This is my small tribute page to the best classical pianist I've encountered on the aural/visual level. Here, I pay tribute to Glenn Gould for the genius he was and for the wealth of fine music he left behind for us all. Many considered him an eccentric man, one who abruptly and with little bravado gave up live performance for the recording studio, believing that the ideal artist to audience ratio is one to zero. In performance and recording, he was known to hum along with his pieces, sometimes loudly. This presented a large problem to the recording engineers who had to get the best recording possible without any extra sounds and vocal embellishments on Glenn's part. this little idiosyncrasy is something he apologizes for. "I don't know how anyone puts up with my singing, but I do know that I play less well without it." He'd perform sitting on a low wooden chair so that he was nearly at eye-level with the keyboard, sometimes in many layers of clothing. Glenn was a man who kept himself well-protected from the elements when he went out- he had an absolute horror of catching cold. His normal attire consisted of scarves, a hat, a sweater, gloves, (he sometimes performed in fingerless gloves)and a long coat over his normal clothing- and it didn't matter what climate he was in. His effort of layering could be seen as his shutting out of much of the world and its elements, but he was not a hermit. On the contrary, he was a heartfelt, compassionate man with a hatred of cruelty.
In Toronto on September 25th of 1932, Glenn Gould was born into a musical family. Mis mother, Edvard Grieg's granddaughter, played the organ and the piano, and his father played the violin, though never professionally. Glenn's mother was his first piano teacher. She introduced him to Bach and gave him piano lessons for the first ten years of his life.
At the fresh age of three, Glenn already started to show an
amazing proficiency for the piano and had an acute sense of hearing.
He was able to read staff notation
and posessed absolute pitch. At five, he began to compose and gave
informal performances of these compositions to friends and family.
At the age of six, Glenn was taken to his first live musical performance,
an event that inspired him greatly. (It was Josef Hofmann's last appearance
in Toronto.) At ten, he began piano lessons with Alberto Guerrero at
the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
By the time he reached fourteen, he passed the music theory exams and
was awarded a diploma with highest honors.
He also made his debut as a soloist with orchestra at a Royal
Conservatory concert with Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto that year.
He continued lessons with Alberto Guerrero until 1952 at the
age of twenty.
Glenn was known for his unique way of sitting at a piano.
He favored very low seating in a chair with a high back and sat
nearly eye-level with the keyboard.
He had a favorite special
chair he liked to sit on, and aside from Glenn, other pianists
with this particular specific preference were Josef Hoffman and Ignace Paderewski.
Glenn's first recording of the Goldberg Variations (playfully dubbed the "Gouldberg" Variations) took place in 1955 at CBS Studios. He went on to make over sixty recordings with CBS Masterworks and Sony Classical after that 1955 recording which became a bestseller.
If nothing else, can we all appreciate that he's a hottie? He's an absolute beauty, isn't he? Very aesthetically pleasing to watch in a videodocumentary or taped performance. Alright, and we're back to the real stuff.
At the age of thirty-two, he retired from the performance medium in a Los Angeles recital after little publicity or fuss. He felt he could better serve music from a recording studio and not with the walls of a concert hall. He disliked the apprehension of the moments before as well as the "non-take two-ness" of it. He was much more confortable with the microphone and the recording studio that allowed him days and weeks to perfect a piece. He had made enough omeny at that point in life to retire form the field that he had an aversion to, and he did exactly as he wished. Glenn was always happiest when he was able to play piano on his 70-year-old Chickering. The instrument had a harpischord-like timbre to it, and it was his favorite instrument on which to practice. At his retreat, and childhood home, a little cottage north of Toronto on Lake Simcoe, he reveled in his solitude. Here, he was able to completely devote himself to his music.
Oftentimes, Glenn Gould gets labelled a hermit or a recluse.
His philosophy, the core of his being, can be most clearly seen or rather heard
in his broadcast/recording
A few months before his fatal stroke, Glenn Gould formed a chamber orchestra in Toronto with some members of the Toronto Symphony and himself as the maestro conductor. This group pleased him greatly, and he transcribed some of the music they played together into keyboard music. He was a phenomenal conductor, as it was known, but he had a habit of conducting with his left hand. (as he was left handed) It was said that his left-handed style was distracting at first to see but that his emotion and interperetation made up for this quirk.
Glenn was also an animal lover. He had a border collie named Banquo Gould to
whom he sent postcards when he was away on tour. Banquo was also the only audience he approved of.
When he died in 1982, he left his fortune
in equal parts to the Salvation Army and to the Humane Society of Toronto.
Glenn Gould gathered a large, loyal group of friends with whom he remained in contact by telephone, including his close friend and cousin Jesse Grieg. He'd chatter with these friends for hours on end into the late hours of the night, never having to pause to find something to say. (It was said that his phone bill often ran into four figures!) These people describe him as warm, funny, kind, loyal, and charming. Glenn Gould lived a solitary man but from his safe distance touched the lives of many through both the late-night phone conversations and through his brilliant, genius music.
A brilliant, though raspy-sounding recording. (There's a not-so-sumtle buzz from the piano.) At an early twenty-something, Glenn's first recording was flawless in one take with an impressive combination of speed and dexterity.
Ahh, his inventions...one of my favorite short films of the 32 is Forty-Five Seconds and a chair, and these inventions are pure bliss. once again, the signature breakneck speed is there.
An excerpt from his 1955 Goldberg is on this fairly priced CD. He takes the variations at an even faster tempo before slowing down in his later years. The Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056 is to die foowah.
This is a great CD if one wants to hear his compositions- it contains his String Quartet Opus 1 as well as "So You Want to Write a Fugue?", his brilliant and comic fugue for Soprano, Contralto, Tenor and Bass. Also includes Shostakovich's Quintet for Two Violins, Viola and Cello in G minor and Poulenc's Aubade.
A compilation of music Glenn Gould played from the movie including Bach, Brahms, Schoenberg, Beethoven.
This set contains over 35 pieces of Glenn performing music from all four periods of classical music. He flexes his 20th Century muscle quite well in this edition, ad the booklet contains pictures and writings from his life. Briefly discussed is The Idea of North. The two CDs are called, respectively, Glenn Gould plays Bach and Glenn Gould plays not Bach. The Not Bach CD includes Brahms, Gibbons, Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, Wagner, Bizet, Beethoven, Strauss, (for God knows what reason) Beethoven, Scriabin, Mozart, Scarlatti, and a dissonant, but occasionally ambient-sounding Prokofiev Sonata.