others before that. If you managed to watch "I Have Nothing" she can sing it note for note the same this year, and has done it numerous times! And her 6th octave head voice is astounding! She can hit the 7th octave but never sings using it because no one could hear the squeak anyway, LOL! She must have at least 30 jaw dropping performances on TH-cam and probably many more. I have seen many of them but not all. Anyway, _bon appetite_ Brian! There aren't many Sohyangs in this world. She has a brand new album out just this month called "Diva," and that she is! Nathan East plays bass on it. It is being distributed world wide by Warner Music Group, David Foster's former employers interestingly enough. 😉

@@ToddSauve Hi Todd, clearly I need to listen to more of her work - thanks for encouraging me to do so . . .

thanks again, so much OJ! your kind words and support are the feedback that fuel our passion for The Gould Standard. Great new episodes ahead!

I'll pass it along, Yellow Truck!

Thank you! It was a real treat to spend so much time with Rick, and he was an awesome guest. If you liked this program, you will definitely like our other episodes - great conversations with great artists! Please tell your friends and consider subscribing.

Hi again - I've actually replied (with copious thanks) a couple of times, but it looks like my responses didn't get saved by TH-cam for some reason. I just want to express appreciation again - it's wonderful to have listeners in Mexico, a country with such a rich culture and heritage. Back in my own record label days, I spearheaded a project for my label called "Music of Latin American Masters," mostly conducted by the late Eduardo Mata, himself a student of the great Chávez. What an honour it was to bring this amazing music to new audiences around the world! Please keep listening to The Gould Standard, subscribe and tell your friends! Hopefully this comment will get saved!!!

@BrianLevine-p5e Got it this time! Thanks for your kind words and recognition of our musical heritage/culture, which is an important one. Was looking at some Group of Seven paintings today, and thoughts turned northwards ;).

@@XE1GXG you might be better off with Frida and Diego - it's very cold up here!!! 😉

@BrianLevine-p5e Prefer Remedios Varo and Orozco. I've been in Montréal at -14C....;)

Maurice, thank you for this fantastic feedback. We'll keep digging deep and bringing you amazing artists on The Gould Standard. Thanks so much for subscribing!!! Please tell your friends about us, too.

Thank you so much, NAB - it's truly an honour to have you on board. Please also tell your friends, and check out some of our past "greatest hits"

Absolutely correct - he was a true son of Montreal. Lived through tough times, and emerged as a global star, recognized for his incomparable technique and artistry. We were proud to make him a Glenn Gould Prize Laureate.

No electricity either, or hot and cold running water. Aside from having 20 children (!), all poor Bach had was a quill pen, paper, his trusty clavichord and his powdered wig. But as Kapellmeister of the Thomaskirche, he wrote a cantata - an hour of incredible music - every single week for years, then arranged it, copied the parts, distributed it to his orchestra and choir, rehearsed them and then performed them. And found time for the Magnificat, Mass in B Minor, St. Matthew's Passion, Christmas Oratorio and other masterpieces - 1,080 works in all. Now that's amazing - and he wasn't even the fastest composer ever (that was Mozart) or the most prolific (that was Georg Philip Telemann). Maybe his secret was that he didn't write much for the lute. The baroque lute composer Sylvius Leopold Weiss (born 2 years after Bach and died the same year as Bach) was asked in his old age how long he had been playing the lute. He answered, "25 years." A friend overheard him and said, "Sylvius, why did you tell such a lie? I know you've had your lute since you were a boy. It's been 50 years!" To which Weiss replied, "25 years playing, 25 years tuning."

@ thanks for completing my thought exactly Brian. These days it apparently takes a committee of ten people to write a 3 minute pop song.

@@glenrotchin5523 Well, it is also the business model of a commercialized art industry. Scarcity leads to inflated value. Adele has made 4 studio albums. Would she be as profitable to the record industry if she had released 40 in the same period of time. The industry supports, markets, amplifies a few titles at a time and that funnels more money into those recordings with less effort than aggressively marketing a wide catalogue. Billboard has a Top 40 chart because that's a volume that the industry can deal with comfortably. It's like the great Kimberley diamond discovery in South Africa in the 19th century. Supposedly this led to the discovery of so many diamonds that, if they all came on the market at once, scarcity would be gone and so would the high value of the gems. The story goes that a huge hoard of diamonds is warehoused securely in the Netherlands, and a controlled number of stones is released onto the market at any given time to preserve the illusion of rarity, and keep the prices high. Whether this story is true or not, the same principle applies to music. We can't (or the industry can't) deal with 40 hit albums by the same artist in a 10 year period. So we're kept on a slow drip. Clearly that naive fellow Bach didn't understand the basic law of supply and demand. What record industry today could deal with 1080 masterpieces?

Randall, of course you're entitled to your perspective, and I know that you are writing because you love music and it's your passion. Let's just say, "different strokes for different folks." Nobody is right for everybody, and we're lucky enough to live in a time when there are so many opportunities out there for us to find the voices that speak to us in a special way that resonates and captures what we prize the most in music. Rick has his fans, and maybe there's somebody else out there who speaks more clearly to your passion. As for my own experience with Rick, I found him very approachable. As for being a gear snob, he did agree with me that some of the greatest and most enduring recordings of all time were made in primitive studios without even multitrack or real reverb units - and in Mono too! Ultimately, I think he agrees that it's what goes on in front of the microphone that counts the most.

