Re: GG: Great Genius

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Gregory Barton wrote:

> Why is any of us here? We must all, including Brother Lehman, have some
> obsessive quality in common to join. 

That Gould fella, he was one interesting dude with a lot of ideas.  I
reckon I be likin' some of 'em, and some of 'em not so much.  He sure
could play that piana, yup, yup.  And anybody who introduced me to the fun
word "accoutrements," as in "threw the Monopoly board and all its
accoutrements into the lake" (in GG's piece about Maude Harbour and A. 
Rubinstein), well, he must be a fairly low-key fun guy able to take some
ribbing.  And if there's a group of intelligent strangers all yakking at
each other about this dead piana player, well, that sounds like a nice
place to hang out!  (Remember, GG's Steinway got all at least "mostly
dead" when dropped from a truck, yet he still tried to play it.)

Plus I really really really really like the bizarro cadenza GG wrote for
the Beethoven first concerto first movement, and go around humming it
sorta the way old Trekkers go around with Spock ears.  Is that so wrong? 

> My criticism of Mr Lehman is his use of the expression "inherent in the
> music", which is a nonsense. And what is an "imposed concept"? A concept
> is a concept. Too subtle for my meagre magnum. 

As I recall, that was this sentence about the big triple fugue: 'That
"devotional" quality does come across, but I think it stems from GG's
imposed concept of the piece, rather than being inherent in the music.'
Uh, dunno about my choice of words 'n' all, but I know what I meant.  The
music doesn't have a margin note from Bach like "Be all devotional-like
and quiet and pious at this here spot," nor is there a sung text to
indicate a theme or mood (like f'r instance in that movement of the St
Matthew Passion which is about the disciples running around like chickens,
and shore 'nuff them thar "hunting oboes" are cacklin' away up a storm,
like some wacko funny birds, even though conductors seem afraid to really
play it that way whole hog 'n' all), so anywho, the music of this fugue as
Bach left it is just plain neutral ("inherently!"), y'know, absolute music
and not some programmatic thing.  Anything assigning a mood to it is an
"imposed concept," just somebody's idea of a feeling they wanna project,
at their own risk, 'cause Bach didn't say what he wanted us to feel at
that point, it's all imposed interpretation. 

Meanwhile, *I* be thinkin' that a notion of Bach being on some devotional
deathbed, and the legend of his dictating that "Vor deinen Thron" chorale
to the Altnikol fella, and CPE throwin' it into the KdF as compensation
for the unfinished fugue, is still not a sufficient reason to play the
fugue all quietly and understated/tentatively there, especially given that
The Man wrote it ten years earlier, so who knows *what* he was feelin',
but it probably wasn't an all apologetic-like "oh, I'm not sure I should
slip my name in here," I mean, here he was writing this consummate
feature-film-length piece that all builds up to this point, so he had to
be thinkin' about where it was going earlier, and *he* knew he was one of
the major kick-butt composers, why else would he choose a highfalutin'
Cafe Praetentio title like "The Art of Fugue," so why back off now and 
be all mock-humble when he signs the thing? 

'Course, that logorrheic observation doesn't mean that any of this was the
reason GG played it that way.  We dunno that either.  Just a guess.  Y'all
know how arbitary GG claimed to be himself sometimes, choosing an
interpretation. 

> But you gotta hand it to him for stirring up a bitofa hornet's nest. And
> for going against the mood of the list, which does, from time to time,
> appear rather adulatory, perhaps even to the point of being uncritical. 

I guess GG's late Bach is to me what Mozart's sonatas were to GG.  There's
nothin' that says one personally *has* to think it's great just because
lots of other people are generally pleased with the name on the box.  I
mean, the ad people can claim in their jingle, "Everybody doesn't like
something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee!" as much as they want to,
until the cows come home with faces turned blue, even if they engage the
venerable Thurl Ravenscroft to sing it, but that doesn't mean that *this*
particular piece of Sara Lee pie is gonna fulfill my nutritional needs
today, or even necessarily taste all that good at this moment, it all
depends.  Ye never know till ye taste it.  But I digress. 

> Too bad he backs down when faced with a bit of opposition. Come on Brad!
> These aren't just *opinions*? Back in the ring! 

I don't recall withdrawing any of 'em.  Why d'ye think anything I said is
backin' down, you got money wagered on me or something?  What odds did you
get? 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.44N+78.87W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/