Re: GG and Mozart

["Michael D. Benedetti" <benedett@bluestone.com>]

Greg Romero wrote:
>     This is a misrepresentation of my argument.

I'm sorry if my restatement of your argument was unclear. I do believe
that I responded to your points.

I interpret your claim as this: Gould couldn't play great Mozart (for whatever
reason). He saw this flaw in his playing, and chose to disguise it with
a public display of perversion. Sour grapes.
(If this isn't what you said, then please clarify, at least to me--I'm working
on a Gould-related project, and I'm interested in all insights into GG's
mind.)

My perception of Gould is this: If he had an "inability" to play great
Mozart, he didn't see it as a flaw.

My claim about Gould is this: Even if he saw his inability to play great
Mozart as a flaw, he wouldn't try to hide it with a public display of
perversion. He didn't try to make everyone think he was some infallible
superhero. He was unhappy about his flaws, but he wasn't obsessed with them.

My reasoning about my claim is this:

*Gould was a weirdo. He did not think like most people I've come into contact
with. Therefore I'm much more comfortable with reasoning from what Gould
did in other situations than from what an ordinary person would do in
GG's situation.

*GG _did_ see flaws in himself. We have record of him admitting them.
He wasn't a total megalomaniac. So I can't support my claim by saying
"Gould thought he was perfect."

*How did he choose to hide those flaws too terrible to admit? Did he do
so through public acts of perversity? In some cases, maybe so. But I can't
think of any offhand, and I know of no public acts of perversity on the
order of releasing intentionally bizarre records.

For example, Gould often claimed he wanted to compose, but of course he
barely composed at all. It's been said by many that Gould probably wasn't
a "great" composer, and that he probably realized this, and so he didn't
release any finished compositions. I think that this is a very real
possibility. Certainly Gould didn't seem to be a brilliant composer,
and I'm sure this was a source of frustration for him and thus a "flaw".

Did could then go out and denigrate the art of composition? I don't
recall any Gould quotes along the lines of "interpretation is everything,
composition is nothing." Did Gould create intentionally bizarre compositions,
so that his skills could not be judged against the compositions of the
great? No. Rather, he just didn't compose, although he said over and over
that he "planned to".

If we can expect Gould to be consistent in his actions (which may be
expecting too much), then if Gould _wanted_ to play great Mozart but
was unable to then we would expect him to announce an upcoming Mozart
project every few months, only to see the project delayed again and
again because of more pressing interests. That's what he did with his
plans to compose, his plans to conduct, his plans to visit the Arctic
Circle. 

So maybe Gould "chickened out", but I see zero evidence for this.

I welcome anecdotes and info that would prove me wrong. I've always wanted
a handle on GG, but have never been able to get a glimpse of what was in
his head, or even what he was like as a person. All the accounts seem so
contradictory--someone will recall a dozen situations in which he acted
like a psychopath, then conclude with "But I hope you don't get the
impression that Glenn was crazy, because he wasn't."

Mike

P.S. I apologize for the widespread use of American idioms in this post.