Fw: GG: Music and Morality

["Robert C. Kunath" <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>]

With apologies if I am beating a dead horse here, I wanted to send this to
the list as well as Marco!

Robert

----------
> From: Robert C. Kunath <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>
> To: Marco Poli <poli@imiucca.csi.unimi.it>
> Subject: Re: GG: Music and Morality
> Date: Monday, March 23, 1998 12:49 PM
> 
> Dear Marco,
> 
> 	Your points are well taken, but it does seem to me that Glenn Gould
mixed
> artistic and political (or moral) considerations, or at least claimed
that
> it was proper to do so.  He justified his withdrawal from concert
> performances on moral grounds, he articulated (I think) moral grounds for
> his disapproval of the stereotype virtuoso (I think of his satire of
> Rubinstein in this regard), and he indicated that he disapproved of
> Mozart's compositions not wholly on musical grounds but as products of a
> "hedonistic lifestyle."  Certainly he said in his self-interview that the
> Soviet concerns about art were justified (thereby apparently accepting
the
> possibility of artistic censorship).  I find Gould's concern for the
moral
> dimension of art to be one of the most intriguing things about his
> thinking.  Gould may be wrong; his "moral" positions may be claptrap, or
> elaborate self-justifications; and he may seem curiously inconsistent in
> the application of his putative moral criteria.  But I am in a number of
> ways moved by the depth of Gould's conviction that music has a Purpose
> besides being "the art of pleasing sounds," and his sense that Art is
> connected to larger human concerns.  It may be sheer self-delusion, but I
> hear more in Gould's performances precisely because I know that he so
> explicitly wanted to do much more than just play the piece perfectly.  I
> know that all performers want to "communicate," but very few are as
> committed to a moral sense of their art as Glenn Gould, and, at least for
> some people, I think that is a part of Gould's fascination.
> 
> Robert
> 
> ----------
> > From: Marco Poli <poli@imiucca.csi.unimi.it>
> > To: f_minor-og@email.rutgers.edu
> > Subject: Re: GG:Goldberg Variations...and Conservatory
> > Date: Monday, March 23, 1998 10:31 AM
> > 
> > Dear Elisha,
> > 
> > 
> >        as far as I know, two versions of "Burleske" played by Glenn are
> (or
> > have been) available:
> > one with the Toronto S. O. conducted by Golschmann, and recorded on
> > November 15, 1967 has been re-issued by Sony (Sony SMK 52687); this
> version
> > had also been published in the past by at least two independent firms,
> > Music & Arts (CD 678) in the States, and Nuova Era (2310) in Italy;
> > A different version, with Adler conducting the Baltimore S.O.and
recorded
> > on January 3, 1962, has also been published by Music & Arts (CD 297).  
I
> > suspect that this latter version comes from a CBC broadcast.
> > I also think to remember - but am unable to check just now - that
> Strauss'
> > Burleske is also available in the Sony videotape or laser-disc Gould
> > collection.
> > 
> > On the Karajan discussion: don't you agree that anyway, some 50 years
> after
> > the end of the war, he deserves to be judged, at least on this list,
only
> > on his musical merits?
> > I can understand that anybody's involvement in Nazism should not be
> > forgotten - but then one should always put things in an historical
> > perspective (how many of us, had we lived in Germany in the early
> Forties,
> > would have been brave enough to publicily dissent from Nazims?) and,
> > moreover, judge the real degree and circumstances of this involvement,
> but
> > I strongly question the rightness of mixing artistical and political
> > considerations.
> > 
> > Best wishes,
> > 
> > 
> > Marco