Shostikovach Preludes and Fugues

[James Rhem <jrhem@itis.com>]

While I"m at it, I have been meaning to write the last to inquire whether
anyone knows if Gould ever played the Shostikovach 24 Preludes and Fugues?
They are absolutely wonderful music which I cannot imagine Gould loving,
but I find record only of his playing the Piano Quintet. 

Does anyone know  if he ever played the preludes and fugues and if he ever
made a comment on them AND if anywhere any recording (official or
unofficial) exists of his playing them. I would do a lot to acquire a copy
if so.

James Rhem



Gould
that is not covered in the Otto Friederich biography. That's doesnt bother
me really. I was hoping for insight. Ostwald was a shrink and knew Gould;
they played chamber music together at times (Ostwald, violin). But Ostwald
does not undertake the kind of interpertative mission I wanted to see
undertaken. We learn everything about the interactions of the drugs Gould
took and the possible relation of the deterioration of Gould's chair on his
posture and problems with his hands beginning around 1978. We learn that he
these problems also sprang up after the death of his teacher Guerrero and
then more seriously after the death of his mother.=20

But here we have all these old facts trotted out and no effort made to
probe their possible meaning as metaphor in Gould's life.=20

I realize that to many and from many "scientific" points of view, the kind
of speculative inquiry into the "meaning" of things must seem pointless
because it can never be settled with a "fact" here or there. But I come out
of years of training in literature (my Ph.D. is in 18th c English Lit).=20

It strikes me that Gould's life (like any interesting life) is a "text"
that can be read. The best biographers not only assemble the facts of a
life, they try to tell the story or "read" the life. Ostwald does a poor
job of this in my opinion.

Metaphors? You say?  Well, here are a few of the things I mean:

-- take "the chair" for example. History has it that Gould was not
especially close to his father, that his mother was the predominant
influence. Surely true as far as it goes. But why then keep the chair that
his father adapted for him from a set of folding chairs designed for card
playing, keep it all his life, play only on it, carry it around the world
until it wore out literally?  Gould could and would at times walk into
Steinway, try out pianos and buy a couple that he liked simply by writing a
check. He could have afforded a new chair build especially to his
specifications. (Indeed, at one point, in an effort to save on the freight
bills being incurred in shipping that chair all over the world, Gould's
manager Walter Homberg had an exact replica made in Germany in aluminum,
but Gould never would even try it and its whereabouts are said to be
unknown.) No, it think his relationship with that chair goes much deeper
than liking its height and the way it felt . . . for surely the way it felt
physically changed as the padding vanished and he ended up sitting on the
crosspieces. It must have been painful, and Gould was very sensitive to
physical sensation. He did not register this pain or found more pressing
reasons to endure it. Could they have had anything to do with his father?
Was this the visible, palpable contribution of his father to his life as a
pianist and for that reason a talisman of -- dare I say, love -- and
connection with him? Perhaps.=20

But in this case as in so many others, biographers are satisfied to leave
all such paths of inquiry into the man unexplored, safely hidden behind the
lable "eccentric." And of course Gould surely was that . . . but aren't we
all in many ways?

-- another matter: The Drugs & and the Hypocondria: Here is a man so
obcessed with his physical health that he over dresses habitually to (he
thinks) avoid a cold or sore throat.  This same man takes all kinds of
pills abusing his body in all sorts of ways. What was Gould's relation to
what philosopher's have called "the mind-body problem"?  I think Gould
basically hated the body, saw it as an anchor (like the concert audience)
and was ready to transcend it at any moment . .  into pure sound, pure
abstraction.=20

	There are other things of this sort that I would call passages of the
Gould "text" that I have seen few explore in what I regard as a creative
and intelligent way. I wish I could recommend Ostwald, but I really can't.
I'm very glad his knowing Gould had a roll in setting up special programs
of health care for performing artists. They are needed. My spouse has a
cousin who has a promising career as a pianist ruined by following a method
of attacking the piano the ruined her arms (one quite opposite from Gould's
I might add). She now gets therapy in one of these programs in New York.
Her pain is gone, but she can no longer play.

I look forward to more discussion on this list. Glenn Gould's playing has
meant and continues to mean more to me in my life than I can possibly say.
The range of feelings I have in hearing his Goldberg (81) almost every day
for over 10yrs is something that has done more for my mental health than
anything short of the birth and life of my 7yr old daughter Sophia. I weep
with gladness that Gould lived and that his playing could be recorded for
later generations (and via Voyager) other worlds to hear.

James Rhem




At 09:51 AM 7/25/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I am glad to see activity on this list, since the National Library of
>Canada list is totally idle and nobody answered my last message.
>
>I just heard this week about the book by Peter Ostwald, Glenn Gould:
>Tragedy and Ecstasy of Genius.  It has been published in May 97, by a
>publisher called "Horton" or something like that.
>
>Has anyone read it yet?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bri.
>
>
>
>
>
>--=20
>Brigitte Gemme, Montr=E9al, Qu=E9bec.
>gemme@mlink.net
>Montr=E9al, soleil et pluie: http://www.mlink.net/~gemme
>
>Pourquoi acheter des carabines =E0 r=E9p=E9tition, des=20
>armements nucl=E9aires pour s'amuser? C'est dangereux!
>Et quand c'est dans la maison, y peut y avoir un
>enfant qui se sert de =E7a...
>				Jean Chr=E9tien
>				Premier ministre
>				du Canada en campagne
>				Mai 1997
>
>