The Secret Life of Glenn Gould seriously flawed because it divorces the private man from his art

There is nothing more compelling than a good mystery. Glenn Gould and his legacy contain several, which are proving to be continuous grist for enquiring writers, and fodder for curious readers and listeners.

How did he arrive at his unique interpretations? Why did he leave the stage for good in 1964? Did he suffer from some sort of personality disorder? Was he gay or straight or asexual?

I finally finished reading The Secret Life of Glenn Gould: A Genius in Love by Michael Clarkson, published in April by ECW Press (for details, click on the book image).

For me, the ideal biography peels back the layers of the individual as well as the public figure so that, by the end, I have an appreciation of a person as well as his or her legacy. Time erases the person first, so I find it particularly satisfying when a biographer has managed to piece together the private bits before they are lost. Yes, until the advent of email, biographers have been able to use letters and notes -- decades if not centuries after the fact -- as the basis for revealing the personal, but its more of an art than a science.

Using my criteria for what a good biography is, Clarkson's book doesn't even qualify as one. But, then again, he doesn't claim that it is one. Rather, this is a peek, through the eyes of a succession of women who were personally involved in Glenn Gould's life, into the artist as sentient human. The book's promotional bumf suggests that, in reading it, we will know more about the music as well as the man.

After reading and ruminating, I don't know anything about the professional musician that hasn't been written about elsewhere, usually with far more detail. In Clarkson's work, I read about a heterosexual man who was awkward with women, who put work first, was obsessed with secrecy, afraid of romantic commitment and heavily dependent on prescription drugs to balance his body and his mind.

Did any of these women affect his choice of repertoire? Was one of them a muse for his pioneering radio-documentary experiments? Was there a feminine influence on the final recording of the Goldberg Variations? Not even Clarkson finds answers to these questions, and, as for the true nature of most of these friendships, the dividing line between friend and lover is left up to conjecture.

There isn't enough material here on which to hang a book, unless you are one of those people who obsessed with every detail concerning Gould's life.

Of the recent Gould books, far more compelling from a cultural and philosophical perspective is University of Toronto professor Mark Kingwell's fascinating anti-biography of Gould, published by Penguin last year. The pianist in me loved Katie Hafner's A Romance on Three Legs, which chronicled Gould's rocky and loving relationship with his instruments. And I still think no one has done a better job than British Columbian Kevin Bazzana in bringing us a balanced picture of man and artist, in Wondrous Strange.

Divorced from the art, as is the case in The Secret Life of Glenn Gould, the artist is just another human being -- with a few more quirks and eccentricities than most. Yes, we all have a personal story, but, in most instances, it is more interesting as a series of fireside anecdotes than as a full-length book.

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I find it far more rewarding and insightful to simply listen to Glenn Gould play desire and seduction on the keyboard as well as at the sound mixer, which is what the two Op. 57 Préludes by Alexander Scriabin are all about. The extra treat in Part 1 is seeing the interior of the Eaton Auditorium, as it looked to Toronto concertgoers around 1970:

Sexuality and the artist: Is there really a dividing line between the public and the private?

I've been reading a new book, The Secret Life of Glenn Gould: A Genius in Love, by Michael Clarkson (ECW Press -- click on the book jacket for all the info plus a pdf excerpt).

Attempting to go deeper into the Toronto pianist's psyche than any other of the previous 18 biographies and analyses, Clarkson tries to put labels on every single one of Gould's female relationships.

Near the end of Chapter Six, Clarkson quotes Gould friend, former CBC producer John Roberts: "Glenn liked to call himself 'the last puritan,' but if you knew about the women in his life, you could hardly call him that."

Clarkson wants us to know about the women in Gould's life, ostensibly so that we can have a better appreciation for the many layers of his art, as interpreter as well as creator and thinker. But, ultimately, the story can't help but become an exercise in wild speculation, peppered with little details that make me feel like someone spying through a bedroom window where someone forgot to draw the drapes.

Putting Gould and his girls aside last night, and waking up to "What's gay got to do with acting?" Star theatre critic Richard Ouzounian's response to the controversy over "Straight Jacket" a recent Newsweek article that questioned the ability of gay actors to portray straight characters, made me think about how, when all is said and done, the deeply personal really is a part of our relationship to art and artists, no matter what nobler ideals we may pay (chaste) lip service to.

Near the end of his article, which reveals that gay actors continue to be afraid to talk publicly about their sexuality, Ouzounian writes: "In fact, do we need to know anything at all about the personal lives of the performers? Best to just look at what they do on stage or screen and leave the rest behind."

My colleague's sentiment is virtuous. I can't count the number of times that very thought hasn't crossed my mind in the course of my work, as I am sure is the case with every other conscientious journalist. But that doesn't erase the fact that human beings have an intense curiosity about the personal details of other people.

Let's put aside the obvious excesses of TMZ and its print equivalents near the supermarket checkout. We want to know about J.S. Bach's frustrations with the fusty burghers of Leipzig, Mozart being kicked in the ass by the Archbishop Coloredo, Johannes Brahms's infatuation with the daughter of Clara Schumann -- a woman he had loved, too, who happened to be the wife of one of his best friends.

Somehow, in some way, these events and emotions either contribute or detract from the artist himself.

The large-scale reconciliations of private and public are the most obvious -- and difficult -- and, in the world of music, who is a greater evil genius than Richard Wagner, lothario, deadbeat, anti-Semite, and operatic genius? The only reason I began to listen to Wagner's music was because I had become a music critic and could no longer avoid it on principle. It didn't take long for me to realise what the rest of the world already knew, that his later operas really are something extraordinary, not simply in the context of the 19th century, but in the context of all of Western music history. Knowing that Wagner was a schmuck (it's more satisfying to use a Yiddish word) actually deepens the experience of his art, for me.

As I sat through The Flying Dutchman at the COC earlier this month, I kept thinking about the parallels between the doomed, wandering captain, desperate for a woman's redeeming love, and Wagner's own escapades with women. The choice of subject matter is no accident, on a subconscious level.

Getting back to the matter at hand, I think the point of interest is not the sexuality itself. Who the heck cares what Gould's or Sean Hayes's kissing preferences are? As Ouzounian points out, an actor's bad performance is the fault of the script, the director or a lack of talent. They may be suffering from a migraine headache on the day of that performance.

But what does, I think, add to the art, is the artist's underlying attitude toward his or her sexuality. To use some of the most obvious examples, how much of the pathos in Tchaikovsky's music is due to his struggle with homosexual desire? How much of the brittle surface of Stephen Sondheim's characters comes from his own personal experience of love and loneliness? Did Maria Callas see herself in the mirror as a fat, unloved teenager to the end?

If we didn't read letters, interview friends and listen to gossip, we would be missing out on a dimension of each artist's legacy. But, like everything else, there are boundaries of good taste and fairness -- usually nearly invisible.

So, do Clarkson's musings on the private loves of Glenn Gould add to our appreciation of the artist? I think they do. Despite making me feel like a voyeur, Clarkson helps add some more context to the bundled-up figure, whose baggy winter clothes become a metaphor for a lost soul wrapped in a security blanket.

Do we need to know who Gould had for a post-concert quickie in the dressing room? No. Is Gould, the artist, somehow diminished by my knowing about the tryst? No. That's because his legacy is more compelling than that.

Update: Please see Richard Ouzounian's response, below.

Comment from Richard Ouzounian:

Really liked your blog response to my article today, but there is one point of disagreement.

I agree with you that knowledge of what happened to Bach, Sondheim etc. can help us understand their work as creators, but the danger when it comes to interpreters, especially on stage and screen, is that the line grows much fuzzier.

If Sean Hayes is gay, does that mean he cannot play a straight character? If we knew "the truth" about Tom Cruise, does that mean we wouldn't believe him as a romantic action hero? Alas, the truth in a lot of this world is "yes".

In the middle ground lie those like Gould. No one cares if a classical pianist is str8, gay, or likes doggies. But a knowledge of that fact might help us understand him better.

But if we were to discover that George Clooney played for the other team, would it hurt his commercial viability in the kind of films he makes?

Think about it!

