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I think this very
interesting discussion is going to drift toward the unintentionally fuzzy and
perpetually unresolved until somebody comes up with a good, solid, functional
definition of "romantic."
Some of us are talking
about the body of classical music called Romantic. Some of us are talking about
personality traits often labelled "romantic."
In Gould, perhaps we have
a brilliant musician whose personality was decidedly romantic, but who was
primarily attracted to an un-Romantic or pre-Romantic repertoire. If there's a
connection between the two definitions, perhaps he was most comfortable with
Bach as an antidote to the romantic aspects of his personality he was powerless
to control.
As for his personality,
anybody who chooses to take That Train to Hudson Bay to wander through an
edge-of-the-world town infested with polar bears ... let me say from personal
experience ... we're talking Personality Romantic big-time; That Train was lousy
with fellow travellers, all raised in decidely un-romantic cultures and times,
who had purposely given carte blanche to the Romantic in their souls.
Anybody who can choose
between the tropics, the temperate zone and the Arctic, and who finds himself
lured into the Arctic, to a place that promises a chance to be devoured by the
world's largest land carnivore ... well, that's where Mary Shelley's
"Frankenstein" concludes, in the Earth's most forbidding, austere,
bleak -- and romantic -- landscape.
Bob / Elmer
P.S. Polar Bear Season in Churchill
Ontario Canada is the cusp of September / October -- think very seriously about
booking NOW for the Winnipeg-Churchill "Polar Bear
Express."
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