Re: GG: The Firebird that is creativity...

[David Daniel <DanielFamily@worldnet.att.net>]

At 07:57 AM 1/23/97 +0000, you wrote:
 
>He said, 'It's either Schoenberg or Brahms, what I write.' He showed me
>some sketch of something he had worked on, as if to prove how bad he was as
>a composer. He said, 'Look at this -- '

As an (extremely) amateur composer, I am constantly aware of this feeling. 
When I was about twelve I gave some short piano compositions I had written
to a local conductor, apologizing that they sounded like other people's works.
The conductor said back that I should never apologize for that and that every
composer starts somewhere before he finds his own voice.  

It's very true.  I guess GG never was able to find his own voice (except in
the Solitude Trilogy which is uniquely _his_).  Look at Schubert.  He wrote
more than 900 cataloged compositions (probably more are somewhere undiscovered)
and it's only in the last 200 or so that he developed the richly harmonized
and well developed style that make him a great composer.  The same is true
with Mozart.  (Maybe Schubert and Mozart are bad examples considering they
weren't
two of GG's favorite composers. :)


If Gould had only had more time for composition, he might have ended up as
one of the great composers.  On the other hand, he was discouraged when he
discovered he couldn't write another Grosse Fuge like Beethoven.

I hope I'm not putting words into Gould's mouth that aren't really there.

Regards,
David