Michael Gerzon - Beyond Psychoacoustics

by Robert Charles Alexander

About the Book

Michael Gerzon - Beyond Psychoacoustics

The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer said: ...a genius is a person in whom intellect predominates over will much more than for the average person, making them relatively aloof from earthly cares and concerns; they are so fixed on their art, that they neglect the business of life.

Michael Gerzon was one of those lucky few who were able to change the world. Our concept of normality was anathema to Michael; his genius was a burden that he never quite learned to control, much less take for granted. The relative lack of competence of the artist and the thinker, for practical pursuits, was no mere stereotype: it is cause and effect: normality is a state of mind, and, moreover, body, which he was never privileged to attain.

Pained throughout his life with a series of debilitating medical illnesses, an inevitable yet stifled self-criticism borne out of a tortured childhood often manifested itself in emotional shyness and withdrawal.

Like so many geniuses that had gone before him, his brilliance was granted for just a short while; and inevitably he paid for it with a very high price.

Dead at the age of just fifty, Michael Gerzon's light burned half as long, but twice as bright. I had my first book published the biography of Alan Dower Blumlein. The name Michael Gerzon had kept cropping up during my research. Here was somebody, it seemed, who had followed in the footsteps of Blumlein, and then taken audio engineering to yet new heights.

In August 1999, I vowed to look more closely into the Michael Gerzon story... like Blumlein, perhaps there was another book that needed to be written? Michael Gerzon was a fragile, yet complex personality with many facets to his character, some of which surprised those who knew and loved him well. He had a deep seated capacity for friendship and his generosity with his time and talent was legendary. He was a gentleman from the old school , quiet and courteous, yet he could be painfully shy, often withdrawn, sullen and even moody.

Despite this, he had a driving passion for the improvement of our appreciation for sound, and this in turn led him to continually strive to achieve a higher fidelity in everything he did. It seems however, there is always some form of anguish accompanying the soul of such genius. In spite of his crippling illnesses, which often rendered him bed-ridden and unable to work for months at a time, Michael never complained.

Instead, he learned to express his torment, torture and inner self only through his poetry. These private works of prose could vary in content from tender, subtle and loving, to plain forthright, violent and even vulgar! He was often untidy, absent minded, dirty, unwashed and even lazy (especially where everyday minor activities were concerned), but these were just by-products of his resolve to work for days at a time, quite literally forgetting to eat or sleep.

Michael thought nothing of talking for eight hours or more on the telephone if a subject interested him, yet he could barely remember an appointment the next day even if it was made for him, and rarely attended family reunions, or even pay every day utility bills.

Having been privileged to explore his life through the process of writing this book, I now understand why his memory is held in such high regard by all those who knew him so much better than I did.

The world, it seems, is destined to be illuminated from the light of such men; and then, just when that light burns at its brightest, the genius is taken away. Michael Gerzon was one such man.

This is his story.