[f_minor] The Spectator, UK/Aus

[maryellen jensen]

Didn't Gould actually say it in traffic court in front of a judge? (Probably not). I'm too lazy to look it up now.

Mary



Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2012 10:19:42 +0100
From: bsi at intranette.de
To: f_minor at glenngould.org
Subject: Re: [f_minor] The Spectator, UK/Aus


  
    
  
  
    Hello Tim, 

    

    This remark about his "stopping at green lights and never having
    gotten credit for it" is to be found in Kevin Bazzana's biography
    "Wondrous Strange. The Life and Art of Glenn Gould" (Oxford
    University Press 2004, see page 329). Yet, where this information is
    from, is not mentioned explicitly. On the back cover of the book it
    says: "Drawing on twenty years of intensive research, including
    unrestricted access to Gould's private papers and interviews with
    scores of friends and colleagues, many of them never interviewed
    before, Bazzana sheds new light on ..." So, one can assume it's part
    of one of the interviewees' memories, I suppose.

    

    Bruni

    Cologne, Germany

    

    

    Am 01.11.2012 07:00, schrieb Timothy
      Conway:

    
    
      
      I subscribe to that virulent anti-liberal magazine The Spectator,
      although living in Australia what I get is The Australian
      Spectator, but it amounts to the same thing.
      

      
      A recent (6th October 2012) 'DIARY' piece by Craig Brown had,
        inter alia, the following:
      

      
      "This week
            sees the 30th anniversary of the death (or 'untimely death',
            as death is now invariably known) of Glenn
          Gould.The fame of most classical musicians tends to wither
      when
          they die. But Gould's seems to grow and grow: his grave is the most visited in
          Canada, he has appeared on The Simpsons, and not long ago in its apparently
          straight-faced list of The 100 Most Important Canadians in
          History, Maclean's magazine ranked him the No. 1
          artist in the world. Such posthumous blossoming makes him
          rather closer to a
          rock star, which is,
        in all but the most
          literal sense, what he was. In fact, he makes most of today's
          rock stars look doggedly conventional. He hated Mozart,
          sunshine and Italian opera, and loved tomato ketchup, overcast
          skies and Petula Clark. He was a rabid hypochondriac, taking a
          briefcase of pills, a bottle of disinfectant and a
          blood-pressure kit with
          him wherever he went: he once hung up the phone when he heard
          his friend sneeze on the other end of the line.
      

        
      When
          he still performed in public — he grew to hate audiences,
          describing them as 'a force for evil' — Gould refused to wear
          the customary white
          tie and tails, preferring to appear in scruffy clothes and
          mismatched socks, his shoes held together by rubber bands. He would then play his piano from
          his special low chair, sitting just 14 inches from the ground,
          so that his knees were a good deal higher than his buttocks. Thirty years on. his fame has
          increased but for some reason his influence hasn't. Classical
          musicians remain studiously starchy. One might have expected Gould's influence to
          have liberated them, but far from it: the pious aura of the Sunday school
          still hangs over classical concerts. We should be grateful,
          though, that, in at
          least one area his influence has been so negligible. He was a rotten
          driver, generally driving with his legs crossed whilst singing
          and conducting from a score open on the passenger seat. He
          couldn't see what was wrong with it. "It's true that I've driven through
          a number of red lights on occasion," he once protested. "But on the other hand, I've stopped at a lot of green ones and never been given credit for it."
      

      
      That last
          comment about green lights had me laughing my mismatched socks
          off, but is it right? Does anyone know where it comes from?
      

        
      

        
      Tim Conway
      Geraldton,
          Western Australia
      

        
      

      
      

      
    
    

  


 		 	   		  
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