Re: GG on organ

[Anne Smith <smithqa@nexicom.net>]

Elmer Elevator wrote:
> >I have the Gould organ LP. Does anyone know what Gould's aesthetic and
> >technical feelings for the organ were? He certainly doesn't sound as if
he
> >dislikes it.

Glenn Gould's mother played the organ and GG began playing it very early.
He studied organ with Frederick C. Silvester from 1942 to 1949.  Silvester
is a big name in organ here.
>From Glenn Gould The New Listener by Kevin Bazzana:
"In childhood, he apparently loved the instrument as much as the piano, and
only settled definitively on the piano in his teens.  Robert Fulford recalls
that, at about age twelve, Gould decided that his natural instrument was not
the piano but the organ, and he wanted his father to install a full-sized
organ in the house; his father had to patiently explain why this was not
exactly feasible.. Still, the organ was very influential on Gould's piano
playing - on his fondness for Baroque music, on his tendency to "think with
his feet" and emphasize bass lines, on his obsession with counterpoint, on
his highly articulated piano sound, on the general "uprightness" in his
playing."

GG's concert debut was as an organist -- Dec.12 1945 for the Casavant
Society in the Eaton Auditorium.

Unless you take a job as a church organist it is difficult to get practice
time on an organ.  Even though the organ belongs to the people of the
church, no organist likes for someone to come in and fiddle around with
his/her stops.  We all fiddle around with the stops.  That is part of the
fun of playing the organ. It is *very* annoying to come in to "your" organ
and find all the registrations changed.

Anne