“A legend in its time” and an occasion still discussed and mulled over, “almost as if it happened yesterday”, trumpets Sony’s packaging for this first authorized release of a 1962 broadcast of the D minor Concerto. The accompanying booklet-essay relishes every angle of the post-concert critical roustabout; Bernstein’s unprecedented introduction, his ‘apology’ for what is to follow, Gould’s facetious summary, Harold Schonberg’s mischievous attack (“between you and me and the corner lamppost … maybe the reason he plays it so slow is that maybe his technique is not so good”) and the ex-Director of Columbia Masterworks’ counter-accusation of “disdain” and “discourtesy” ending with his assertion that Gould’s performance was “technically perfect (it goes without saying)”.
The mix of sycophancy and hard-sell is discouraging even when it ignites a sense of controversy, of heated love-it or hate-it debate. Alas, while it would be an exaggeration to speak of Much Ado About Nothing, this is certainly a case of greatly exaggerated importance or significance. Even Gould’s heavily derided tempos turn out to be disappointingly normal (with Zimerman and Bernstein clocking in at 54'00'', and Gould and Bernstein at 53'10'' according to Schuyler Chapin), the impression of something tendentiously prolonged or spaced-out created less by slowness than by extreme lethargy. Gould’s first entry is tentative rather than devotional and assured, his octave trills literal rather than elemental, his second subject bloated and somnolent. The famous fusillade of octaves at 12'32'' commences piano rather than fortissimo (“a charming, lyrical approach” according to Alan Rich quoted in the booklet), a typically outre alternative to Brahms’s marking. Again, all sense of elegy in the central Adagio is erased by self-indulgent desynchronization of the hands and the finale, too, suggests a total mismatch of conductor and soloist, of creator and re-creator. Here, Gould’s fabled mix of spine-tingling genius and idiosyncrasy collapses into exhibitionism and the audience is left to cough and splutter their way through what must have seemed interminable. Hardly a performance to lift the spirits and one that has evolved down the years from celebrity status to embarrassment. True lovers of this towering masterpiece will look elsewhere; to Gilels, Curzon, Fleisher and Kapell.'