Glenn Gould - The Original Jacket Collection (80 CDs FLAC)

Even by today's standards of ever more comprehensive classical reissues, this is a massive and unmissable collection. Every recording Glenn Gould made for Columbia/CBS is presented in the same couplings as on the original LPs and packaged within the original album designs, which generally include sleeve notes, some of them facetious, by the pianist himself. Love him or loathe him, Gould's position in the history of classical recording in the second half of the 20th century is unique. He gave up concert performing in 1964, yet continued to record prodigiously; no other performer of his era devoted themselves so completely to the medium, or believed so fervently in its potential.

So it's fascinating and exhilarating to revisit the sound documents of this extraordinary career, which as far as CBS was concerned began with Gould's celebrated 1955 version of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and ended with his debut as a conductor, in Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, recorded with the Toronto in September 1982, three weeks before his death at the age of 50. That last performance is included here on one of two bonus discs; the other contains an interview Gould gave to the critic Tim Page when his second recording of the Goldberg Variations was released in 1981. It's an interview that for all its staginess somewhat undercuts the conventional image of Gould as an eccentric sociopath, as well as giving fascinating insights into the way in which he worked out the fine detail of his interpretations.

It is a hugely diverse catalogue, too, not only chronologically - it stretches from William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons right up to a trio of pieces by the 20th-century Canadian composers Oskar Morawetz, Istvan Anhalt and Jacques Hétu - but in the obscure corners of the piano literature to which Gould's insatiable intellectual curiosity regularly took him. There are performances here of sonatas by Grieg, Krenek, Sibelius, Hindemith and Richard Strauss, as well as Hindemith's sonatas for brass and piano, and Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden, with the actor Claude Raines as the reciter - though, curiously, that disc does not include the three Ophelia Songs Gould recorded with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with which it was at one time coupled.

It would be wrong to pretend that everything is on the same exalted level as Gould's almost miraculously articulate playing of Bach, which occupies 25 of these discs and includes both the early and the more contemplative late performances of the Goldberg, one of the few works he recorded more than once. Mozart was a particular blind spot - Gould once claimed the composer had died too late rather than too early - and the four albums of sonatas here, as well as a performance of the C minor Piano Concerto, are rather perfunctory affairs that no one would want to hear too often. In Beethoven - included here are the five concertos, a generous selection of the sonatas, and Liszt's piano transcription of the Fifth Symphony - the performances are variable, while Gould's Brahms can be a bit of an acquired taste, too; they are more successful in a typically quirky selection of the late intermezzos recorded at the beginning of Gould's career than in the over-deliberate performances of the Op 10 Ballades and the Op 79 Rhapsodies from near its end.

But it was always contrapuntal music that captured Gould's imagination most vividly. Hence the enthusiasm for Hindemith - which includes a disc devoted to the rarely heard song cycle Das Marienleben - and his contribution to Columbia's pioneering Schoenberg edition from the 1960s, in which Gould plays all the solo piano music as well as the concerto, and accompanies all the songs. Many of these are genuinely historic recordings, but then this compelling set is full of such treasures.


01 Bach - The Goldberg Variations
02 Beethoven - Klavier Sonaten 30-32
03 Beethoven - piano concerto №2, Bach - keyboard concerto №1
04 Bach - Paltita 5-6
05 Haydn - Sonata 3 ; Mozart 10; Fantasia and Fugue
06 Beethoven Piano concerto no 1 Bach Keyboard concerto no5
07 Berg; Schoenberg; Krenek
08 Beethoven Concerto No. 3
09 Gould String Quartet No. 1
10 Bach Italian Concerto in F Major & Partita

CD 01-10


11 Plays Ten Brahms Intermezzi
12 Beethoven Concerto No. 4 in G Major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 58
13 Glenn Gould - The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080, Vol. I
14 Schoenberg..Piano.Concerto,.Op.42.-.Mozart..Piano.Concerto.No..24.in.C.minor
15 Claude Rains - Enoch Arden
16 Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (Vol 1 of 3)
17 Bach Partita, Toccata
18 Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, Preludes & Fugues 9-16
19 Bach - Two-and-Three-Part Inventions BWV 772-801
20 Beethoven, Klaviersonaten

