Editing Glenn Gould (section)

== Perspectives ==
===Writings===
{{external media|audio1=[https://archive.org/details/glenngould_201911/Glenn+Gould/El+Clavec%C3%ADn+Bien+Temperado/Well-Tempered+Clavier+I/Bach%2C+WTC+Bk1%2C+Prelude+%26+Fugue+01+in+C%2C+BWV846+-+1+Prelude.mp3 Glenn Gould performs] Bach's: Prelude & Fugue No. 1–24, BWV 846–869; Prelude & Fugue No. 1–24, BWV 870–893; English Suite No. 1–6, BWV 806–811; French Suite No. 1–6, BWV 812–817; Goldberg Variations No. 1–30, BWV 988; Partita No. 1–6, BWV 825–830; and various Inventions, Sinfonias & Contrapunctus|audio2=[https://archive.org/details/bach-j.s.-o-concertos-pour-piano-nos.-3-5-7-glenn-gould-20220705/CBS+60028%E2%80%A2f1.wav Glenn Gould and] the [[Columbia Symphony Orchestra]] with [[Vladimir Golschmann]] circa 1967 in Bach's Keyboard Concertos: No. 3 in D major, BWV 1054; No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056; No. 7 in G minor, BWV 1058}}

Gould periodically told interviewers he would have been a writer if he had not been a pianist.{{sfn|Friedrich|1990|p=112}} He expounded his criticism and philosophy of music and art in lectures, [[convocation]] speeches, periodicals, and CBC radio and television documentaries. Gould participated in many interviews, and had a predilection for scripting them to the extent that they may be seen to be as written work as much as off-the-cuff discussions. Gould's writing style was highly articulate, but sometimes florid, indulgent, and rhetorical. This is especially evident in his (frequent) attempts at humour and irony.<ref name="fnP" group="fn"/> Bazzana writes that although some of Gould's "conversational dazzle" found its way into his prolific written output, his writing was "at best uneven [and] at worst awful".{{sfn|Bazzana|2003|p=271}} While offering "brilliant insights" and "provocative theses", Gould's writing is often marred by "long, tortuous sentences" and a "false formality", Bazzana writes.{{sfn|Bazzana|2003|p=272}}

In his writing, Gould praised certain composers and rejected what he deemed banal in music composition and its consumption by the public, and also gave analyses of the music of [[Richard Strauss]], [[Alban Berg]] and [[Anton Webern]]. Despite a certain affection for [[Dixieland jazz]], Gould was mostly averse to popular music. He enjoyed a jazz concert with his friends as a youth, mentioned jazz in his writings, and once criticized [[the Beatles]] for "bad [[voice leading]]"<ref name="fnQ" group="fn"/>—while praising [[Petula Clark]] and [[Barbra Streisand]]. Gould and jazz pianist [[Bill Evans]] were mutual admirers, and Evans made his record ''[[Conversations with Myself (album)|Conversations with Myself]]'' using Gould's Steinway model CD 318 piano.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/glenn-goulds-steinway|title=Glenn Gould's Steinway|encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=7 September 2019|archive-date=29 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190329025229/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/glenn-goulds-steinway|url-status=live}}</ref>

===On art===
Gould's perspective on art is often summed up by this 1962 quotation: "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."{{sfn|Kingwell|2009|p=194}}

Gould repeatedly called himself "the last [[puritan]]", a reference to the philosopher [[George Santayana]]'s [[The Last Puritan|1935 novel of the same name]].{{sfn|Friedrich|1990|p=125}} But he was progressive in many ways, promulgating the [[atonal]] composers of the early 20th century, and anticipating, through his deep involvement in the recording process, the vast changes technology had on the production and distribution of music. Mark Kingwell summarizes the paradox, never resolved by Gould nor his biographers, this way:

{{blockquote|He was progressive and anti-progressive at once, and likewise at once both a critic of the ''[[Zeitgeist]]'' and its most interesting expression. He was, in effect, stranded on a beachhead of his own thinking between past and future. That he was not able, by himself, to fashion a bridge between them is neither surprising, nor, in the end, disappointing. We should see this failure, rather, as an aspect of his genius. He both was and was not a man of his time.{{sfn|Kingwell|2009|p=166}}}}

===Technology===
The issue of "authenticity" in relation to an approach like Gould's has been greatly debated (although less so by the end of the 20th century): is a recording less authentic or "direct" for having been highly refined by technical means in the studio? Gould likened his process to that of a film director{{sfn|Kingwell|2009|p=151}}—one knows that a two-hour film was not made in two hours—and implicitly asked why the recording of music should be different. He went so far as to conduct an experiment with musicians, sound engineers, and laypeople in which they were to listen to a recording and determine where the splices occurred. Each group chose different points, but none was wholly successful. While the test was hardly scientific, Gould remarked, "The tape does lie, and nearly always gets away with it".{{sfn|Kingwell|2009|pp=158–159}}

In the lecture and essay "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process", one of his most significant texts,{{sfn|Gould|1999|loc=p. 205, editor's introduction to the essay}} Gould makes explicit his views on authenticity and creativity. He asks why the epoch in which a work is received influences its reception as "art", postulating a sonata of his own composition that sounds so like one of [[Haydn]]'s that it is received as such. If, instead, the sonata had been attributed to an earlier or later composer, it becomes more or less interesting as a piece of music. Yet it is not the work that has changed but its relation within the accepted narrative of [[music history]]. Similarly, Gould notes the "pathetic duplicity" in the reception of high-quality forgeries by [[Han van Meegeren]] of new paintings attributed to the [[Dutch master]] [[Johannes Vermeer]], before and after the forgery was known.

Gould preferred an ahistorical, or at least pre-Renaissance, view of art, minimizing the identity of the artist and the attendant historical context in evaluating the artwork: "What gives us the right to assume that in the work of art we must receive a direct communication with the historical attitudes of another period? ... moreover, what makes us assume that the situation of the man who wrote it accurately or faithfully reflects the situation of his time? ... What if the composer, as historian, is faulty?"{{sfn|Gould|1999|p=208}}