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GG: Imagining Glenn Gould
Hello everyone,
I've recently received from Bruce Charlton (f_minor ex-member) a copy of
his most recent radio program about Gould and now, with his permission, I'm
glad to share this work with you.
If you have any comments about it please, be so kind to send a Cc of your
message to Bruce at <bruce.g.charlton@newcastle.ac.uk>. Thanks.
Regards,
Silvio Gordiani
P.S. With regard to the fascinating thread about GG and movies started by
my brother Joseph Podlesnick last month, only two words: Stanley Kubrick.
MESSAGE FOLLOWS ******************
Imagining Glenn Gould
By Bruce Charlton 1995
Words by Bruce Charlton
Music by JS Bach - From the fifteen two part inventions BWV
772-786 and the fifteen three part sinfonias (inventions) BWV 787-
801.
(From the recording Fantasia, inventions, chromatic fantasia and fugue, by
Angela Hewitt. HYPERION CDA 66746)
Department of Psychology
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
England
Tel 0191 222 6180
Fax 0191 222 5622
e-mail bruce.g.charlton@newcastle.ac.uk
Imagining Glenn Gould
Bruce Charlton 1995
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 40 mins approx.
Two part invention 13 in A minor
Track 14: 1.10 mins.
Letter 1.
Dear Scott,
Today I turned fifty and I'm feeling just fine - one of my good days. As
of now, everything in my life is under control.
Even better, I've had a commission from the Canadian
Broadcasting Company to compose a piano sonata. Big bucks; but the
project must be completed within the year. The idea is that they will
broadcast my first performance while I am still fifty. This would consist
of a documentary movie of me miming to a studio recording.
It seems a tall order, but it happens that a big sonata is just
exactly what I have been wanting to do for some years; only I have not
been sure that any work of mine would be recorded - the sales guys at
the record company tell me that the public will buy anything I perform,
however weird, but this charity would not extend to my compositions.
Anyway, here goes with my magnum opus. I feel as if my life so
far has been a study for this one. For once, I can hardly wait to get at
the piano and try it out.
Two part invention 8 in F major
Track 9: 0.44
Letter 2.
Dear Scott,
I've started my preparation by playing through Bach's two and three
part inventions. You remember I recorded them a few years back just
after my Steinway had been dropped and mangled. It's still one of my
favourite performances despite - or is it because of ? - residual
unrepaired mechanical problems which led leading to CD 318 sounding
'like a bar room piano' as one critic put it!
The inventions were meant to be harpsichord tuition pieces
designed to polish up contrapuntal technique. This makes them
particularly rewarding to play, quite apart from their wonderful
musicality.
Which brings me to Gould's first piano sonata... I have never
really got to grips with the piano as a creative object; and just now I am
torn between composing at the instrument or in my head. The answer
should be blazingly obvious, given everything I have written against the
piano. But, then again, I do keep coming back to the unwieldy beast,
don't I?
Today was particularly fine: it isn't the playing fast that I enjoy
so much as the elation of discrimination between note and note. I
despise staccato machine-gun rapidity, the blasting out of identical and
equally spaced bullets. I think of myself rather as firing something like a
a fast action pea shooter: each individual note is organically grown,
related to its neighbour, yet slightly different. But the sheer exhilaration
of this at speed, when aural discontinuity is magically transformed into
singing line, when each moment is eternal yet suspended between the
dying tone and the tone being born...
Maybe, after all, its just a more constipated version of good old,
two-fisted, three pedalled, knock 'em down and kill 'em, barnstorming
virtuosity. It doesn't feel like it, though. At such moments of solitary
ecstasy I would not swap the piano stool for anything I know of -
certainly not the composers study.
Two part invention 10 in G major
Track 11: 0.46
Letter 3
Dear Scott,
Yes, I will gladly see your PhD student, or at least speak to her on the
telephone: it's always a pleasure to assist the pursuit of scholarship, and
only reasonable that I repay the University of Toronto for the honorary
doctorate. Ask her to call me between midnight and four am. on any
weekday and we'll take it from there.