American violinist offers himself as Exhibit A as he fiddles with tried-and-true teaching methods

Do musicians succeed because they have a natural aptitude, because they worked harder and longer, or because they had a gifted teacher who chose the best teaching method?

This was the question I had after reading and listening to a story posted (in text as well as 5 minutes of audio) on the National Public Radio site. It's about American violinist Mark O'Connor, who has published his own set of graduated violin courses.

In broad terms, what O'Connor believes distinguishes his method from others is a broad stylistic scope that treats popular, folk and classical music styles as equals. Also, he values introducing young children to improvisation and theory. He told NPR:

O'Connor says he wants to create what he calls "super string players for the 21st century" — musicians who can improvise and experiment, who want to use the violin to play all kinds of music. He says he can bring fiddling in from the margins, all the way into the center of the world of classical music.

Here's a promotional video O'Connor has posted on Vimeo:

Mark O'Connor Violin Method from Mark O'Connor on Vimeo.

I think O'Connor has all the right ideas. There's no reason to discriminate between genres of music -- that's a decision the musician can make on their own, in their time. I also think it's brilliant to teach kids to improvise. But, ultimately, any pedagogical approach is only as good as the teacher's and student's talent, aptitude and attitude.

Remembrance of Things Past: French manuscript museum reopens with intimacies by Proust and the Schumanns

 

A collection of personal papers from Marcel Proust is the star attraction for the reopening of the Musée des lettres et manuscrits in Paris today. (The original museum was created by Gérard L'Héritier at another location in 2004.)

The broad collection of original papers includes music, spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, from Lully to Prokofiev.

The Romantic collection includes a lovingly matched set (recto and verso) of improvisations Robert and Clara Schumann dedicated to each other in 1853, in lieu of what, for ordinary people, would be an exchange of love notes (Robert would die two-and-a-half years later).

According to the museum, Robert's moment musical is a variation based on a theme from his Symphonic Etudes. Clara's is based on the first piece in the second set of his Bunte Blätter.

Understandably, the museum has set up its website so that I can't show you the manuscript. To do so, click here (typically for many French institutions, there is no English option available for visitors).

My understanding of who Lois Marshall was is no deeper after reading James Neufeld's new biography

Saturday marks the official release of a new biography of Canadian singing legend Lois Marshall (1925-1997) written by Trent University English professor James Neufeld, from Toronto publisher Dundurn Press. (For details, click on the book cover image.)

Marshall charmed such great conductors as Thomas Beecham. She melted the hearts of Soviet music lovers. She left behind just enough recorded material to confirm to someone (like me) who never heard her live that this was an exceptional artist.

For Torontonians, she was a local hero, born and raised within steps of Broadview and Danforth. She was a polio survivor who took to the concert stage at a time when disabled people where not given the spotlight, and a diva who sang with the best in the world.

But after reading Neufeld's biography, which was more than 10 years in the writing, I can't say that I gained more insight than from her biographical entry in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada.

Neufeld has compiled a chronicle of Lois's childhood, education and singing career. We do get examples of Marshall's incredible ability to quickly learn music, including a hair-raising audition for Arturo Toscanini. But, otherwise, the personal detail that turns a list into a story is sadly lacking. Missing are the vignettes that shine a light into the heart of the subject.

The biographer states more than once how Marshall was a great mimic and raconteur, but fails to give an example. He tells us how stoically she endured the challenges of travelling with an uncooperative leg, but there are few details other than an arduous air trip to Moscow. We know from early in the book that Marshall had more than a professional relationship with her vocal coach and longtime accompanist, Weldon Kilburn. But don't look here for any details beyond the one Neufeld couldn't overlook: Weldon and Marshall finally married in 1968, but the union only lasted a couple of years. Marshall came home from a tour to find out that Kilburn had been carrying on with another woman on their nuptial bed.

You would think that this sort of event would cause no end of heartache, but all the writer tells us is that Marshall soldiered bravely on -- with new accompanist Stuart Hamilton. Hamilton is, as longtime listeners to CBC's Saturday-afternoon opera broadcasts know, a great talker, but, on this subject, he appears to have had nothing to say. 

