Please, I could know Your personal think about
the GG's earliest Compositions published in the recent
Spring"Glenn Gould Magazine".
"Our Gifts"
composed when Glenn was ten years old and "2 Pieces
for Organ" composed at
age 18.
I hope other people respond to your question. Here
is what I think:
We have to remember Glenn Gould was a teenager when he
began the "2 Pieces for Organ." He drafted these when he was
passionate about Twelve-Tone music. It is wonderful to have music
written in GG's own hand. I wish he had finished them. They are
not playable as is. This rough sketch looks very
interesting.
The song "Our Gifts":
Um .. you have to remember that at this time all
of Canada was involved in the war effort. My parents told me that this
was all Canadians could think about at this time. Glenn's father was too
old to enlist. Everybody here did all they could to help, even school
children. It is quite likely that many of Glenn's classmates lost
parents in Europe. I am not familiar with too many patriotic war songs,
but it seems to me that this song was very
typical of the times. Still, it is amazing that a ten year old boy got
music published!
We have discussed GG's composing skill before on this
list. Most of what we have was done when he was very young. In my
opinion, if he had lived and composed seriously as he planned, he would have
given us brilliant music. Most of us improve with age. It is not
fair to judge his composing talent on work he did as a teenager.
I 'm impressed by these performances and I'm
grateful to "The Glenn Gould Foundation" for this
publication.
Me too.
Anne