At the time of the solo, Glenn Gould strides into the field in a loose suit, his laces untied, his socks out of tune, and his hair disheveled. What follows is the full line of his performance: the speech he gives on a stool, the hand that draws the conductor when he is empty, the nose and mouth that keep humming, the head that swings back and forth... In order to control his feet and not to swing up to beat the rhythm, he simply sat on his legs.
When working with the orchestra, he was not quiet. One report said he would "move around, twist suddenly and convulsively, and the gestures didn't stop," sometimes taking a sip of water or staring at the ceiling. In 1957, when Karajan led the Berliner Philharmonic Orchestra to perform Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 for him, Gould ignored the orchestra and the audience's waiting and adjusted the height and slope of the stool he designed and supervised for 30 minutes. The show began, only to see him sitting on a low stool with his legs crossed, his chin just enough to reach the keyboard, and sometimes the tip of his nose almost touched the piano, and he shook his head and shook his head, playing the piano while humming some strange tones.
Gould is such a strange man, in addition to his famous small chair and low hunchback sitting posture during the performance, his polar attire that distinguishes between winter and summer is also very noticeable - thick coat, duck tongue hat, scarf, gloves, in addition to carrying a variety of drugs, including headaches, stress relief, metabolism promotion... Gould himself didn't find himself weird, but as his playing career took off, he gradually discovered that "wherever he went, they wanted me to take medicine and take pictures of them." People were happy to have him stand on the piano in a scarf and gloves to take pictures, "I'm really fed up with these kinds of photos," Gould said.
Regarding his eccentricities, people have done everything they can to show off, and one music critic even said that he was "in a trance, possessed by many good and evil spirits." In Florence, his peculiar style was seen as a symptom of extreme sensitivity, with the Brussels Evening Post stating that "his orangutan style may please Elvis fans, but this gesture will irritate some listeners, at least exhaustingly," in any case. In the Salzburg report, some listeners escaped in the middle of the show, muttering that Gould was simply crazy. Gould was surprised by the public reaction to his typhoon, and at first he didn't care much about it, but actually felt intimidated and unnatural. "At the concert, I was like a juggler." He later said, "I hate the audience, I think they are the forces of evil. ”
There are often reports of audiences in concert halls snickering, whispering, and exchanging glances, but when the music starts, Gould is often able to conquer them. The pianist who single-handedly turned Bach's long-neglected Gothenburg Variations into a masterpiece is impressive for his exquisite technique and distinctive music and interpretation. In 1957, Gould went to the former Soviet Union to perform, and because the locals knew so little about him, the premiere in Moscow, although many people received official free tickets, only one-third of the concert hall was filled. But by the time of the intermission (the Soviet Union had 45 minutes), everyone rushed to tell each other and called friends and relatives, so many listeners rushed from all over Moscow to the concert hall, and by the beginning of the second half, the hall was not only full, but many people were sad to leave because they could not stand. Gould's subsequent Moscow solo venues were so packed that people even had to sit on the stage, after which the audience applauded and cheered for half an hour. It was found that while others at the scene were clapping to the point of acidity, the grand pianist Hurt continued to applaud and cheer for a long time.
Unlike the crowded and sneering audience, overzealous fans have also become problematic. Even the passage from the dressing room to the car is often blocked by the jubilant audience. On several occasions, Gould had to fend off the approaching fans, and on one occasion there was a Russian diplomat's wife. Gould said, "I run away after every concert. "He used to check into hotels under a pseudonym because there was a group of people who were always frantically following him, and he followed him wherever he went.
For Gould, "1 hour with people requires x hours of solitude", and the far-fetched interaction of toasting and laughing with strangers makes him extremely uncomfortable. Gould thus offended Mrs. La fanci, one of New York's leading names in the art world. The lady hosted a banquet for celebrities after Gould's premiere at New York City Hall, but soon after the banquet began, Gould slipped away. He excused himself as being unwell, but in fact he couldn't stand such a social situation at all.
The judgment of the audience and the socializing of necessity are the ones that every performer must face. Violinist Chrysler once said that the price of a performance is a thousand dollars, and attending a party is an additional two thousand dollars. But what ultimately prompted Gould to leave the stage was that he always questioned the meaning of the performance itself. He once created a script of "Gould interviewing Gould" to try to express his heart: artists should get rid of so-called social responsibility and get rid of the enslaved role of serving fans. Later, he wrote that a considerable number of people believe that only by being in the theater, only by having direct face-to-face communication with the artist, can the listener truly experience the spiritual climax of human communication. My answer to this is that the highest state and ultimate goal of art itself has almost nothing to do with "human beings".
Gould believes that the performance has cost him some musical value, and the whispering, coughing and creaking of the chairs have greatly disturbed him. Once he performed the "Gothenburg Variations" live, the original song was already a test of his ability, coupled with the frequent rattling of chairs in the audience, resulting in Gould using a lot of techniques that he would never use when his mind was clear, such as octave folding. While the audience and critics praised it, Gould saw it as an uneasy, superficial, out-of-control, and even vulgar performance. In an interview, he said, "Honestly, I can't think of any performance where I would feel better about the quality of the performance because the audience was there." That being the case, for him, what is the significance of the audience? No wonder Gould genuinely wanted to eliminate audience reaction and interaction, and in 1962 he even drafted a Gould plan, "On the Abolition of Applause and All Acts of Display" (GPAADAK), to reduce the influence of audience reaction on artists.
At the beginning of his career, Gould had enjoyed the sense of power that came with the show, but over time he felt that it was an empty and weak pleasure. "The concert is cheating." He said, "You're going to keep playing these old-fashioned things that some listeners get tired of just listening to the album." The musician gets the most concerts with the least amount of effort and then plays with the same interpretation. This pattern, once started, leads to the most severe lack of imagination. Then, people grow old in repetitive work year after year, which is really a bad life. ”
"The purpose of art is not a momentary hormonal release, but a gradual, lifelong wonder and tranquility, a real construction." Rather than fleeting live performances, Gould sees eternity in the record, leaving behind a fixed version of the interpretation and willing to take responsibility for it. Before recording, he analyzed the structure, dissected the pieces, and in a word, tried to make the playing experience perfect. During the recording, he described himself as an actor in a series, practicing new lines every day, ending with the performance, and then continuing with the new plot.
From time to time as a teenager, Gould claimed to give up acting, and almost no one believed he was serious. In 1962, Gould announced that he would leave the stage permanently, that there were fewer and fewer contracts, that the performance schedule was getting more and more chopped, that sometimes he would stop when he had a few snots, and that he would ask a doctor friend to issue a certificate to cancel the performance. Although Gould's schedule is not stressful, he still has to cut off 20-30% of the performance contract, although he will then re-sign due to the torture of conscience, but in the end such performances are often cut by him. Gould also had to pay a lot of liquidated damages for this.
On April 10, 1964, at the age of 32, Gould, who was at the peak of his performance, performed a recital at the Ibel Opera house in Los Angeles, which he had cancelled earlier and rearranged. On this Friday night, his repertoire, technique and musical insights ecstatically delighted the audience and moved the critics, and as usual, almost everyone forgave his eccentric behavior for the beauty of the music. On the following April 17, he had another performance, mozart's Concerto in C minor, but he cancelled it. Since then, Gould has never performed any more.
This article is written with reference to The Incredible Wonder: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould (by Kevin Bazzana / translated by Liu Jiazhen / Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2009), Gould Reader: The Literal Alchemy of the Genius Piano Monster Jeggold (by Glenn Gould / Tim Peggy / Translated by Zhuang Jiasun / Lijiang Publishing House, 2016) and 32 Short Films by Gould (directed by François Girard / 1993).
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