My predecessor at the Star, William Littler, became music critic in 1964, putting him in the thick of Marshall's career (Neufeld has Littler retiring in 1991, when it really was 2005), yet there's no sign in the book that Neufeld spent much time chatting to him about the local star.

That's strange and, for this reader, frustrating.

Marhsall belonged to an older generation of quiet Canadians who did not air out their personal lives either in personal journals or public confessions, so it's likely that Marshall left no record of her emotional life, either in diaries, letters or conversations with friends. Perhaps the surviving friends are being discreet. Perhaps, even, Neufeld is being discreet in sticking to the facts, not the tattle.

As the last of the children of the 1920s die off, we may never know.

But discretion, such a virtue in life, is not the biographer's friend. We all want the great people of our times to be remembered, to be counted among those who enriched the history of our culture and helped establish Canada as not just a vast deposit of natural resources but a vast source of amazing artistic talents. We want them to be flesh-and-blood people who laugh and cry and do silly things. Distant, impassive monuments merely gather dust and pigeon droppings.

In this book, we end up with far more words devoted to descriptions of the the music Marshall sang, and critics' reviews of it, than with glimpses or insights into the life of a down-to-earth diva.

Perhaps it is most musicians' fates to be remembered by their music alone, not by some sort of colourful personal history. After all, that is what defined their being, and made their listeners fall in love in the first place.

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Here is Marshall singing Richard Strauss's "Beim schlafengehen," from a CBC TV broadcast from 1962, with Glenn Gould accompanying:

Flipping through manuscript of William Byrd's Ladye Nevell's Booke while listening to the music a magical experience

 

It's a wonderful world where you can flip the pages of a 419-year-old book of music, while listening to the world's finest musicians playing it.

In an unimaginably huge project to digitize its collection, the British Library has, so far, also made available manuscripts of the best-known works of two of England's greatest composers: Messiah, by George Frideric Handel (which I wrote about here in December, when the two manuscripts went online) and My Ladye Nevell's Booke by William Byrd (c.1539/40-1623).

Ladye Nevell's Booke is a compilation of 42 keyboard pieces, probably organised and edited by the composer, copied in 1591 by John Baldwin, a colleague of Byrd's at St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The collection's title came later, as the dedicatee's name doesn't actually appear anywhere on or in the book (the Nevell coat of arms on the cover was the first clue). Lady Nevell would have been a patron or student of Byrd's.

You can see the whole book at the British Library's website, and flip the pages. The reader has a zoom function, and each page comes with audio commentary that you can turn on or off.

The flyleaf, with it's appended letter, provides an interesting bit of ownership background. The book was presented to Queen Elizabeth a few years after it was compiled, but ended up back with the Nevell family in 1668, where it stayed, on and off, for the next three-plus centuries. The book was donated by the family to the British Library in 2006. (The audio commentary doesn't mention that the book's donation was a way for a member of the family to avoid paying a substantial inheritance tax.)

There is incredible richness and variety in the 42 keyboard pieces, most of which are slow, courtly pavanes and galliards. All of this music is available in modern print editions, but, to me, there is a special thrill in being able to see the original pages.

Better yet, you can read the pages and listen to a great interpretation. Like all keyboard music of the time, Byrd's pieces sound fine on anything from a virginal to a modern piano. A modern piano is not tuned the same way as an original instrument, so some harmonies sound a bit different.

If you have time, I've included three examples of the music on YouTube, along with a reference on where the piece is in the book, so you can read along.

1. The opening: Lady Nevell's Grounde -- page 1r -- performed by Christopher Hogwood on virginal (the instrument one would most likely have heard Lady Nevell play):

2. Hugh Ashton's Grownde -- page 153v -- in Glenn Gould's immortal piano interpretation:

3. A Fancie -- page 161r -- played by Eric Stolz on an Italian harpsichord:

Composer Michael Colgrass's adventures offer rare and valuable display of practical wisdom

Theorists are common, but people with practical wisdom are rare and valuable.

Composer Michael Colgrass is one of those special people. 

His memoir, Michael Colgrass: Adventures of an American Composer, published today by Meredith Music (click on the book image to go to the company's website, then click on "what's new"), is filled with life lessons big and small. 

