Verne Edquist – Glenn Gould’s Piano Man | Hacker News Reader

Verne Edquist – Glenn Gould’s Piano Man

glenngould.ca

79 pointsbookofjoe27 comments

Speaking of Gould, I happen to have a previously unpublished recording of him playing his own composition "Suite for Twelfth Night". This might seem like an odd way of sharing it, but I've been putting it off for a long time because I thought it would be properly published at some point. I now realize it's never going to happen unless I do it myself, so here it goes: https://gofile.io/d/f5ORYZ

If anyone wants to mirror it, that would be nice.

I'm no expert, but if this is fake it's rather well made (including Glenn Gould introducing the piece at the beginning). If it's not published, how did you get it?

If this is real, an update may be in order:

"Suite for Twelfth Night, for piano (1949; MS lost)" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Glenn_...

MS refers to the manuscript, not a recording. Even if this recording were transcribed, that still wouldn't be the original manuscript.

I've forwarded this to a archivist who might hopefully be able to confirm it's authenticity. =)

A backup just in case the original gets removed for some reason: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ube7ze92224s7nl/file

You can ask the CBC and/or Sony. They have a better version, but I wouldn't hold my breath since they've never published it despite having it all this time.

How did you get your hands on it?

"Years later, Verne often took to quoting his tuning teacher, J. D. Ansell, whose favorite aphorism was “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”"

That's a lovely line.

There is a similar person living in Toronto who tunes pianos for Lowrey, his name is Mark Zillman. Incredibly good at what he does. This must be one of the few professions where not being able to see well or at all is an advantage.

Edit: here is an article about him:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/mark-zillmann-o...

I have a 1964 recording of Bach's Two and Three Part of Inventions in which the piano emits an audible double-tap hiccup/echo throughout the middle register. It is pretty maddening. If I recall correctly from the CD liner notes (remember those!), Gould apparently loved the character of the piano and how close it was in character to harpsichord so much that the hiccup was somehow alright with him. Which is completely bizarre to me because it sounds like such a huge and obvious "bug". I wonder if Edquist worked on or had an opinion on that piano.

Man what an extraordinary guy. I love reading about people like Mr. Edquist who kind of live in the shadow of great artists like GG and make their art possible, especially when dealing with such artists requires a bit of head-butting.

Highly recommend the author's book "A Romance On Three Legs", which she mentions in the article.

There was an interesting article in Scientific American 25 years ago about a shortage in expert piano technicians for supporting concert pianists. Very few people were apprenticing, and the only US bachelor's degree program in piano technology had just shut down.

I wonder if the situation has improved since then?

Here's a reprint of that article: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~boyk/essay.htm

The UK still runs a couple of courses, one 3 years full time. But it's an increasingly rare profession.

Beginner/amateur-level acoustic pianos have largely been replaced by electronic instruments. In fact it's almost impossible to give them away. Some homes still have them, but there are far fewer than there were twenty years ago.

I know the concert tuners who work in Leeds, and there's enough professional work for roughly one and a half people.

Even in London the total number of tuners serving the Royal College, Royal Academy, the concert halls and opera houses, recording studios, and the other music colleges is under double figures.

> Beginner/amateur-level acoustic pianos have largely been replaced by electronic instruments. In fact it's almost impossible to give them away.

One of my hobbies is watching the free section on Craigslist. Perfectly good (sometimes quite beautiful) pianos are one of the things that show up with surprising regularity. Always with the caveat, "Must take it away yourself."

Yeah, mainly electronic keyboards rather than pianos. I think to a certain extent it's to do with people's lifestyles, living in rented accommodation and owning a real piano doesn't really fit well together.

As for tuners, we're lucky to have a good tuner nearby who also does piano tech work so we're covered, although saying that, COVID-19 means we've not had a tune for 6 months and it's got a bit 'interesting' in the upper middle.

The best thing about having a good tuner is the difference a tune to a piano you think is in tune makes. It goes from sounding good to sounding outstanding, and if like me your sense of tuning isn't great, you can't quite put your finger on what has changed, but you can certainly hear the difference.

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