Glenn Gould Redux

September 25, 2010 would have been Glenn Gould's 78th birthday. He died at the age of 50 (on my 17th bithday). How he would have dealt with his advanced age, I have no idea. Very likely not well, I would guess.

But I think he would have loved our era.

Glenn Gould was one of the greatest classical pianists of the 20th century. He erupted into the world music scene in 1955 with his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, a set of 32 short variations (with aria)all in the key of G, outlining the path of the G chord to the D chord. I know, on its face it doesn't sound like all that eventful a musical journey. It was seen as marginal Bach.

But this eccentric, erratic Canadian upstart turned it insto a completely transformative musical experience. He played it on the modern piano (not harpsichord). His ability to give every note clarity -- not just the stuff in the forefront, but all of it -- animated Bach's music a way none of his other champions had never been able to accomplish. Not Landowska, Casals, or even Stokowski. Glenn did for Bach's voice what Schnabel did for Beethoven and Rubinstein did for Chopin: he conquered the mechanics and brought the art and mysteries to the fore. It's not just virtuoso hands at this level. It's virtuoso insight as well.

Gould's Goldberg's likely would have assured him an eternal place as a concert star if all he'd done was to toe the line of barqoue keyboard music, but he was posessed of different artistic and philosophical needs. He recorded most of the stuff a big classical pianist is supposed to -- Mozart, Haydn, Beethover et al -- but often turned in performances that served less to illuminate than to provoke. Which is fine, because as many "nice" recordings as there are of a lot of these warhorses, it was nice to have a Glenn Gould breathing new life into them, even if it wasn't the life the composers might have preferred (especially in the case of the Mozart piano sonatas). Glenn Gould was the closest thing to the Sex Pistols the classical world has so far given us, Nigel Kennedy's haircut notwithstanding.

Gould retired from the concert stage in 1964 (his last performance was here in LA at the Wilshire Ebell). He hated touring and was a notorious canceller. He wanted to stay in Toronto and concentrate on recording, producing radio documentaries for CBC, journalism, and whatever else struck his fancy. This decision caused as much controversy as any did of his performances. The idea that a performer's internal artistic alchemy turned him away from live audiences in favor of... Well, he wanted to be able to play something under optimum conditions and also to be free of the distractions of courting the concertgoer's favor. It was Gould's contention that, if a performer was left to his own devices, he would be forced to follow his truest creative conscience, instead of just doing the kinds of moves that grab applause. The resultant recording would then be a truer picture of what the performer imagines that piece of music to be, something much more honest.

I'm not sure he's wrong. Anyone who has attended a modern electric blues ordeal -- as I did the other night, opening for Willie Nelson -- where some showboat wanks away at two high notes while a bunch of beer drinking chowderheads go nuts knows what I mean. The classical world is plagued with the same hateful hateful practices and similarly satisfied chowderheads, and Gould wanted none of it. Gould's harshest assesments of his own performances generally included the phrase "a great deal of piano playing" -- i.e. coarse attention-getting stunts on the instrument rather that honestly making real music in the moment.

Gould's post-concert career saw him alternately as pianist, media critic, broadcaster, historian, and Canadian statesman. He was a dynamic and unique figure, musically and otherwise.

I have, in recent months, thought often about the difference between musicians who play because there's an audience and those who would do music even if there wasn't one. Gould definitely falls into the latter camp (I'd like to hope I do, too).

In 1981, a year before his death, Gould returned to the Goldberg's, bringing his career to full circle, with a reimagining of the aria and variations that made him such a topic of conversation. The later recording is slower and more introspective. Definitely the stuff of a man who has seen the world. But in there are still the fingerprints of the same 23 year old boy who greeted Bach with the save loving, mischevious thrill of discovery that so colored his initial Goldberg's recording.

Glenn Gould is a patron saint to every thinking musician I've ever met. Much has been made of eccentricities, but Itzhak Perlman told me something that sums it up:

"Anyone can be as eccentric as he chooses. You're free to do that. But it's not exactly like we're all free to concieve and play on Mr Gould's level."