Double Double. (The Music).

Long-time readers may have noticed by now that Tom Lyle and I are fans of large-scale orchestral music; the symphonies of Mahler, Shostakovitch, and Bruckner have been the subjects of many of our comparisons, with a very occasional (indeed, maybe it was only one!) foray into the string quartet literature. This issue's column, then, is something of a departure, as we are going to compare recordings of solo piano music. The musical selection is Bach's Goldberg Variations, and the two recordings we have selected for comparison have both been the subject of rave reviews in the musical press -- Glenn Gould's 1982 CBS Masterworks release (MK 37779) and Murray Perahia's 2000 Sony Classical release (SK 89423).

As is our customary practice, Tom and I have refrained from discussing these two recordings with each other and have written our remarks entirely independently. Because this is an even-numbered issue, Tom will lead off with his comments and then I will present things from my point of view.

TL: For the first time since we began writing Double Double I was tempted to ask Karl what he thought of these two CDs before organizing my thoughts. But this was only after listening to each disc once. After that my opinion became quite clear, and I don't really understand how I could have doubted myself. In retrospect I would have hated to "ruin" things by chickening out and asking for help forming an opinion of these two fine CDs.

That said, I'll linger a bit longer by telling you how I listened to these CDs. From its digital audio output, a Pioneer DV-525 DVD player feeds, via an MIT 75-ohm cable, a Perpetual Technologies P-1A upsampler/D to D processor that increased the resolution to a 96-kHz/24-bit signal. This is hooked-up via a short I2S cable to a PT P-3A Digital-to-Analog converter that decodes the 96/ 24 signal. Does it sound as good as my very expensive analog set-up? Not quite. One might assume that if I spent as much money on my digital front-end as my analog front-end CDs would sound as good as LPs -- but of course there's no guarantee. Plus, I'm in no hurry to spend that kind of money on a format that is changing on what seems like a daily basis. But CDs sound very good on my system, so we'll have to see whether I'm ready to start paying $25 a disc on the new formats that are being offered, none of which is guaranteed to be a success.

Back to Bach. I spent about half my listening to these two CDs glued to the sweet spot of my system, and the other half listening to them from another room. That's how I listen to lots of piano music -- for some reason I get a thrill from listening to it this way. No other solo instrument sounds as if it is actually being played in another part of the house as piano. The Gould CD was much better at this because it is a much more "up front" recording. The acoustic space in which it is recorded is barely audible. The Perahia, when listened to in front of the stereo is an excellent recording; however, the sound of the hall is much more prevalent. It is a sonic observation into the proceedings, if you will. This isn't a bad thing, especially since the recording as a whole is as just about as good as it gets.

Now, my opinion of the playing of Gould vs. Perahia has to be considered. If I could own only one of these CDs it would be the Gould. That shouldn't be that surprising. His 1955 recording was the definitive interpretation, and once again many a listener has deemed this version considered here definitive. So good is the playing it is much easier to overlook the metallic taste in my ears due to the "primitive" digital methods. It is even easy to overlook Mr. Gould's incessant humming along with the ...