Re: Welcome to new member

[Thomas Buckley <infinite74@hotmail.com>]

Hello everyone,  Thanks again for all your welcome messages.  I have not yet
actually had a chance to play on his old Chickering.  I did, however, play
on his Steinway CD 318 when I was working for the Ottawa Jazz festival in
2000, where we held some concerts at the National Library.  We even used the
CD318 for the concerts, which I was not very excited about.  One of the
musicians actually banged on the keys very hard when he played, it was
outrageous.  I thought that he was going to break a string.  I couldn't even
watch.  It was almost like a horror movie.
   But playing on it myself was a most peculiarly pleasant experience since
I had only recently developed my interest in Gould through Geoffrey
Payzant's book and my parents disc of the '81 Goldbergs, which was my 'soma'
for that summer.
   The funny thing is though, is that I didn't even know it was his piano
until after I sat down at it, when we were checking out the auditorium the
first day. I thought that it was just another steinway, although it was a
little battered up, and then, I suddenly remembered that his piano was at
the library, but I didn't think that it would be available for the public,
for the rest of us mortals to use, so I was still clueless.

   I hadn't even touched the keys, when the sound technician came in and
said "What do you think of the piano?", and I, still completely oblivious,
replied, "Well, it looks a little battered up and the action is really very
light, is this the one that we're going to be using?".

   And he said something like, "Yes, well, you DO know that it's one of
Glenn Gould's pianos don't you?".  And I nearly fell off the chair.  I was
suddenly unable to speak with any degree of articulation.  So I put my hands
on the keys and just, without really thinking about it, played the first few
bars of the Aria, from the Goldbergs.  And just the sound of the keys, of
the first few bars of the Aria, something that I strongly associated with
Gould at the time, hit me quite hard.  It sounded like Gould, as if he was
coming out of the piano, it was like Glenn was suddenly there in the room,
but I couldn't quite rationalize the fact that I was playing on the same
piano that HE used to play on.  I just couldn't wrap my head around it,
initially.  So after that, at every concert for the next week and a half, I
faithfully reminded every musician that was going to use the piano, who's
piano they were really playing on, in the hope that they would treat it with
respect.

    So if any of you can ever get down to Ottawa, I highly recomend going
to the National Library to play on his piano, if you haven't already done
so.  I can't guarantee that your experience will be as glamorous as the one
that was described in this email, but words still don't really do it any
justice, so I had to be generous in using them.

     Just a last quick question, not really about Gould, does anyone, who
lives in Toronto, know of any places to buy good used grand pianos or simply
good places to go piano searching at?  Thanks and see you all later.

-Thomas

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