Glenn Gould: Bach at its Minimum

In my opinion, the Bach played by Glenn Gould can be called the most important musical mark of the 20th century. Why Gould? Why aren't there several other performers who are also famous for playing Bach's keyboard works? For example, Bach's Landowska was so elegantly played before Gould, and was recorded by DECCA after Gould. Andre Schiff, whom the company is pushing full force, or Turik, a rough contemporary of Gould, or Helmut Valcea? Compare the Bach performed by these Bach experts and listen carefully, and then use it as a mirror to refract and filter Gould's Bach. I dare say that what we get is definitely a minimal Bach.

Gould's Bach is controversial. There have always been different opinions on how to interpret Bach, but there is unanimous agreement on understanding Bach's music as purifying and uplifting. Gould was not interested in the lofty Bach. What he asked was where was the lowest limit of Bach in the sense of "metamusic"? Over the years, when interpreting and appreciating Bach, people have always regarded the core of religious belief as the essence of Bach's music, and have always grasped and defined Bach from this perspective. There seems to be nothing wrong with this. However, when people's predetermined theological interpretation of Bach becomes an inherent reality and an authoritative ideology, I think the emergence of heretical figures like Gould is necessary and of great significance. and decisive. In fact, Bach is much more complex and profound than what we know and are willing to know. Apart from theological Bach, is there also a metamusical Bach? This is what Gould wanted to ask. Bach can be said to be a religious musician when writing vocal works and orchestral works, but when writing keyboard works (except for a few organ works), he was mainly a polyphonic composer who thought in terms of semitones and sustained bass. What he raises or solves through his keyboard works are all questions about music itself. For example, in the "Twelve-tone Well-Tempered Clavier", a work known as the "Old Testament" in piano literature, the problem Bach solved was how to combine the various elements contained in the whole-tone well-tempered music used at that time. The different semitones are arranged within an octave so that the tones in the scale are in equal proportions and connected together. Bach roughly divided the octave into twelve average tones. Although none of them are perfect, with the help of this coordination principle, the tones can be converted at will, and each tone can be used as a Main tone. It is not difficult to see that the musical themes and materials in this work are all about music itself. For another example, "Goldberg Variations" also deals with a musical principle issue: when the thorough bass in the left hand part runs uninterrupted, how can the theme of the music maintain parallel themes and retrograde motion during the presentation of the right hand part? Variation tension between themes. As for Bach's "The Art of Fugue" (Bach did not specify which instrument should be used to play it, but I regard it as a keyboard work), this immortal masterpiece can be called a masterpiece of counterpoint, and it is also a good example for the discussion of fugue. Written with thoughts and establishing the principle of counterpoint, it is the kind of thing that "sums us up in a million diamonds".

Is a Bach like this all that theological interpretation can exhaust? The appearance of Gould raises a question for us: Has Bach been played in its entirety, or in part? Gould was Bach's switch, turning off the religious component of Bach's music and turning on metamusic. Gould reduced Bach, but his less was so much. Because the theological explanations attached to Bach's musical thought had become almost cliché, the first thing Gould wanted to do was to silence them. Maybe there is something wrong with my ears. Why do I have some inexplicable hallucinations from time to time when I listen to Gould playing Bach? At its deepest level, music is not for listening, but for thinking. There is such a detail in a biography of Gould: When he played some extremely difficult polyphonic passages in Bach's works, he often stuffed his ears with cotton. I thought this was done to eliminate auditory distractions so that I could focus on my thoughts. Gould convincingly demonstrates the extent to which playing can be performed without listening, and the extent to which listening can be transformed into seeing. Many Gould fans have noticed that his Bach playing has a special quality that can not only be heard, but also seen and touched. This quality fascinates people.

Think about it, how complex and meticulous the musical texture of Bach’s polyphonic ideas is. Through Gould’s detailed interpretation, it has been given a concrete and perceptible prototype shape, directly presented as a pocket landscape of thought and spirit. Such a Bach is undoubtedly the clearest of all Bachs that we can hear and see.

