Behind the Scenes - A Collection of Reflections on Glenn Gould
Compiled by Julie Shapiro
We asked producers from all over the world to answer a few questions about
Glenn Gould. Their responses reveal the depth and degree to which Gould made
his mark as a distinctive and inspirational radio producer.
Contributors: Jackson Braider, Allan Coukell, Phil Easley, Victoria Fenner, Tim
Halbur, Alan Hall, Lorelei Harris, Harri Huhtamaki, Karen Michel, Steve
Rowland, Gregory Whitehead
> What's the first word that comes to mind when you think of Glenn Gould, and
why?
Fugue. Gould was the unequalled master of polyphony and counterpoint, in his
playing, and in his radio work. Tropical. The guy's brain was literally a hot
house -- luxuriant in its foliage, fertile, exotic. Intellectual. Genius,
Eccentric because he was utterly virtuoso, extremely precise and yet very
individualistic in his interpretations. Intimate in performance. Brilliant
because of his ability to see deeply into experience, to reconstruct that
experience for an audience. Perfectionist. He was on a relentless quest for
perfection in his recordings. Excellence, he was truly committed. Obsessive.
> What is it about his radio work that resonates with you?
- The element of surprise. That he worked mostly way back in the '60's at the
CBC. The documentary form which he developed for his radio works must have been
very unusual especially 35 years ago, and it pleasantly surprised me that he
was able to compose these works and get them on our national airwaves. There
must have been a couple of CBC producers who championed his cause and took some
artistic chances themselves to have them broadcast. (VF)
- The musical quality of it. If you've seen the film 32 Short Films About
Glenn Gould, there's a scene where he (well, the actor playing him) is
conducting radio interviews with a baton. That scene stuck with me-- there is
inherent music in people's speaking voices, and they can be structured
musically. (TH)
- Two things ... I get a sense of the "personal" mixed with the "universal" ... the people I hear from in his work reveal very real, very personal
thoughts, feelings, etc. ... in a way that illustrates connections and
similarities with others. I also like the language. When Gould narrates, or
edits the voices of others, I get a glimpse of how his mind works. His writing
makes me both smile and think. At the same time. (PE)
- Gould took radio -- as he took everything -- intensely seriously and
seemed to believe that work in the medium might endure just as work in more
familiar 'art' forms does. For most of us radio is fleeting, disposable, an
experience that is barely reflected upon. Gould paused and considered the value
of what it was that might be achieved through radio -- this transmitting of
manipulated or composed sound into people's lives. He connects us back to the
early ambitions for the medium before it became wholly information-driven and
commercial. (AH)
- Gould opened ears to the tone of a community. To the idea that a place, or
a subject, might have an audible tonality that was more than the sum of the
words and sounds. He also had a fearless grasp of the appropriate structure for
an idea: intricate ideas require intricate structures, not simple and reductive
formulae. And he treated his audience like thoughtful adults, not like
thumb-sucking infants. (GW)
> Do you think Gould's documentaries would be well received by today's
general public radio listening audience?
- I think Gould's radio work should be required listening for anyone who
wants to understand contemporary radio production. Whether they would be
received well by a general audience is not really the point. I suspect it is
obvious that they have a limited appeal -- but if they were presented with
enthusiasm, and the audience was made to understand that they are important
works, there would be an audience for them. I think it may be more important to
have them heard by producers and students and for people to engage in
discussions about what parts of the programs work/don't work for them. (SR)
- Gould's radio works are timeless masterworks: they will always have an
audience. They are not as accessible as Prairie Home Companion, to be sure: and
thank the gods for that! (GW)
- I'm not so sure. They take a lot of patience, and a lot of space. I like
to listen to them in the dark under headphones. The Canadian series that he did
seemed very appropriate. I've worked on some Canadian projects, and I'm
convinced they have more patience and space to listen. (TH)
- His work belongs to its own time. And it was always presented in a manner
that borrowed deeply from the theory and practice of music. He produced radio
to be listened to musically and that ability is not the prevalent mode among
the listening public nor those who schedule broadcasts. (AH)
- If they could get on the air...then, yes. Most likely audiences inundated
with first-person accounts regardless of topic and/or expertise of reporter
would welcome hearing something different. (KM)
> What lasting contributions has Gould made to the art/practice of radio
production?
