On Glen Gould

I rented Michele Hozer's and Peter Raymont's documentary  Genius Within: the Inner Life of Glen Gould.


I'd been skeptical about it, fearing either pure hagiography or lurid expose.  It appears to be a balanced and clear eyed view of major musical talent.  Gould was loquacious, talking, engagingly and with great warmth, insight and humor.   


There seems to be endless footage of him walking: on the beach, in the snow, at night on the sidewalks of Toronto.


Also included are extensive interviews with Cornelia Foss, who left her husband, the composer Lucas Foss for Gould in 1967, and the two Foss children, who have warm memories of him.  Jamie Lorado makes frequent appearances along with Fred Sherry.  In addition, childhood friends and producers and engineers from  Columbia and the CBC.  Of special interest to me were the comments of a classmate of his from the Toronto Conservatory on his piano technique.


As with most music documentaries, there is not one piece played in its entirety:  a few bars and then voice-over.  But Gould's playing, at it's best, was so transcendent that what we do hear completely overshadows the movie.  Who would want to listen to talk when one could witness such playing?


The famous conflict with Leonard Bernstein over Gould's approach to the Brahms D-minor is recounted and we get to hear a bit of the first movement.  I must say, it's dreadful.  Gould's playing was all in his fingers and his detached attack and crystalline fleetness were unsuited to Brahms.   Later we hear him playing one of the early Brahms ballades (as an accompaniment to moody pacing around in supposed response to Cornelia's having returned to her husband).  The playing is fussy and unconvincing.

There is considerable fascinating footage of Gould at work in the recording studio.  He quite famously gave up public performance for recording early in his career.  It's strange to remember a point in time when a classical pianist would be treated as a recording star by a major conglomerate. 

There's also see tour of Russia and a still photo of him with Richter (who thought Gould could be absolutely brilliant, but correctly criticized his failure to take the repeats in Bach).  There's quite a bit about the Cold War era.   A lost world, one that I remember.


Cornelia Foss left Gould over his drug use - apparently all pharmaceuticals.  The only drugs mentioned are anti-depressants and drugs for anxiety.  I'd like to know more.  I've always felt that there's a certain speed vibe in his sense of time with it's elasticity and incredible control.   He had certain sonic similarities with Dylan, the high clear amphetamine sound in Blonde on Blonde especially.


Most of the footage used in the movie is from the earlier part of this life.  According to Foss, he became increasingly paranoid and controlling.   Details are not provided. 

He died of a stroke shortly after his 50th birthday, in 1982, seven years before the fall of the Berlin wall.  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, support for the arts in the U.S. began to decline: we no longer had to prove to the world that we could compete with the Communists in all areas of culture.


Gould lived in to the early days of the digital revolution that would destroy the recording industry that sustained his career and his retreat from the stage.


His hypochondria is discussed: like Duke Ellington, he was afraid to shake hands.  

Boulder Pianists in Review!

Larry Graham began the program notes for his generally estimable all Chopin recital at the Boulder Public Library last Sunday thus: “Among musicians, in general, Chopin is rarely ranked in the top echelon of composers.”  Of course, he then went on to explain whey this is wrong.  

As I posted a while ago, this anxiety about Chopin’s status among pianists is strange.  Perhaps pianists are just wary of other musicians’ jealousy.  What other instrument has such a vast solo repertory?  What other instrumentalists have, at least historically, risen to such international acclaim?  And made so much money?  Perhaps they think we’re just narcissists?

In any case Chopin is pretty much all solo piano and Graham’s polished technique and splendid sound more than made the case for him.  The program was ambitious and perhaps unreasonably long.  The first half consisted of ten short works: five Mazurkas, a Waltz, the A-flat Polonaise, two Etudes and a Nocturne, seven being dance forms.  The second half was the four Ballades.

Graham was suffering from some sort of injury to his left hand and had problems with a band-aid.  This probably accounted for some small technical lapses.  Interestingly, the most demanding passages – e.g., the coda from the 4^th Ballade – were handled with great security.  The second Ballade was especially fine.

Graham’s sound is remarkably integrated across all the registers.  A student of Rosina Lhevinne – who won the Gold Medal in piano when she graduated from the Moscow conservatory in 1898 – Larry Graham is an exponent of the finest traditions of what some call the golden age of pianism.

A week earlier, Christopher Taylor, an actual Boulder native, had returned to play the Brahmas D-minor concerto with the Boulder Philharmonic.  Taylor is, I think, more active on the concert stage than Graham.  They’re very different, although it’s hard to explain how.  One might think of Graham as a tenor and Taylor as a baritone, if that makes any sense.

The Brahms is a monumental dialogue between piano and orchestra with thunder, lightening and moments of lyrical introspection, all of which Taylor dispatched with great dynamic range and complete technical command.  The Boulder Philharmonic is about as good as one might expect from a small town, semi-professional orchestra, and Taylor’s concentration in the face of some of their problems was remarkable. 

This is the third time I’ve heard him and I’m more impressed each time.

The rest of the program consisted of a dispiritingly bad performance of the 3^rd Brandenburg which cruelly exposed the intonation problems of the strings  Perhaps music director Michael Butterman thought the extra rehearsal time for the section warranted the pain. Next came a tortured reading of Beethoven’s Fifth. 

If marketing really required a “Three Bs” evening, we, and the musicians, would have been better served with one of the smaller Beethoven symphonies. Still, Macky was completely sold out.

It should be said that the woodwinds acquitted themselves very well all evening, at no time better than during the beautiful slow movement of the concerto.