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<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">"Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn
Gould" was a wonderful piece of television, it was television doing what
television, if it chose, could be best at. It was as delicious, as interesting,
as beautiful as Glenn Gould. Like Gould himself, it told its story at many
tempos, as slowly as that moment in his life deserved; it wasn't in a
hurry.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">I think it was particularly valuable for
viewers who aren't, like most of us, long intimate and familiar with Gould. And
recently there've been some gripes on f_mnor that the world (which after all,
unlike us, <STRONG><EM>is</EM></STRONG> getting younger) has been forgetting
Gould and his achievements. "Genius Within" was a wonderful reminder, and
particularly valuable to young music lovers who, in perfect
innocence, just have never heard any or much Glenn Gould. Because once upon
a time (long long ago) I'd never heard any Glenn Gould.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">The documentary spent a very appropriately
long block of time emphasizing how, for a personality like Gould's, the concert
stage was not the heart and soul of classical music, but was a never-ending
torment.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">And then, as he moved into the recording
studio, the documentary stressed that this all happened at a wonderful
technological moment (much of the wonder due to Gould's own efforts and
invention). If he had left the concert stage in 1943, or 1933, he simply would
have had no adequate recording technology to gift us with his beauty -- and to
inspire other classical artists to produce so much beauty in the new, evolving
recording studio.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">I had no clock as I watched it, so I
didn't know how much time was left in the long, leisurely broadcast -- I lost
track of how much time was left in his life. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">And then a screen title: The Goldberg
Variations, 1981. And my heart sank.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">It was wonderful, for the first time, to see
Gould through the living memories of Cornelia Foss and her son and daughter; it
was particularly wonderful to hear the children speak of how much they loved
him, and how parting from him tore at their hearts. We've known how he loved
animals. Now we've been treated to children telling us how much he loved
them, how kind he was to them, even what a good father he would have
made. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">I don't think it's been a healthy -- or
accurate -- way of embracing Glenn Gould to portray him for so many decades as
failing to have achieved human intimacy, as a dark-browed, noble prisoner
of loneliness. Most of that seems to have been his own artifice, tricks
which he knew pumped up the mystery of his public image.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">If you missed it, make a special effort to
see it if it's rebroadcast, as I'm certain it will be. Urge those who don't know
Glenn Gould very well to watch it. If you know Gould very well, have a large box
of tissues standing by.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Palatino Linotype">Bob</FONT></DIV>
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