----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 11:54
PM
Subject: The loser and Schneider, amongst
other things
Dear all,
I'm sorry of
joining so late a couple of interesting threads. This is a very
hard-working time for me, and I have little time to read, even less to write,
about really interesting matters.
First, Bernhard's novel "The loser" (the Italian title, "Il soccombente"
- from the verb "soccombere", "to be overcome" is probably better than the
American one: "the loser" would be "Il perdente", but this word has a
different nuance. Also, the Italian translation of the book is
exceptionally good, and is very effective in giving the reader the pervasive
feeling of uneasiness, of helplessness, of discontent the author was looking
for). Of course, it isn't easy reading, not at all. I
started reading it twice, and was taken off. Being quite hardheaded, I
tried again, and finally got the knack of it, and was completely absorbed, and
enchanted: I read it straight through in one night, and have read it
again many times. The plot is quite simple: three young pianists
meet in Salzburg to attend lessons given by Horowitz; two of them are very
good and promising musicians: the third is ... well, it's Glenn. he is
not promising, he is the best. When one of his friends
listens to him playing the Goldberg variations, he is suddenly annihilated ,
for he knows that he will never be able to play like this, no matter how hard
he will try, and then he decides to stop playing altogether, for his efforts
would lead him nowhere. It is this sense of defeat, of being unable to
become the best pianist in the world, who leads him to stop playing, and
eventually will lead him to commit suicide, after having heard of Glenn's
death while playng for the last time the Goldbergs.
Of course, the novel is not intended to be historically accurate (how do
you fancy Glenn being a pupil of Horowitz in Salzburg? Or dying while playing
the Goldbergs?), and Glenn is never present, he is always spoken of, and
is present only in the memories of the narrator. However, most of
what Bernhard writes is emotionally, immaterially, accurate. Gould is in
the fact the central character of the plot, everything gravitates around
him.
Some contributors to the list rightly pointed out that probably he,
hateful of competition as he was (but see further on), never would have liked
to make lesser musicians uneasy; the point of the novel however is quite
opposite: how could somebody who thought himself to be one of the best
pianists in the world, and who spent his whole life in the pursuit of
becoming the best, accept the simple fact of being instead no more than
a good, even a very good, one, but that there is somebody, a very shy
Canadian, who is simply out of this world, pure genius? Note that the
narrator is not ashamed of learning from Horowitz: this he can accept; what he
cannot deal with is the perception that, no matter how hard he will try, he
will never even approach Gould's musicianship. I don't want to go on
boring you, and I don't know if the English translation is good enough, but
take my advice: give it a try, Bernhard's pessimism and clichés
notwhistanding.
By the way, take a look at the style: in fact, the whole book is just one
long - very long! - paragraph, and there are lots of repetitions - one should
say reprises, I think. Just try to analyze it: it is a score, not
a novel. Look at the very subtle variations in the reprises (if the
translator was able to convey them, of course)! Wish I could read
German.
As I side-note: are you sure that Glenn was really contemptuous of any
competition? Of course, I know his "public" position, and I do
completely agree with it, but ... I seem to remember that once, having been
called at the last minute to substitute for Benedetti Michelangeli in a
concert (Beethoven's Fifth, I believe) he, unbelievably, accepted, saying
something like "How curious! The best pianist in the world substituting for
the second-best!" Isn't this competition? (In fact, no matter how much I
like Michelangeli, I think Glenn was a bit too fair).
Second, many of you wrote recently about Schneider's book "Glenn Gould,
piano solo". I bought it some years ago, when it was translated in
Italian (I wasn't even aware of it having been published in
France). I was quite suspicious, having read that the Author is a
psychonalyst (being a psychologist myself, I'm very worried about the too
common habit of psychologizing "ad libitum" on every conceivable
matter). I shouldn't have worried, Schneider is an accomplished
musicologist as well, and his book provides some of the best insights on Gould
I ever read. He clearly loves Glenn, and is intrigued by his
personality and his art, but he is far from a fanatic (did you ever dream
where the word "fan" comes from?). It is a pity that this book has not
been translated in English. In my view, it is not perfect, but it is
better than most books I've read on this matter (with the obvious exception of
the books, like Monsaingeon's ones, in which Glenn speaks for himself). If you
can, get it in any other language you are acquainted with!
OK. it's quite late, I've got to stop here. More on another
occasion, but, please, go on writing. It is always a delight to read
you
marco
--
Prof. Marco D. Poli
Direttore
Istituto di Psicologia
Facoltà di
Medicina
Scuola di Specializzazione in
Psicologia Clinica
Università di Milano
via T. Pini 1
20134 Milano
ITALY
phone
+39 02 5031 5970
Fax +39 02 5031
5993