Bach is usually boring.

When asked the rhetorical question "What do you know about music?" there's a lot you could say, but would feel foolish to answer aloud. One of the things I feel pretty confident about is my understanding of it and my feelings about it. As I reflect upon my past assumptions and thoughts on music, I smile, because experience and time really do change things, and only with those two factors have my present theories been conceived.

I mention this, because the other day I watched a documentary until 2 am on the most curious man, Glenn Gould-a Canadian pianist. The doc. was called "Glenn Gould: The Russian Journey". Fan-fucking-tastic! I loved it, just for the absurdity and total change this one man created.*

*As a side-note, while watching this documentary I happened to have my sketchbook at hand and began taking lecture notes...somehow?

In 1957 Gould visited Russia. He refused to sleep in a hotel room, stating that at home he was used to sleeping on a double bed, whereas in the hotel room they had two single beds pushed together to appear as a double bed. Upon rejection, Gould stayed in a room at the Canadian Embassy for the remainder of his stay. At this time, the USSR was newly opened up to visitors, which made any foreign person a spectacle, and this may be why as many people went to see him perform anyway.
His first concert was played at the Philharmonic Hall, with only half the lower seats taken, and a few people on the second level. He played Bach-which is not played often because let's face it-it's "boring"-quoted from one Leningrad musician(1) who was present for the 2nd movement.
After the 1st movement in the 40 minute intermission, the few people there were so deeply effected by Gould's playing raced to the telephones and called up their friends, demanding they come for the 2nd movement. When the intermission was over, every seat in the hall was filled.
The eye-witness musician(1) stated that to this day 60 years later, he believes that Gould was an alien visitor on Earth.
I wonder about this, because first of all it sounds ridiculous, but then you hear this man play. If I were to try my best and describe what makes him different than anyone else, I would say it's the strange way the tempo & rhythm are so precise, his movements are just right, the phrasing and the unbelievable cadence.
His second performance was at the Maly Hall, Leningrad Philharmonic. And his 3rd performance was at the Glaznov Hall-which has terrible acoustics for the listener.

Did Gould reach a level of musical understanding more advanced than the rest of us? Was this what makes him so "alien" to us? Not even just his playing is so out-of-this-world, but the way he spoke about music. With precision, and quickly, but not withheld or restrained. The documentary showed a video clip of his lecture on music within the Leningrad conservation. He wanted to elevate the students, but they insisted on him playing Bach-which he did.
Everything about Gould intrigued the students-from the complexity of how he played, how he wore gloves and never shook hands, how his mouth was in constant motion sometimes singing, sometimes muttering- to how he sat (actually, this would intrigue anyone, since he sat on a VERY low CHAIR with his knees almost to his elbows).
Bach was not played often, for it's "unorthodox" ideas, and was not played at schools of music because everything was controlled by officers. Why didn't the officers stop him from playing Bach for the students? Who knows...perhaps the officers let the foreigner play because they thought nothing of it. Little did they know that Gould would be the spark the lit the barn on fire.

Glenn wrote letters from the USSR to his pet dog, Banquo. He wrote about how there were few stray dogs, because they were all killed in the war. The most popular kind of dog was an unclipped poodle, and that there were no collies.

"A Berlin Wall existed in music as well." - unknown.
Previously, Russian music was very Romantic, with certain styles that remained unchanging throughout the centuries. The USSR banned certain musicians and certainly anything new. Foreign records were nearly impossible to come by, and rarely sold in stores.


....to be completed