In fact I'd be glad of some diversion. The sonata is not going
well: in fact it is not really going at all. I have this absurd notion of
writing something that encapsulates the twentieth century zeitgeist, and
its tyrannical power; and putting this into contrast with the world
according to Gould - the non-competitive creating of a moral life
through the narcissistic contemplation of art - you know the kind of
thing.
I also want the music to comment - implicitly, I hasten to add -
upon the charity of technology and the possibilities it open out for truly
creative solitude. And finally I also want the thing to be unplayable by
anybody else except me! So I am planning that it should be the most
though-going, sustained, integrated, archingly-structured and difficult
piece of true counterpoint ever devised for the piano.
Contemporary life is so full of bombast; I daresay this applies
even for Professors of philosophy. And yet we are the lucky ones. In
the light of all the public expectation fostered by the CBC (did you see
the press coverage!) and of my own outrageous overambition, it has
become a case of me and Steinway CD 318 against the world.
All of which explains why I have spent days avoiding the sonata
and playing the simplest and sweetest of the two-part inventions. Their
pure lines seem, in their brevity and lucidity, to show up the bogus
emptiness of my own rhetoric. They imply everything, and declare
nothing.
Two part invention 14 in Bb major
Track 15: 1.12
Letter 4
Dear Scott,
You breed a high quality product at the University if Lin Po is anything
to go by. I have been very taken by her, I must admit. Indeed, after only
a matter of - say- fifteen hours of nocturnal telephone conversation I
have already consented to meet her 'in the flesh' - as the horrible
expression puts it.
I know, such unseemly haste lays me open to the possibility that
I may be stripped of my status as the hermit of Toronto, but it's too
late. The deed is done, and we met for a drink (soft drink, needless to
say) at my favourite out-of-town cafe, and were driven around the city
in the limo' for a couple of hours.
She is a very interesting young woman - not least because of her
encyclopaedic knowledge of, and intelligence concerning, my
recordings - the Bach in particular. Plays nicely too, and doesn't touch
the loud pedal, I'm delighted to say! But I was particularly fascinated by
the topic of her PhD thesis. Did you suggest it to her? Or was it
perhaps derived from one of my magazine articles?
I have promised to look up some references from my files, and
the conversation has led me to do some more thinking on the theme. I
guess, that I, of all people, should know something about the interface
between individual subjectivity and the objectivity of communications
media. I invented the interface, for heavens sake!
No progress on the sonata, I'm afraid. The whole idea is
beginning to seem nauseatingly grandiose. Where have we gone wrong
that it isn't?
P.S. The most interesting thing about meeting Lin Po was that I
accidentally let her shake my hand when we parted. I completely forgot
my phobia of having my bones crushed.
It didn't hurt. Actually, I am forced to admit it was nice to have
touched someone again. I had forgotten how warm and smooth, and
gentle, a hand can be.
Two part invention 2 in C minor
Track 3: 1.27
Letter 5
Dear Scott,
Thank you for your note. I will ignore all innuendo as beneath
contempt, but you are correct in your surmise - I have indeed been
'seeing a lot' of Lin Po. I make no apology for the fact; indeed I would
say that meeting her has been the most profoundly ... well challenging
event of recent years.
This is partly intellectual, no doubt - or at least that is how it
began. But, I must admit that there is something altogether more
personal about things. the whole business intrigues me - I have spent
many hours brooding on the phenomenon.
It is worrying too. Particularly worrying is the thought that the
basis may be nothing more than lust - the physical desire of an old man
(well old-ish man) for a young and attractive woman. I say 'attractive'
but I am not really sure. She has what I consider to be a typically serene
Oriental face. But what sticks in my mind, however, is her quality of
attentiveness. That, and the subtle unpredictability of her opinions and
behaviours. I hate inconsistency and shallow moodiness; but it is not
that - more as if the thought processes themselves were subtly different
from my own so that the same input leads to a different output but in
ways I do not fully understand.
