Gould's heart in Baroque period?? oder ASCH?

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Juozas wrote:

>So it seems Gould's heart was in Baroque period (one composer,
>basically). Most eager performers and listeners of Bach I know regard
>themselves as a sort of First Class. Other music is inevitably at least
>one step lower in their hierarchy of musical "substantiality" and value,
>in a broad sense.

Can we amend that to Gould's heart being at the feet of Arnold Schoenberg?
As Bazzana points out, convincingly I think, Gould's concept of developing
motivic variation (in Bach and others) came through Schoenberg.

Which composer's name has the most entries in the index of the _Glenn
Gould Reader_, Gould's essays?  Schoenberg, nearly twice as many as any of
Strauss, Beethoven, or Bach.

What does Gould's own string quartet sound like?  Listen to the Schoenberg
quartet #1 a few times, and then stir in a dose of Strauss....

Which composer is mentioned in the _Selected Letters_ more than any other?
Schoenberg (50) followed by Bach (43).  I know, I know, this isn't
statistically valid evidence...but it is suggestive.

What was that book that Gould wrote?  Oh yeah, it was about Schoenberg.
(Published by the University of Cincinnati, 1964: _Arnold Schoenberg: A
Perspective_)

Meanwhile, as for Baroque music, what did Gould know/appreciate of the
17th century, which is the heart of Baroque music?  Bach's music was
already "old-fashioned" by the time he wrote it.  And Gould's Bach (as
opposed to regular Bach...) was a modern concoction through Schoenberg and
others, anyway...Bach as seen from the future, rather than Bach as a
culmination of 17th century music.  Doesn't playing Bach on Bach's own
terms require a solid grounding in 17th century music and techniques
(Italian, French, German, ...)?  Bach-as-seen-from-the-future is fine and
enjoyable, it's just something quite different.

And Gould's own repertoire skips over most of the 17th century.  A lot of
music happened between the deaths of Byrd/Gibbons/Sweelinck in the 1620's
and the young Bach's music c1707.  GG mentioned Frescobaldi, Schutz, and
Buxtehude once each in passing, not sounding complimentary on any of those
occasions.  And no 17th century composers are mentioned in the _Selected
Letters_, either; only Byrd and Gibbons (who both wrote old-fashioned
music more of the 16th than 17th!).  That gap in GG's preferences is just
as gaping as the 19th-century gap.

That's just to say: Gould was not a Baroque fan.

The musical initials tattooed on his heart were "A-S-C-H" (A-Eb-C-B or
Ab-C-B) rather than "B-A-C-H" (Bb-A-C-B).  (And that's not the A-S-C-H
from Schumann's "Carnaval"....)

I hope that this posting is not too much of a shock or disappointment.
Most people probably think of Gould as a "Bachian," but
no........Schoenberg groupie through and through.  *That's* why his Bach
performance style sounds so unlike anyone else's.  Not historical keyboard
practice at all, but Schoenbergian compositional practice.  Gould's dream
was to be a composer............


Bradley Lehman, Dayton VA
home: http://i.am/bpl  or  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl
CD's: http://listen.to/bpl or http://www.mp3.com/bpl

"Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only sparks
from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot