Annals of Musical Beauty: PatfromCH writes an open letter to the Glenn Gould Foundation

Click and bench & man on bench get larger.

 

Dear Glenn Gould Foundation

 

I have recently noticed that gould-related items have been removed from Ubuweb. I don't know who is responslbiel for this action, but I suspect that it was either The Foundation, someone from Sony or the CBC. Of course we are talking about copyrighted material and it is not clear wether Ubuweb had the explicit permission from the rightsholders to host this material in the first place As of yet this material has not been incorporated into the sites of the CBc or The Foundation.

 

It is also fine to remove "illegal" clips from youtube but at least in rock music some bands have decided to open their official channels and I haven't seen an official GG channel as of yet.

 

In any case this raises a few questions, at least for me. It is my understanding that it should be the main goal of The Foundation to preserve GG's audiovisual legacy, raise the awareness and make sure that this material is accessible to scholars and fans alike both commercially and non-commercialy.

 

To be honest with you I haven't seen much of that lately. Let me give you a few examples:

 

- The GG Video Collection has not yet been released on DVD. Why ?

 

- The CBC has tons of audio and video that has never seen a proper release. Why ?

 

- There must be hours of master tapes, alternate takes, outtakes, original acetates on vinyl and magnetic tapes deteriorating or happily rotting away in a storage facitlity somewhere. Can you grant us that this material will be transferred to digital media for prosperity ?

 

- The Original Jacket Collection was a step into the right direction. Can we expect further releeases of such quality in the near future ? Can we expect anything at all ?

 

Thet should to it. For now anyway. Prizes and Luncheons etc are fine but I doubt that GG would be pleased with the way his musical legacy has bee treated lately. I know that 2012 is still a ways a way but it would be nice to know the current state of affairs and as "fans" (meaning the people who cough up their hard-earned cash to buy GG products) I reckon we have the right to ask a few critical questions.

 

Yours truly

Pat

Basel, Switzerland