Re: GG and Mozart

[Greg Romero <gregory.romero@yale.edu>]

On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Michael D. Benedetti wrote:

> Greg Romero wrote:
> >     This is a misrepresentation of my argument.
> 
> I'm sorry if my restatement of your argument was unclear. I do believe
> that I responded to your points.

   Yes, you did respond to my arguments.  I just thought the paraphrasing
was a little off.  No big deal, though.

> 
> I interpret your claim as this: Gould couldn't play great Mozart (for whatever
> reason). He saw this flaw in his playing, and chose to disguise it with
> a public display of perversion. Sour grapes.
> (If this isn't what you said, then please clarify, at least to me--I'm working
> on a Gould-related project, and I'm interested in all insights into GG's
> mind.)
> 
  More or less correct, yes.


> My perception of Gould is this: If he had an "inability" to play great
> Mozart, he didn't see it as a flaw.
> 
> My claim about Gould is this: Even if he saw his inability to play great
> Mozart as a flaw, he wouldn't try to hide it with a public display of
> perversion. He didn't try to make everyone think he was some infallible
> superhero. He was unhappy about his flaws, but he wasn't obsessed with them.
> 
> My reasoning about my claim is this:
> 
> *Gould was a weirdo. He did not think like most people I've come into contact
> with. Therefore I'm much more comfortable with reasoning from what Gould
> did in other situations than from what an ordinary person would do in
> GG's situation.
> 
> *GG _did_ see flaws in himself. We have record of him admitting them.
> He wasn't a total megalomaniac. So I can't support my claim by saying
> "Gould thought he was perfect."
> 
> *How did he choose to hide those flaws too terrible to admit? Did he do
> so through public acts of perversity? In some cases, maybe so. But I can't
> think of any offhand, and I know of no public acts of perversity on the
> order of releasing intentionally bizarre records.
> 
 
   Well, this is open to debate, and would probably be a good topic for
f-minor.  I'm not quite sure what you mean in the last statement about
releasing intentionally bizarre records.  Please clarify.  

> For example, Gould often claimed he wanted to compose, but of course he
> barely composed at all. It's been said by many that Gould probably wasn't
> a "great" composer, and that he probably realized this, and so he didn't
> release any finished compositions. I think that this is a very real
> possibility. Certainly Gould didn't seem to be a brilliant composer,
> and I'm sure this was a source of frustration for him and thus a "flaw".
> 
> Did could then go out and denigrate the art of composition? I don't
> recall any Gould quotes along the lines of "interpretation is everything,
> composition is nothing." Did Gould create intentionally bizarre compositions,
> so that his skills could not be judged against the compositions of the
> great? No. Rather, he just didn't compose, although he said over and over
> that he "planned to".

I think you overlook many things here.  As I've said on this list before
(I've been absent for about 3 months as I don't do e-mail during the
summer), one of the things I foind most irritating about Gould is his
denigration of many great composers.  I think there are countless examples
of Gould saying absurd things about composers, most of these about Mozart. 
True, Gould stopped composing, yet he seemed to take a childish pleasure
in denigrating works that Mozart may have tossed off like "an interoffice
memo", yet Gould never could have conceived of. He does this again and
again.  The "Hammerklavier" is an ungrateful piano piece. Chopin was "not
a very good composer".  Schumann was inferior to Mendelssohn.  RAvel and
Debussy were worthless.  Obviously I cannot ignore his love of Bach, but
even there he constantly criticizes work that we know that he loves i.e.
the "crowd-pleasing" variations from the Goldbergs.  And who does Gould
single out as great composers?  Composers so abstruse that the general
public has a) never heard of them, such as Valen or b) has heard of them,
but cannot form a real judgement (Schonberg, obscure bits of Strauss 
etc.). Then how do we judge Gould's taste in composers?  I think his taste
in composers is just as intentionally skewed as are some of his
interpretations.  I see a compensation in his own lack of talent in his
denigration of the great composers and his glorification of the mediocre
and obscure (Orlando Gibbons?  Nice anthems, but Gould's favorite
composer?) 

 > If we can expect Gould to be consistent in his actions (which may be >
expecting too much), then if Gould _wanted_ to play great Mozart but > was
unable to then we would expect him to announce an upcoming Mozart >
project every few months, only to see the project delayed again and >
again because of more pressing interests. That's what he did with his >
plans to compose, his plans to conduct, his plans to visit the Arctic >
Circle. > > So maybe Gould "chickened out", but I see zero evidence for
this.  > > I welcome anecdotes and info that would prove me wrong. I've
always wanted > a handle on GG, but have never been able to get a glimpse
of what was in > his head, or even what he was like as a person. All the
accounts seem so > contradictory--someone will recall a dozen situations
in which he acted > like a psychopath, then conclude with "But I hope you
don't get the > impression that Glenn was crazy, because he wasn't."  > >
Mike > > P.S. I apologize for the widespread use of American idioms in
this post.  >