- I don't really know about the art/practice in general, but my personal
thinking about radio production has been forever altered by hearing his work. I
find an unusual combination of both stretching and focusing ... stretching the
limits of style and format, focusing and strengthening the substance and
content. The result is that he gives you a sense of place, and he gives you a
sense of time, and he gives you a sense of the personal, and a sense of the
universal. (PE)
- I think he expanded boundaries in terms of radio compositional technique
for those people who are aware of his radio production. But I don't think he
has had widespread impact on the art of radio in general because there are
relatively few broadcasters who are aware of his radio work. I wish that every
communications or media arts program included Gould's radio work in the
curriculum -- both as an example of alternative forms of radio production, and
more important, to build a sense of our collective history as broadcasters.
(VF)
- Gould's legacy among producers is actually quite modest, and to me, that
is very unfortunate. (GW)
- It's interesting to note that Gould was extraordinarily sparing in his use
of music per se. It could be argued that the lasting effect of his radio work
is that musical fragments were not decorative wallpaper or time keeping
elements to give punch to a punch line, but cogent features of the story. (JB)
- Gould's radio work is singular, and extraordinary. His concept of using
voices in an operatic fashion is highly influenced by Mozart's conception of
using singers. As documentaries they are somewhat limited by his lack of
location sound. But the way he used voices was very advanced. The Idea of North
is a mono-production, and the layering is held back a bit by the limitations of
mono -- The Quiet in the Land is an interesting comparison because in stereo,
the layers can be denser, while the words still intelligble.
I do think these works are seminal, but we should be careful not to deify Gould
the radio producer. I don't think the works are ultimately as important as his
work as a pianist. There are artists who have gone way beyond Gould in their
work of layering -- George Martin's work on some of the Beatles records is
fantastic, and one group that is nearly totally ignored by our public radio
group is Public Enemy. Their early recordings, done mainly by Terminator X and
Chuck D include some of the most powerful layering of voices and music I have
ever heard. These recordings have inspired a newer generation of studio
magicians -- including Beck and Moby ...
But as examples of what can be done strictly with voices, and especially for
radio, the Gould pieces are, as I said, extraordinary, and hard to beat. (SR)
For more information about Glenn Gould:
-
Learn more about and/or purchase The Solitude Trilogy including The Idea of
North. It's a bit of a splurge (three CDs), but we recommend it wholeheartedly.
-
www.glenngould.com -- the Glenn Gould Archive, developed by the National
Library of Canada
Books on Gould:
-
Glenn Gould, the Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius, by Peter Ostwald, W.W. Norton
& Co.
-
The Glenn Gould Reader, by Tim Page, Vintage Books
-
The Loser, Thomas Berhnard, University of Chicago Press (features Gould as a
fictional character)
-
Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work: A Study in Performance Practice, by
Kevin Bazzana, Clarendon Press
Allan Coukell on Glenn Gould and The Idea of North
"The only way I see this happening," says Wally Maclean, "is on an extended
ride north... a long, terrible, trying trip." Maclean is our guide and narrator
in Glenn Gould's radio feature The Idea of North, which is 35 years old this
year, but still sounds fresh. This is a program that belongs in the canon of
every aspiring maker of radio documentaries.
The Idea of North opens with a trio of speakers. First a woman, like the
woodwinds section of a symphony, begins to describe the northern landscape as
seen from an airplane high above. Soon, this voice is pushed to the background
as a man enters. Here is the bass line, taking up a contrary theme: "I don't
go, let me say, I don't go for this Northmanship business at all," he begins.
After a minute, a third voice joins the first two: "Sure the north has changed
my life...."
