I, again and again, watch and listen, on YouTube, to Glenn Gould's amazing performance of Bach's sublime Goldberg Variations.
What a miracle: to be able to revivify Gould and his amazing performance for us all to hear whenever we want, for free. I am filled with gratitude to the geniuses at Google/YouTube who make it possible.
Two points:
-- In an era in which we take great pains to praise women for their contributions to the world, may I point out that it is highly likely that most of the people that allow us to experience the wonders of Google and YouTube are men. And of course, so are Gould and Bach, not to mention Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, indeed nearly all great composers, even the leading contemporary classical composers, long after the women's movement created opportunities for women composers.
-- As the Internet gets ever more congested, viewing and listening to most sound- and graphic-intensive files including YouTube is getting more difficult. For example, every few seconds, Bach's/Gould's genius is interrupted by "buffering." Would you bet that the persons who develop a solution will be mostly men or mostly women?
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
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2 comments:
Thank you, Dr. Nemko. I am enjoying it, but I am also experiencing the same buffering issues. The late Karl Richter performing Toccata and Fugue is also on YouTube. I highly recommend it.
There is something new in the works and it is called 'the grid'. It is an all new superfast internet that will eventually replace the current internet. It already exists, however, it is available only to scientists and academics. It should become available to the masses in a few years. Holographic video conferencing is said to be one of its capabilities. Sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel.
Beautiful indeed. Thank you, Dave.
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