Tosh's Journal: September 25 (Glenn Gould)

TOSH’S JOURNAL

September 25

I mostly spend my time comparing the two versions of Glenn Gould’s “Goldberg Variations.” The first version in which he recorded in 1955 is perfection.

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg was a fantastic harpsichordist, who was fortunate enough to have J.S. Bach write the Goldberg Variations, which was written explicitly for Goldberg to perform for Hermann Karl von Keyserlingk, then the Russian ambassador to Saxony around 1737. Count Keyserlingk had trouble sleeping so to be entertained in the late hours, Goldberg would perform the Bach composition for him. Oddly enough, due that Keyserlingk paid for the pieces, he always insisted to Goldberg to “play his variations.”

Just before Glenn Gould passed away in 1982, he did a new recording of the Goldberg Variations. Gould studied and learned this piece entirely without his teacher. He instinctively knew that he had to slow down the work. What is interesting is that he commented that “the mental imagery involved with pianistic tactile is not related to the striking of individual keys but rather to the rites of passage between notes.”

Not a musician, but a brilliant filmmaker Robert Bresson wrote excellent advice in that “the most ordinary word, when put into place, suddenly acquires brilliance. That is the brilliance with which your images must shine.”

Concerning the second and much later recording, Gould felt that the initial recording of the piece was too much of a pianistic affectation. It needed a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. What is fascinating that he could look at his work on the Goldberg Variations, and willing to take and accept the time difference, yet, he is still working on it.

“I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of a-dren-a-lean but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.”

Going back to Gould, he makes a useful comment: “I detest audiences - not in their individual components, but en masse I detest audiences. I think they’re a force of evil. It seems to me the rule of mob law.”

What appeals to me regarding the two versions of the Goldberg Variations is that he takes his past and makes something new out of it. The past is still there, but he added either a footnote or a different work, based on one’s history. William Faulkner wrote that “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

For me to hear both versions, it strikes me as being very moving to listen to a work that is one of youth. Both Gould and Goldberg were young, when first coming to the Variations, and Gould’s late recording which may or may not be his last official recording. Two bookends make a life profound with a narrative that begins, has a middle, and then an end. Goldberg had an audience of one with the Count, but I often think of Gould performing not for an audience, but his own listening pleasure as well.