Re: GG: his own 1982 perspective on the Goldbergs

[Jean-Christophe Ponsero <ponserj2@YAHOO.FR>]

I don't know if we should really take GG seriously
considering what he says of the Goldbergs in this late
interview. Did he also really mean it when he said
Gibbons (or perhaps Byrd, I don't remember) was his
favorite composer? Don't forget he was a bit of an
eccentric!

Anyway it's unsettling. With his incredible words(to
me as a Frenchman they sound even more savory) I think
he is incredibly harsh, which makes me doubt he's
being serious. "Balcony-pleasing"!!! How dares he! I
have always thought there are practically no weak
points in the Goldbergs, and I stick to that. I've
just had a look at the score: Var 28 and 29 certainly
have some "etude" elements, especially Var 28, and any
not so good composer as Bach would have make a
disaster out of them. But Bach it was, and he
carefully deviced other patterns to balance those.
Variation 29 has a marvellous solemn side to it, at
that, and clearly trumpets the oncoming blazing end of
the quodlibet. Those two wouldn't be the first ones
I'd cross out if I had the painful task of downsizing
the Goldbergs.

Maybe GG had some profound objections at that time
which he did not explain, but I tend to think he was
(once again) provoking, and desacralizing THE Bach
work, possibly because he was fed up with people
thinking GG=Bach=Goldbergs...



------

Bradley, your response to Zhu vs Perahia by a poem
leads me to post one of my favorite poems, which is
also closely related to the perception of time, the
duality of passing/remaining, constant/fluid, and so
forth. As you very justly pointed out, this balance is
what an excellent interpretation of the Goldbergs must
achieve. The poem is "In Praise of Limestone" by WH
Auden (for more of his poems see www.plagiarist.com)

In Praise Of Limestone
If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant
ones,
     Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded
slopes
     With their surface fragrance of thyme and,
beneath,
A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the
springs
     That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,
Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving
     Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain
The butterfly and the lizard; examine this region
     Of short distances and definite places:
What could be more like Mother or a fitter background
     For her son, the flirtatious male who lounges
Against a rock in the sunlight, never doubting
     That for all his faults he is loved; whose works
are but
Extensions of his power to charm? From weathered
outcrop
     To hill-top temple, from appearing waters to
Conspicuous fountains, from a wild to a formal
vineyard,
     Are ingenious but short steps that a child's wish
To receive more attention than his brothers, whether
     By pleasing or teasing, can easily take.

Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and
down
     Their steep stone gennels in twos and threes, at
times
Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged
     On the shady side of a square at midday in
Voluble discourse, knowing each other too well to
think
     There are any important secrets, unable
To conceive a god whose temper-tantrums are moral
     And not to be pacified by a clever line
Or a good lay: for accustomed to a stone that
responds,
     They have never had to veil their faces in awe
Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed;
     Adjusted to the local needs of valleys
Where everything can be touched or reached by walking,
     Their eyes have never looked into infinite space
Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born
lucky,
     Their legs have never encountered the fungi
And insects of the jungle, the monstrous forms and
lives
     With which we have nothing, we like to hope, in
common.
So, when one of them goes to the bad, the way his mind
works
     Remains incomprehensible: to become a pimp
Or deal in fake jewellery or ruin a fine tenor voice
     For effects that bring down the house, could
happen to all
But the best and the worst of us...
                                             That is
why, I suppose,
     The best and worst never stayed here long but
sought
Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external,
     The light less public and the meaning of life
Something more than a mad camp. 'Come!' cried the
granite wastes,
     "How evasive is your humour, how accidental
Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death."
(Saints-to-be
     Slipped away sighing.) "Come!" purred the clays
and gravels,
"On our plains there is room for armies to drill;
rivers
     Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct you a
tomb
In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and
both
     Need to be altered." (Intendant Caesars rose and
Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were
fetched
     By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:
"I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;
     That is how I shall set you free. There is no
love;
There are only the various envies, all of them sad."

     They were right, my dear, all those voices were
right
And still are; this land is not the sweet home that it
looks,
     Nor its peace the historical calm of a site
Where something was settled once and for all: A back
ward
     And dilapidated province, connected
To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain
     Seedy appeal, is that all it is now? Not quite:
It has a worldy duty which in spite of itself
     It does not neglect, but calls into question
All the Great Powers assume; it disturbs our rights.
The poet,
     Admired for his earnest habit of calling
The sun the sun, his mind Puzzle, is made uneasy
     By these marble statues which so obviously doubt
His antimythological myth; and these gamins,
     Pursuing the scientist down the tiled colonnade
With such lively offers, rebuke his concern for
Nature's
     Remotest aspects: I, too, am reproached, for what
And how much you know. Not to lose time, not to get
caught,
     Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble
The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like
water
     Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these
Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music
     Which can be made anywhere, is invisible,
And does not smell. In so far as we have to look
forward
     To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if
Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead,
     These modifications of matter into
Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains,
     Made solely for pleasure, make a further point:
The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded
from,
     Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of
Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love
     Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone
landscape.


                                             May 1948

W.H. Auden



-----
JC

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