Gould, Glenn (Herbert)

Gould, Glenn (Herbert), remarkable and individualistic Canadian pianist; b. Toronto, Sept. 25, 1932;d. there, Oct. 4, 1982. His parents were musically gifted and fostered his precocious development, and he began to play piano, and even compose, in his childhood. At the age of 10, he entered the Royal Cons, of Music in Toronto, where he studied piano with Alberto Guerrero, organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and theory with Leo Smith, graduating in 1945 at the age of 13. He made his debut in Toronto on May 8, 1946. As he began practicing with total concentration on the mechanism of the keyboard, he developed mannerisms that were to become his artistic signature. He reduced the use of the pedal to a minimum in order to avoid harmonic “haze”; he cultivated “horizontality” in his piano posture, bringing his head down almost to the level of the keys. He regarded music as a linear art; this naturally led him to an intense examination of Baroque structures; Bach was the subject of his close study rather than Chopin; he also cultivated performances of Sweelinck, Gibbons, and other early keyboard masters. He played Mozart with emphasis on the early pianoforte techniques; he largely omitted the Romantic composers Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt from his repertoire, although he favored an early sonata by Richard Strauss. He found the late sonatas of Beethoven more congenial to his temperament, as well as the piano works of the modern Vienna school—Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern—perhaps because of their classical avoidance of purely decorative tonal formations. Actually, his selective but challenging repertoire ranged widely, from the 16th century to jazz. Following his U.S. debut in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 2, 1955, he evoked unequivocal praise at his concerts, but in 1964 he abruptly terminated his stage career and devoted himself exclusively to recording. This enabled him to perform unfettered by the presence of an audience and to select the best portions of the music he played in the studio, forming a mosaic unblemished by accidental mishaps. Certainly part of the interest he aroused with the public at large was due to mannerisms that marked his behavior on the stage. He used a 14-inch-high chair that placed his eyes almost at the level of the keyboard; he adopted informal dress; he had a rug put under the piano and a glass of distilled water within easy reach. He was in constant fear of bodily injury; he avoided shaking hands with the conductor after playing a concerto (he actually sued the Steinway piano company for a large sum of money when an enthusiastic representative shook his hand too vigorously). He also had an unshakable habit of singing along with his performance, even allowing his voice to be audible on his carefully wrought, lapidary recordings. Nonetheless, Gould acquired a devoted following, and a small coterie of friends, despite the fact that he was quite reclusive; he found release from his self-imposed isolation in editing a series of radio documentaries for the CBC, entitled “The Idea of North,” three of which aired as “solitude tragedies.” Symbolically, they were devoted to the natural isolation of the Canadian Arctic, the insular life of Newfoundland, and the religious hermetism of the Mennonite sect. Fittingly, upon his death in 1982, 7 days after a stroke from which he never recovered, it was learned that Gould had bequeathed his estate in equal portions to the A.S.P.C.A. (Assn. for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and to the Salvation Army. In 1994 his life became the subject of a successful film, Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. He was also made the invisible protagonist of Thomas Bernhart’s immensely entertaining novel, The Loser. A selection of his writings is contained in T. Page, ed., The Glenn Gould Reader (N.Y., 1985). J. Roberts andG. Guertin ed. a selection of his letters (Oxford, 1992).

Bibliography

G. Paysant, G. G.: Music and Mind (Toronto, 1978; rev. ed., 1992); J. Cott, Conversations with G. G. (Boston, 1984); W. Matheis, G. G.: Der Unheilige am Klavier (Munich, 1987); O. Friedrich, G. G.: A Life and Variations (N.Y., 1989); A. Kazdin, G.G. at Work: Creative Lying (N.Y., 1989); J. Hagestedt, Wie spielt G.G.?: Zu einer Theorie der Interpretation (Munich, 1991); E. Angilette, Philosopher at the Keyboard: G. G. (Metuchen, N.J., 1992); M. Stegemann, G. G.: Leben und Werk (Munich, 1992); S. HamelMichaud, G. G., mon bel et tendre amour (Quebec, 1995); K. Bazzana, G. G.: The Performer in the Work: A Study in Performance Practice (Oxford, 1997); P. Ostwald, G. G.: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius (N.Y., 1997).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire