Re: Louis Hardin/Edgard Varese/Philip Glass?

[Dominic Lesnar <domjin@earthlink.net>]

On Saturday, December 16, 2000 at 1:03 PM, Alice DuBois wrote:

>Has anyone read or hear about Gould's ideas about any contemporary
composers
>such as the ones mentioned in the heading?  I haven't seen anything myself
>and I was wondering if he sort of knew of these guys and what they were
>doing, or if he just sort of ignored them?  I get the feeling he ignored
>them, but i'm not sure.

I don't believe Gould ever commented on these particular composers. I'm sure
he was somewhat aware of them. Remember, he did write disparagingly about
Terry Riley's "In C", and once a friend did suggest, albeit tongue-in-cheek,
that Gould announce his return to the stage and subsequently perform John
Cage's "4:33" (a piece for piano where the pianist sits at the keyboard in
silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds), an idea that he rejected
flat out. So he was aware of contemporary composers per se, but their
aleatory style would certainly not have held much interest for him.

Speaking of Philip Glass, I must share my first encounter with his music. It
was about '84 and Glass was the subject of a cover story in Keyboard
magazine. In those days (pre CD era) every so often a "flexidisk" was
included in the magazine, a kind of cheap, thin plastic record.

In the interview, the author went to great lengths to explain that, while
Glass' music seemed highly repetitive, a close listening would reveal a
subtle and sophisticated rhythmic manipulation. Armed with this insight I
turned to the flexidisk and prepared myself for this "close listening", of
which undoubtedly I was capable.

Nice intro, I thought. A solo work for electric organ. Extremely busy, fast
playing. Very precise. But no variation. I listened closer. A nice motif,
but somewhat... well, repetitive. Listen harder, I said to myself. Nope,
same passage, over and over and over. COME ON, I said, get on with it.
Repetition to the point of annoyance. Surely this can't go on FOREVER. It
was then that I realized that the cheap flexidisk had been skipping on my
turntable, repeating the same few seconds of the record ad nauseum.

Dominic Lesnar