However, what set Gould apart from his colleagues was his innovative and iconoclastic interpretations of well-known works with “standard” prescriptions. He had fundamentally different, but wholly consistent, ideas about musical interpretation, recording technology, presentation of music to audiences, and so on. He’s remembered as a pianist not because his fingers were quick and sensitive, but instead because he pushed boundaries in completely original ways.
Leonard Bernstein—a noted conductor and pianist—quips about this when he conducted the Brahms Concerto in D minor, with Gould at the piano [1]. I recommend listening but I’ll copy his words (from [2]) for posterity.
> Don't be frightened. Mr. Gould is here. He will appear in a moment. I'm not, um, as you know, in the habit of speaking on any concert except the Thursday night previews, but a curious situation has arisen, which merits, I think, a word or two. You are about to hear a rather, shall we say, unorthodox performance of the Brahms D Minor Concerto, a performance distinctly different from any I've ever heard, or even dreamt of for that matter, in its remarkably broad tempi and its frequent departures from Brahms' dynamic indications. I cannot say I am in total agreement with Mr. Gould's conception and this raises the interesting question: "What am I doing conducting it?" I'm conducting it because Mr. Gould is so valid and serious an artist that I must take seriously anything he conceives in good faith and his conception is interesting enough so that I feel you should hear it, too.
> But the age old question still remains: "In a concerto, who is the boss; the soloist or the conductor?" The answer is, of course, sometimes one, sometimes the other, depending on the people involved. But almost always, the two manage to get together by persuasion or charm or even threats to achieve a unified performance. I have only once before in my life had to submit to a soloist's wholly new and incompatible concept and that was the last time I accompanied Mr. Gould. (The audience roared with laughter at this.) But, but this time the discrepancies between our views are so great that I feel I must make this small disclaimer. Then why, to repeat the question, am I conducting it? Why do I not make a minor scandal — get a substitute soloist, or let an assistant conduct? Because I am fascinated, glad to have the chance for a new look at this much-played work; Because, what's more, there are moments in Mr. Gould's performance that emerge with astonishing freshness and conviction. Thirdly, because we can all learn something from this extraordinary artist, who is a thinking performer, and finally because there is in music what Dimitri Mitropoulos used to call "the sportive element", that factor of curiosity, adventure, experiment, and I can assure you that it has been an adventure this week collaborating with Mr. Gould on this Brahms concerto and it's in this spirit of adventure that we now present it to you.
Because some took this as an attack on Gould, Bernstein followed up with the remark:
> Any discovery of Glenn's was welcomed by me because I worshiped the way he played: I admired his intellectual approach, his "guts" approach, his complete dedication to whatever he was doing.
Anyway, it’s an interesting parallel in the arts world. Jacob Collier is a musician of today that has similar qualities of “being smart with good ideas”.
[1] https://youtu.be/SvWPM783TOE
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Philharmonic_concer...
How long before all that interaction is done by AI? Pretty black mirror. Cool tech though. Maybe a little crazy.