Re: GG: Bazzana as academic

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

On Thu, 22 Jan 1998, Robert C. Kunath wrote:

> Dear F-Minors,
> 
> I haven't acquired Bazzana yet, but I do have a theory about his desire to
> create a measurable separation between the Gould "cult" and his own
> "serious study."  The book is, I understand, based on the musicology
> dissertation that he wrote under Richard Taruskin at UC Berkeley (one of
> the greats, by the way).  Though academics are quite susceptible to fads of
> their own, they tend to look down on fads that they don't share. 
> Musicology is certainly a discipline that has its share of daring,
> cutting-edge thinkers (is it Susan McClary who does the feminist criticism
> of Beethoven?) but it is also a discipline in which too pronounced a
> deviation from the tried-and-true classics can raise eyebrows.  

I agree, and add that it is a discipline where the thinking and criticism
(no matter how daring) is almost invariably presented in a rational,
left-brained manner.  Anything other than that is immediately suspect.  A
critic's feelings, personal artistic insights, and preferences are not
very welcome, unless they can be explained very thoroughly by positivistic
evidence. 

GG, in doing his (primarily non-musicological) criticism primarily in the
medium of musical performance, rather than in the more concrete medium of
words, escaped some of the intellectual heat for his wilder deviations:
his performances could be written off as artistic license.  In
performance, GG's musical instincts could make up for a large part of his
lack of musicological/stylistic training.  That is, GG replaced
"correctness" (as verifiable by musicological criteria) with his own
imagination, which glossed over any holes in his intellectual preparation. 
GG's success as a recorded performer is that his performances are in some
way convincing to a substantial set of listeners.  Academicism didn't
matter much. 

Bazzana, writing a musicological and critical book in an academic
discipline, cannot afford to let his own imagination be so far to the
front line.  It's just the nature of the genre.  The medium requires that
his imaginative creativity be limited to the connections he chooses to
emphasize.  And I'm not saying that he has any evident holes in his
intellectual preparation, either...his book gives the impression that he
is working from a thorough preparation across a number of disciplines. 
That's what makes the book work so well, in my opinion: Bazzana clearly
knows what he is talking about, and he can make imaginative connective
insights that (to me at least) seem remarkably perceptive, and he can say
it in such a manner that the academically-oriented will be convinced, and
he can also connect with readers who do not wish to read it with an
academic mindset.  That is, the book has many levels (communicates well),
and has many fresh things to say (a good reason for existence).  Bazzana's
writing also sparks many mental tangents as I read through it, and to me
that's another sign of a good book: it gets the reader to think and argue
along with it, just as a richly interesting musical performance or
composition would. 

> I assume
> that Mr. Bazzana got a Ph.D. in order to qualify himself for academic jobs,
> and I would think he would want to make it very, very clear that he is not
> some demented Gould freak (as the more conservative musicologists might
> view Gould enthusiasts) but rather a very serious musicologist doing real
> analysis.  Whether his stated "seriousness" really represents his own
> feelings might be open to question--for professional reasons I think he
> pretty much has to present himself and his interest in Gould that way.

I agree.

> 
> 	Maybe someday we'll read "Kevin Bazzana interviews Kevin Bazzana about
> Kevin Bazzana's view of Glenn Gould"!
> 

But in what medium?

And some comments on Mary Jo's comments:

> > I'm a little surprised that there have been so few comments about Kevin
> > Bazzana's dissertation-turned-book, _Glenn Gould: The Performer in the
> > Work_.  Perhaps its density has something to do with our collective
> > silence on the subject.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that it was
> > _just_ released in the USA.  But now it should be available to most of
> > us, so I'll start the discussion with my impressions and I hope others
> > of you will post soon.
> > 
> > I've only just begun reading it but I find it to be fairly compelling so
> > far.  Certainly it's the most rigorous look at GG's aesthetics and so
> > far it's the only real "close reading" of GG's recorded performances
> > available to English speaking audiences. Bazzana's training as a musical
> > historian allows him to view Gould as an historic figure, one who was a
> > product of his time-- & not some transcendent genius for the ages.
> > Bazzana's critical perspective makes his book potentially quite
> > interesting.  

I'm through the first 100 pages so far, and agree with your assessment.  I
think Bazzana does a remarkable job at presenting context: both in terms
of contexts that *might* have been known cognitively by GG, and in terms
of broader contexts that GG might not have been aware of or in control of. 
Both types are important.  GG as an ahistorical post-modernist (among
other labels) *must* be located in history himself for his (GG's)
commentary to have any contextual relevance.  This also forms a
convincingly solid basis for Bazzana's own insights about the subject.  I
think that if Bazzana's book were post-modern or ahistorical itself, it
would not work so well. 

> > 
> > Chapter one traces the influence of Schoenberg on GG's adament musical
> > idealism.  For Bazzana, Gould (Tureck, too) is absolutely modernist in
> > his approach as an interpreter.  Their Bach could only have developed
> > out of German Romanticism. I found Bazzana's argument in this short
> > chapter interesting and convincing. And this is as far as I've gotten.

