Gould from the Chronicle of Higher Ed

[Sean Malone <spm29386@oregon.uoregon.edu>]

 Dear List,

 Here is a summary of an Edward Said article on Gould in the
 Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter and thought you might be
 interested.

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A glance at the summer issue of "Raritan":
 Glenn Gould as the virtuoso intellectual

 On the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach,
 Edward Said reflects on the achievement of Glenn Gould
 (1932-1982), the Canadian pianist. Mr. Said, a professor of
 English at Columbia University, suggests that Gould, in his
 interpretations of Bach, invented "a genuinely challenging and
 complex intellectual content" for the virtuoso performer. Gould
 was able, Mr. Said suggests, to "reach towards conclusions that
 are not normally sought out by performers but rather by
 intellectuals using language only." Early in his career, he
 found in Bach, little played by pianists at the time, the
 perfect vehicle for "stating a credo about striving for
 coherence, system, and invention in thinking about music as an
 art of expression and interpretation." Gould undertook to
 re-present Bach's work as "an archetype for the emergence of a
 rational system" that opposed "the negation and disorder that
 surrounds us on all sides." To that end, Gould made each
 performance an occasion of "reinvention, of reworking Bach's own
 contrapuntal works." Here, Gould's bizarre formulation of
 virtuosity helped. His playing was, to say the least, highly
 idiosyncratic, as Mr. Said explains: Only one aspect of it was
 Gould's renowned, provocative moaning,  gesticulating, and
 grimacing during performances. More generally, Mr. Said says,
 Gould sought to isolate himself from the rituals and conventions
 of consumer-oriented performance. For example, he played Bach in
 a "preromantic" way, with an "unadorned, unidiomatic,
 unpianistic tone." His purpose was to use musical sound as the
 material of "rigorous analysis" and to create "nothing less than
 an argument about continuity, rational intelligence, and
 aesthetic beauty." The article is not available online, but the
 journal may be found in many bookstores.


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Sean Malone