You can get a quick overview of my thoughts on the book in today's Star.

I wanted to highlight one particular lesson here. It appeals to me as a keyboard player and as a critic -- especially given last Friday's Angela Hewitt recital, where she played Bach and Brahms. This lesson also beautifully illustrates the elegant incisiveness of Colgrass's mind.

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Here is the chapter, "Casting a Spell on Bach," from Colgrass's book:

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When the University of Louisville asked me to give a talk on Tradition and Memory, I asked for a pianist who felt at home in different styles -- baroque, classical, Romantic and modern. They gave me a graduate student named Jeff Myers.

At the talk, I asked Jeff to sit in a chair facing the audience and play a Bach prelude on an imaginary piano. I wanted him to do everything he normally did when performing Bach except produce sound. His back straightened, his breathing evened out and he began to play on the imaginary keyboard. His hads moved so evenly that they could have balanced stacks of quarters.

When he finished, his body relaxed and his breath deepened. It was as if he had temporarily become someone else. I called this state his "Bach trance."

Next was imaginary Brahms. The audience watched him lean forward with a rounded back, breathe deeply and press his hands on the invisible keys. Those hypothetical coins would have fallen off this time. I called this his "Brahms trance."

When I asked what was going on inside him in each state, he said, "In the Bach state I was counting, but not consciously. in the Brahms I was feeling more and my body felt heavier."

Next I suggested he become Ravel. Again his breathing changed, and his fingers seemed to float over the keys as his body swayed slightly.

Finally I asked him to play the music of one composer while in the state of another -- on the real piano. He laughed and said he'd try. He took time to prepare himself, looking at the keyboard and leaning forward with a rounded back. He played the Bach prelude, but I knew from his body that he was in the Brahms trance. Nothing could have prepared me for the shock this stylistic crossover produced. I was momentarily convinced that this Bach prelude was, in fact, written by Brahms.

The audience was just as surprised by the mix of music and style. We concluded that Bach and Brahms weren't so different after all -- and that it was the performer who held the ultimate power over a piece of music.

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For much more from Colgrass, check out his blog.

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Here's a snippet of Colgrass talking to high school students participating in workshops called BandQuest, organised by the American Composers Forum. He explains how he creates music starting with a particular performer, not a musical idea, in mind:

Authenticity online: British Library allows virtual browsing of original Messiah score

A facsimile of the original score of Messiah, by George Frideric Handel, has been in print for a while. Now you can flip through Handel's own finished score -- all yellowed pages and ink blotches-- on the British Library's website. It worked beautifully on my computer, using Silverlight. 

Click on the image icon to get there.

Handel's pencil mark for the first aria, "Ev'ry valley," says "Mr. Beard," tenor soloist for the first London performance, in 1743. You can see what Handel trimmed and changed -- how the great choruses and arias we know today took shape.

You can zoom in and out of the page spreads, and there is an excellent spoken guide available for each set of pages that provides all kinds of interesting background tidbits.

If you like Baroque music, but have never seen a composer's original, it comes as a shock to realise how many notes for the continuo players (accompaniment) are not there. The harpsichord and organ players, for example, would have improvised their parts, based on a set of rules and traditions.

But thanks, thanks, thanks be to choristers

While sitting in Tafelmusik's performance of Messiah last night, I thought of all the people who get vocal training, don't go out into the world as professional soloists, but end up singing in professional, semi-professional, church and community choirs. Each and every one of them is as valuable to making fine choral music as a Renée Fleming or Placido Domingo are to a Met opera production. They have to practise and learn the same way as the soloists do. They have to look good and sound fine no matter how tired they are -- just as the soloists do. Yet rarely do they get acknowledgement for their time, effort and interest.

Here's one of the entries in Tafelmusik's Singalong Messiah contest, the Newman Centre Festival Singers, from University of Toronto. For details on the winning entries, click here:

'Mr. Langshaw's Square Piano' a leisurely stroll through the flea market of history

 I've been reading Mr. Langshaw's Square Piano: The Story of the First Pianos and How They Caused a Cultural Revolution, which was published in Canada this fall by Blueridge (it came out in England 18 months ago -- and comes with a very informative website that you can access by clicking on the book image, above). The author is English visual artist Madeline Goold.

