Splinters

I'm not sure where I first heard of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Perhaps it was through a review of Thomas Bernhard?s sublime novel: Der Untergeher, controversially translated as The Loser (although no satisfactory alternative has ever been offered despite much debate on his dedicated Yahoo group). In that novel, two Austrian trainee pianists meet Gould and resolve to give up their musical studies because Gould is just too good. The abandonment eventually leads to one's suicide (he's the loser of the title, the one who goes under, as the German original has it, but it also means Gould who goes under because of his total commitment and involvement in art) leaving the other to hang around a bar, from which he narrates the book we are reading. "It is the funniest book I have ever read" says one discerning Amazon customer. At least in literature, failure isn't such a dead end as it is in music.

Listening to Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations leaves one in no doubt of his uniqueness. From the start one can hear him humming along to his own breakneck, and impossibly light-fingered, playing. Perhaps the musical equivalent of Bernhard's prose in that novel? According to Terry Teachout, the reissue of that 1955 recording, along with the 1981 less frantic revision just before Gould's early (Bernhardian) death, has become the fastest selling classical CD of the year.

Coincidentally, one of Britain's best kept literary secrets, Gabriel Josipovici, has just published a novel called Goldberg: Variations, which might be seen as combining the variations on the theme of the music with the vertiginous failure at the heart of The Loser. Despite its quality, this novel is unlikely to get the review coverage it deserves. However, I'll be providing one as soon as I can stop writing rambling, fairly pointless blogs like this.