GG: Atonalism

[Kristen Immoor <kimmoor@mindspring.com>]

Hi gang,
    One last question before we leave that old Mozart thread behind. A
point was raised that perhaps Gould championed the more "alternative"
composers because there was less tradition at stake and therefore less
reputation to live up to. It was the less competitive route. It could be
inferred from this that composers like Berg or Schoenberg, indeed the
entire minimalist or atonalist school, provided a wide field of "throwaway
pieces" that Gould believed he could raise to high art. Were the works of
these composers low art to begin with? Schoenberg especially is a hot topic
on the classical newsgroups, no one can seem to decide if he was a freak
occurrence in the world of music whose compositions were at best a novelty,
or if he was an unsung genius who is vastly underrated and deserves more
respect. There can be little question that atonalism never really "caught
on" as a style of western music, and I wonder what it was exactly that
Gould found so fascinating in the style. Was GG just being perverse when he
said that Schoenberg would be revered as the greatest composer of the
century?

    Here's a hypothetical guess. At one point I thought that perhaps Gould,
with his taste for "skeletal" pianistic interpretation and his tendency to
flesh out a score with his own humming and vocalization, found that the
works of the atonalist school left him the most room between the notes
within which to imagine his own counter-composition. When listening to
Schoenberg's sparse framework of music, one can only imagine what intricate
accompaniment someone like Gould would hear deep within the piece. I'm
reminded of a scene in David Young's play (and I'll summarize at risk of
butchering this fine script) where the Gould prodigy describes a practice
session at Simcoe during which a cardinal flew into the glass of the music
room window. Glenn recalls running out into the cold and staring down at
the bird, watching the wind ruffle the red feathers as he waited for the
small creature to begin breathing again. Sadly the bird was dead. In this
recollection, Gould ties the incident to his 1955 interpretation of the
Goldberg var.25, saying that when the time came to record this piece he
thought back to that bird, that splash of red against the snow, and he
played the piece at a doleful and dignified legato, leaving enough space
between the notes for the bird to fly away. Though this vignette is a work
of fiction, there is a reason to it that I find compelling. What was going
on in Gould's mind in the space between the notes? I doubt that it was
silence, it may even have been color or texture if Gould was a synesthete,
but regardless I'm inclined to think that in GG's own self-important way he
admired the atonalist composers because they left so much room for Gould to
play quasi-composer. He could improvise a new and perfect mental
accompaniment every time he performed the work, and it would never be
scrutinized by the public; it was an opportunity for an untouchable moment
of ecstatic interiority. It didn't matter if the rest of the world heard
the music and thought it had merit, what GG heard was hearing in *his* mind
was genius. (Granted, this theory springs a few leaks when one takes into
account Gould's actual compositions, which seemed themselves to be attempts
at atonalism; but perhaps he was trying to play both sides of the game,
sort of like his dream of conducting himself playing the piano. Maybe he
was writing compositions that left room for future composition. Maybe he
just wanted to be thought of as modern.)

    But enough wild hypothesizing; why do the atonalists get the short
shrift from the music world? Is it generally accepted that one who focuses
their efforts on this unpopular body of work is a less competent - or less
competitive - musician?

Best regards,
Kristen "Can't believe the offers to house me in Toronto didn't come
pouring in" Immoor ;-)

______________________________________________________________________________

"There must be room for mess, for vulgarity. Sometimes, we have to touch
people."

                                  -- Bruce Charlton, writing as Glenn Gould