no, not that syndrome again!

[Marcos Maffei <mmaffei@uol.com.br>]

O come on, Anne

from your posts I deemed you a rather sensible, reasonable person.

Please, would you try to stop thinking that GG had any mental disorder
other than simply being who he was? A highly talented, enormously gifted
boy who also had the rare (and lucky thing too, that he was born in
Canada and not in this hell of conformity, the USA) chance of being
indulged to be what he wanted to be by his parents, no matter how odd he
turned out to be? 

And, yeah, odd he was; and no wonder, because he was also a genius (and
I don?t use this word unsparingly; for me only very few deserve it, a
dozen or so: Leonardo, perhaps Monteverdi, Shakespeare, Bach, perhaps
Rembrandt, ...and, coming to this (or the past) century, almost surely
Stravinski, undoubtely Picasso (even if I dislike most of his
paintings), and... Rauschenberg - by this list, you?d be right to
suppose that I have a theory about what a ...genius... is; in a
nutshell, this is it: a genius is a person for whom it is
preternaturally easy to do things that are, for most of the human
beings, extremely difficult, hard to achieve; but for them, it?s as easy
as ...rub their heads, or whatever; that?s why Beethoven or Cezanne, for
instance, don?t qualify in my list; their achievement, enormous as it
is, was hard-won, painstakingly extracted from what they had at hand,
and in their minds; think, in contrast, about how easily, wonderfully,
everything that Bach composed comes with unsurpassable intertwinned
counterpoint, and what is more, a deeply moving harmonic progression,
the whole of it strikingly beatiful, meaningful, wow! Or Shakespeare,
why is he so quotable? Even in his first (and worst) plays, there are
lines that leave you out of breath, so right they sound, and mean, at
the same time!!! They surely must hava suffered from some disorder.
Asperger syndorme or whatever? Or perhaps, another disease will be fuuly
detected in time; and, properly treated, we?ll be duly rid of another
Shakespeare, or another Bach, or - thank god - another GG, that strange
humming creature...

...and Anne, have you ever tried to figure what is the life of the
internationally scheduled virtuoso?  
Tuesday in Budapest, beethoven?s 4. Saturday in Prague, Waldstein, Les
adieux, Appasionata. Again the same program in Sunday. Then, to Milan
you go. Meet mr. Maestro (but perhaps you already palyed with him
...where? Well, somewhere else.); and Mozart it will be. Cheers from the
audience. Sidney, now: Scriabin, may be? No, they want to hear this
Beethoven. You landed there 12 hours ago, a press conference awaits you,
and... there you are, o what a brave man: the chords that begin the
Beethoven concerto, ...I?d do my best to hinder, severely, the piano
(which, usually, is far from what the pianist expects...).

So, the most offending thing that GG did against the (on going, and
getting much worse) status quo of  music making, retiring from the
international concert scene, was and is amongst the most reasonable (and
indeed, as much of what gg?s done, eerily prophetic) things that any
musician as gifted as he was (and interested in developing his gift as
much as he could) could do. 

And, for our infinite, ever-expanding reward, he did. 
Even, and thanks again, outrageously so. 

We should be (and it?s obvious that all in this list are) thankful, 
that he dared to be this GG that we all love to hear. 

So, please, Anne...

stop thinking that he had a problem, or a disorder. Or whatever.

We all have, or ..should have. 
And GG has no part in the problem;
because, most of the times, he just sounds as a part of the solution, or
some answer, or whatever;
at least, as an opinion to hear, and what a beautiful comment (humming
and all) he will forever offer!

[and for someone who complained about the bach?s sonatas for gamba:
yeah, how underrated!
the andante of bwv1028 is... beyond words, Gould gently imposes such an
overall yearning for... I don?t know what, but... wow!]   
   
Just listen to the music, 
Anne, and feel free to love it,
as it flows. Or not, or whatever.


Marcos


PS. I read most of what is in the links that you directed us, about the
so-called Asperger-syndrome. And I found it so dreadful that I was
ashamed to send my reaction (utterly inscensed that it was: sheer
bullshit!) to the list, or to you. Please, Anne, think again: it?s no
syndrome, no disease, indeed nothing at all to be diferent, and much
less to be unique, singular, or... a Glenn Gould of sorts. 

Just think a little, how it could have been being GG: a grand steinway
(or more than one, if you please) right ahead of you, and you can just
sit there and play ...at fisrt sight, whatever you want to play;
moreover, a record of it can be made almost instantly, and sold
overworld; and you can record this music exactly the way you want,
which is not altogethetr absurd, but close to that, and still you can do
it, and, what's more, you believe that you can prove that, and...
what's absolutely taht, and more: you do that, and more...

And there comes Anne,
saying: you must be sick!

PPS. Sorry, Anne. But it sounds so like it..