- Audio CD (1 Dec 1992)
- Number of Discs: 3
- Format: Box set
- Label: Cbc Records
- ASIN: B000028803
- Other Editions: Audio CD | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 323,049 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Product details |
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
View the MP3 Album.
|
Disc 1:
Disc 2:
Disc 3:
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:MP3 Download
I have now spent a few months having a love affair with these pieces. The style of contrapuntal radio asks both more and less of a listener. It asks more in that you have to engage with the pieces as you would poetry or music. That is, the listener has to play a more active role in deciphering the voices and the overarching structure of the piece, rather than just listening to a linear, expositional account of a particular subject. What Gould goes so fantastically is to create a sense of dialogue from disparate voices and attitudes. In this way, the analogy with the a fugue does not go amiss.
It also asks a little less of the listener in that one can pay little attention to these voices (though they are compelling) and still come away with a tonal, impressionistic idea of landscape, peoples and places. This is partly achieved by the use of aural backgrounds which permeate each piece. In short, I have come back to these works in the way I come back to Bach or Beethoven (though of course B&B are more profound), learning more each time, coming to associate the voices as old friends.
For anyone looking for quite a unique experience- something that touches and stimulates the imagination, something soporific and enlivening then please try this.
As a last note, I downloaded this because the CD set is so expensive, though I would say that a project such as this would benefit from the higher quality that CDs usually afford over MP3s.
It also asks a little less of the listener in that one can pay little attention to these voices (though they are compelling) and still come away with a tonal, impressionistic idea of landscape, peoples and places. This is partly achieved by the use of aural backgrounds which permeate each piece. In short, I have come back to these works in the way I come back to Bach or Beethoven (though of course B&B are more profound), learning more each time, coming to associate the voices as old friends.
For anyone looking for quite a unique experience- something that touches and stimulates the imagination, something soporific and enlivening then please try this.
As a last note, I downloaded this because the CD set is so expensive, though I would say that a project such as this would benefit from the higher quality that CDs usually afford over MP3s.
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this three disc set more out of intrigue than for any other reason. The three programmes are mildly interesting, but personally, I made little of them. certainly it is not a work I would choose to listen to a second time. Entertaining it isn't. Perhaps the work would appeal to those of a high intellectual capacity. Best to try this only if one finds it in a bargain basement, or in a car boot sale, definitely not worth the full price cost.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Unlike Anything Else You Own
14 Oct 2001
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Between 1967 and 1977 a frighteningly gifted concert pianist focused his formidable energies on creating a symphony of sound using no instruments beyond an odd cacophony of unrehearsed and unscripted human voices. I know of no other recordings like these three journeys.
If you listen with your analytical left brain to the ebb and flow of the overlapping, recorded interviews of Gould's carefully chosen cast of characters, you will become profoundly frustrated, irritated and confused. In passages, the voices are mixed so equally as to become equally unintelligible. At other times, the background noises are a bit too loud for us to clearly discern the precise content of what is being said.
But the mood. Ah, the mood. If you will but listen with your artistic right brain and simply let the sound of it wash over you without trying to determine what it "means," you will gain deep and profound insight from each of these 3, 1-hour masterpieces that will stay with you for life. And each time you listen, you "get it" better and deeper than the time before. These works are neither documentary nor commentary in any traditional sense, but a strikingly human conveyance of time and place.
You can only hate them or love them.
I dearly love them, and believe that you will, too.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
one of the century's greatest.. composers?
24 Aug 2001
Format:Audio CD
this cd set is made up of three radio "documentaries" made by gould after he'd given up piano performance, ostensibly to pursue a career as a composer. while works such as his early string quartet are quite good, this is gould's real compositional output. critiqued as pieces of music, these could be called "sound collage", but a think a musical comparison that would give one a better sense as to where these could be placed are the operas of robert ashley. why? the original recordings are of speech, though there is no libreto -- all text is culled from interviews, collaged with other sounds, from ocean waves to janis joplin. the best of the three is probably, "the idea of north", which is glimpsed in "32 short films about glenn gould". if you liked that, get this!! -- one of the dearest recordings i own.
Ingenius
17 Jan 2010
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you're the kind of person who enjoys sitting and talking with your grandparents about "the way things were," and if you think that the way things were then might've been superior to today's world, then you might treasure this recording. The first time I heard it I knew that it was going to be one to keep forever. Random snippets of utopian-minded conversations about the benefits of working hard, small town living, fishing, small government, etc. A perfect antidote to today's MTV world.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
