Whether Gould's subject is Boulez, Stokowski, Streisand, or his own highly individual thoughts on performance and creation of music, the reader will be caught up in his intensity, intelligence, passion and devotion.
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37 of 45 people found the following review helpful
By Artur Nowak
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Glenn Gould was one of the best piano players ever. But he not only achieved the highest level of virtuosity, he re-invented the music of Bach and other composers. He was not only faster than other musicians (as this is the trivial criteria of virtuosity), every of his interpretations contains a thought beyond the music. This book shows the world of Gould's thoughts beyond the music. It's almost pure philosophy of art, almost, because Gould doesn't want to create complex system, his points are straight. Two examples:
- "The determination of the value of a work of art according to the information available about it is a most delinquent form of aesthetic appraisal"
- "The computer repositories file away the memories of mankind and leave us free to be inventive in spite of them"
Makes you think, huh?
The book contains dozens of short texts written during many years, and are grouped into few parts:
1) Music - about Art of Fugue of course, Goldberg Variations, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Mozart. Deep look into the music.
2) Performance - Gould gave up live performances and was accused for eccentrism There was a good reason beyond this decision, figure out why he did it.
3) Glenn Gould interviews Glenn Gould. What? Yes, his interviewers weren't good enough, so he conducted an interview with himself.
4) Media - how recording has changed the perception and performance of music, Gould's favourite radio with explanation of the "Idea of North" and "Latecomers", exceptionally original radio pieces by Gould, comparable with the XX century avant-garde. Radio as music.
5) Miscellany.
Sometimes it requires quite good musical background and education, as Gould lets the music speak for itself, on paper, by reproducing notes.... Read more ›
- "The determination of the value of a work of art according to the information available about it is a most delinquent form of aesthetic appraisal"
- "The computer repositories file away the memories of mankind and leave us free to be inventive in spite of them"
Makes you think, huh?
The book contains dozens of short texts written during many years, and are grouped into few parts:
1) Music - about Art of Fugue of course, Goldberg Variations, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Mozart. Deep look into the music.
2) Performance - Gould gave up live performances and was accused for eccentrism There was a good reason beyond this decision, figure out why he did it.
3) Glenn Gould interviews Glenn Gould. What? Yes, his interviewers weren't good enough, so he conducted an interview with himself.
4) Media - how recording has changed the perception and performance of music, Gould's favourite radio with explanation of the "Idea of North" and "Latecomers", exceptionally original radio pieces by Gould, comparable with the XX century avant-garde. Radio as music.
5) Miscellany.
Sometimes it requires quite good musical background and education, as Gould lets the music speak for itself, on paper, by reproducing notes.... Read more ›
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Glenn Gould has occassionally been accused of being different just for the sake of being different. I believe this was not the case. Everything he did had a clear motive and this book lays out most of these motives. Besides being entertaining and stimulating reading, the Glenn Gould Reader contains a peek into the brilliant mind of the genius who created some of the greatest recordings of piano music of all time.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Appreciation of Glenn Gould's towering genius came late to me, but now that it has, I would be bereft without this book as my companion.
Gould's virtuoso performances speak for themselves, but by clever design the 3-CD set A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981) included a radio interview that allows Gould to speak for himself. Listening to his incisive and insightful self-criticism, I regretted that his life and my awareness of it never overlapped. Happily, a collection of his playful, unorthodox, and thoroughly original ideas were committed to paper, and Tim Page has done a great service to his legacy by editing and collecting those papers into this rather substantial volume.
It is absolutely breath-taking the way that Glenn understood the implications of his preferred medium, the audio recording, and how that understanding presaged the free culture movement, and in particular, the Creative Commons. Consider this proposition from "Strauss and the Electronic Future": "[in] fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process." In "The Prospects of Recording" Gould asserts "[it] would be a relatively simple matter, for instance, to grant the listener tape-edit options which he could exercise as his discretion. Indeed, a significant step in this direction might well result from that process by which it is now possible to disassociate the ratio of speed to pitch and in so doing ... truncate splice-segments of interpretations of the same work performed by different artists and recorded at different tempos.... Read more ›
Gould's virtuoso performances speak for themselves, but by clever design the 3-CD set A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981) included a radio interview that allows Gould to speak for himself. Listening to his incisive and insightful self-criticism, I regretted that his life and my awareness of it never overlapped. Happily, a collection of his playful, unorthodox, and thoroughly original ideas were committed to paper, and Tim Page has done a great service to his legacy by editing and collecting those papers into this rather substantial volume.
