Glenn Gould

This book is a detailed study of the Canadian pianist, broadcaster, writer, and composer Glenn Gould (1932-82). While focussed primarily on his performances, it also situates his work and thought more broadly within relevant musical, cultural, intellectual, and historical contexts. It incorporates most of the existing primary and secondary literature on Gould, as well as many ideas, interpretations, and perspectives that have never before been offered. It also incorporates ideas from a wide range of literature, both musical and otherwise, and has benefitted from on-site research at The Glenn Gould Papers in the National Library of Canada. The book offers a more comprehensive, balanced, and thoroughly researched portrait of Gould as pianist and interpreter than any previous volume in the Gould literature. Following an introduction that summarizes Gould's career and the posthumous interest in him, the book divides into two parts. Part 1, `Premises', focuses on the intellectual and aesthetic ideas that informed Gould's performances, and draws on literature from many fields, including music history and aesthetics, cultural history, the history of performance practice, theatre, literary criticism, and music analysis. The three large chapters of Part 1 cover a wide range of topics: Gould's idealism, views on the musical work, musical tastes, and repertoire; his position on the role of the performer; the analytical, critical, and ethical discourses embodied in his performances; and his approach to performance in the contexts of Romanticism, modernism, neo-Classicism, post-structuralism, the historical performance movement, twentieth-century theatrical and literary practices, and cultural currents in the 1950s and 1960s. Part 2, `Practices', focuses in detail on Gould the pianist, illuminating important features of his style through prose description and critical analysis, and including graphic musical examples, plates, and a supplementary CD of Gould's performances. This second part focusses on specific aspects of Gould's performance practices: his relationship to the piano; his approach to counterpoint, rhythm, dynamics, articulation and phrasing, and ornamentation; and his uses of recording technology as a kind of performance practice. A conclusion serves in part as a summary of previous findings, but also discusses how, in light of these findings, Gould's work as a performer might ultimately be assessed.

From the simple VR games found in upscale video arcades, to the ultimate "immersion"--the CAVE, a surround screen, surround sound system that projects 3 D computer graphics into a ten-foot high cube--virtual reality has introduced what is literally a new dimension of reality to daily life. But it is not without controversy. Indeed, some say that a collision is inevitable between those passionately involved in the computer industry and those increasingly alienated from (and often replaced by) its applications. Opinions range from the cyberpunk attitude of Wired magazine and Bill Gates's commercial optimism to the violent opposition of the Unabomber. Now, with Virtual Realism, readers have a thought-provoking guide to the "cyberspace backlash" debate and the implications of cyberspace for our culture. Michael Heim first offers a thoughtful discussion of what virtual reality is "in the strong sense." He outlines its essential characteristics -including the "Three I's" of immersion, interactivity, and information intensity--and introduces readers to such virtual reality technologies as head mounted displays; SIMNET, a networked simulation of tanks rolling over a virtual terrain; and flight simulators in which a trainee can experience conditions approximating those of actual flight. He also leads us through a fascinating gallery of virtual art experiences, including Marcos Novak's Virtual Dervish, in which the viewer wears a head mounted display and is immersed among and interacts with drifting, shifting "transhuman figures" and other virtual entities. And he describes various side effects of immersion in virtual reality, including types of relativity sickness known as Alternate World Syndrome (AWS) and Alternate World Disorder (AWD). Perhaps most important, Heim suggests ways of living with technology and harmonizing computers with culture. For instance, he offers a philosophical reconciliation between the conflicting views of "naive realists," who regard computer systems as a suppression of reality rather than an extension of it, and "idealists" who seem to think computers and software can cure all ills. Heim argues convincingly that in order to have an accurate view of the relationship between "natural nature" and cyberspace, we must balance the idealist's enthusiasm for computerized life with the need to ground ourselves more deeply in primary reality. This "uneasy balance" he calls virtual realism. In this wide ranging exploration, Michael Heim draws on an incredibly eclectic range of sources, from the lyrics of Jim Morrison, to the wisdom of the Tai Chi masters, to the works of philosophers and writers as varied as Heraclitus, Descartes, William Gibson, and Jacques Ellul. The result is an ambitious and provocative commentary on the ways in which virtual reality and associated technologies are increasingly influencing our lives.

What is musical meaning? Where does it reside and how can it be known? How do music and philosophy relate? Concentrating on the music, politics and philosophy of Richard Wagner, Lydia Goehr addresses these classic questions.