GG

["Joseph Podlesnik" <veronese@jerseycape.com>]

As I hum and sway rhythmically while typing at the keyboard, using a
flat-fingered technique ala GG, allow me to tell you my story:

How did I discover the music of Glenn Gould? -- ironically enough, through
the recordings of another musical figure thought to be Goulds
temperamental nemesis: Vladimir Horowitz. 

It began in 1980, when as an undergraduate art student in college, I saw
Bob Rafelsons film Five Easy Pieces, starring Jack Nicholson. (In the
film, Nicholson plays a concert pianist disillusioned by the music world.)
In one scene, Nicholsons character is alone in a room performing the
Chopin Prelude No. 4 in E-flat minor. I didnt know the name of the piece
or who the composer was, but as soon as I heard it, I fell in love. 

Following some persistence and research, I found out the name of the
composition  and its composer. After this, I bought or borrowed from the
local library every record I could find on Chopin. Ill never forget my
first record: Chopins complete Preludes by Claudio Arrau. As it turned
out, most of the other recordings I acquired were by Horowitz. His Chopin
absolutely mesmerized me. I then bought every record that had Horowitzs
name on it. Much like the frenzy that surrounded Franz Liszt, I found
myself  becoming obsessed with the piano -- with the romance and the
authority which (as I believed then) only the piano could command. 

After about a year, I began, naturally, to do research on the musicians.
While looking through an anthology on pianists, I came upon an entry with a
photo of an odd, rumpled-looking musician leaning up against his piano with
his socks off. My god. Who is this? I said to myself. He looks like the
James Dean of the classical music world. Soon after, I bought one of GGs
records: the first 8 of J.S. Bachs preludes/fugues from the Well-Tempered
Clavier, book II. (I recall the second record I bought featured Bachs
Italian Concerto and Partitas 1 & 2.) What struck me most about his
recordings was that I not only HEARD them, I FELT them -- the vibrations,
that is. It was uncanny. I felt an incredible close proximity to the
instrument and to the recording PROCESS, unlike any other record Ive ever
heard. The recordings had a tactile immediacy I didnt hear in the
Horowitz. With the Gould, I heard the keyboard, not the concert atmosphere
that separates the listener from the keyboard. With the Gould, you felt you
were right on top of the piano strings. There was a certain private,
insulated feeling surrounding his music that I came to identify with. I was
also intrigued by Goulds vocalese, as its been put. In addition to this,
his daring and analytical interpretations were breathtaking to witness. By
the time I learned more about him (1984, 85) he had passed away.