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Gould from the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Dear List,
Here is a summary of an Edward Said article on Gould in the
Chronicle of Higher Education newsletter and thought you might be
interested.
=========================
A glance at the summer issue of "Raritan":
Glenn Gould as the virtuoso intellectual
On the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach,
Edward Said reflects on the achievement of Glenn Gould
(1932-1982), the Canadian pianist. Mr. Said, a professor of
English at Columbia University, suggests that Gould, in his
interpretations of Bach, invented "a genuinely challenging and
complex intellectual content" for the virtuoso performer. Gould
was able, Mr. Said suggests, to "reach towards conclusions that
are not normally sought out by performers but rather by
intellectuals using language only." Early in his career, he
found in Bach, little played by pianists at the time, the
perfect vehicle for "stating a credo about striving for
coherence, system, and invention in thinking about music as an
art of expression and interpretation." Gould undertook to
re-present Bach's work as "an archetype for the emergence of a
rational system" that opposed "the negation and disorder that
surrounds us on all sides." To that end, Gould made each
performance an occasion of "reinvention, of reworking Bach's own
contrapuntal works." Here, Gould's bizarre formulation of
virtuosity helped. His playing was, to say the least, highly
idiosyncratic, as Mr. Said explains: Only one aspect of it was
Gould's renowned, provocative moaning, gesticulating, and
grimacing during performances. More generally, Mr. Said says,
Gould sought to isolate himself from the rituals and conventions
of consumer-oriented performance. For example, he played Bach in
a "preromantic" way, with an "unadorned, unidiomatic,
unpianistic tone." His purpose was to use musical sound as the
material of "rigorous analysis" and to create "nothing less than
an argument about continuity, rational intelligence, and
aesthetic beauty." The article is not available online, but the
journal may be found in many bookstores.
======================
Sean Malone