It is absolutely breath-taking the way that Glenn understood the implications of his preferred medium, the audio recording, and how that understanding presaged the free culture movement, and in particular, the Creative Commons. Consider this proposition from "Strauss and the Electronic Future": "[in] fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process." In "The Prospects of Recording" Gould asserts "[it] would be a relatively simple matter, for instance, to grant the listener tape-edit options which he could exercise as his discretion. Indeed, a significant step in this direction might well result from that process by which it is now possible to disassociate the ratio of speed to pitch and in so doing ... truncate splice-segments of interpretations of the same work performed by different artists and recorded at different tempos.... Read more ›
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I disagree with most of the opinions expressed herein, yet I enjoyed all of them immensely. Glenn Gould was a brilliant pianist, an erudite and deep thinker, and a man with a very great knowledge of music.
He hated the Beatles, yet I think he and the Beatles unwittingly had a lot in common--as cultural phenomena, I mean. Gould and the Beatles were on top of their form and at the height of their popularity when they abruptly announced they would cease performing publicly, declaring the impersonal--and arguably "de-humanizing"--medium of recording to be the true art form of the present and future. In this collection Gould derisively calls the Beatles's "Strawberry Fields Forever" "Monteverdi played by a jug band", not realizing it was created much the same way that Gould explains (elsewhere in this collection) he was wont to create his own works: by splicing together radically different recorded snippets.
Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By D. Cabarga
Format:Paperback
First let's put Glenn Gould in context. The rise of the Romantic style in the 19th century overwhelmed the Classical style in terms of instrumental and orchestral playing. Increased dynamic range, freedom of phrasing (rubato), went wild in the Romantic period, became ingrained and nearly impossible to counteract. It was thought to be "expressive," but easily tended to "wretched excess." But the Romantic composers made much great music, which tended to validate the style and make it even more difficult to reject. The Classical style, which embodied ideals of restraint and intellectualism were put aside. Classical music tends to be spiritual and abstract; Romanticism, worldly and programatic.
Glenn Gould was born into this context, a man with classical instincts in the midst of a full-blown Romantic era. In other words, a duck badly out of water. The stage had been set by Franz Liszt himself, then Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Rubenstein, Horowitz, etc. But Gould bravely and single-mindedly went his own way. He established no school of piano playing, had no followers. He eschewed public playing. His music--Bach, some Mozart, some Beethoven--and bits of various modern composers, was best produced in the recording studio where he could do perfect performances avoiding the hazards of concertizing. Gould wasn't energized by an audience. His inspiration was from within. His Bach was played entirely at one dynamic level with utter clarity and precision--no pedal.
His writing style in this book, is complex, heavy-textured, pedantic; but there is no denying his astonishing erudition. The book is full of his fascinating observations about music, musicians and composers. His writing validates his playing and his playing validates his writing.
Glenn Gould was born into this context, a man with classical instincts in the midst of a full-blown Romantic era. In other words, a duck badly out of water. The stage had been set by Franz Liszt himself, then Paderewski, Rachmaninoff, Rubenstein, Horowitz, etc. But Gould bravely and single-mindedly went his own way. He established no school of piano playing, had no followers. He eschewed public playing. His music--Bach, some Mozart, some Beethoven--and bits of various modern composers, was best produced in the recording studio where he could do perfect performances avoiding the hazards of concertizing. Gould wasn't energized by an audience. His inspiration was from within. His Bach was played entirely at one dynamic level with utter clarity and precision--no pedal.
His writing style in this book, is complex, heavy-textured, pedantic; but there is no denying his astonishing erudition. The book is full of his fascinating observations about music, musicians and composers. His writing validates his playing and his playing validates his writing.
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