These Welte, Duo-Art Pianolas, Ampico all over the place what they'd done was to make the transient permanent, given the fleeting nature of music of great performances of great music a permanence that's the heart of authenticity, that preserved the whole concept of authenticity stood Leonardo da Vinci on his ear holding painting an art superior to music because of music's evanescent quality can't lose it no, don't have to write it down I can't forget it, it's beautiful, simple and beautiful like discovering space is curved good God, just the sheer simplicity of it the, where Occam's razor looked on beauty bare got to write it down before it gets lost, before it gets stolen before I have a chance to write it down like everything else because if Gould hated the idea of being between Bach and the Steinway if he could be the Steinway he wouldn't need Glenn Gould when Welte's reproducing apparatus put Debussy into the piano then you wouldn't need Debussy. You wouldn't need Grieg you wouldn't need Gershwin or Paderewski or any of them because you'd have their authenticity and the whole concept of authenticity preserved, the music itself and the fleeting performance brought together forever, given permanence that's the heart of authenticity like the, there must be some law of physics for this, for the or maybe it's, maybe I've discovered one. No more piano! Absolutely no artist, no more so-called legendary performances oh my grandmother heard Paganini, absolutely fabulous they said he was in league with the devil yes one of these dangerous demons with lives and energies of their own you can't control that force you to do things you wouldn't otherwise or Gottschalk? Louis Moreau Gottschalk?
(Wm. Gaddis, Agapē Agape pp 40–41.)
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