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Re: Gould, Sentiment and Chopin

"I don't think there is any logic to it, merely personal taste." - Anne
Smith

I'll follow that with, "The heart has its reasons that Reason knows nothing
of.".

 Yes, I think part of the problem here is that we are trying to pigeon-hole
Gould into categories that are easy to define and manipulate to suit our
judgmental objectives.  That is not to say we shouldn't be discussing his
artistry, as we are doing now, but that there is a limit to the amount of
meaningful knowledge that can come from the piercing blows of our cold,
analytic knives as they work their way through Gould's upper torso and
eventually his head, the most desired place of all for the razor sharp edge
of the indisrciminate force of reason. Okay, personally, the greatest or
most appealing aspect of Gould's artistry and personality is mystery.  That
unknown quality that resonantes at the core of this man.  That which we
can't comfortably pin down and define.  Some of us like to call this genius,
and we know many attributes of genius, which are quite apparent in Gould's
work and life, but we don't actually know what it is that lies at the centre
of this.  For if it was easily definable, it wouldn't be what it is.

   None of this should imply that we shouldn't continue talking about one
of our favourite artists, but it is really just to provide some help for us
when we have trouble figuring out exactly why Gould did or didn't do
something.

  I can't understand how some of us are unable to experience the powerful
feeeling and emotion that Gould injects into his performance.  Well, maybe I
can, part of it might be that we are slightly jaded, but it may be that we
are expecting traditional sentimentality or feeling, or more primitive
emotions that we might call sad or happy or even sensual satisfaction, or
even that were expecting an immediate emotional reaction.  This is the
aspect of sentimentality that Gould may have tried to avoid in his
performances.  The feeling that some of us are looking for in Gould is a
highly refined one, it is more subtle, it doesn't come from the pedal or
dynamic exploitations, but maybe from the interpretations themselves, the
careful analysis of the score, the concentration, the personality given to
each voice as they are weaved seamlessly into and out of each other, the
fact that each note is just as important as the next one, the unity of his
interpretations and his vision, even his voice humming away in the
background.  Also, it is the conviction itself, in all his performances,
that carries the emotion forwards.

  Maybe, those are all things and they do not sufficietly account for or
represent direct experience.  But when I listen to Gould, I sense a great
deal of feeling in his performances, sometimes enough to reduce me to near
tears or jubilation, but often it travels right to the centre of my bones.
Some insight or sense of the feeling can also come from furthur reflection
upon the music, after it's had time to settle in one's mind.
 None of this is mutually exclusive with the transparency and the analytic
aspect of his performances, I think that we are indeed forcing a
polarisation upon an intellectual component and an emotional one, and this
is not entirely correct, as they stem from the same place, they are
inseparable really, but they manifest themselves in different ways.  One
only has to watch the video of the Goldberg Variations to be witness to a
complete unity between Gould and the music, an utter involvement in the
moment, this to me, carries enormous emotional power.

  Some of you may still be wondering what happened to the simple matter of
the sound of the music itself, the physical aspect that allows us to connect
with the music.  Certainly, Gould doesn't sound like Periah, or anybody and
sometimes, the sounds he produces and the way he puts them together can seem
odd or even lacking in emotion.  But Gould himself seemed to want to
transcend the basic direct experience of music and enter a place where the
music could be better realised, perhaps in the mind, it is certainly a
timeless place, but it was also a place that demanded a refining of the
emotional aspects, the ones that are directly dependent upon the actual
sound of the music itself and allowing for the expresssion of deeper
feelings, more closely connected to his internal conception and realisation
of the music.

  Perhaps this is why he chose not to play Chopin and preferred Bach,
because Bach's music more easily lends itself to the conceptual approach
that Gould seemed to take.  That's not to say that Gould was purely an
idealist, he wasn't an academic, but a musician who still had to play the
piano and he still had to be concerned with the actual sound of the music,
but that this seemed to take the backseat to his higher ideals.

  None of this should be forced upon a listener and part of the Gould's
attraction is evident here, the fact that his music touches us all in a
unique way.  It is almost as if, when listening to his music, that he is
speaking to you directly and only you, that you are part of a unique and
spontaneous experience, as if the music is being created right there as it's
being played or at least that the listener is being invited to take part in
the creative process.  Gould said that he always wanted to restore the unity
between composer, performer and listener, that is "shattered by the modern
concert hall".   Not all of Gould's music causes me to react in the way I
expressed before, I do prefer Periah's Mozart recordings to Gould's and if
anything, I find humour in Gould's Mozart.  It is really his Bach recordings
that this was written in light of, especially his Goldberg's, the partitas,
the last few Contrapuntus', and lots of others.

  Again, this is really a personal expression and perhaps I have betrayed
myself in my own analysis, and a long-winded one at that.  Thank you all
very much for reading this far and I apologise for any eye strain that has
resulted, I know mine are slowly starting to recede back into my head so I'm
going to stop now.

Thanks,

Thomas


From: Anne Smith <smithqa@NEXICOM.NET>
Reply-To: Anne Smith <smithqa@NEXICOM.NET>
To: F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: Re: Gould, Sentiment and Chopin
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 13:51:53 -0500

From: Allan MacLeod :

>When you think about it, Gould's
> failure to record Chopin is a great loss for us.

I agree.

> He did seem to claim
> that he just didn't find Chopin musically/structurally challenging
> enough

I read somewhere that he said he didn't record Chopin because the way he
sat
at the piano meant he couldn't produce a big enough dynamic range.  This of
course doesn't explain his Beethoven.

> and sometimes he rejected Chopin as being too emotional, in which
> case I think he confused the composer with some of his contemporary
> piansists.

Yes and this can also be said of many pianists today.

> How he could be so fond of Richard Strauss and not like
> Chopin is also something of a mystery.

Most of us have composers who we just do not care for.  I certainly do.  I
don't think there is any logic to it, merely personal taste.

This is an interesting thread. I'd like to hear from more people.

Anne 


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