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October 06, 2004
Glenn Gould & David Tudor
Later in his career, Glenn Gould started doing radio and television projects for the the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He produced a number of documentaries, using, among other things, collages of voices and sound. It occurred to me that this development is very similar to that of David Tudor, another piano virtuoso who devoted a substantial amount of his career to making electronic music using tape, record players, found objects and other devices. Also, some of Gould's later projects and behaviours during interviews echo the performance practices of "happenings." Happenings are, of course, closely associated with John Cage. David Tudor worked with John Cage for years and years, and Cage composed piano pieces specifically for him.
There are enough points of contact between Glenn Gould and David Tudor that it would be interesting to undertake a more thorough review of their overlapping carrers and the artistic worlds that they each inhabited. It may be that Gould would have been more comfortable in David Tudor's world. Of course, the similarities may be superficial. Still, exploring the lives and work of these two artists in greater depth would, in and of itself, be a fascinating enterprise.
Posted by apc at October 6, 2004 12:36 AM