becoming

Jeremy Eichler is Looking for clues to a pianist’s afterlife, in which he rightly identifies Gould’s retreat in order to be (truly and rightly) heard:

The deeper paradox behind his controversial withdrawal from the concert stage, behind his scathing remarks about audiences and his love of solitude, was that it coexisted with a desperate urge to communicate intimately with his listeners. “There is no greater community of spirit than that between the artist and the listener at home, communing with the music,” he wrote. And he actually seemed to mean it. Beyond the brilliant pianism and the charismatic eccentricity, Gould’s enduring allure may also stem from the way he withdrew – just as so many have today – embubbling himself in technology, without resigning himself to the isolation and solipsism that would become such a mixed inheritance of the digital revolution.

Read it all here.