Guest Blogger - Lori Lewis

This is the next post in The Contrapuntal Blog Guest Blogger Series. The purpose is to showcase some of the worlds most passionate and creative Gould fans' creations through photo, video and writing.

Lori Lewis (@EverydayOpera) has spent her lifetime in music. Her childhood was consumed with its enjoyment and participation. She embarked on her first career in Radio just to be around the music and musicians. Now as a professional Opera Singer, and Host of the Video Show “Everyday Opera”, she still surrounds herself with music and all its passion! “Everyday Opera” is a Show about all people who live life full voice! Glenn Gould is a prime example of that philosophy of life. http://everydayopera.ning.com/

There are some musicians that you feel with all of your heart. You feel their emotions of joy, passion, sadness, and even anger. You feel they are one with the music they are emoting. You can tell that they are in the moment of some unearthly vision. There is something electric, a movement in the air, a breathless time of amazement, as you listen. Glenn Gould is all of these things but more.

There is an indefinable mystery about him. Growing up as a Lutheran and being raised on Bach, Gould’s Bach interpretations are perfect and amazing to my ears, but in that perfection there is something more, something transcendent. He makes me feel Bach as I have never felt him before. I can’t help but think that Bach would have been amazed by him as well.

Gould is the kind of musician the world needs. In a world that is filled with temporary, fast food entertainment, he took music to a level of the divine. He gives us that sense of the “other”, of something that surpasses the confinement we often feel. He lifts us up with music to the places we dream of, he lifts us to a glimpse of Heaven itself. Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer said that music was next to theology. He meant that as the highest compliment. Gould in a sense was a theologian of music.

He lets us see that there is something beyond ourselves. Something bigger and grander and more majestic. What is it about him that we are mesmerized by? It can only be that we are born to be musical people and individuals like Glenn Gould are meant to be the ones that give us that great pleasure of music at such a high level that it takes us to new heights and new enjoyment and even new understanding.

I am not able to technically analyze Gould as a pianist, but as a lifetime singer and lover of music and now a professional Opera Singer, I know music that moves me. I know what is extraordinary.

I also have a sentimental attachment to Glenn Gould. My second date with my husband was to go to see the film “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould”. I knew that any man who would take me to such a film was someone of great intelligence and passion. After 14 years I can say that is more true than I can express.

I still watch video of Gould and am intrigued. He is other worldly and I believe that is what he was created to be. He is one of those musicians given to us as a gift. Thankfully, we have the pleasure of having him captured on film for all time.