Russia and Gould's influence on the mp3 controversy

[Vincent Vo <Govincevo@aol.com>]

It's about time that there's a documentary account of Gould's journey in
Russia!  An acquaintance of mine here in Los Angeles is the former principal
violinist of the St. Petersburg Symphony. He has an expression in heavy
Russian that goes something like... "In Russia, Gould is like God."

I don't know how computer savvy the members of the f-minor digest can be, but
in the file-swapping p2p software, Kazaa, the most downloaded classical
musician by far is Glenn Gould. Sometimes, I would try to search for mp3's of
Arthur Rubinstein, Mitsuko Uchida, and Sviatoslav Richter... and there would
be absolutely none availible. However, mp3's of Glenn Gould are absolutely
rampant.

In fact, at one point I saw almost all of his availible recordings with the
exception of concerto recordings due to the length.

I like this idea to a certain extent considering most of the users of these
file swapping softwares are teenagers and college students. So the idea that
younger individuals are listening to Glenn Gould's music in enormous amounts
is encouraging to me.

Early this year, I remember I had a conversation with a piano student at the
Manhattan School of Music, who needed to play a Brahms piece for her jury. I
asked if she's ever considered the A major Intermezzo of Opus 118. She
replied she didn't like the piece too much because it sounded too much like a
"lullaby." I told her that she should go to Kazaa, download Gould's recording
of it, and then report back to me what she thinks...

Two months ago, she played the A major Intermezzo, along with Beethoven's
13th Sonata, and a Liszt etude for her jury... she got a B+

Kids these days ;-)