Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Goldberg Variations 1-30
Performed by Glenn Gould
Columbia Masterworks Recording
Glenn Gould
Of craft and scrutiny——If Chopin’s waltzes prompt you to forty minutes sitting quietly and staring at the middle-distance, whistling the melodic bits you know and spacing out to the bass line, then it seems these Variations were made to the inspire the opposite: pay attention to the bass, melody be damned. That despite the fact that the inspiration for these variations was a fairly melodic aria (a sarabande for the composer’s wife, Anna Magdalena) from which the bass line was extracted for the purpose aiding a sleepless Count (von Keyserling) to pass the night. In it there’s a tireless hamster spinning its wheels, towing the middle line at equidistance from any melodic bent in one direction or the other. And the most remarkable thing is that this is exactly design—Gould himself admits as much that it is “music that observes neither end nor beginning, music with nether real climax nor real resolution….It has unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny”. The thirty variations in this recording unspool from the dense tuft of a singular musical idea, a long spiralling line drawn across a strict and unyielding grid. If math could sing, then there’d be no need for the Variations. Ultimately it’s a compliment to the composer, whose spectrum of feeling ranged from Variations to the Brandenburg Concertos, with the Well Tempered Clavier at at temperate middle.
Ontario, according to Alexis——
“It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it. This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things." Glenn Gould
I’ve never known what to do with the ‘Canadians have no culture’ sentiment: I know where it’s coming from, but can’t help noticing how skewed the reality it’s based on. As an immigrant ot this country, it does seem like the vibrant flags that elsewhere demarcate culture are sorely missing, but a succession of winters here is almost enough to recalibrate ones sensitivity to better regard the remarkably reserved subtleties through which our culture communicates itself. Almost two decades here and I still can’t put my finger on what is being communicated exactly. Though there are occasional opportunities to jump to conclusions: take Glenn Gould for example, or perhaps what Gould is famous for, these Variations and the obsession with control that is betrayed by every other note. If you allow for a gross generalization then it might seem fair to ask the question—based solely on the work through which the most acclaimed Torontonian pianist found his audience: are we not, at bottom, a spiritually conservative people? Scrutinizers in spite of ourselves, warm when warmed up, but otherwise cold and eelish? Perhaps I’m reading my own speculations into the books of Toronto’s Andre Alexis—author of the ubiquitous Quincux Five series—but isn’t it the fundamental reservedness in the soul of quiet little Ontario towns that make the surreal twists and turbulent turns of his plots all the more jarring and un-put-downable?
Song of the week: ‘Marmalade’ — Gussstave
Post-all-of-this——Add Henry de Montbazon (Gussstave) to my growing list of ‘special special man’, launched last week with Cass McCombs. Special because it seems they’ve managed to not let the question of masculinity get in the way of finding out for themselves what it is to be a man—and it shows in their music, the freeness thereof. ‘Big Wheel’, the second song off of McCombs album by the same name, looks this question in the eye with a fiery verse:
What does it mean to be a man?
How you gonna tell me who I am?
A man is bolts, a man is rust
For a little while, then the man is dust
A man with a man—how more manly can you get?
I may be five-foot-one but you're all wet
Be a man
It seems Gussstave’s creative energy is pouring from the same androgenously free stream—albeit with more celestial imagery—at equidistance from the viscosities of feminine torque and masculine thud. London’s Obongjayar belongs on that list too, artists I can’t wait to see post of all this.
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK31 — YR2, WEEK30
Click here for the full 2020/2021 roster of selected recordings