[First I wanted to call this series of posts The Naive Listener but friends
told me that I am in no regard a naive person, exactly the counterpart:
someone who reads and thinks too much (I'm a 35 year old German teacher of
English and German, by the way).  So I called this The Subjective Listener.
Well, all listening is subjective, of course, but what I want to stress is
that I am not a musician, have no musical training and, up to this post,
have been, as a child of my time, a very impatient listener to classical
music - and classical music demands patience.  Now I have started to listen
intensely, with eyes closed.  And I begin to have the feeling that I hear
all the famous pieces for the first time (some I do indeed).  Now, I cannot
compare myself with the tremendously well informed likes of Messrs Lampson
and Satz (keep up the good work!) but maybe my posts are nevertheless
interesting for some of you:  when someone listens to a wellknown piece or
recording for the first time (or the first time with concentration) you
might get the feeling that you do this again for the first time - and
that's maybe worth your while.]

I went and bought Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg
Variations because I read it was the winner of a poll asking for the best
classical recording ever.  I like the combination of voice, words and music
very much and expected to grow impatient being left alone with only a piano
(and Gould's voice, of course).  But soon the music got me in its grip.

They say Gould hums while playing.  I would say he whistles.  Well, he
TRIES to whistle.  A gifted piano player, a poor whistler.  But then it
didn't disturb me too much.

The very idea of the Variations strikes me as being lovely and poetic.
The same piece at beginning and end, in between thirty variations of it,
some bright, some sombre, some meditative, some gay.  A symbol of life,
of creation? "I am no man, I am a Kosmos." (Walt Whitman)

I did not like all the Variations, I have to admit.  Some bored me, some
were hectic but maybe that's Gould.  He plays sometimes as if he was on an
overdose of coffeine or as if he had to catch the last train home and was
already late for it.  I have always found sheer virtuosity a very boring
thing.  Hey, you think, this guy can play piano at a neckbreaking pace.
Wow!  Then you think:  So what? Wheres the beef? That is:  what is the
message lying behind the virtuosity, behind the speed? I learned from Don
Satz's post on the Goldberg Variations that Gould himself played the pieces
slower some decades later.  I am longing to listen to that recording.

I also learned from Don that Gould cut most of the repeats.  Sometimes I
thought:  what a pity!  Some pieces are only 0'35 or 0'29 long!  And the
lovely Aria (I like this piece most of the whole cycle) is over in 1'53.
Good that I can repeat it on my player as often as I like.  This Aria is
so tender, so profound, it really touched me, I felt like being in the
companion of a good friend who knows what human life is about:  loss and
pain and fragile happiness.  (Yes, The Subjective Listener WAS the right
title for this post.)

I especially liked the following Variations:  3, 6, 7, 13, 15, 24, 25 and
30.  No 3 is gay and light-hearted but not thoughtless, elegant, bordering
both on the serious and the amused.  It is music that gives me a good
feeling without letting me forget about humanity and its limits.  No 6 is
more sombre but has the same charm as No 3 has.  The piece (alas, without
repeats, only 35 seconds!) makes me wanna dance!  And then it provokes such
a comfortable melancholy in me, it is magic.  No 7 I love!  It has such an
air of spring about it, of little girls dancing in a green meadow, of a
strong, very elegant and even capricious belief in life.  This piece will
stay with me.  No 13 is more thoughtful.  I imagine a self-forgotten
ballerina dancing to it on a rehearsal.  The music is so satisfied just to
be there, to be beautiful, to play with the notes, to become more and more
light-hearted.  It is comforting, that's the word for me.  No 15 Don Satz
thinks is depressing.  It hasn't that quality for me but, yes, there is
something merciless about it.  The dancing grace is gone, the piece talks
about loss and resignation and it does this without protest, it gives in.
No depression for me, but sadness, loneliness, not expressionistic, but
very subtle.  No 24:  There is the dance again!  I would hum to this
myself.  The music goes off, robust and happy-go-lucky, never losing
confidence, telling all of us how good life is.  No 25 is the famous Black
Pearl.  I have to say:  I do not really like the piece but then it didn't
let me go uninterested.  The moment when you think the piece ends but goes
on instead is tremendous.  The whole thing sure is deep and profound, but
I felt like someone who is invited to read a secret diary and feels strange
about it.  But, well, I would read it, of course.  - The piece is like a
prayer in the night, that is the right picture for me, and, you see, I do
not like to witness people praying.  No 26 is life again, is the glass
half full for sure.  Here Gould's speed is okay for me for all the energy
arrested in No 25 here bouncing and jumping back now.  I would give this
music to elementary school children:  how they would understand it
immediately and start to dance and laugh.  No 30 is stately and proud.
The piece says:  Here I am!  Look at me!  And you look and see pride in
one self, a good pride.  A good piece to start Mondays with or to listen
to before you go to your boss.  And then there is the Aria again ending
the play with the profound and tender words of the beginning.  All comes to
rest, all the changes, all the speed, all laughter and all sadness.  A calm
feeling comes over me, a quiet but strong Yes is said in my soul to life.

Robert Peters
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