And Brahms, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms, Mahler!!! Like the baseball cards - collect them all!

@ Eh yeah, my point was Beethoven was not a Romantic composer. He threw open the doors though.

@@AIainMConnachie Sorry, Alain, I misunderstood. And you're right, of course. Beethoven was a visionary, but transitional figure. Without him, we could not have made the (r)evolution leading from "there to here." And in some ways, his late works vaulted into a space that really transcends any particular style and is "sui generis" (a thing unto itself). The Hammerklavier Sonata and the late quartets are not exactly classical, not exactly romantic - just unique. But I fully agree that, both in his musical development, and also in the "heroic, tormented loner" persona that he embodied, he triggered an explosion of new ideas, new expressiveness, new sounds, new emotionalism, new freedom with form in those who came after him and looked to him as an inspiration. These are the rare figures in cultural history whose work is cherished not only for its own excellence, but because it served as a springboard, launching us into a new era of artistic possibilities.

@@BrianLevine-p5e Brilliant!

Thanks so much, Blue! Rick really made it easy for me, but it was also an honour to be granted an interview, since he rarely lets anybody turn the tables and interview him. I think you'll enjoy some of our other episodes - our guests are awesome and have incredible stories that they generously share with us. I'd love it if you'd tell your friends about us, subscribe and try out some of the other interviews.

Yes, but why focus on the negative. Clearly Taylor has "something" that reaches her fans at a deep level. If the joy is real, who are we to begrudge those who love her. I only wish we could reach a fraction of the people she reaches. Clearly that's a kind of genius too.

@@BrianLevine-p5e Is that focusing on the negative, or are you allowing the rich and famous to get away with fraud and deceit Brian? Many of us hate the lies and $1000 a ticket prices! Same with the Eagles!

@@BrianLevine-p5e The miming and auto-tuning at these phony "concerts" was my chief objection from your program Brian. Even you can remember when stars had to actually be able to sing to give a concert or get a recording contract! I enjoyed the rest of it.

@@ToddSauve I understand completely. If you think about it, less than a century ago, there were no microphones, amplifiers or loudspeakers in theatres, so singers had to reach the back of the house with their voices, usually over the accompaniment of a pit orchestra. This is still true with opera and it's an amazing phenomenon to think how two small flaps of tissue in the throat, the vocal chords, can create enough volume and projection to reach over a 100+ piece orchestra with full brass and percussion and reach a 3,000 member audience, as at the Metropolitan opera. But even back in the days of vaudeville and "Golden Era" Broadway, every singer needed to be able to do this, whether trained or not. If you ever hear recordings by Al Jolson or Eddy Cantor or Fanny Brice, it's a bit of a miracle that they could accomplish what they did. But as Rick says, training is often a thing of the past. And the advent of Stadium shows, elaborate staging, lights, fireworks, heavy amplification, choreography, has created an environment in which everything can go wrong if the vocals aren't pre-recorded and lip-synched. As for auto-tune, I heard one of the world's most famous pop singers on a Grammy pre-show TV special try to sing "unplugged" and without pitch correction a few years ago - I name no names. But it was horrendous. No ear training, hideous intonation. So we live in a world of artificiality and in terms of trying to recapture any sense of "authenticity" when it comes to these mega-concerts, we're a victim of our own grandiosity. It does, however, give you greater appreciation for those pop and rock singers who are serious about their music and can really "deliver the goods!"

Thank you so much!

You're so kind - thank you very much

Evan, thanks so much for this. I was unaware of that recording, but I'm heading off to find it now! The sound of a clavichord can take some getting used to - the first time I heard it, I thought it sounded like little teaspoons striking tuned bowls of jello. But the more you listen, the more you realize the soft, intimate expressivieness of the instrument and can appreciate how much it meant to Bach. With all those kids in the house (he had 20, though not all survived childhood), you can imagine him working away at night on the only instrument that wouldn't wake the household (apparently he was also an accomplished lutenist, if memory serves - please correct me if I'm wrong). You know, in a world in which the belt, the scream, the yell and high decibels always pass for emotional intensity, I've always felt that there's more feeling in a whispered kiss than a howl of rage . . .

@@BrianLevine-p5e So well said, Brian! "...soft, intimate expressiveness"! I think that the Peterson/Pass recording I mentioned was from the mid 1970's on Norman Granz' Pablo label. I wore my vinyl LP out, back in the day, but I bought a CD version of it years ago.

@@evanwilliams534 Thanks Evan. I'm definitely on the hunt for it!

@@evanwilliams534 I'm on the hunt for it!

You've got it, Billy! That's why orchestration is such a great art. If you look at an old classical warhorse like Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade, well, it's like an orchestration textbook - everything just works, all in the service of emotion. Another great study is to look at the many different orchestrations of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (and instrumental transcriptions like the one my old record company did with organist Jean Guillou). I love the mastery of Ravel, but the Slavic intensity and savagery of Stokowski's arrangement is also compelling. We learn to feel through the quality of sound, from the time we hear our mothers cooing love and comfort as they send us to bed, to the harsh tones of disapproval when we misbehaved. Timbre is a language unto itself, and music can't live without it.

