Improving listening

[Allan MacLeod <allan.macleod@usask.ca>]

I have to agree with Anne that listening to Gould (and reading him) has
dramatically changed the way I listen to music and I would say has
improved it, although as I indicated in an earlier message this may also
be partly attributable to the clarity that digital recording offers.
Gould simply was able to lift polyphony off the page and make me hear
it.  I no longer heard a pleasing assemblage of notes which sounded
harmonious, but I was able to hear, and virtually see, the presence of
and interweaving of separate lines of music.  This carried over into my
listening to other music--whether it is the fugues in the Missa
Solemnis, the sextets in Mozart and Donizetti operas, or the absolutely
glorious trio and duet that conclude Rosenkavalier.  But the downside of
this is that I can no longer listen to music and do something else at
the same time.  I suspect that many of us are or have been in the
practice of reading and listening to music at the same time, but since
the immersion in Gould I can no longer do this.  It may also be that our
capacity for polyphasism declines as we age.
Being a leftie, I sometimes wondered if Gould's ability to bring out the
separate themes in a fugue or any complexly harmonic work had something
to do with the strength of his left hand.  Off hand, aside from Paul
Wittgenstein who was left-handed of necessity, can anyone think of any
other left-handed pianists?  And I wonder if Gould ever played any of
the concertos Wittgenstein commissioned?
        Allan