GG and musicological writing

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

This morning I wrote:

>(...) [Gould] was *not* a scholar in the league of the people I
>mentioned.  His contributions as a writer don't resemble classic
>academic scholarship; his writing style probably wouldn't make it past a
>first-year graduate course. Take a look at Dr Gould's published book, a
>guest lecture recast as an essay.  _Arnold Schoenberg--A Perspective_,
>Cincinnati, 1964.  The complete text is on pp 107-128 of the _Reader_.
>Gould's methods of using evidence aren't scientific.  His sentences are
>wordy and padded with adverbs.  The tone is chatty.  He makes his points
>with unsupported generalizations.  He brings his personal preferences
>and value judgments into the essay in a way that no real musicologist
>would be allowed to do. There is only one footnote.  And he does not cite
>the research or analytical work of anyone else in the field, except an
>unnamed music critic "in one of the leading American national magazines."
>This essay is wholly Gould's personal opinion about the music, writing as
>one of Schoenberg's biggest fans.  It's an entertaining and informative
>piece, but it isn't scholarship.

I should point out: when I said, "his writing style probably wouldn't make
it past a first-year graduate course," it's not speculation.  I'm speaking
as one who has been through such a sequence of graduate musicology
courses.  The professors correctly ripped my writing apart for exactly
those reasons, and showed me why that style is unacceptable in the field.
They trained me to recognize all those flaws in drafts of supposedly
scholarly essays and to revise them out.  It's obvious that no one ever
subjected Gould's work to those same rigors.  I don't consider myself a
scholarly writer, either, but I know enough of the field to recognize that
Gould's writing doesn't even resemble scholarly work.  Any real scholar
checking his work would red-pencil it heavily.

Similarly, his musical interpretations go against just about everything
that is verifiable in the field of "historically informed performance."
What historically informed performer would be caught dead playing a
staccato appoggiatura or Gould's tempos?  Gould didn't even care to follow
explicit instructions in the music of living composers: witness the
reaction of Jacques Hetu to Gould's recording of his Variations (see the
notes in Sony CD 52677).  He just went his own way.

Bob asserted:

>But I think Gould did know a lot more than most critics and historical
>specialists -- and his actual playing talents made what he knew far more
>meaningful than for ordinary scholars. He knew what all this meant way
>down on the finger level.

All I can say in polite company is: I think it's the other way around.
Gould's playing talents down on the finger level made him supremely
indifferent to the work of ordinary scholars.  Gould could afford to
ignore the serious work of historical specialists because his own way was
compelling enough to the general public, and immensely profitable.  On the
finger level, Gould's playing is the bad boy extending the middle digit
toward musicology.  With both hands.  It's an affront to those of us who
really are the certifiable historical specialists (players and/or
researchers) to hear an opinion that Gould was a master of this field.
Yes, he was brilliantly creative as a thinker and phenomenally skilled as
a player.  But he didn't even walk onto the same playing field as anybody
else, much less learn to catch the ball.  He didn't need to.  He did quite
well enough with his own ball and field and game.  He was thrust into
romantic stardom at a young age, and he stayed that way.  That's part of
his appeal.  His art is _sui generis_ and can hardly be compared
meaningfully with anything else.

I remain a Gould fan, even though I disagree with the way he writes and
the way he plays.  I find him entertaining and thoughtful.  He brings out
aspects of the music that scholarship wouldn't.  He was a creative artist.
It's enjoyable to see how Gould reacted to things from his position as an
untrained intuitive musician.  He probed the music deeply according to his
own prejudices and insights, uncontaminated by real scholarship; that's
what makes his views interesting and unique.  (And that's why I react so
strongly against any notion that Gould was scholarly.)  I listen to Gould
to hear a fresh and strange approach, a way that "wrong" playing and
"wrong" thinking can work OK anyway.  Gould is *fun*.  That's not to say
that other approaches aren't also fun; they are.  Gould is just so
outrageously weird most of the time that it's either "you gotta love it or
you gotta hate it."

Gould's recordings and writings are worth hearing/reading because they're
by Gould and about Gould.  And they lead to the exploration of music that
is interesting with or without Gould.  One of Gould's greatest strengths
was his ability to get people to listen closely to the unfamiliar, to
start exploring it for oneself.


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