Re: GG: Globe column by Robert Fulford

[Richard Vallis <RVpiano@spec.net>]

Thank you so much for this fascinating info;  especially the comments of
Neuhaus.

Junichi Miyazawa wrote:

> Dear f_minorians:
>
> One of the leading Canadian journalists Robert Fulford,
> who was a friend of GG in their teens,
> worte a column on GG for *Globe and Mail*
> dated March 11, 1998.
>
> I received the article from him on the net, and
> got a kind permission to forward it to the f_minor.
>
> In fact, Robert Fulford did not know our list,
> but now he is interested in the participation.
>
> If he appears on our key, please welcome him.
> We may be able to ask him about GG in his early days.
>
> BTW, he has a web site of his own:
>
> http://www.mtnlake.com/~mfulford/robert/index.html
>
> There, you will find interesting lectures, some of which
> mention his old friend. (You will find his recollections of GG
> in Peter Ostwald's biography, as well as independent memoirs
> in both *GG Variations* and his book *Best Seat in the House*.)
>
> Here, his recent article:
>
> >@bt Robert Fulford column for Wednesday, March 11.98\
> >The great hall of the Moscow Conservatory was only half filled on May 7,
> 1957, the
> >first night of Glenn Gould's first European tour.  At the age of 24 Gould
> was already
> >well launched in North America, having played with the New York
> Philharmonic
> >under Leonard Bernstein and recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations.  But in
> Russia
> >he was largely unknown--until the May 7 concert changed everything.  News
> of his
> >talent flashed around Moscow, and tickets for his remaining concerts sold
> out the
> >next day.  He "became famous literally overnight," according to Sofia
> Moshevich, a
> >pianist who grew up in the Soviet Union and now lives in Toronto.\
> > She discusses Gould's Russian trip, a great event in Canadian cultural
> >history, in an article for GlennGould, [note to desk: no space between
> Glenn and
> >Gould] the twice-yearly magazine of the Gould Foundation (P.O. Box 190, 260
> >Adelaide Street East, Toronto M5A 1N1).  An engaging combination of
> scholarship
> >and nostalgia, GlennGould resurrects obscure Gould interviews and reviews,
> >covers new Gould books, announces events like the international Gould
> conference
> >in Toronto in September, 1999, and charts the progress of his reputation
> around the
> >world.  The issue containing the Russian piece also has a fascinating
> article about
> >Gould's status in Japan, written by Junichi Miyazama, the writer and critic
> who
> >regularly translates Gould material into Japanese.\
> > In Russia Gould gave eight concerts, four each in Moscow and
> >Leningrad.  He was unprepared for the exuberance of the audiences--the
> flowers
> >thrown on the stage, the demands for multiple encores, then the five-minute
> >standing ovations with rhythmic handclapping.  In Leningrad they put extra
> chairs
> >on-stage and assigned extra police to control the crowds.  They sold all
> 1,300
> >seats plus 1,100 standing-room places.  Gould said, "It was overwhelming
> and just
> >a bit frightening."  It was partly due to Russia's isolation.  He was the
> first North
> >American pianist to play there since the Second World War, so he was a
> >messenger from the outside world.  He felt like "the first musician to land
> on
> >Mars..."\
> > A passionate missionary for the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and
> >his followers, Gould made their work the core of a concert for conservatory
> >students and teachers in Moscow.  When he announced his program, there was
> (he
> >wrote in a letter) "a rather alarming and temporarily uncontrollable
> murmuring from
> >the audience....."  Schoenberg's music was not considered legitimate in the
> Soviet
> >Union and some students seemed unable to decide whether to leave or stay.
> Two
> >people did walk out: "elderly professors who probably felt that I was
> attempting to
> >pervert the taste of the young."  He played Alban Berg, Anton von Webern,
> and
> >Ernst Krenek, plus Bach.\
> > Someone in that hall was making a tape, which eventually found its way
> >to Paris.  In 1983, a year after Gould's death, it appeared as Glenn Gould:
> Concert
> >de Moscou, a CD on the Harmonia Mundi label.  It's entirely unedited, and
> it would
> >horrify Gould, whose recording standards were famously rigorous.  It
> includes his
> >spoken commentary (and the translation into Russian), but he's so far off
> mike that
> >you have to double the volume to make out what he's saying.  He sounds
> young,
> >confident, and a little like the CBC announcers he had been hearing all his
> life
> >("Within a decade, Schoenberg had begun to formulate a principle...").  It
> is the
> >most incompetent recording I own, and I wouldn't part with it for
> anything.\
> > After Glenn returned to Toronto, he amused his friends with stories about
> >Russian officials.  A translator saw him glance at women standing outside a
> hotel
> >and told him, without being asked, that they were definitely not
> prostitutes since the
> >Soviet Union had no prostitutes.  Gould reported that when he found a piano
> he
> >liked and asked that it be moved from one hall to another so he could use
> it a
> >second time, his hosts quickly agreed with him and then began fabricating
> endless
> >excuses for not getting it done.  In the end he believed that Russia had no
> >professional piano movers.  Pianos came from their makers in Germany, and
> >stayed forever where the men from the factory left them.  He decided that
> this so
> >embarrassed his hosts that they couldn't admit the truth.\
> > Alongside Moshevich's article, GlennGould runs one of the most striking
> >reviews ever written about Gould.  The writer, Heinrich Neuhaus, then 69,
> was a
> >great piano teacher whose students included Sviatoslav Richter and Emil
> Gilels.  In
> >the summer of 1957, Neuhaus wrote in the journal Culture and Life,  "I tell
> you quite
> >frankly that Gould is not a pianist, he is a phenomenon."  Neuhaus
> immediately
> >understood something that much of the musical world didn't fully grasp
> until years
> >later--that Gould was building a new bridge to Bach.  His interpretations
> were so
> >convincing, Neuhaus said, that he might have been a pupil of Bach himself;
> he
> >could imagine Gould sharing Bach's meals and inflating the organ bellows
> for the
> >master.  "In this sense Gould is not 24, he is nearly 300," Neuhaus wrote,
> and the
> >possessor of "great talent, great mastery, high spirit, and deep soul."
> Ever since
> >Gould's visit, says Sofia Moshevich, the playing of Bach in Russia has been
> >divided into two periods, before Gould and after Gould.  As Neuhaus wrote,
> >"Gould's appearance was quite an event in our life."\
>
> Regards,
>
> Junichi
>
> ****************************************
>   Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
>   walkingtune@bigfoot.com / junichi@poetic.com
> ****************************************
>   http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3739