GG: Globe column by Robert Fulford

["Junichi Miyazawa" <walkingtune@bigfoot.com>]

Dear f_minorians:

One of the leading Canadian journalists Robert Fulford,
who was a friend of GG in their teens,
worte a column on GG for *Globe and Mail*
dated March 11, 1998.

I received the article from him on the net, and
got a kind permission to forward it to the f_minor.

In fact, Robert Fulford did not know our list,
but now he is interested in the participation.

If he appears on our key, please welcome him.
We may be able to ask him about GG in his early days.

BTW, he has a web site of his own:

http://www.mtnlake.com/~mfulford/robert/index.html

There, you will find interesting lectures, some of which
mention his old friend. (You will find his recollections of GG
in Peter Ostwald's biography, as well as independent memoirs
in both *GG Variations* and his book *Best Seat in the House*.)

Here, his recent article:

>@bt Robert Fulford column for Wednesday, March 11.98\
>The great hall of the Moscow Conservatory was only half filled on May 7,
1957, the
>first night of Glenn Gould's first European tour.  At the age of 24 Gould
was already
>well launched in North America, having played with the New York
Philharmonic
>under Leonard Bernstein and recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations.  But in
Russia
>he was largely unknown--until the May 7 concert changed everything.  News
of his
>talent flashed around Moscow, and tickets for his remaining concerts sold
out the
>next day.  He "became famous literally overnight," according to Sofia
Moshevich, a
>pianist who grew up in the Soviet Union and now lives in Toronto.\
> She discusses Gould's Russian trip, a great event in Canadian cultural
>history, in an article for GlennGould, [note to desk: no space between
Glenn and
>Gould] the twice-yearly magazine of the Gould Foundation (P.O. Box 190, 260
>Adelaide Street East, Toronto M5A 1N1).  An engaging combination of
scholarship
>and nostalgia, GlennGould resurrects obscure Gould interviews and reviews,
>covers new Gould books, announces events like the international Gould
conference
>in Toronto in September, 1999, and charts the progress of his reputation
around the
>world.  The issue containing the Russian piece also has a fascinating
article about
>Gould's status in Japan, written by Junichi Miyazama, the writer and critic
who
>regularly translates Gould material into Japanese.\
> In Russia Gould gave eight concerts, four each in Moscow and
>Leningrad.  He was unprepared for the exuberance of the audiences--the
flowers
>thrown on the stage, the demands for multiple encores, then the five-minute
>standing ovations with rhythmic handclapping.  In Leningrad they put extra
chairs
>on-stage and assigned extra police to control the crowds.  They sold all
1,300
>seats plus 1,100 standing-room places.  Gould said, "It was overwhelming
and just
>a bit frightening."  It was partly due to Russia's isolation.  He was the
first North
>American pianist to play there since the Second World War, so he was a
>messenger from the outside world.  He felt like "the first musician to land
on
>Mars..."\
> A passionate missionary for the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and
>his followers, Gould made their work the core of a concert for conservatory
>students and teachers in Moscow.  When he announced his program, there was
(he
>wrote in a letter) "a rather alarming and temporarily uncontrollable
murmuring from
>the audience....."  Schoenberg's music was not considered legitimate in the
Soviet
>Union and some students seemed unable to decide whether to leave or stay.
Two
>people did walk out: "elderly professors who probably felt that I was
attempting to
>pervert the taste of the young."  He played Alban Berg, Anton von Webern,
and
>Ernst Krenek, plus Bach.\
> Someone in that hall was making a tape, which eventually found its way
>to Paris.  In 1983, a year after Gould's death, it appeared as Glenn Gould:
Concert
>de Moscou, a CD on the Harmonia Mundi label.  It's entirely unedited, and
it would
>horrify Gould, whose recording standards were famously rigorous.  It
includes his
>spoken commentary (and the translation into Russian), but he's so far off
mike that
>you have to double the volume to make out what he's saying.  He sounds
young,
>confident, and a little like the CBC announcers he had been hearing all his
life
>("Within a decade, Schoenberg had begun to formulate a principle...").  It
is the
>most incompetent recording I own, and I wouldn't part with it for
anything.\
> After Glenn returned to Toronto, he amused his friends with stories about
>Russian officials.  A translator saw him glance at women standing outside a
hotel
>and told him, without being asked, that they were definitely not
prostitutes since the
>Soviet Union had no prostitutes.  Gould reported that when he found a piano
he
>liked and asked that it be moved from one hall to another so he could use
it a
>second time, his hosts quickly agreed with him and then began fabricating
endless
>excuses for not getting it done.  In the end he believed that Russia had no
>professional piano movers.  Pianos came from their makers in Germany, and
>stayed forever where the men from the factory left them.  He decided that
this so
>embarrassed his hosts that they couldn't admit the truth.\
> Alongside Moshevich's article, GlennGould runs one of the most striking
>reviews ever written about Gould.  The writer, Heinrich Neuhaus, then 69,
was a
>great piano teacher whose students included Sviatoslav Richter and Emil
Gilels.  In
>the summer of 1957, Neuhaus wrote in the journal Culture and Life,  "I tell
you quite
>frankly that Gould is not a pianist, he is a phenomenon."  Neuhaus
immediately
>understood something that much of the musical world didn't fully grasp
until years
>later--that Gould was building a new bridge to Bach.  His interpretations
were so
>convincing, Neuhaus said, that he might have been a pupil of Bach himself;
he
>could imagine Gould sharing Bach's meals and inflating the organ bellows
for the
>master.  "In this sense Gould is not 24, he is nearly 300," Neuhaus wrote,
and the
>possessor of "great talent, great mastery, high spirit, and deep soul."
Ever since
>Gould's visit, says Sofia Moshevich, the playing of Bach in Russia has been
>divided into two periods, before Gould and after Gould.  As Neuhaus wrote,
>"Gould's appearance was quite an event in our life."\


Regards,

Junichi

****************************************
  Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
  walkingtune@bigfoot.com / junichi@poetic.com
****************************************
  http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3739