The visionary and the analytical, the intersection of technical control and contrapuntal mind, all add up to a shared Gouldian clarity. Such a clarity envelopes Bach's musical realm like a hollow glass body, and Bach himself stands inside the glass, so transparent that he becomes his own prisoner. This limited Bach not only in terms of musical expression but also in principle - which is exactly what Gould wanted. Comparing Landowska, Turik, and especially the German-authentic Walcha with Gould, we can easily see the limitations of Gould: his Bach has no appearance, no broad appearance of worldly humanity. Every aspect of his performance of Bach is introspective, restrained, and rebounding. Moreover, Gould's introversion does not point to a mind defined by religious beliefs or secular emotions. In a sense, Gould is indifferent and is only interested in things related to musical principles. The charm of his Bach comes from its limitations - there is neither appearance nor secular or religious core, only metamusic.

In terms of expressing the metamusical fantasy of Bach in the 20th century, no one expressed it more profoundly and urgently than Gould. That’s not to say that other Bach experts don’t have this kind of fantasy, but after listening carefully, my feeling is that Landowska’s Bach has too many echoes of the spirit of the times, while Turik’s Bach lacks a little bit of conceptual abstraction. . Walcea is profound and profound, and he embedded his "blindness" into Bach's inner spiritual space. In terms of musical character, Walcea's Bach is obviously inclined to the chant tradition, and therefore has the candlelight power of faith, but in retrospect " Regarding the origin of metamusic that "nihilizes the etymology", Walcia does not go as far as Gould. As for Schiff, this pianist who was the opposite of Gould, his anti-Gould Bach was briefly popular. This Bach was cool and fresh, non-spiritual, without depth, and polite. In short, Schiff gentrified Bach. Compared to Schiff, Gould was too extreme and too offensive. There is no way, Gould is a left-wing intellectual who insists on his own way at heart. No one knows how many ears he designed when playing Bach, just like we don’t know how much salt a chef puts in dinner. This belongs to life. its own secret. Considering that Gould sometimes blocked his own ears, maybe Bach himself would be resurrected and listen to Gould's performance, and his ears would be turned off by him. Haven't the ears of the masses been turned off? To listen to Gould one must use machine ears. Gould said goodbye to live concerts at a young age and only played the piano in front of a recording system. Other pianists tell us at concerts how to listen to the authentic, unique Bach for all mankind, but Gould hides in his studio and tells us why there is no Bach to play anymore. Unless Bach uses recording technology as an intermediary and becomes the object of criticism, doubly invisible to both experts and modern consumers. Recording technology was used extensively by Gould, but it was not used to correct errors and create gimmicks, but to tailor ideas and outline the character of music. Can we say that the divine spirit of invention that permeated Gould's Bach was largely caused by his musical talent and his fascination with recording technology.

Although Gould's playing of Bach was a revelation to many listeners in the 20th century, this does not mean that he played Bach as a holy word, a miracle, a legend, a commandment. played. Moreover, “too much revelation becomes something that robs the magic.” I think it was this reason that prompted Gould to consider apocalyptic playing and spiritualist playing together when playing some of Bach's important works. For example, when playing "The Well-Tempered Clavier", Gould took the position of an intellectual pianist. However, after listening to this work for a long time, you will hear some confusing smell, as if in Gould's There is still some unclarified ambiguity behind the metamusical stance.

Although even the most ambiguous things can be clearly presented by Gould, this proves Gould's excellence - the ambiguity itself gains directness from Gould; but why does he just make the vague things Presented clearly, but without clarifying its connotation? Richter's well-recorded Equal Temperament in the early 1970s contained more "magical ingredients" than Gould's Equal Temperament, which was too personal in comparison. Although Richter publicly stated that he never thought when playing, his equal temperament has a strong color of humanistic thinking. His interpretation is the result of careful consideration, and the music itself is given an intention beyond music. I do not intend to compare the details of the equal temperament between Richter's version and Gould's version here, but I want to point out an important difference between the two, that is, the difference in playing place. I don’t know where Richter recorded it, but his version seems to have a predetermined inner spiritual place, and the listener seems to be listening to it in an ancient and solemn church. Gould's Equal Temperament conveys a surreal atmosphere of parts space unique to the recording studio.

