Glenn Gould Reader

by Tim Page

Overview

As a pianist, Glenn Gould was both a showman and a high priest, an artist whose devotion to music was so great that he eschewed the distractions of live performance. That same combination of flamboyance and aesthetic rigor may be found in this collection of Gould’s writings, which covers composers from Bach to Terry Riley, performers from Arthur Rubinstein to Petula Clark, and yields unfettered and often heretical opinions on music competitions, the limitations of live audiences, and the relationship between technology and art. Witty, emphatic, and finely honed, The Glenn Gould Reader presents its author in all his guises as an impassioned artist, an omnivorous listener, and an astute and deeply knowledgeable critic.
 
The Glenn Gould Reader abounds with the literary voice of one of the most extraordinary musical talents of our time. Whether Gould’s subject is Boulez, Stokowski, Streisand, or his own highly individual thoughts on the performance and creation of music, the reader will be caught up in his intensity, intelligence, passion and devotion. For those who never knew him, this book will be a particular treasure as a companion to his recordings and as the delicious discovery of a new friend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679731351
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/12/1990
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	519,587
Product dimensions:	5.15(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.04(d)

About the Author

Tim Page's photography career began in Laos, where at the age of 18 he covered the civil war for UPI. He photographed the war in Vietnam for the Associated Press, UPI, and Paris Match. He was wounded four times, the final time almost fatally. He returned to England in 1979 and was the subject of the BBC film Mentioned in Dispatches. His search to discover the fate of his friends Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, who disappeared in Cambodia, was the subject of another film, Darkness at the Edge of Town, in 1991, more than 20 years after they vanished. Page's return to Cambodia led him to found the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in 1994 and was the genesis of Requiem. His books include Tim Page's Nam (1983), Sri Lanka (1984), Ten Years After (1987), Page after Page (1988), Derailed in Uncle Ho's Garden (1990), and Mid-Term Report (1995).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments      
Introduction   
 
PROLOGUE: Advice to a Graduation         
 
PART ONE: Music
                                                                       
William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons                  
Domenico Scarlatti                                          
Art of the Fugue
The “Goldberg” Variations
Bodky on Bach
Of Mozart and Related Matters: Glenn Gould in Conversation with Bruno 
   Monsaingeon
Glenn Gould Interviews Himself About Beethoven        
Beethoven’s Pathétique, “Moonlight,” and “Appassionata” Sonatas
Beethoven’s Last Three Piano Sonatas
Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the Piano:  Four Imaginary Reviews
Some Beethoven and Bach Concertos
N’aimez-Vous Pas Brahms?    
Should We Dig Up the Rare Romantics?. . . No, They’re Only a Fad
Piano Music by Greig and Bizet, with a Confidental Caution to Critics
Data Bank on the Upward-Scuttling Mahler
An Argument for Richard Strauss
Strauss and the Electronic Future
Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden
The Piano Music of Sibelius    
Arnold Schoenberg—A Perspective
The Piano Music of Arnold Schoenberg
Piano Concertos by Mozart and Schoenberg    
Arnold Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 2 
A Hawk, a Dove, and a Rabbit Called Franz Josef       
Hindermith: Will His Time Come? Again?
A Tale of Two Marienlebens
Piano Sonatas by Scriabin Prokfiev      
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”
Terry Riley
Gould’s String Quartet, Op. 1
So You Want to Write a Fugue?
 
PART TWO: Performance
 
Let’s Ban Applause!
We Who Are About to Be Disqualified Salute You!
The Pyschology 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
 
INTERLUDE: Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould About Glenn 
   Gould
 
PART THREE: Media
 
The Prospects of Recording
Music and Technology
The Grass Is Always Greener in the Outtakes:  An Experiment in Listening
“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
                                                                                               
PART FOUR: Miscellany
Three Articles Published Under the Pseudonym Dr. Herbert von 
   Hochmeister
Toronto
Conference at Port Chillkoot    
Fact, Fancy, or Psychohistory: Notes from the P.D.Q Underground
The Record of the Decade
Rosemary’s Babies
A Desert Island Discography  
The Film Slaughterhouse Five
A Biography of Glenn Gould    
 
CODA: Glenn Could in Conversation with Tim Page
 
Index