All this means that I have set aside the damned sonata for the
moment, while I seek refreshment of the spirit. It should not take long
to compose, if I can attain the necessary condition of detachment. The
thing is written in my head, and merely need noting down...
At least I think it is in my head. To be quite candid, I am not
absolutely sure.
Two part invention 9 in F minor
Track 10: 1.49
Letter 6
Dear Scott,
Things are tough. Just now Lin Po is away back home, visiting her
folks. The deadline for the sonata is getting very close - the recording
studio is booked for next week and I have not had the guts to tell CBC
that nothing is yet on paper.
Even worse, and please keep this strictly to yourself, I am
having some technical problems with my playing. Not just the odd
finger slips - a real problem which I can only describe as loss of control.
I have always valued control above all else - over-valued it, perhaps. It
was one of the main reasons why I quit giving live concerts more than
eighteen years ago; I could keep strict command over the recording
process. But there it is - when playing anything of length I can't seem to
keep the 'overarching structure' in my mind. There is a kind of
dissipation, I end up pointing in a slightly different direction from the
one I set out on.
All of which is pretty subtle, and I daresay might not be
noticeable to the average listener - but things are worse. There is a
difficulty with the phrases, in particular shaping the contrapuntal voice
leading. This was always the thing that I did better than anyone - or so I
have believed. But the ability seems to be going. So even the miniatures
are flawed.
I can only assume that I have some sort of illness, something I
have not previously experienced, and that it is undermining me in ways
that I do not understand.
I have stopped playing the inventions for myself, but I have
been listening. Lin Po recorded a few for me on good old CD 318
before she went away. They have that serenity I associate with her and,
while I am listening, I can lose myself in the music.
Two part invention 7 in E minor
Track 8: 1.07
Letter 7
Dear Scott,
You will have heard the news, I have no doubt. Yep, I failed to deliver
- the sonata was not written. Everyone at CBC was disappointed, the
public was disappointed, and me? Well, you can imagine how pleased I
was.
This is not the place for breast beating, nor are public apologies
appropriate. The announcement said I was sick, but the truth is I didn't
write the piece because I couldn't. I couldn't do it - that's the thing.
And neither could I give them a new recording of something
else to fill the TV slot. I wanted to do some my own versions of some
Richard Strauss songs, but the technical problems meant I just couldn't
do that either. I didn't even try. So, they just re-ran an old program
from the archives.
Since a kid I always wanted to be a composer, always assumed
that was where I would end up, eventually; but I guess that my talents
are interpretative rather than creative - transcriptions and sound
collages are the best I can manage.
And now that the easy pianistic technique has gone out the
window at exactly the same time as I have realised my creative
limitations, I am faced with some kind of crisis. This is a real problem,
Scott, the worst I have faced. Just as I got my life under control, the
way I wanted it. Things fall apart. I wish I had someone that I could
talk with. I wish Lin Po was back.
Sinfonia 9 in F minor
Track 25: 3.57
Letter 8
Dear Scott,
At last - Lin Po is back. She has been around my place for hours,
through the night hours - talking, talking.
It has been a great help to me. So far we do not appear to have
exhausted the subject of my 'artistic problems', but I must admit that
they have rather lost their sting. But one thing I must tell you about is
the poetry, the Chinese poetry.
Lin Po brought round a calligraphy set and a book of poems.
What she does is to copy the poem, actually paint the symbols for me
there and then, then she translates it. Or rather she discourses on it. She
will maybe do a short literal translation, describing the meanings of the
symbols, then she free-associates about the background, the metaphors,
the poetic conventions and all that stuff. Really, its incredible.
