When maverick Canadian pianist Glenn Gould boldly renounced the concert hall in 1964, the recording of classical music was in its heyday and the internet only existed in embryonic form. Soon after, Gould predicted the decline and death of live concert performance and – playing out the latter part of his career in the recording studio – devoted himself to promoting classical music by means of mass electronic media. In 2007, Gould’s prediction of the death of live performance remains unfulfilled, although warnings of the impending doom faced by classical music continue to echo redundantly. His views on the interaction between the future of classical music and technology, however, seem uncannily prescient. Imagine if Glenn Gould had still been alive forty-one years after he turned his back on the stage. Four long decades after Gould took his momentous decision, a new mass electronic medium ideally suited to promoting Gould’s vision of musical performance was unleashed on the internet. What would have happened if Glenn Gould could use YouTube? What would he need to know?Perhaps though, Mr Gould, watching conducting cockatoos might provide some light relief from more serious musical material. A search of YouTube using a combination of words such as ‘classical music’ and ‘comedy’ yields some genuinely amusing results. Maybe Dudley Moore’s Beethoven sonata parodies, Rachmaninov’s C sharp minor prelude played by concert pianist and wooden plank, and Widor’s Toccata performed by two organists in a manic two-bar relay race could hit the mark? If, however, you are after something more intellectually stimulating, trawling through the site can also reveal more valuable films. In just one illustration of the medium’s potential for acting as an historical archive, the Schoenberg centre have over the past few months uploaded over forty videos of the composer’s music.
Dudley Moore plays 'Beethoven'
‘How much does it cost?’ did I hear you ask, Mr Gould? Ah, well here’s the unexpected part. YouTube doesn’t cost the user a penny. However, this also means that performers and composers receive nothing for their work (although this may soon change - the Performing Rights Society has just inked a deal with YouTube that should see some artists collect royalties fromt he site). As, officially, only footage that is legally out of US copyright can be posted, in theory no one should lose out. What goes on in reality is, of course, another question. Legal considerations aside, it would be hard to deny the value of YouTube in making available thousands of video clips for classical music fans, and in the site’s potential as an accessible historical archive of past performances. Oh, and yes Mr Gould, there are about 379 videos on the site tagged with your name. If you watch ‘Gould Meets Gould’, you could even see yourself talking about yourself...
Glenn Gould talks about Glenn Gould!
