- Paperback: 496 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (26 July 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571148522
- ISBN-13: 978-0571148523
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 808,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
When Glenn Gould died in 1982 at the age of fifty, he left behind an astonishing legacy: in twenty-six years he had proved himself to be not only an extraordinary pianist but a brilliant critic. His writing - which appeared primarily in music journals and on record sleeves - was often as provocative as his performances: demanding, compelling, occasionally infuriating, but always the product of a singular artistic vision. This is a wide-ranging selection from Gould's criticism.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The GG Reader is a collection of Gould's most persuasive articles, interviews, reviews and liner notes. Sometimes it descends into trivia, but mostly this is a fascinating and absorbing collection of music thoughts from one of the century's most original music thinkers. Highlights include Gould's essays on Strauss and Schoenberg, the prophetic "the Prospects of Recording" and his views on Russian music.
The Reader is ideal as a book to dip into, to sample and to savour. Some of his most amusing record sleeve notes are included, pieces about his music heros and heroines (the Stokowski Interview is particularly good) and much more besides.
The Reader then is one of Gould's most interesting legacies - the collected thoughts and views of a contraversial and much loved artist.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful
A delighful collection of dissenting ideas.
18 July 1998
Format:Paperback
Glenn Gould has occassionally been accused of being different just for the sake of being different. I believe this was not the case. Everything he did had a clear motive and this book lays out most of these motives. Besides being entertaining and stimulating reading, the Glenn Gould Reader contains a peek into the brilliant mind of the genius who created some of the greatest recordings of piano music of all time.
34 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Not only a great musician, a great thinker
17 Sep 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Glenn Gould was one of the best piano players ever. But he not only achieved the highest level of virtuosity, he re-invented the music of Bach and other composers. He was not only faster than other musicians (as this is the trivial criteria of virtuosity), every of his interpretations contains a thought beyond the music. This book shows the world of Gould's thoughts beyond the music. It's almost pure philosophy of art, almost, because Gould doesn't want to create complex system, his points are straight. Two examples:
- "The determination of the value of a work of art according to the information available about it is a most delinquent form of aesthetic appraisal"
- "The computer repositories file away the memories of mankind and leave us free to be inventive in spite of them"
Makes you think, huh?
The book contains dozens of short texts written during many years, and are grouped into few parts:
1) Music - about Art of Fugue of course, Goldberg Variations, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Mozart. Deep look into the music.
2) Performance - Gould gave up live performances and was accused for eccentrism There was a good reason beyond this decision, figure out why he did it.
3) Glenn Gould interviews Glenn Gould. What? Yes, his interviewers weren't good enough, so he conducted an interview with himself.
4) Media - how recording has changed the perception and performance of music, Gould's favourite radio with explanation of the "Idea of North" and "Latecomers", exceptionally original radio pieces by Gould, comparable with the XX century avant-garde. Radio as music.
5) Miscellany.
Sometimes it requires quite good musical background and education, as Gould lets the music speak for itself, on paper, by reproducing notes. Sometimes it requires knowledge of this recordings, which he refers to. But most of it is about music per se, the universal language Gould mastered. Highly recommended to all people who believe in music.
- "The determination of the value of a work of art according to the information available about it is a most delinquent form of aesthetic appraisal"
- "The computer repositories file away the memories of mankind and leave us free to be inventive in spite of them"
Makes you think, huh?
The book contains dozens of short texts written during many years, and are grouped into few parts:
1) Music - about Art of Fugue of course, Goldberg Variations, Beethoven, Schoenberg and Mozart. Deep look into the music.
2) Performance - Gould gave up live performances and was accused for eccentrism There was a good reason beyond this decision, figure out why he did it.
3) Glenn Gould interviews Glenn Gould. What? Yes, his interviewers weren't good enough, so he conducted an interview with himself.
