Re: Memories of Maude Harbour - or - Variations on a theme of Arthur Rubinstein

[Anssi Korhonen <altkorho@MAPPI.HELSINKI.FI>]

Lainaus "Harding.Matthew" <Matthew.Harding@CIC.GC.CA>:

> >
> So the moral of the story? As someone mentioned before, most concert
> pianists of the day had enormous respect for GG and his beliefs. The
> few
> that didn't, (Horowitz, Rubinstein, Brendel) were leftover from a
> bygone
> era where pianists were considered virtuosos and the ground they walked
> on was worshipped.
>
> I think GG was more than a little ahead of his time in that regard. I
> think he realized that the concept of a performer as a public idol was
> a
> short-lived concept, whereas the multi-media, multi-track thinking
> machine that he became has far more staying power. After all, we're
> celebrating his achievements still 20 years after he died, and when was
> the last time there was a Horowitz/Brendel/Rubinstein Gathering, or new
> plays or novels being written about those guys? I rest my case.
>
> Best regards,
> Matthew
>
>
Greetings,

The contrast between Glenn Gould as a "technologically advanced" musician ahead
of his time and someone like Horowitz or Rubinstein as leftovers from a bygone
era (personally I wouldn't include Brendel in this lot, since there's nothing
of a public idol in him, it seems to me) strikes me as an exaggeration.

The picture of a "musical performer" as a public idol is very much alive today:
witness any number of conductors, opera-singers or instrumentalists; it's
around them that the classical music industry is revolving. This, at any rate,
is how the big recording-companies, managers, press, radio, TV etc. would like
to have it. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is, obviously, another issue.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that, for most people familiar with the name of
Glenn Gould, he, the technologically advanced recluse, is something of an
eccentric among pianists, and the standard is still set by such "stage-
performing artists" (if this is an appropriate term) as Horowitz, or Rubinstein
or their present-day equivalents (or inferiors).

It is, of course, another issue which one of the two one "prefers", Gould or
the public ones. I don't think that the reputation - or more importantly, the
value - of the likes of Horowitz or Rubinstein is essentially tied up with
their role of public virtuosos; their art can certainly outlive the possible
(if, in my opinion, unlikely)disappearance of musical performers as public
idols. For someone like me who never saw Horowitz or Rubinstein on stage (not
even Brendel), there's no such great difference between them and Glenn Gould,
as far as their art goes. I know their achievements only through recordings,
and I can only say that I "celebrate" them quite as much as I do Gould. Nor am
I exceptional in this respect.

Also (but this, perhaps, is digressing)I sense something of a paradox in Glenn
Gould's having become very much a public figure, the subject of gatherings,
books, films, psychoanalytical dissection and whatnot. There's a real danger of
this public "person" becoming a barrier between listeners and music, a barrier
that, I think, GG himself tried to tear down with his disappearance from stage
and his enthusiasm for technology. I don't think there's any great difference
between this barrier and that created by the worship of public idols. I do
admit, of course,, that GG is/was an exceedingly interesting personality and
musical thinker


I hope I didn't misconstrue the moral of Matthew's story,

regards

anssi korhonen