It's a precise replica of Glenn Gould's "lifelong boon companion" the eccentric, low chair that he played on all his life. The original is in the Library and Archives of Canada and is considered a national treasure, but the one you see in our podcast is a precise replica, created by the brilliant French designer, René Bouchara in a limited edition to commemorate Glenn Gould's 75th birth anniversary. I can assure you, it is MOST UNCOMFORTABLE!

@@BrianLevine-p5e when i had piano lessons many years ago, my teacher was not happ with the way i was placed at the piano, so he kept making this special piano chair lower and lower. when the mechanism was on minimal height, he said: "almost right, a little lower would be perfect." i had to agree, it felt almost right to me too - and i said: "Now wher'e in Glenn Gould territory." He laughed and said: "Well, you see, that was not excentric, it happened for a good reason."

@@BallisticEvents-e6i It just goes to show how personal music-making is and how what works perfectly for some people seems eccentric to others. But clearly a low chair was what you needed, and Glenn felt the same way. Having the keyboard almost at nose-height not only gave him a better sense of control, but also the ability to "lose himself" in the music making . . . once, when he was still giving concerts, he felt that the piano was still too low, so he had the stagehands raise the instrument by putting wood blocks under the legs!

'being disintegrating' with disintegrating buildings in the background. Decrepit, dilapidated buildings

@@stuartwray6175 actually it was Pavarotti and a woman in full Viking mode singing with the NY skyline behind them being destroyed like there was ann earthquake--the design was left up to me and the Glenn Gould i knew said it was perfect--for the NY Philharmonic softball team

Thanks, Peaceful! Rick is one of a kind. In a way that's a pity. Our cultural understanding would be so greatly enhanced if there were more great communicators and educators like him, and not just for music, but for all the arts, for diplomacy and for cross-cultural understanding. We live in hope . . .

That's stupid. So, there's never been a great teacher who was not a great scientist, there's never been a great coach who was not a former elite player ... And so on.

Thank you, Daniel. It was fun to do and I learned a lot from it . . .

You are so right, Oliver. Please forgive my gaffe. That's one great thing about the internet, there is always somebody out there to set you on the right path when you get caught napping!

@ No worries. He still died too young.

@@olivergrant8642 So true, so sad. But look what gifts he gave the world in that lonely, sad life . . .

Yes, it was really a treat and an honour that he agreed to appear on The Gould Standard - it is quite rare for him to do this kind of interview, but he made it a pleasure to have this conversation from the first syllable to the final coda . . .

I completely agree. Rick fills an important void - music education and music appreciation and history. They aren't taught in school, but Rick has a magic touch - he makes it fun and his own enthusiasm and curiosity inspire his audience to explore, discover and learn, bringing hidden treasures to light.

You nailed it.

@@nathanclark4674 Thanks you, Nathan. We try. It's important to try an get on the same wavelength as our guests, and with Rick, it just came naturally.

Hi Conny, I'll pass this along to Rick. He loves classical music and I think he finds the distinction between it and every other kind of good music to be artificial and unnecessary. If it excites you, moves, you, takes you to another world, it's great. And as he's said, anybody who's fallen in love with the film scores of John Williams or Thomas Newman is enjoying classical music - a rose by any other name! A young university under-grad friend of mine recently wrote an article for the University of Toronto newspaper urging her peers to "just give it a try" - and this led to some very in-depth email exchanges between us about why classical music has become so remote from the listening experience and awareness of generations. There are many factors: first, there's so much of it! An artist like Adele has produced 4 studio albums. Bach wrote 1080 major compositions (that have survived - how many haven't come down to us is anybody's guess). Where to begin? Also the history of Rock 'n' Roll is about 70 years long. The history of "classical" music is 1000 years, and spans many countries, cultures and even continents. There is also a much smaller financial incentive for the music industry to heavily promote "marginal" genres than major hits. The music business is a business, after all, and it devotes more of its resources where the returns are bigger and come faster than anywhere else. But don't lose heart. There are literally hundreds of millions of classical music fans around the world, and they're not going anywhere! In China alone, there are something like 60 million kids studying piano and it's all classical, all the time! So here's a challenge - pick out an exciting, gut-punching piece of classical music - Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, Carmina Burana, The Rite of Spring, the finale from Dvorak's "New World" Symphony, Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. Or something just too beautiful to believe, like a Chopin prelude, the slow movement from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, or the aria from Bach's Goldbergs (played by Gould, of course), and get a young friend to sit and listen to it. Play it more than once if they find it takes some time to get used to. (Have some sweet treats handy to keep them from getting up and leaving), and then ask them what they felt . . . maybe they'll want to hear more. Everybody needs a friendly guide to start them on a new journey . . .

@@BrianLevine-p5e Rick needs to do an 18 part series of videos on Jean Barraque. At least, that's my view.

Yes! Rick Rocks.