4) Media - how recording has changed the perception and performance of music, Gould's favourite radio with explanation of the "Idea of North" and "Latecomers", exceptionally original radio pieces by Gould, comparable with the XX century avant-garde. Radio as music.
5) Miscellany.
Sometimes it requires quite good musical background and education, as Gould lets the music speak for itself, on paper, by reproducing notes. Sometimes it requires knowledge of this recordings, which he refers to. But most of it is about music per se, the universal language Gould mastered. Highly recommended to all people who believe in music.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A true companion
7 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Appreciation of Glenn Gould's towering genius came late to me, but now that it has, I would be bereft without this book as my companion.
Gould's virtuoso performances speak for themselves, but by clever design the 3-CD set A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981) included a radio interview that allows Gould to speak for himself. Listening to his incisive and insightful self-criticism, I regretted that his life and my awareness of it never overlapped. Happily, a collection of his playful, unorthodox, and thoroughly original ideas were committed to paper, and Tim Page has done a great service to his legacy by editing and collecting those papers into this rather substantial volume.
It is absolutely breath-taking the way that Glenn understood the implications of his preferred medium, the audio recording, and how that understanding presaged the free culture movement, and in particular, the Creative Commons. Consider this proposition from "Strauss and the Electronic Future": "[in] fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process." In "The Prospects of Recording" Gould asserts "[it] would be a relatively simple matter, for instance, to grant the listener tape-edit options which he could exercise as his discretion. Indeed, a significant step in this direction might well result from that process by which it is now possible to disassociate the ratio of speed to pitch and in so doing ... truncate splice-segments of interpretations of the same work performed by different artists and recorded at different tempos." Twenty years before sampling, and thirty years before remix was a genre, Gould knew that it was only a matter of time and technology. And though he did not live to see that technology become mainstream, he writes manifestos of culture and philosophy, aesthetics and interpretation that give us a perfect view about what he would have thought about today's crisis of copyright versus culture.
Gould writes with such an intimate voice, so rich in imagery, precise in detail, tireless in explanation, fearless in argument (and the use of the parenthetical), that I feel as if I am having a late-night conversation over a bottle of red wine with the man himself. Or, more astonishingly, that I feel as if we are true friends.
So listen, and read. Read and listen. You may find yourself with a new friend, too.
Gould's virtuoso performances speak for themselves, but by clever design the 3-CD set A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981) included a radio interview that allows Gould to speak for himself. Listening to his incisive and insightful self-criticism, I regretted that his life and my awareness of it never overlapped. Happily, a collection of his playful, unorthodox, and thoroughly original ideas were committed to paper, and Tim Page has done a great service to his legacy by editing and collecting those papers into this rather substantial volume.
It is absolutely breath-taking the way that Glenn understood the implications of his preferred medium, the audio recording, and how that understanding presaged the free culture movement, and in particular, the Creative Commons. Consider this proposition from "Strauss and the Electronic Future": "[in] fact, implicit in electronic culture is an acceptance of the idea of multilevel participation in the creative process." In "The Prospects of Recording" Gould asserts "[it] would be a relatively simple matter, for instance, to grant the listener tape-edit options which he could exercise as his discretion. Indeed, a significant step in this direction might well result from that process by which it is now possible to disassociate the ratio of speed to pitch and in so doing ... truncate splice-segments of interpretations of the same work performed by different artists and recorded at different tempos." Twenty years before sampling, and thirty years before remix was a genre, Gould knew that it was only a matter of time and technology. And though he did not live to see that technology become mainstream, he writes manifestos of culture and philosophy, aesthetics and interpretation that give us a perfect view about what he would have thought about today's crisis of copyright versus culture.
Gould writes with such an intimate voice, so rich in imagery, precise in detail, tireless in explanation, fearless in argument (and the use of the parenthetical), that I feel as if I am having a late-night conversation over a bottle of red wine with the man himself. Or, more astonishingly, that I feel as if we are true friends.
So listen, and read. Read and listen. You may find yourself with a new friend, too.
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