Play it again
How recordings have changed perceptions of classical music
Sep 15th 2012 | The Economist
www.economist.com/node/21562888
In 1955 Glenn Gould, a Canadian keyboard genius noted for his interpretations
of Johann Sebastian Bach, made an iconic record of the composer’s “Goldberg
Variations”. It was one of the first commercial long-playing discs, the
latest technology for capturing and replaying music. Soon afterwards he
announced that he was giving up live performance to devote himself entirely
to recording, a remarkably bold decision at a time when musicians’
reputations were made principally in the concert hall. Gould stuck to his
guns, and his career continued to flourish. In 1981, just before compact
discs took over from black vinyl, he made another record of the same piece
to mark his 50th birthday the following year. The critics fell over
themselves to praise it. He died a few days after it was released, having
suffered ill health and psychological problems for most of his life.
Paul Elie uses the story of Gould, along with those of other outstanding
musicians, to argue that the age of recordings has allowed Bach’s music to
be reinvented by its interpreters, as well as making it available to
everybody and for all time as “an ever-expanding collection of peak
experiences”. Bach’s music, he says, derives its power in part from its
quality of superabundance; and its superabundance has now been compounded by
recordings.
Interest in Bach has waxed and waned since his death in 1750, and 60 years
ago it was in a waning phase; the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein
said you “had to go to certain churches or special little concerts” if
you wanted to hear his music. Mr Elie shows how the development of ever
better recording techniques since then has allowed Bach to pop up everywhere,
despite a supposed decline in the popularity of classical music: as a
soundtrack to Walt Disney’s animated film, “Fantasia”; as part of the
backing in some of the Beatles’ songs; even as a jingle in would-be classy
television advertisements.
Albert Einstein, a huge fan of Bach’s, advised others to “listen, play,
love, revere—and keep your mouth shut”. Mr Elie, clearly every bit as much
of an enthusiast, takes the first part of this advice but not the second.
His is a book of epic sweep, like a novel made up of multiple strands. One
such strand is the life of Albert Schweitzer, a doctor, humanitarian and
musician who devoted most of his time to providing medical services to the
poor in Africa. In 1935 he made the first recording, on a wax cylinder, of
Bach’s sublime “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” for organ (Bach’s
authorship of which, ironically, has been called into question by some
scholars), followed by many other Bach pieces on different media.
Another character is Pablo Casals, one of the 20th century’s greatest
cellists, who, at the age of 13, discovered a copy of Bach’s six suites for
unaccompanied cello (until then forgotten) in a music shop in Barcelona. He
proceeded to play the suites almost daily for the rest of his long life, but
did not record them until 45 years later. Leopold Stokowski was already a
famous conductor with many recordings to his name when he talked Disney into
opening “Fantasia” to the sound of the “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”.
Yo-Yo Ma, another outstanding cellist, played Bach at the memorial for his
friend Steve Jobs of Apple, who felt a strong affinity with the composer.
Interspersed among all these tales of glittering 20th-century musical
figures are scenes from Bach’s own personal and professional life.
Mr Elie deploys considerable scholarship (the more notable since his
previous book, about four modern American Catholics who made literature out
of their search for God, had nothing to do with music), and he writes
beautifully. He makes a strong case that within less than a century a
succession of new recording media—from the wax cylinder to the 78, the LP,
various kinds of tape, the CD and now the computer—have brought Bach’s
music, in multiple versions, to vast numbers of new listeners at the press
of a button. It is a luxury previously unavailable even to princes, who in
order to enjoy live performances had to employ entire orchestras. Recording
technology has made a monarch of everyone. A chapter or two into the book,
you will find yourself reaching out for your “Goldberg Variations”.
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