I realise that the Chinese poets were trying to do the same thing
as I was. To capture a hard, impersonal essence of crystalline moral
beauty. So hard and uncompromising and pared down that each poem
attained an apparent objectivity - nothing sloppy or confessional or
sentimental: the artist was lost in the work.
It is quite wonderful. But did you notice the past tense above?
That is significant. For all its wonder, the approach of Chinese poetry is
incomplete. And it is not really objective, or else Lin Po would not need
to give me so much background. The poetry was, after all, embedded in
its culture, only the culture was so stable and permanent that nobody
realised.
What I get from all this is hard to express. I don't regret the way
I've done things in the past, or my so called uncompromising integrity
over performance styles, the dry piano tone, the purity of the recording
studio compared with the gladiatorial display of the concert hall.
All that was true - is true. It just seems to me, now, to be
incomplete. It's not the whole story. There must be room for mess, for
vulgarity. Sometimes, we have to touch people.
Sinfonia 15 in B minor
Track 31: 1.38
Letter 9
Dear Scott,
I wanted to be the first to tell you: I am going to do a live concert, and
I want you to be in the audience.
Of course the whole thing is going to be very hush hush, and
given that I don't need the money there will be no tickets on sale and
the venue will be small. In a way, I want the occasion to be taken very
casually, despite its momentous significance for me. I certainly don't
want some kind of big deal of the Glenn Gould's Triumphant Return to
the Platform headline kind; never mind a Gould Concert Debacle. But,
of course it does represent a major shift for me.
There is one very important thing. The recital must NOT be
recorded. Personally, I would like to have all the audience searched for
concealed microphones - body searched if necessary, but Lin Po has
persuaded me that this would be impolite. So instead I am only inviting
people who I can trust not to lay any bugging devices.
Why not record it, you will ask? The real reason is not the most
obvious one, which is that my technique is unreliable. My technique is
unreliable compared with what it used to be, but I am fully recovered
from that loss of focus I was suffering some time back. The phrasing
and architecture are just how I want them - but the detail is imperfect
and I can guarantee there will be finger slips - quite a few.
But that is not why I am forbidding recording. It is that I want
the concert to be here and now, shared by the people present and them
only, evanescent - and more beautiful because of the fact. Like the fall
of a petal of cherry blossom. The memory will be shared as memory,
and the validity of the experience will not be diluted or undermined by
any false sense that it can be repeated.
My hope is that this will be a 'Zen' concert, if you know what I
meant; as far away as possible from the usual heroic performer and
passive audience, block-busting piano concerto followed by virtuoso
encore. You will be my guests and equally I will be yours. More
importantly we will be there, myself and the listeners, at the same time
and once only; a smallish group of people, contemplating a small world
of music which we shall create together.
Sinfonia 2 in C minor
Track 18: 1.43
Letter 10
Dear Scott,
Thanks for understanding. I know it may seem bizarre for Lin Po and I
to get married. Bizarre from so many viewpoints: my solitude and self-
absorption, my dread of physical contact. And then from her viewpoint
too - the age difference, the likelihood of unpleasant comment in the
press, the cultural differences...
But Scott, what can I say? All this can change! It's like re-
inventing my life. No it isn't, I'm sick of inventing things for myself with
only the piano as a companion. I've been playing Bach inventions again.
They feel different now. And I've stopped humming along - I only
noticed yesterday. Somehow my vocalisations have gotten into my
fingers, into the music itself.
But music is not everything - I see that now. Creativity
sometimes needs to spring from roots in human society. From now
there will be another factor, another party - one that engages me in
dialogue, trialogue, even - because the Steinway remains a vital
partner.
Lin Po influences me and behaves in ways that are out of my
control. That is the key to my change of heart - I have given up the
need for total control in life and music. I have embraced un-
predictability, the introduction of a third voice.
Life has become a three part counterpoint, you might say.
Sinfonia 3 in D major
Track 19: 1.05
END
Dr Bruce G Charlton MD
Department of Psychology
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
England
Fax 0191 222 5622