Glen Gould 1981 Goldberg piano

Openwood · Post by **Openwood** » 29 Nov 2007, 22:25

I've just been watching the film of Gould playing the variations on You Tube (see it today - don't delay!) and I wondered why the fallboard had been removed from the piano. Was it because 1) it somehow made the sound better - but I can't think how. 2) they didn't want to advertise the fact that he was playing a Yamaha - but why? It looks like the side panel Yamaha logo has been blacked out too.

Anyone know the answer?

PianoGuy · Post by **PianoGuy** » 29 Nov 2007, 22:35

Don't know for sure, but it could be that he had a deal with another piano company and couldn't be seen to be playing another brand.

I once did some work on a Steinway a few years back for George Shearing when he was signed as a Baldwin artist, and all the labels had to be masked out. Of course anybody could have heard that it wasn't a Baldwin because it sounded nice.

If it was BBC footage, there was a non-advertising policy (and that included incidental product labels) up until the mid to late '80s.

Openwood · Post by **Openwood** » 30 Nov 2007, 11:00

Of course anybody could have heard that it wasn't a Baldwin because it sounded nice.

You do cheer me up PG

WinstonChurchill · Post by **WinstonChurchill** » 30 Nov 2007, 22:28

'Glen' Gould? Well, he did spell it that way sometimes, to be fair...

This sounds like a question for the Glenn Gould mailing list:

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mwatts/glenn/fminor.html

sussexpianos · Post by **sussexpianos** » 30 Nov 2007, 23:00

I remember a Baldwin piano in the practise rooms at Newark college, no one wanted to tune it. It was difficult to tune and had no quality to it, funny looking case though