GG: Angilette Book

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

My own suspicion is that Angilette wanted to write about GG but her
committee was concerned that she prove her adeptness with the more
general topic of philosophy and music education.  I'm currently reading
the book as a thesis (she revised it for publication.) I agree that it's
not very well written-- but unfortunately that's the case with many
theses-- where the writer is under pressure to please three professors
and a university graduate board and is living on poverty wages while
trying to write a book that few will ever read.  

Aside from questions of style, I think she makes some very intelligent
points, particularly in regard to Gould's relationship with Theodor
Adorno's aesthetic ideas.  (Parts of the _Glenn Gould Reader_ and _The
Art of the Fugue_ come straight out of Adorno's _Prisms_.)  And while I
agree with Bradley that Gould's writing was often too self concious-- I
think he used his own style as a protective smoke screen to mask several
things-- perhaps a fear that people would find his ideas absurd--
perhaps his own lack of formal education in philosophy and literature--
who knows?  I take his writings very seriously in my own work-- but not
so seriously as I do his radio scripts.

I don't think Angilette is mearly echoing Payzant (whose book I find
really annoying re: style AND content) but because he came first and set
a precedent, he has to be cited and delt with (also he is a professional
philosopher which gives authority to the choice of his subject of GG)--
these are the traps of academic writing.

Leo Harris' _Fighting Duelism: A GG Context_ is an interesting thesis
even if it is a bit too wrapped up in post-modern discourse...

There are several other theses out there by musicologists that deal with
certain of GG's recorded performances.

-Mary Jo