ebook img

The Glenn Gould Reader PDF

495 Pages·1990·9.55 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview The Glenn Gould Reader

T E - H R E A D E R EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY TIM PAGE (continued from front flap) When Glenn Gould died in 1982 at the age of discover that almost every item on such a list fifty, he left behind an astonishing legacy: in could be attributed directly to the influence of the tw~nty-six years he had proved himself to be not recording"), on the purpose of art ("not the release only an extraordinary pianist but a gifted filmma of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather ker and broadcaster and a brilliant (and mercurial) the gradual, life-long construction of a state of critic. His writing-which appeared primarily in wonder and serenity"), and on technology and music journals and on record album covers-was art, which begins with a chronicle of his own often as provocative as his performances: de "love affair with the microphone." We read him manding, compelling, occasionally infuriating, on Leopold Stokowski and on Barbra Streisand but always stimulating, and always the product ("With the possible exception of Elisabeth of a singular artistic vision. Now, for the first Schwarzkopf, no vocalist has brought me greater time, nearly everything that Gould wrote or pleasure or more insight into the interpreter's spoke for publication-from the liner notes for art"), on Petula Clark and Ernst Krenek, on radio his first "Goldberg" Variations recording in 1956 as music and P.D.Q. Bach as both fact and fancy, to a poignant and revealing interview with Tim on the state of music in Russia and in Canada, and Page shortly before his death-has been gathered on an extraordinary range of matters dealing with together. And, perhaps for the first time as well, the creation and appreciation of music. we can begin to comprehend fully the scope of the THE GLENN GouLD READER is that rare phe intellect behind the musical artistry. nomenon, a book that gives us the critical vision Gould wrote about composers: from Byrd, of someone who was not only an observer but a Bach, and Mozart ("For me, the G-minor Sym practicing artist. It is crucial to our understanding phony consists of eight remarkable measures of one of the most influential musicians of our surrounded by a half-hour of banality") to day. Schoenberg (he "does not write against the piano, but neither can he be accused of writing/or it"), Tim Page writes on music and cultural affairs for Berg, and Terry Riley ("And you thought Carl the New York Times, and his articles have also ap Orff had found an easy way to make a living?"); peared in Vanity Fair, Horizon, Harper's Bazaar, from Beethoven (the "one composer whose repu the Wall Street journal, and other publications. In tation is based entirely on gossip") to Richard 1983 he was the recipient of the Deems Taylor Strauss ("the greatest musical figure who has lived Award for music criticism. He was born in San in this century"). Gould wrote about music com Diego and studied at the Mannes College of Mu petitions ("the competition leaves its eager, ill sic, the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, advised suppliants forever stunted, victims of a and Columbia College, from which he received spiritual lobotomy"), about applause (he pro his B.A. He lives with his wife in New York City, posed the "Gould Plan for the Abolition of Ap where he is the host of a daily radio program on plause and Demonstrations of All Kinds"), and WNYC-FM devoted to new and unusual music. about his own reasons for refusing to give con certs - reasons he discusses in a fascinating, delightful interview with Arthur Rubinstein. Front-of-jacket photo by Don Hunstein There are articles on recording ("If we were to Jacket design by Carin Goldberg take an inventory of those musical predilections most characteristic of our generation, we would (continued on back flap) ~ 7 ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, NEW YORK THE GLENN GOULD READER THE GLENN GOULD READER Edited and with an introduction by Tim Page r: Alfred A. Knopf New York 1989 CONTENTS Acknowledgments IX Introduction XI PROLOGUE: Advice to a Graduation PART ONE: Music William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons II Domenico Scarlatti 14 Art of the Fugue 15 The "Goldberg" Variations 22 Bodky on Bach 28 Of Mozart and Related Matters: Glenn Gould in Conversation with Bruno Monsaingeon 32 Glenn Gould Interviews Himself About Beethoven 43 Beethoven's Pathetique, "Moonlight," and "Appassionata" Sonatas 51 Beethoven's Last Three Piano Sonatas 54 Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the Piano: Four Imaginary Reviews 57 Some Beethoven and Bach Concertos 61 N'aimez-Vous Pas Brahms? 70 Should We Dig Up the Rare Romantics? ... No, They're Only a Fad 72 Piano Music by Grieg and Bizet, with a Confidential Caution to Critics 76 Data Bank on the Upward-Scuttling Mahler 80 An Argument for Richard Strauss 84 Strauss and the Electronic Future 92 Richard Strauss's Enoch Arden 100 The Piano Music of Sibelius 103 Arnold Schoenberg-A Perspective 107 The Piano Music of Arnold Schoenberg 122 Piano Concertos by Mozart and Schoenberg 128 Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 2 134 A Hawk, a Dove, and a Rabbit Called Franz Josef 142 Hindemith: Will His Time Come? Again? 147 A Tale of Two Marienlebens 151 vi I Contents Piano Sonatas by Scriabin and Prokofiev Music in the Soviet Union The Ives Fourth A Festschrift for "Ernst Who???" Piano Music of Berg, Schoenberg, and Krenek Korngold and the Crisis of the Piano Sonata Canadian Piano Music in the Twentieth Century The Dodecacophonist's Dilemma Boulez The Future and "Flat-Foot Floogie" 221 Terry Riley 226 Gould's String Q!!artet, Op. 1 227 So You Want to Write a Fugue? 234 PART TWO: Performance Let's Ban Applause! We Who Are About to Be Disqualified Salute You! The Psychology of Improvisation Critics Stokowski in Six Scenes Rubinstein Memories of Maude Harbour, or Variations on a Theme of Arthur Rubinstein Yehudi Menuhin The Search for Petula Clark Streisand as Schwarzkopf INTE RL UDE: Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould About Glenn Gould PART THREE: Media The Prospects of Recording 331 Music and Technology 353 The Grass Is Always Greener in the Outtakes: An Experiment in Listening 357 "Oh, for heaven's sake, Cynthia, there must be something else on!" Radio as Music: Glenn Gould in Conversation with John Jessop Prologue from "The Idea of North" "The Idea of North": An Introduction "The Latecomers": An Introduction Contents I vii PART FOUR: Miscellany Three Articles Published Under the Pseudonym Dr. Herbert von Hochmeister 399 Toronto 410 Conference at Port Chillkoot 416 Fact, Fancy, or Psychohistory: Notes from the P.D.Q, Underground 424 The Record of the Decade 429 Rosemary's Babies 434 A Desert Island Discography 437 The Film Slaughterhouse Five 440 A Biography of Glenn Gould 444 CODA: Glenn Gould in Conversation with Tim Page 449 Index

Description:
When Glenn Gould died in 1982 at the age of fifty, he left behind an astonishing legacy: in twenty-six years he had proved himself to be not only an extraordinary pianist but a gifted filmmaker and broadcaster and a brilliant (and mercurial) critic. His writing-which appeared primarily in music jour
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.