Famously, this is Gould's "contrapuntal" approach to radio (used also in The
Latecomers and The Quiet in the Land, the other programs in his Solitude
Trilogy). The interwoven, overlapping voices are like elements of a fugue, each
rising to the fore and receding. After three minutes, the trio fades and Gould
introduces the program.
The Idea of North is an extended meditation on, well, what? Gould tells us of
his longstanding fascination with the North and tells us that we are about to
hear the stories of four people, a geographer, a sociologist, a government
official and a nurse, "who have had a direct confrontation with that northern
third of Canada." But he also hints at more.
Aside from the voices, there are only two other major sound elements to the
program: a variety of train interior and exterior ambiences, which begin here
and accompany us for most of our long journey north, and Sibelius' Fifth
Symphony, against which the final eight minutes of the program are set.
Gould introduces Maclean, our guide, with whom he claims to have had a day-long
conversation. Maclean "parlayed surveying into a literary tool," says Gould. "I
began to realize that his relationship to a craft, which has as its subject the
land, enabled him to read the signs of that land, to find in the most minute
measurement a suggestion of the infinite, to encompass the universal within the
particular."
Maclean is folksy and avuncular, but explains himself through references to
classical mythology and essays by early twentieth-century philosophers. A
remarkable surveyor, perhaps: clearly Wally is no wally. But then nothing here
is quite as it seems. For a start, we never quite know whether these are real
people or actors working from a script. Moreover, it eventually becomes clear
that each of the four main protagonists is laboring under some degree of
self-deception. Gould has given us not one, but five, unreliable narrators.
Our four "travelers" relate their experiences with the North. They talk about
why they went, their responses to the land and to the community of the North.
They talk about their vision for the future of the North. Despite their
contrasting views, we end up feeling they have one thing in common: each is in
some way alienated from, even hostile to, the North.
The Idea of North is often discussed as a reflection on isolation and solitude,
but to me these are not the dominant themes of the program. Early on, one
character observes that a nation is defined partly by its frontier, but it is
left to Maclean, set over Sibelius, to draw the strands together. He quotes
William James, "there is no moral equivalent of war".
At least in part, the idea of north is the idea that we often define ourselves
in terms of an opposing force. For these characters, it is the North, but
Maclean takes it further. This may have nothing to do with north he says, or
any direction. "Apparently few of us can afford to be for something; but all of
us can afford to be against something." These are themes that resonate far
beyond the Canadian relationship with the arctic. (Think of the former
Yugoslavia, or perhaps of current events closer to home.)
So how would audiences respond to this program today? A great deal of attention
has been paid to Gould's "contrapuntal" technique, but in fact these sections
occupy only a small portion of the documentary. (But - producers take note! -
where they occur, these are not merely layered voices, but carefully layered
voices, elements interwoven with attention to tone, meter and, most
importantly, meaning.)
What really distinguishes The Idea of North from much else on the radio is its
length and ambiguity. Gould allows the themes to emerge gradually, over almost
an hour. And, as with a novel or a symphony, the long-form means we feel the
conclusion more deeply when it arrives. And as with those other long-form
works, the program is open to multiple interpretations. That does not mean it
is obscure.
It is fashionable just now to imagine that our listeners can only pay attention
for 60 seconds at a time, but I wonder. It seems to me that just as there is a
small, but substantial (and growing!) audience for independent, European or
"art-house" cinema, there ought to be an audience for this kind of challenging
radio.
I am not suggesting that every listener would or should appreciate The Idea of
North, or similar programs. (I'm sure that my parents -- intelligent, dedicated
public radio listeners -- would not have liked this program in 1967 and would
not like it today.) Surely at least part of our audience would be open to a
kind of radio that is not just something to dip in and out of while cleaning
the house, but rather something to experience and think about. If we give them
the chance.
Allan Coukell is a Canadian radio producer who has a longstanding fascination
with the North. Between 1999 and 2002, he produced Hungry for Justice and Grey
Ghost, as well as 159 other programs for Radio New Zealand. He now lives in
Boston.
|
