RE: [F_minor] re: worldwide popularity polls

["Robert Merkin" <bobmerk@earthlink.net>]

Ah heck, looks as if I hit the REPLY ALL button by mistake. 

===============

Hiya Sam --

In this Vale of Sorrow and Woe, it's authentically pleasant to run into troubles that make a fellow reach for the word "hagiography."

And there is something a bit bittersweetly funny about this community of misery. To people of my vintage, it seems like only yesterday that I was shocked and horrified at the news of his untimely death. 

But it was not yesterday. It was twenty-five years ago. And we haven't been wearing our seatbelts for the inevitable high-speed encounter with Time's big speed bump, and the inevitable unpleasantnesses that accompany it. We've hit the ghastly "Glenn who?" moment.

I'm perhaps the worst of the list's scholars, but I seem to recall that even Saint J.S. Bach fell into centuries of neglect, and our modern reverence dates to a revival from concerts (to raise money for his Congo hospital), recordings and writings by Albert Schweitzer. So if Glenn is having a sad decline in popularity, I have no doubts that there will be happy and glorious rebounds ahead. Because there really wasn't or isn't anything like his music, and his recordings aren't even burdened by outdated technology. For the work he chose, he picked a perfect moment to immortalize his performances.

In fact technology just got much worse. My wife just bought her first iPod, and it's fine for her beloved Rod Stewart records, but the mp3 is an inherently crappy format for the fidelity and dynamic range classical music needs. O Tempora, O Mores! The current issue of Rolling Stone has a pretty good article about the inherent audio shortcomings of the ubiquitous mp3. But this age we've crashed into of buying and sharing music over the Internet doesn't bode well for Glenn, whose true worshippers demand CDs, FM and the ancient sacred vinyl.

"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph."

Fasten those seatbelts! But I'm pretty convinced that Glenn will have one of the richest and longest rides into the far future that any musical artist ever had. He'll share a time machine with Caruso and Billie Holiday. I hope he and Elvis can find things to chat about.

Bob Merkin
Massachusetts USA

P.S. Your work has been not just excellent, but of seminal value to Glenn's voyage to the future, and I have been remiss about telling you how appreciative I've been. 

Maybe there is value to sovereign nations -- it takes a Canada to keep venerating Glenn Gould and to watch over his holy shrines and relics. If Glenn had been a Yankee, I don't know if the USA would have done half as good a job of loving and caring for him. Bobby Fischer was one of ours, and our government spent his last decade chasing him all over the planet to toss him into prison. (I think the crime was playing chess overseas without a license.)


> [Original Message]
> From: Sam Cronk <Sam.Cronk@civilisations.ca>
> To: <f_minor@email.rutgers.edu>
> Date: 1/23/2008 2:02:00 PM
> Subject: [F_minor] re: worldwide popularity polls
>
>
> Just a few facts to think about, based on my ongoing experience with the
> Glenn Gould exhibition in Ottawa/Gatineau:  fewer than 50% of
> museum-going Canadians (who are otherwise literate and thoughtful souls)
> know who Glenn Gould is or was. For visitors from French Canada, that
> number is much lower. 
>
> We've had visitors from Berlin, Vienna, Tokyo, and Dublin who know
> almost every album, every nuance of Gould's performance style, who
> couldn't wait until the exhibit opened.  But from across Canada and the
> US, there is just not an overwhelming sense of recognition or
> intellectual/emotional/aesthetic investment.  Even among local and
> regional music departments, there is a mixed response not to the exhibit
> but to "the idea of Gould".  Perhaps that's simply a reaction against
> hagiography.
>
> Granted, "museum audiences" don't necessarily know about art music and
> Canadians are notorious for forgetting or undercutting our own icons,
> but really: neither the face or soundscape are familiar for the majority
> outside the academies.  Visitors are generally interested enough to find
> out more, to walk into the exhibit and see what's the fuss is all about
> --- but name recognition is simply not very high.  
>
> Now, whether that is important to this group or to the legacy of Glenn
> Gould is another matter, but it is an interesting thought for your
> consideration. 
>
> Thanks, 
>
> Sam Cronk
> Curator of Canadian Music
> Canadian Museum of Civilization
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