[no subject]

Glenn Gould Selected Letters: John P.L. Roberts

Glenn created a series for CBC titled "Music in the U.S.S.R", which consentrated
on the developement of Russian Music; aired January 14, 1962.
The show for television consisted of three movements of the Shostakovich
Piano Quintet Opus 57 along with Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7 in Bflat Major, Opus 83,
concluded with twenty minutes of talk.

This is a letter written to Shostakovich from Glenn on Feb. 7th 1970:


Dear Mr. Shostakovich:
Thank you very much for your letter and for the kind invitation to be your
guest during the Tschaikovsky competition next June in Moscow. I am afraid
I must regretfully decline since my schedule during the coming year prohibits
any extensive travel arrangements, but I very much appreciate your generous offer of 
hospitality.

                                                                Sincerely yours,
                                                                   Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould, A life in Variations: Otto Friedrich

Glenn mentioned Shostakovich briefly to John McGreevy, who at the time worked as a
director for CBC in the sixties.
McGreevy was working on a show, a one hour drama called "Mandelstam's Witness"
This was in 1975-76
It was an adaptation of Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs, the Polish actress Ida
Kaminska presented the portrait of Mandestam in her Moscow apartment.
McGreevcy was having problems with the musical approach towards the show, so he called 
Glenn. They got together on Christmas Eve night, which aparently was Glenns suggestion
felling that christmas Eve was as good a night as any other to get together and work on the music.
They watched the show more than twice and afterwards Glenn said, "I know what you must do,
Imagine, in the apartment next door, which we never see, there is a young cellist, a student, 
and he is rehearsing over and over again a Shostakovich cello concerto, and then at the end,
he start to play the slow movement over the closing title."
And ofcourse it was perfect.

Through Sony you can find a film and recording titled "A Russian Interlude" with works by
Prokofiev,Scriabin, and Shostakovich. I have unfortunately not seen the documentary, but I'm
sure it has the twenty minutes of talked mentioned above in the Doc. "Music in the U.S.S.R"
If you have the means I would check it out. Possibly there is a member on the list that has seen
this Doc. and could give you more information.
I hope that I helped in some way. as I do not know much of Shostakovich I fear I am unable to
give you a direct answer on GG's feeling about his music, but as far as an indirect answer I feel 
from the evidence above if there was not a great love for his music , there was atleast a respect.
And from the invitation to GG from DS I would think that Shostakovich was an admirer of Glenns
playing and since the letter was written in the early 70's and the doc. GG did was aired in 62, I am 
assuming that Shostakovich was able to see this documentary and Glenns interpretations of his music.
Here's a question, Jeremy since you seem to know more about Shostakovich than myself why do you 
feel that Glenn might have disliked his compositions?
Needless to say, Great Topic!



                               All the Best,
                       Bonnie Hammond
                    ims@access.digex.net