I too thought this chapter was interesting and convincing, especially the
parts about how GG's image of Bach was through the ears of Schoenberg. 
It's something I hadn't thought of before, but it seems plausible.  GG
didn't seem particularly interested in viewing Bach on Bach's own terms,
either syntactically or stylistically.  

That's (to me personally) a shortcoming of GG's Bach performances: in
their own way they're convincing as commentary, and they're generally
*very* interesting, but (to me) they present an overly cerebral side of
the music at the expense of almost all else, and I find that they don't
move me when I listen to them.  Bach is richer and more multi-faceted than
GG's general Bach style conveys.  Pretty often when I try to listen to
GG's Bach, I get partway through and find that it's driving me up the wall
(for many reasons), and I turn it off in favor of something else.  But
then again, it's impossible to bring out everything at once, and for the
artistic choices GG made about Bach interpretation, he executed them well. 
GG wasn't trying to present a definitive image of Bach, anyway.  (And he
probably would have been amused at misguided fans who take it as such....)
Now if, as Bazzana suggests, GG's image of Bach is necessarily filtered
through Schoenberg's aesthetics, that's a plausible way of understanding
GG's priorities.  And taken as such, GG's performances of Bach are highly
successful. 

> > 
> > I would like to mention that there is a disturbing aspect of the book
> > that I can't quite put my finger on yet and may have as much to do with
> > my own feelings about Gould as anything else.  Bazzana obviously wants
> > to reveal Gould in a sense-- 'for what he is' as a performer.  His
> > introductory sections (along with credits and thanks to many people,
> > some of whom are listmembers) detail the extent of the posthumous Gould
> > cottage industry.  For example, Bazzana mentions that GG is the subject
> > of gossip and chat on the internet (that's us folks!) and a forthcoming
> > CD-ROM (hi Katherine!) He seems uncomfortable at Gould's status as a
> > Canadian 'hero' and cynical at the 'inappropriate' homages to Gould
> > (like the various piano competitions we've all scoffed at.) Bazzana
> > seems very much to want to seperate himself from any hint of uncritical
> > admiration for Gould's accomplishments (as did Friedrich especially) and
> > I think this is a fine thing, especially for a scholarly work. 

Ditto.

> > 
> > But in his Introduction Bazzana sets up a big brick wall of a binary
> > between what he calls the "cultish and sentimental" elements of
> > attention to Gould paid since his death and the "serious study" which
> > has also followed that I can only wonder why he felt the need to
> > proclaim this distinction so vehemently.  In my mind Gould is the sort
> > of figure who does warrant serious study as well as well... fun
> > conversations and whimsical ponderings. Those 'cultish and sentimental'
> > attentions are probably the best adept to deal with GG's painfully goofy
> > yet sometimes wildly entertaining side.  Bazanna makes note of the fact
> > that GG didn't graduate from high school, that he was not particualy
> > learned in many musical disciplines, that he mispronounced words (see
> > how he mangles 'Borges' in the _Idea of North_, how he says 'fil-um'
> > instead of 'film') and misspelled them. (This reminds me of Edward
> > Said's qualification that Gould lacked intellectual sophistication-- I
> > paraphrase but that was the jist) OK... so what? 

Isn't this just a way of putting GG into proper historical and
intellectual perspective, as you pointed out above?  In a way, this speaks
highly of GG's artistic instincts and enterprise, the manners in which he
made up for his lack of formal intellectual sophistication. 

> > Maybe that's part of
> > his wide appeal.  In his own round about way wasn't Gould a kind of
> > musical populist? An iconoclast but not a snob? At least in the
> > beginning of the book, Bazanna takes Gould *much* more seriously than
> > Gould took Gould.  He almost sounds like one of the panelists on the
> > Silver Jubilee LP-- one of the critics that GG so feared. (A valium,
> > please!) I'd like to see Kevin do a piece for the _Glenn Gould_ magazine
> > along the lines of "Face it Mr. Bazanna, You Do Have Doubts about Glenn
> > Gould."  I'd love it!

I don't know, I think Gould took Gould *terribly* seriously, no matter how
much he tried to give the impression that he didn't (by cultivating the
cultish and sentimental stuff).  And then Bazzana takes GG with the
appropriate seriousness that is commensurate with his medium.  (If you're
gonna write a scholarly book about something, you'd better make it
abundantly clear that you take it seriously.) I don't think he goes any
farther than GG did in terms of "taking Gould seriously."  Someone who did
*that* was Elizabeth Angilette, in her _Philosopher at the Keyboard_.  (I
reacted to that book the same way I react to GG's Bach.)

> > 
> > So those are my initial impressions which I reserve the right to revise.
> > Anyone want to share theirs?

I have some more impressions which are forming as I read along, but
they're more about GG's performances (as pointed out in Bazzana's
analyses) than the book itself.  It's not time to present them yet. 

As to the book (where I'm only 1/3 of the way through, but did skip around
to later parts before starting from the beginning, so I've probably read
half of it), I think it's remarkably stimulating and insightful so far. 

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