Gould recorded "The Goldberg Variations" twice for Columbia. It will certainly be interesting to compare Gould's version with that of other players. Not only do the Bach experts mentioned above all have CD versions of "Goldberg Variations", but this version has also been recorded by pianists such as Aarau, Rudolf Serkin, Feyezmann, and Maria Yudina. The works are also widely circulated. But I think it is more telling to compare Gould's own two versions than to compare them with other versions. In my opinion, Gould adopted two completely different playing methods in these two versions - I call them passive playing method and active playing method. The difference between the two is not only technical, but also conceptual. . The 1955 version is an example of Gould's passive interpretation of Bach. Here, Gould excludes all perceptual things that have nothing to do with music. Not only the current situation of the external world is excluded, but also the external situation. The images cast in Gould's spiritual world, including his survival experience, his ethics, his emotional state and value judgments, are all excluded. During the entire process of passive playing, the subjectivity of the player is evacuated and silenced, as if it is not the player himself who is playing, but another abstract and refined person in his presence. When playing on the body, this person only considers the inner meaning of music without comparing and analogizing this meaning with the external world. "Isolation is its reality." It is such a passive playing method that gave Gould much more freedom of interpretation than other Bach players, allowing him to focus on the music itself, regardless of his own outlook on life, or There are a lot of interferences from documentary factors such as the religious connotation in Bach's music, the spirit of the times, and the autobiographical elements. In terms of musical energy, Gould can be called a superman in the 1955 version of "Goldberg Variations". The listener can capture a trace of bone-deep indifference from the passionate release of musical energy: it is otherworldly. , non-human. The negative playing method made Gould his own stand-in in the 1955 version, which helped him maintain a crucial balance of mind and heart, making the performance sound both willful and extremely restrained, a bit childish. And terrifyingly mature, conveying a hermit-like air of asceticism while also being playful, extremely happy, and ecstatic.

In April 1981, Gould re-recorded "The Goldberg Variations" at the Columbia Records Studio on East 30th Street in Manhattan, New York. Considering that Gould never recorded the same work twice during his lifetime (except for live recordings of live concerts), and considering that he died less than a year and a half after re-recording this work, perhaps we can The 1981 version of "The Goldberg Variations" is regarded as Gould's musical testament. A few days before going to New York to record, Gould re-listened to the "Goldberg Variations" he played 26 years ago. Although he still agreed with this version from a technical point of view, Gould publicly admitted: "I can't Identification with the spirit of the person who made this record. It was as if this record was made by someone else and had nothing to do with me." Subjectivity emerged in this version recorded in 1981. The autumn-like mental state unique to the twilight years of life, as well as the sense of weariness and vicissitudes after playing Bach enough, are touchingly processed in Bach's polyphonic texture with variations. Now, the pace is significantly slower than the 1955 version, which is a pace suitable for conversation.

Indeed, the 1981 version is the product of a conversation in which we hear two voices, Bach's and Gould's own, tangled together, each the ghost of the other. I don’t know why Gould played the “Goldberg Variations” like an undead person. Maybe he knew that this was his last Bach and the last Bach of the 20th century. Gould was saying goodbye. Even if this work could be played after death, I don't think Gould would have played it with more nostalgia and elegance than the 1981 recording. Undoubtedly, this version was created by Gould himself using an active playing method - my definition of this playing method is: bringing the subject's experience of life and the world into the inner context of the music, and presenting the two complementary aspects. The most requiem-powerful Bach that can pop up. After this Bach, there was no Bach left for Gould to play. Let the Schiffs play the rest of Bach, and let them play it how they want.