The loser and Schneider, amongst other things

First, Bernhard's novel "The loser" (the Italian title, "Il soccombente" - from the verb "soccombere", "to be overcome" is probably better than the American one: "the loser" would be "Il perdente", but this word has a different nuance. Also, the Italian translation of the book is exceptionally good, and is very effective in giving the reader the pervasive feeling of uneasiness, of helplessness, of discontent the author was looking for). Of course, it isn't easy reading, not at all. I started reading it twice, and was taken off. Being quite hardheaded, I tried again, and finally got the knack of it, and was completely absorbed, and enchanted: I read it straight through in one night, and have read it again many times. The plot is quite simple: three young pianists meet in Salzburg to attend lessons given by Horowitz; two of them are very good and promising musicians: the third is ... well, it's Glenn. he is not promising, he is the best. When one of his friends listens to him playing the Goldberg variations, he is suddenly annihilated , for he knows that he will never be able to play like this, no matter how hard he will try, and then he decides to stop playing altogether, for his efforts would lead him nowhere. It is this sense of defeat, of being unable to become the best pianist in the world, who leads him to stop playing, and eventually will lead him to commit suicide, after having heard of Glenn's death while playng for the last time the Goldbergs.

Of course, the novel is not intended to be historically accurate (how do you fancy Glenn being a pupil of Horowitz in Salzburg? Or dying while playing the Goldbergs?), and Glenn is never present, he is always spoken of, and is present only in the memories of the narrator. However, most of what Bernhard writes is emotionally, immaterially, accurate. Gould is in the fact the central character of the plot, everything gravitates around him.

Some contributors to the list rightly pointed out that probably he, hateful of competition as he was (but see further on), never would have liked to make lesser musicians uneasy; the point of the novel however is quite opposite: how could somebody who thought himself to be one of the best pianists in the world, and who spent his whole life in the pursuit of becoming the best, accept the simple fact of being instead no more than a good, even a very good, one, but that there is somebody, a very shy Canadian, who is simply out of this world, pure genius? Note that the narrator is not ashamed of learning from Horowitz: this he can accept; what he cannot deal with is the perception that, no matter how hard he will try, he will never even approach Gould's musicianship. I don't want to go on boring you, and I don't know if the English translation is good enough, but take my advice: give it a try, Bernhard's pessimism and clichés notwhistanding.

By the way, take a look at the style: in fact, the whole book is just one long - very long! - paragraph, and there are lots of repetitions - one should say reprises, I think. Just try to analyze it: it is a score, not a novel. Look at the very subtle variations in the reprises (if the translator was able to convey them, of course)! Wish I could read German.

As I side-note: are you sure that Glenn was really contemptuous of any competition? Of course, I know his "public" position, and I do completely agree with it, but ... I seem to remember that once, having been called at the last minute to substitute for Benedetti Michelangeli in a concert (Beethoven's Fifth, I believe) he, unbelievably, accepted, saying something like "How curious! The best pianist in the world substituting for the second-best!" Isn't this competition? (In fact, no matter how much I like Michelangeli, I think Glenn was a bit too fair).

Second, many of you wrote recently about Schneider's book "Glenn Gould, piano solo". I bought it some years ago, when it was translated in Italian (I wasn't even aware of it having been published in France). I was quite suspicious, having read that the Author is a psychonalyst (being a psychologist myself, I'm very worried about the too common habit of psychologizing "ad libitum" on every conceivable matter). I shouldn't have worried, Schneider is an accomplished musicologist as well, and his book provides some of the best insights on Gould I ever read. He clearly loves Glenn, and is intrigued by his personality and his art, but he is far from a fanatic (did you ever dream where the word "fan" comes from?). It is a pity that this book has not been translated in English. In my view, it is not perfect, but it is better than most books I've read on this matter (with the obvious exception of the books, like Monsaingeon's ones, in which Glenn speaks for himself). If you can, get it in any other language you are acquainted with!