Glenn Gould: A Life in Pictures - Rilegato

Ma, Yo-Yo; Gould, Glenn

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385659032 ISBN 13: 9780385659031

Casa editrice: Doubleday of Canada, 2002

Riassunto

Foreword by Yo-Yo Ma
Introduction by Tim Page

“Glenn Gould was blessed with a multitude of gifts, but longevity was not among them. And yet . . . he has, in some profound and personal way, transcended time, for he remains a vital -- indeed essential -- musical presence all these years later, in some ways more central to our experience now than when he was alive.” -- Tim Page, from the Introduction

Glenn Gould (1932-1982) burst onto the world stage with his inspired 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. His dynamic virtuosity and passionate artistry inspired millions, and he spent the next nine years as a star on the international concert circuit. In 1964, he announced that he was retiring from live performance, and devoted the rest of his life to recordings and documentaries.

Glenn Gould: A Life in Pictures is the first photographic treatment of the life of one of the greatest and most fascinating musicians of all time. This collection of more than 200 images includes a treasure trove of family pictures from the Glenn Gould Estate, most of which have never before been published, and rare photos from the CBC Archives, Sony Classical, and the National Archives of Canada.

A Life in Pictures celebrates the seventieth anniversary of Gould’s birth. The Foreword by Yo-Yo Ma and the Introduction by music critic Tim Page provide an insightful overview of Gould’s life and art. Extensive captions by the Estate’s literary advisor, Malcolm Lester, and quotes from Gould himself and other luminaries such as Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Leopold Stokowski, and Leonard Rose appear throughout the book. The result is a lively portrait of a unique creative genius.

“Gould’s mind was a brilliant and shimmering prism through which sounds, senses and ideas were magically transfigured. As a teenager hearing his 1955 CBS recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations for the first time, I experienced a musical epiphany that would fuel my musical thinking for years to come. His recordings were a touchstone during those early years. . . ."
-- Yo-Yo Ma, from the Foreword

Su questo libro

L'autore:

Yo-Yo Ma, the internationally acclaimed cellist, won the Glenn Gould Prize in 1999. He contributed the Foreword. Yo-Yo Ma lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tim Page, the author of the Introduction, is a leading Gould expert and a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic at the Washington Post. His previous publications include The Glenn Gould Reader. He has twice been a juror for the Glenn Gould Prize. Tim Page lives in Washington, D.C.

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Foreword by Yo-Yo Ma

One of Glenn Gould’s greatest gifts was his ability to create breathtaking new sound worlds from his own deep understanding of the abstract. In his recordings, writings and documentaries, Gould effortlessly transformed and reduced concepts of vast complexity into forms of profound beauty and simplicity.

Gould’s mind was a brilliant and shimmering prism through which sounds, senses and ideas were magically transfigured. As a teenager hearing his 1955 CBS recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations for the first time, I experienced a musical epiphany that would fuel my musical thinking for years to come. His recordings were a touchstone during those early years, and I admit that a copy of the Goldberg LP was prominently displayed on the wall of my freshman dorm room.

Gould was not a tactile or experiential thinker; rather, he dwelt deeply within the recesses of his own interior world. And in fact, he insulated himself from the realities of the physical world by creating his own self-sustaining universe. My wife, Jill, recalled how she encountered Gould for the first time in 1972, the same summer she and I met at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. On a sunny, hot and cloudless morning, there he stood in cap, heavy winter coat, galoshes and gloves asking to interview Pablo Casals -- it was a sight she would never forget!

Gould constructed a series of elegant hypotheses to define the natural world around him. He approached life with the wonder and curiosity of a scientist, and in this respect, he reminded me of the great physicist Richard Feynman. While Feynman sought to study nature, which guarded its secrets, Gould’s approach was one step removed. Gould used the natural world as a backdrop to drive his imagination, yet did not require any proof or evidence of its actual existence. One of my favourite stories about Gould occurred when he was on tour in Israel in the 1950s. Disheartened by the piano in the hall, he drove his car out to the sand dunes near Tel Aviv and imagined he was playing his boyhood piano in his cottage on Lake Simcoe. He fixed his gaze on the Mediterranean and practised for hours -- and that evening performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 to stunning and powerful effect.

Indeed, Gould exemplified how the mind could transport one to the outer reaches of creative expression. In his groundbreaking radio documentary The Idea of North, he explored the romantic ideal of the North, as a geographic region and as a mindset. The program consisted of a series of interviews featuring Canadians living in the arctic and subarctic regions of Canada who were asked to define the ineffable ideal of what constituted “the North.” The result was an elaborate, fugal tapestry consisting of interviews that were edited by Gould himself. Well-known for his fear of the cold, the reclusive artist ventured no farther north than Winnipeg and Churchill. “I have no real experience of the North. I have remained of necessity an outsider,” he admitted. “The North has remained for me a convenient place to dream about, spin tall tales about, and in the end avoid.”

Imagined experience is perhaps made richer by the mind’s eye, and this divide between imagined experience and reality can be found in the lives of so many of the great artists. Like Ravel, who infused his works with the bell-like pentatonicism of the Javanese gamelan orchestra, which he heard for the first time at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, Gould shared a penchant for exploring new sound worlds. The fact that Ravel never travelled to the East and that Gould never travelled to the North is perhaps immaterial. It was “the idea of” these worlds that ignited their creative imaginations.

Shortly after Gould completed The Idea of North, he was asked to do a radio documentary about China. He was fascinated with the idea, but proposed to do the documentary without leaving Canada. “The prospects for a visit by me to the Orient are nil.” Yet even his fear of flying could not curb his longing to explore this vast new territory. He suggested doing a radio essay on the theme of solitude with China as the backdrop. Not surprisingly, Gould never went East. Yet he remained devoted to exploring new frontiers.

Creativity cannot be measured by the boundaries of north, south, east or west. Gould once defined art as “the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” He understood the great joy of being able to transform a pure abstract concept into a thing of tangible beauty. His work reflects a birth of sorts, and was a wondrous passport to his mind and spirit.

While we are bereft of Gould’s inimitable artistry, the legacy of his imagination is a gift we will continue to treasure for many years to come.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Doubleday of Canada
• Data di pubblicazione: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0385659032
• ISBN 13: 9780385659031
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 192