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Re: pulse article
Hi. Here's an article I wrote that recently appeared in the Tower
records in-store magazine, might have some mild interest to f-minors.
Be happy to hear your comments. Thanks for the time.
--
One afternoon in August when I was about eight, I came home from the
playground and asked my mother the inevitable question about Santa
Claus.
I didn't believe it at first. Then Mom picked me up and said
"Don't cry, honey." I insisted that I was not crying. She laughed a
little and said, "There, there. Don't cry."
I repeated rather hotly that I was not crying, and added that it was
not, at any rate, because there was no Santa. She patted me on the
back. Betrayed, I got down from her lap, ran to my room, and slammed
the door.
It took a few years' perspective before I realized why I had
been so angry. The question I was too young to articulate to my mother
was not about a fat man in a silly red suit, but whether there wasn't
something in the black frozen wastes to comfort the world's children.
How do you articulate, to a child or anyone else, what comes out
of the void that makes our tangled, tumbling world worth grappling with?
Say communication is your chosen field. You could broadcast a sermon
perhaps, sing a hymn or two, or take a hint from the parables and tell a
poetic story. But why not fuse them together into something all of its
own? Throw in every little whizbang and whirlygig the sonic spectrum has
to offer. Matter of fact, the cadence of the story itself could be the
music, like a cut-and-paste home movie from somebody's imaginary
vacation. And where else would that vacation go, but the North Pole?
In 1967, 1969, and 1977, Canada's national radio network the CBC
first aired the three one-hour broadcasts which make up Glenn Gould's
Solitude Trilogy, and which are now available on a triple compact disc
(PSCD 2003-3). Gould, you may recall, was the concert pianist who sat
too low at the keyboard, soaked his arms in hot water, ignored tempo
instructions, sang along to his own playing, avoided 19th-centurty
repertoire, overdressed for the weather, quit performing in public,
predicted the end of art, impersonated Marlon Brando, almost became a
conductor, took enough Valium to knock out a Clydesdale, and then fell
over dead of a stroke at 50. His three radio programs consist of
strands of speech culled from interviews with various Canadians (Idea of
North: 5 speakers, The Latecomers: 13, Quiet in the Land: 9). Each
person's answers were edited to highlight his peculiar point of view on
some given aspect of northern isolation (e.g. its impact on creativity,
on a political community, or on religious life). The edited voices were
then further scripted into scenes on smaller topics, and finally woven
together into trio-sonatas, rondos, etc., complete with sound effects as
basso continuo (total editing time approximately 900 hours).
The result cross-breeds the War of the Worlds with the Art of the
Fugue. Snippets of shouting children and tinkling glasses flit over the
rumbles of cars and trains. Janis Joplin and Bach cello suites rub
elbows from the left and right speakers. And amidst it all are bubbling
voices, their cadence elegantly layered like the lines of string
quartets, their content stacked up like the sections of an orchestra.
The Solitude Trilogy discs are not the only oral tone poems
Gould made. There are also "documentaries" on Pablo Casals, Arnold
Schoenberg, Leopold Stokowski, Richard Strauss, etc. And don't forget
the brain-blowing Glenn Gould Fantasy, included in the double comedy
album Silver Jubilee, issued on cd just this year (Sony 60686). Here
Gould invented a cast of fake music critics, whose contrapuntal
interaction he scripted to simulate a conversation. These characters are
impersonated by either Gould himself or the CBC's Margaret Pascu, both
of whom also impersonate themselves. The culmination of their fake
conversation is a fake radio broadcast of Gould performing a fake
"historic return" concert: 12 pianos plowing through the Arctic ocean on
an oil rig platform during a slight tsunami. Hacking coughs, seal
squeals, and drowning broadcasters soon follow.
Neither the Trilogy nor the Fantasy are usually considered part
of Gould's musical output. Doe-eyed fans who speculate on the Freudian
overtones of Gould's life (picture Roxolana Roslak in lime-green
hotpants) strengthen the impression that these speech compositions are
nothing but an extramusical momento- like an audio Elvis scarf. Worse,
biographers sometimes assert that these records mark the invention of
and sole contribution to the speech-and-sound-effects-as-music genre.
Not true. Contributions, self-conscious or otherwise, have come from
Pierre Henry, Ken Nordine, Schooly D, Mel Blanc, Jocko the DJ, Lord
Buckley, Bryon Gysin, and even Jan and Dean. Gould's are, however, some
of the only overtly contrapuntal audio collages you1ll ever hear. And
this is why the biographers are right when they say that Gould's
ethical-aesthetic position stands or falls with these little fugal
tapestries. Indeed, they both expound and exemplify it.
Though I have my own recurring memories to go on, there's no
particular reason why Gould should warrant your attention this winter.
December 25th is not a holiday exclusive to Canadians. Musing on its
numerological significance will not divulge anything about the lives of
Bach or Schoenberg. For truth be told, the kings of counterpoint are
always a little out of season. Why not if their ideal is an absolute
music that's somehow in the world, but not of it? After all, Santa
himself lets his attitude determine his latitude.
--
-D.H. Douglas
Twisted Village Records
12B Eliot Street
Cambridge MA 02138
Phone: (617) 354-6898
Fax: (617) 354-6899
www.twistedvillage.com