The Hammock Papers: Serenity.

21 May 2011

Serenity.

In the best of all possible worlds, art would be unnecessary. Its offer of restorative, placative therapy would go begging a patient. The audience would be the artist and their life would be art. I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
- Glenn Gould

Gould performing Franz Liszt's piano transcription of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, Pastoral

Bruno Monsaingeon: What a strange instrument you have!

Glenn Gould: I think that it has a quite good sound!

Monsaingeon: I am not talking about the piano, I was rather talking about this ... this ... this thing that I don’t know exactly how to call it ...

Gould: That thing! (seeming to be irritated, imitating a German accent) Mister, don’t be so disdainful about a member of the family!

Monsaingeon: What do you mean by "member of the family"?

Gould: It is a travel companion, without whom I cannot work, without whom I cannot play. I have been using it for 21 years, this ... thing! That we could also classify as chair!

Monsaingeon: Did you really perform concerts with it?

Gould: I’ve never given any concert without it; at least for 21 years.

Monsaingeon: Do you mean ... that it has been as close to you as Bach?

Gould: Oh, very much closer for telling the truth.

An explanation of this riddle (and more) is given in the documentary Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould. Don't miss it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL