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Glenn Gould (September 25, 1932 – October 4, 1982)

Posted by Bambi B (A) on September 25, 2009 at 11:09:34

PAINTING: "Man without a Piano" (Glenn Gould)


Mates,

I tend to celebrate the birthday of artists I admire with more enthusiasm than my own, and musician’s birthdays becomes more poignant as the years pass, especially when the artist in question accomplished so much in so few years- or rather fewer years than on my odometer.

Glenn Gould, the astounding Canadian pianist, whose career which began at twelve (1947) as a conservatory graduate and was a professional about 1950 to 1982 is one of the especially poignant cases. Gould died nine days after his 50th birthday and while on this planet so terribly briefly, got a lot done- probably the great 20th Century innovator of modern pianism, but as well a brilliant music analyst/commentator, prolific broadcaster, occasional composer, and an important eccentric. Gould is interesting too from the standpoint of having probably the most intense sets of fans- and quite a few with that vocally disapprove with his playing- in the Classical music world- still a rock star 27 years after his death. As far as I know, perhaps only Maria Callas still provokes so much ongoing intensity and debate. The flavour of Gould fanaticism might be revealed if I mention that the cheapest used DVD on Amazon of “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould” is $145 and the most expensive new copy is offered at $677. Gould is enough under my skin that at the very moment the old Millennium was passing to the new, I was listening to the Gould's 1955 "Goldbergs". At the time, it seemed the most appropriate contemplation of hope.

Most people associate Gould with his transformative interpretations of Bach, in which he so brilliantly exposes the long inner lines of rhythm and counterpoint. That Gould recorded I believe all of Hindemith and Schoenberg as well as English Virginalists, all the Mozart Sonatas, a lot of Beethoven, and Scriabin surprises many. If you are new to Gould, I would recommend starting with his “Well Tempered Clavier” and then soon after “The English Suites”. You will then be prepared to listen to the recording that made Gould an overnight sensation in 1955, the internationally famous first version of the “Goldberg Variations”. A great starter disk would be the soundtrack CD to “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould” which has examples throughout Gould’s career. Gould did not compose on the scale he hoped- by retiring from the stage- this happened to Leonard Bernstein too- but Gould’s madrigal “So, You want to write a fugue” is great fun- Gould’s humour is of course fugal. If you see “32 Short Films”- all the better to impart Gould with a more three-dimensional image. -As Gould worked in at least four or five dimensions, this is the best understanding we mere mortals may hope for.

Gould was so good at this, he apparently focused only on music that would respond to his rhythmic desires, and consequently avoided music that could not be moulded into his preferred form- Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt for example. Gould made famous a claim to hate Mozart- typical of Gould’s iconoclasm. However, if you listen to Gould’s recording of atypical Mozart, like the K397 Fantasy, you can see the way Gould could be intrigued if he could make a composer more like Bach.

Gould’s great innovations, were his total rejection of any hint of sentimentality, combined with a savant’s memory- he had the entire “Well Tempered” memorised at age nine, astounding technique- and he claimed he never practiced, and underlying everything, a sense of rhythm and underlying lines which the composers themselves never heard!

Gould though remembered for these innovations, did not accomplish his amazing breakthroughs in technique and interpretation in a vacuum. Consider that Gould was starting to perform in public at the time William Kapell and Dinu Lipatti were actually at the end of their careers- both through early deaths in their 30's, Kapell in a plane crash and Lipatti from Leukemia at 33- Gould seems to be building on their driving rhythm and clarity of counterpoint.

I mentioned Gould as an ‘important eccentric’ and this aspect can not be avoided when considering Gould’s work. The list of Gould’s eccentricities is famous: humming all the time, reclusive, having retired from public performance at age 31, the creaky chair, numerology- he had a fear he would die at age 49 because 4 plus 9 equal 13, Gould dressed in heavy winter clothing all year, did not like to be touched, odd food habits, Elvis P. and M. Jackson-level pharmaceutical abuse, nocturnal behaviours, invisible love life of any of the four kinds, and left most of his money to the SPCA, has inspired psychologists for decades to consider the possibility of autism.

Certainly, it’s easy and attractive to emphasise these odd behaviours, but I’d recommend Otto Friedrich’s biography which provides a more balanced view- and also provided a lot of material for “32 Short Films”. I think of Gould as a definite odd fish, but his insanities worked in all positive ways- he was endlessly creative. I heard more recently that Gould had at least one torrid love affairs with an actual woman- and when one woman publicly claims he was very enthusiastic sexually there must be others that are more shy. No, I believe Gould did have eccentric habits, and though I have no education in the subject, what I understand as the symptoms of some forms of mild autism do seem to apply, but in the main, Gould was intensely private and when in public, ill at ease and trending towards the iconoclasm and contrarian statements.

Still, Gould was not any form of simplistic reactionary or merely clever nutcase, but one of those constantly re-invented geniuses whose bright flame- intense enough to weld Lisztian technique to Modernistic anti-sentimentalism and Beat Poet drive -was too soon extinguished. Do not go through life without once listening to Gould’s “Goldberg Variations” while under the influence of your favourite intoxicant and low-level lighting,... And, listen for Gould humming away, now off in the sixth dimension from whence he came- the ghost in the machine.



Cheers,

Bambi B

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