GG: Gould and pacifism

[Michael Arnowitt <arnowitt@sover.net>]

I recently listened to the two documentaries by Gould (one on Stokowski, one
on Casals) released at the gathering in Toronto this past September.  In
both, Gould places pretty near the beginning these artists' views on the
need for a change in the world toward a viewpoint that I would describe as
pacifist (defining pacifism as I do in the more broader sense as has been
been elaborated in this century by Gandhi and many others in the nonviolence
movement -- substitute another word if the term rubs you the wrong way).  In
the Casals documentary Gould also includes some personal opinion by a Casals
biographer criticizing the Vietnam war.

I know Gould was a fanatic newspaper reader and so certainly followed world
events.  Was he a pacifist, do you think, himself -- is it a coincidence
that he put in both documentaries these anti-war viewpoints?

As you can perhaps guess, I am a pacifist myself...so Casals and Stokowski's
comments were quite moving to me, definitely not what you would expect to
hear in a musician documentary.

Michael