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Richard Cavell stages an imagined encounter between pianist Glenn Gould and composer Arnold Schoenberg to explore the relationship between speaking, singing and musical thought. The conversation begins around Gould's last public concert in Los Angeles, bringing a celebrated performer into dialogue with the spectral presence of a composer whose music challenged established ideas of harmony and expression.
The first part uses dramatic dialogue to approach Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron, its contrasting forms of speech and song, and the development of twelve-tone composition. Gould's interest in recording and formal musical structures provides another perspective on questions of performance, artistic freedom and the possibilities opened by technological mediation.
The book moves between imaginative writing and critical discussion rather than offering a conventional biography of either musician. Its supporting material places the dialogue within wider debates about music, philosophy and media. Readers interested in experimental drama, modern composition or the changing experience of listening will find a compact work that makes musical interpretation part of its own literary form.