CD 11-20


21 Bach, The Well Tempered Clavier, Book I
22-1 Schoenberg Lieder (Glenn Gould Edition, CD1 of 2)
22-2 The Glenn Gould Edition Schoenberg
23 Beethoven Concerto No. 5
24-1 The music of Arnold Schoenberg, Vol. 7, Disc 1
24-2 The Music of Arnold Schoenberg, Vol 7, Disc 2
25 Beethoven, Sonatas for Piano No. 8-10
26 Bach Three Keyboad Concertos
27 Canadian Music in the XXth Century
28 Mozart Piano Sonatas Nos.1-5
29 Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book2
30 Beethoven 5th Symphony, Transcribed for Piano by Liszt

CD 21-30


31 Glenn Gould Concert Dropout
32 Scriabin Sonata No.3 Prokofiev Sonata No.7
33 W. A. Mozart Klavuersonaten, Vol. 2
34 J. S. Bach Keyboard Concertos, Vol. II
35 Beethoven Sonaten Nr. 8, 14, 23
36 J.S.Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 878-885
37 Beethoven Eroica Variations, Variations & Bagatelles (Disc1)
38 J.S.Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 886-893
39 A Consort Of Musicke Bye BYRDE and GIBBONS
40 W.A.Mozart Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3

CD 31-40


41 Music from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five
42 Schoenberg Lieder (Glenn Gould Edition, CD2 of 2)
43 G.F.Handel Cembalo-Suiten Nr. 1-4
44 Grieg - Bizet - Sibelius Piano Works
45 Bach French Suites, BWV 812-817, Overture BWV 831, CD 1
46 The Mozart Piano Sonatas Vol 4
47 Hindemith The 3 Piano Sonatas
48 Various Wagner - Piano DIsk 2 (Gould)
49 Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Vol.II (Disk 2)
50 Bach French Suites, BWV 812-817, Overture BWV 831, CD 2

CD 41-50


51 Bach The Three Sonatas for Viola Da Gamba and Harpsichoed (Disc 3)
52 Beethoven - Bagatelles; Op.33 - Op.126; Disc 2
53 W.A.Mozart Klaviersonaten, Vol. 5
54-1 Hindemith The Complete Sonatas for Brass and Piano
54-2 Paul Hindemith The Complete Sonatas for Brass and Piano, Disk 2
55-1 Bach The Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
55-2 Bach The Six Sonatos for Violin and Harsichord (Disc 2)
56-1 J. S. Bach The English Suites
56-2 J.S.Bach The English Suites, Disk 2
57 Jean Sibelius 3 Sonatinen for Piano Op. 67, Kyllikki 3 lyrische Stucke for Piano, Op. 41
58-1 Paul Hindemith Das Marienleben, Disk 1
58-2 Paul Hindemith Das Marienleben, Disk 2
59 Bach, J.S. - 7 Toccatas, BWV 910-916 - CD1
60 Bach, J.S. - 7 Toccatas, BWV 910-916 (G.Gould) Cd 2

CD 51-60


61 Bach Prelude, Fughettas and Fugues
62-1 Ludwig van Beethoven, Klaviersonaten Op. 28, Op 2.1-3, Disk 2
62-2 Beethoven Sonatas Op. 28 (Pastoral); Op. 2, Nos. 1, 2 & 3
63-1 The Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album
63-2 The Silver Jubilee Album - CD 2
64-1 Plays Haydn
64-2 Haydn The Six Last Sonatas (Disc 2)
65 J.S. Bach - The Goldberg Variations (1981)
66 Brahms - 4 Ballades - 2 Rhapsodies
67 Lugwig van Beethoven Klaviersonaten Nr. 12, Op. 26 und 13, Op. 27.1
68 RIchard Strauss - Klaviersonate h-moll, Op. 5, - 5 Klavierstьcke, Op. 3
69 Schumann Piano Quintet, Op. 44 & Piano Quartet, Op. 47
70 Tim Page - Goldbergvariationen
71 Bonus CD2

CD 61-71