ObituaryFriedrich Gulda
Gifted pianist on a musical journey from the classics to jazzW hen the world was informed nine months ago, on March 28, that the Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda had died, colleagues and critics lined up to pay tribute to a great musician and eccentric. But only days later, Gulda let journalists know that he was still very much alive and well, and would be playing at a "resurrection party" soon. Perhaps he just wanted to test the truth of an injunction he had given against obituaries in a recent interview: "People have thrown so much muck at me while I am alive," he said, "I do not want them to chuck it into my grave as well."
Gulda, who became famous as an interpreter of Beeth- oven, Bach, Mozart and Debussy, but later turned to jazz and to composition, had begun as a classical pianist in his home city, Vienna. He rose through the stages of a pianist's life seemingly effortlessly, winning the prestigious Geneva competition at the age of 16.
He gave his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 20, and was soon regarded as one of the most important interpreters of the postwar period, travelling the world with his groundbreaking interpretation of the complete Beethoven sonatas, which already showed his distinctively sparing use of pedal, accentuated bass lines, grand legato, and percussive use of the keyboard.
However, like Glenn Gould, who was two years his junior, Gulda quickly became bored and disillusioned with the concert circuit, its rigid programmes, canons and dress codes. Even the compositions of "the great dead" seemed to alienate him, and he turned to ever more eccentric projects.
When awarded the Vienna Beethoven Ring in 1969, he rejected it with grand gesture, one incident of many in a long and tortuous relationship with his home town. He played Mozart in Vienna's holy of holies, the Musik- verein, tapping along with his feet. On another occasion, he and his girlfriend appeared on stage naked for a rendition of Schumann songs on the recorder.
Gulda turned more and more to jazz for musical nourishment. Completely disregarding the printed programmes during classical concerts, he would treat his audiences (who were not always happy about the privilege) to extended improvis- ations in the middle of pieces and to performances of his own compositions. After 1995 he also played regular techno sessions with the Liverpool DJ Vertigo.
Gulda's attempt to launch a second career as a jazz pianist was hindered by the distrust of jazz fans, who were unsure of his motives. In any event, his ambition to scale the fence between "classical" and "popular" music - or to tear it down altogether - failed, largely because he came too strongly from the former. "Jazz," Gulda once explained, "is the music of our day, the only modern, progressive music. Schoenberg is not really new, neither is Bartok, and the experimental composers certainly aren't. They are only trying to cast the past in concrete. Schoenberg does it dogmatically, Bartok with folklore."
Despite these convictions, Gulda never ceased to play classical music entirely, and his recordings of Bach's Welltempered Clavier and Beeth- oven's sonatas from the late 1960s and 70s still belong to the best readings on disc. It seems paradoxical that an interpreter whose style is marked so much by strictness, simplicity and clarity should have insisted so vocally that the only thing that counted was playfulness.
A contradictory artist, Gulda had a troubled relationship with the press. Critics often reacted with hostility to his more experimental work, and showed that they neither could, nor wanted to, understand what he was trying to do. The same was true for a musical establishment that could neither integrate nor dismiss this prodigal son. Never quite able to abandon the concert platform, he found a new generation of enthusiastic listeners for his Mozart playing during the 1980s, even if he did not make it easy for his public. After he had failed to turn up for one of his concerts, he simply stated that he had visited the chess world championship instead. "Suddenly, I found that more exciting," he explained.
Gulda's dress rehearsal for his own death caused a predictably exasperated reaction in the musical world, and when the news of his actual death was announced last week, discreet requests for confirmation were met with the death certificate issued by the local doctor in Weissenbach, Austria, which told the blunt story: Friedrich Gulda died of heart failure on January 27 2000.
Philipp Blom
Friedrich Gulda, pianist and composer, born May 16 1930; died January 27 2000
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