[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: GG: his music
them listening to GG they cannot give me a clear answer.
Well, music is mysterious. Trying to explain music in words can be fun
and perhaps even enlightening for some of us, but I don't think we're
likely to have any ``explanation'' of music soon. Something wired into
our brains at a very deep level, that connects with language,
mathematics, rhythm ... Not to go off on a tangent, but Douglas
R. Hoftstadter writes about this at length in his various books. (Not
everyone likes DRH's writing, but fwiw ...)
Anyway, as for me, GG's music is alive in a way that other performances
just are not. Bach, in particular -- just the opposite of Bradley in
this regard :-) -- And Gibbons/Byrd/Sweelinck. Most likely this has
more to do with me and my responses to baroque and pre- music than
anything about GG ... I don't get the feeling from his writing or
programs that he himself thought his Bach music was especially different
than his Beethoven or Schoenberg, say -- he recognized other people felt
differently about his Bach, sure (I'm thinking of some of the selected
letters), but didn't feel whatever-it-is himself. Am I neglecting
something that argue the opposite?
maybe there is no need to "discuss" about his art with other people.
Need? There's no *need*. But hey, people like to talk about stuff, so
why not :-). Maybe Kevin B. disdains it, but that's his problem.
(Sorry, I'm not much of a fan of Bazzana after his scathing ``review''
of 32SF, which I found to completely miss the point.)
No one would care about Gould -- 15 years after his death! -- let alone
about some scholarly treatise on his work, if his music didn't continue
to reach us.