I've been trying hard to figure out what this book is. It is part cultural history, part history of private life (what in French is called "la petite histoire"), and part music history. But it isn't really any of those. It's more like a leisurely stroll through the flea market of history, with periodic pauses at different stalls to admire this or that small curiosity.

My mental image in trying to summarize the experience of reading the book is something like watching a child who is intensely engaged in some private playtime: there he or she is, manipulating toys with great intensity, making up conversations, creating a small world within a world -- full of meaning to them, but little more than a passing curiosity to the onlooker.

This is very much Goold's personal journey, expanded with piles and piles of detail, meticulously researched and sorted. If you share her passion for household and business ledgers, knowing that a guinea was 1 pound and 1 shilling, and the historical vagaries of the shipping trade in the English city of Lancaster, among other tidbits, this is a gently paced, nicely written outing that is all about smelling the flowers rather than reaching any particular destination.

Here is the book in a nutshell: Goold, who plays keyboard, decides she wants to get an early-19th-century piano so that she can play and appreciate the music from the period in the way it would have sounded originally. (Unlike modern pianos, the original ones had a wooden instead of metal frame, much lower string tension, and, therefore, a thinner, less powerful sound. They were also a lot less durable.)

While poking around in the back shed of a small auction house, Goold discovers an old, square piano (the mass-market equivalent of today's small upright) made by John Broadwood & Son, one of the three most famous piano manufacturers of the 19th century (along with Pleyel and Érard in France).

The serial number, 10651, sets Goold off on a detective mission that leads her to John Langshaw, father and son, keyboard musicians based in Lancaster. We get a peek inside the workings of the Broadwood offices and workshops in London. We witness the birth of piano culture and star pianists, beginning with Muzio Clementi. We learn how England's canal system distributed trade. And we get a glimpse of private life in turn-of-the-19th-century England.

There is much historical detail. There are some pictures, some reproduced maps and letters (between Charles Wesley and John Langshaw). But, in the absence of diaries, Gold has to imagine much of the actual private life of her protagonists.

This is a pleasant historical meander with a kind, patient, well-spoken and occasionally interesting guide.

Here is an example of a piano much like Goold's Broadwood in action (YouTube credits the player as Jonathan Mayerov) with a bit of a Mozart sonata:

In a cynical age, it's too easy to dismiss the potential depth of surface sentimentality

I finally got around to reading Let's Talk About Love A Journey to the End of Taste, a meditation on aesthetic judgement wrapped around the music of Céline Dion. It's by former Globe and Mail music writer Carl Wilson. (The book was published in 2007 by Continuum.)

Blending pop culture, cultural history, music criticism with Wilson's eclectic sensibility, the book is a fascinating look at how highbrow, middlebrow and nobrow rub shoulders -- and look askance at each other -- in this day and age. Wilson tosses off meaningful observations along the way, moving on to the next without ever belabouring a point. The book is clever without the writer himself ever coming across as trying to be clever.

It's like having an interesting conversation with a friend whose opinions you respect.

Here's one of his many insights that I thought particularly potent, buried on page 131. This comes in a chapter where Wilson looks at our contemporary fear and loathing of anything sentimental.

"What self-conscious aesthetes such as Kundera, Merritt and I might be guilty of sentimentalizing is ambiguity, that shibboleth of our postidealistic age. Which can make us dupes of another kind, prone to taking surface complication and opacity for depth, and apt to overlook the complexity that may lie even within the sentimental on more patient, curious inspection. It's a fault endemic, I think, to us antireligionists who have turned for transcendent experience to art, and so react to what our reflexes tell us is bad art as if it were a kind of blasphemy."

There is so much to think about in that paragraph -- perhaps too much.

Here, in honour of the beauty of simple sentimentality is "Long Time Ago," from Aaron Copland's collection of Old American Songs. Somehow, this song has stayed with me through sentiment-soaked teenagehood, anti-sentimental young adulthood, into middle age. Here it is, sung unaffectedly by Thomas Hampson, in Salzburg, in 2001. The conductor is Dennis Russell Davies: