Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius 0393040771, 0393318478

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GLENN GOULD

Gould, 1962,

CBC

recording studio. Photograph by Herb Nott. Courtesy

Broadcasting Corporation.

of the

Canadian

Gould, circa 1980, Eaton Auditorium. Photograph by Don Hunstein. Courtesy Classical.

of

Sony

Also by Peter Ostwald

—The Acoustic Communication

Soundmaking

The Semiotics

Schumann

of

A

Emotion

Human Sound

—The Inner Voices of

Vaslay Nijinsky:

of

Leap

a Musical

into

Genius

Madness

GLENN GOULD The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius

Peter Ostwald

W. W. Norton

& Company

New York London

—

my brother, Thomas H. Ostwahi, and my many Canadian relatives

To

Copyright

©

1997 by the Estate of Peter Ostwald All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First

published as a Norton paperback 1998

Oliver Sacks 's Foreword

first

appeared

the Toronto Globe

in

&

Mail

in

1997

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,

W. W. Norton

& Company,

The

text of this

Inc.,

book

500 is

Fifth

composed

with the display set

New York, NY

Avenue,

101 10.

in Fairfield Light

in Fairfield

Medium

Composition and manufacturing by the Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group

Book design by Chris Welch Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ostwald, Peter

Glenn Gould

:

F.

the ecstasy and tragedy of genius /

by Peter Ostwald.

cm.

p.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-393-04077-1 1.

Gould, Glenn.

Canada

2.

Gould, Glenn

— Biography

4.

— Psychology. Genius.

ML417.G68088

I.

3.

Pianists

Title.

1997

786.2'092—dc20 96-43854

[B]

CIP

ISBN 0-393-31847-8

pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, SOO

I

•ilth

Avenue,

New York,

Inc.

N.Y. 101 10

www.wwnorton.com

Castle

I

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd. London

louse, 75/76 Wells Street,

5

6 7 8 9

WIT

.^QT

FOREWORD TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION Glenn

Gould's combination of great eccentricity and extraordinary

attracted

much

attention in his

gifts

and has engendered a range of

life,

biographies since his death. All of these contribute something to our

understanding of Gould; yet none of them, one

him not

picture of

consummate

just as a

but as an all-too-human

human

being.

A

caught

in this

psychiatrist

new biography by

and an

this

human dimension, no less than me so delicately and affection-

It is

the late Peter Ostwald.

Ostwald was especially fascinated

artist himself,

driven to explore, the psyche of artists.

As

a psychiatrist he

extreme forms of mental torment and disorder; as an musical powers, especially this

when

artist, to

to the dazzling

and

mann and

Nijinsky in his earlier books, and to write of

power and

insight.

And

it

was

this, in part,

—

which attracted him

the two

men

played together on

for inh)rmal psychiatric care

the investigation of

tragic figures of

them with such

the presence of this

friendship it

It

was

Schu-

analytic

Glenn Gould. But then somea friendship that lasted

If

many

occasions), and sometimes turned to

—which

—

who, though tormented

sort.

And

the deeply affectionate, but always clearsighted, eye of

gives this biography

a celebration of a friend

him

and advice, the enduring bond between the two men

was one of friendship, friendship of an unconditional and purely human it is

and more

by,

to the

Gould sometimes turned to Ostwald as a musician and performer (Ostwald was a fine amateur violinist himself, and

twenty-five years, to Gould's death. fellow

to

between the two men,

a friendship

was drawn

these reached up to the level of genius.

conjunction within that drew him

thing else arose

provides a convincing

and an emotional conundrum,

the musical and psychiatric ones, that seems to ately

feels,

artist,

and

for so

its

special flavor

a friendship

much

of his

no

life,

less

and warmth, and makes

than a biography of a genius

could find and convey

in his

music

a transcendent serenity.

As

a psychiatrist,

Ostwald hovers over various "diagnoses." Me wonders

— 8

whether Gould had a

rare

FOREWORD

/

form of autism

drome, which, unlike classical autism, gifts

—the form

called Asperger's syn-

compatible with high intellectual

is

and achievement. Gould's manifest problems with reading other peo-

ple's desires or

emotions or states of mind could

may

with Asperger's, where "mind-blindness"

he argues, go

certainly,

(as in autism)

be a domi-

nating feature; but they could equally, Ostwald observes, go with extreme self-absorption

and narcissism; and there was no doubt

Gould was

that

egocentric to an extraordinary degree.

Gould's

many phobias and

idiosyncrasies are discussed in detail: his dress-

summer; his terror of "catchand the all-too-audible idiosyncrasy which has been recorded for posterity with his music the incessant humming or grunting he seemingly had to make as he played, and which he could not stifle without hurting his own concentration, or the music. Ostwald ing in thick winter clothes at the height of ing cold"; his bizarre,

dwells, acutely

monotonous

diet;

—

and compassionately, on Gould's terror of audiences; his terand vicissitudes of performance; his steady, fated with-

ror of the hazards

drawal from a public arena into the private, wholly controllable world of recording; and he describes one episode that sounds very

paranoid psychosis.

of

much

like a brief

—

Though all this and much more is described sometimes with a good deal humor (a sense of comedy the mischievous Gould himself often shared)

Ostwald does not attempt to impose any rigid diagnosis, but conveys, rather, the sense of an immensely complex personality, wounded, constricted, damaged in some ways, but hugely creative and rich and wonderful in others. One has a sense of flux, of delicate complex shiftings and inner movements, and finally of a

transcendent

artistic

conscience and

engagement of the mechanical If

music

sion of

(as

it

mind and

musician?

entire personality,

and

virtuosity, the "splinter talent,

Is

"

is

of music

thus totally different from the

of an autistic savant.

might be said) can be a complete and untranslatable expres-

what point

personality,

is

there in having a biography of the

not the music itself an adequate "biography"? (The same might

be said of a poet or irrelevant; certainly

scientist, that their

W. H. Auden

addicted to "disclosures" of every

work

is

what matters, and

sort.)

in

new and unexpected

all

—while

often said this himself

else

I

find that

I

is

being

Since reading Ostwald's biography,

have been listening again to Gould's recordings, and

now

power of comwhich requires the

sensibility, a

muning with and communicating the inwardness

I

hear them

ways, with greater delight and appreciation and

depth. Learning more of the man, absorbing Peter Ostwald's picture and analysis, has

sharpened

think this will be so for

my ears many

stand alone; and yet, for

me

at least,

—

me more acutely receptive and I The work, the recordings, the music, they appear in a new light with this

and made

readers.

important and illuminating biography. Oliver Sacks

1

CONTENTS

Foreword hy Lise Deschamps Ostwald

1

Introduction

13

1

2 3

4 5

6 7 8

9

The Concert A Little Night Music Infancy

17

25 35

Child Prodigy A Childhood Friend New Teachers AND Further Success Gaining a Manager "My Love Affair with the Microphone"

43

Self-Isolation

98

57

67 81

89

110

11

Triumph in the States First Contact WITH Psychiatry

12

Conflicting Demands

130

10

120

10

13 14 15

16

17 18

19

20 21

22

23

24 25

26

/

contents

Telephone Calls Traveling Overseas Strange Illnesses In Search of a Home Dr. Joseph Stephens The Pitfalls of Composing and Performing Retirement from the Stage The Solitude Trilogy Changing Views OF Composers Impersonator, Philosopher, AND Technician New Faces, New Challenges Approaching Middle Age The Last Years A Fatal Stroke

Epilogue and Acknowledgments Notes

Index

to

Sources

142 149 159 171

185

200

214 230 244

258

271

286 304 320

332 337

359

FOREWORD

Glenn sadness. this

Gould: Tlie Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius

written by

my

the reader

may

My

husband

psychobiography

husband,

not be aware

will

There

Peter.

of,

is

lines,

I

report with great

nor will he ever see

As the work he wTote with such ardor goes

to press, Peter will

have been absent from our

There are no words

to describe the

May 25, 1996. my husband dem-

lives since

astounding courage

onstrated while writing this book during the last year of his Forty years have passed since the

Why

Glenn took

place.

engraved

both their minds?

in

was

this

first

at

age

— leading

fifty,

life.

meeting between Peter and

an unforgettable event, permanently

Was

it

the intuitive knowledge that this

was the beginning of twenty-five years of friendship laboration

the last book

an underlying tragedy

one that

never read these

in print.

is

to the tragic tale of

—

and occasional colGlenn Gould's premature death

which would be written by Peter Ostwald,

a sixty-eight-year-

old professor of medicine, a violinist, and a distinguished author,

who

fought an unrelenting battle with cancer for twelve years? Peter's illness

was demanding, marching forward

pace; but Peter was adamant

Only

his physicians

knew

—he would

suffer,

at

an unstoppable

but his work would not.

the extent of his illness, but they understood

12

immense

the

FORE W O

/

R D

creative energv' that animated

Peter and treated

him

accordingly. I,

alone, witnessed every day not only the suffering he endured, but

also the

He

his work.

amazing determination and admirable love he put into

carried on with heroism

and a

valiant spirit that

not given to many,

is

always striving to express quality and truth in his writings.

He

asked his

and Preet,

to

remember

As Peter had written an epilogue

in

which he thanks those who were

children, Chantal, David,

that

he had fought the

battle honorably.

helpful to him,

I

will not repeat those

names; but

I

cannot conclude

these remarks without acknowledging the tremendous assistance received over this book from the

Jeannine and Madeleine.

Murphy I

I

am

Deschamps

grateful to

my

family, especially

friends

Mara

I

my

Hill

have

sisters

and Joan

for their invaluable editorial help.

hope

this

was and the

foreword sheds a

real pleasure

he knew and admired

to

my

in writing

To

about Glenn Gould, a pianist

cite Peter's

own accomplishments would

with immeasurable pride that

itself,

but

it is

husband's

last

work.

require a chapter in

duce you

greatly.

Both the subject of

this

book and the author

for their outstanding legacy to the literary

July 1996

on the remarkable man Peter

little light

he took

will long

I

intro-

be remembered

and musical world. Lise

Deschamps Ostwald

INTRODUCTION

telling the lives of

Inpersonas, selves

artists,

one must separate

their public

and the

private

they display to gratify fundamental psychological needs.

Equally important ality

performing

crafted to maintain a successful career,

—what

is

is

to recognize that these divergent aspects of person-

publicly concealed and privately revealed

—can

at

times

merge and at other times conflict. This problem of dual focus on the public and the private is especially critical when we try to understand

Glenn Gould, who of

all

the century's great pianists was the

first to

seek

out every opportunity afforded by the electronic media to illuminate and magnify' one's artistic goals.

From the beginning

of his career,

and

in

ways never

tried

by classical

musicians, everything Gould wanted the world to think of him was recorded, broadcast, filmed, videocast, and wTitten about.

managed eccentric,

to create a living

and so quickly a fascinating

cult figure that his essential

humaneness almost disappeared. "Unless

I

am much

Geoffrey Payzant during Gould's lifetime, "his private tere

and unremarkable."' To get around

eclipsing private realities,

I

Thus Gould

legend of himself, incredibly versatile, highly

this

in error,'

life is in

uTote

fact aus-

problem of public images

have decided to approach Gould by combin-

14

INTRODUCTION

/

ing personal knowledge with biographical data gathered since his death.

The seed of

for this

my

during

it,

book was planted

last visit to

Glenn,

discussed biographical research

Schumann^

—and he asked,

—

in

May

1977, although

I

I

wasn't aware

before his tragic death.

five years

was working on

a

in his typically provocative way,

an inferior musician? You know very well that

I

We

book about Robert

"Why such

cannot stand Schumann's

music." Having learned a long time ago that Gould could not tolerate

being contradicted, pianist,

and

perform

all

know

I

him go

let

on.

"Schumann

weren't for that clever

wasn't even a competent

who managed to his, we wouldn't

wife of his

little

those dreadfully mediocre compositions of

he ever existed. What you should do,

that

about a

if it

is write a book wonder whether he

Peter,

important musician." Looking back,

really

I

might not have been thinking of himself.

As

medical person,

a

when Gould needed

interceded several times

1

professional advice, and

I

strongly supported a colleague's effort over

seventeen years to preserve a psychotherapeutic attitude toward Gould.

But he was never

my

patient.

I

for drugs or requests to urge his

Thus

I

feel

I

I

can

—

him. Realizing

to treat

crafty

in retrospect I

manager

repeated entreaties

in to his

to

excuse him from concerts.

can speak more openly about Gould than the many doctors

who undertook interviews how same time, he needed

never gave

now from

archival research

and

and mischievous Gould could be with physicians,

—express

relief for

remaining simply a friend. At the

Glenn Gould never

regret that

to deal with a

profited from the expertise

complex of psychosomatic

him.

Many

tion

and coordinated practice of performing

illnesses afflicting

other musicians are luckier today, with the rising sophistica-

medicine.

arts

"*

Indeed,

number and men-

Gould's death in 1982, and the disclosures around that time by a of other well-known performing artists of their serious physical tal

suffering, spurred

me

along with

many co-workers

programs of diagnosis, treatment, and research

From

this

to organize special

in this

neglected

field.

evolved the birth of the Health Program for Performing Artists

at the University of California."^ In part, this

book

is

meant

to further

new interdisciplinary specialty. Moreover, Glenn Gould gathers about him many timeless questions on that rare and astonishing phenomenon called genius. And finally, wanted to remember a man who made a deep and lasting impression on my life. interest in this

I

Veil

des

March

Champs, HoiveU 1996

3,

Moitutaiti

Peter Ostwald,

M.D.

GLENN GOULD

THE CONCERT

On

men met on

February 28, 1957, two young

One was

a California stage.

an eccentric, fair-haired, world-famous pianist, barely

over twenty-four, the other was a serious, already balding,

twenty-nine-year old

and

psychiatrist

Was

violinist.

this

a

chance

encounter? Nothing in their background could suggest the possibility of

such

a meeting.

The

pianist

was of Canadian descent, born and raised

in Toronto, the only child of a in

Canadian

soil

prosperous

furrier,

and Protestant values. The

and firmly entrenched

\dolinist

was

a Berliner child,

star-marked by the Nazis, whose parents managed to flee to the United States in 1937, leaving behind relatives, friends, pianist,

Glenn Gould,

is

now

home, and

property.

The

dead. His friend, Peter Ostwald, lives to

write about him.

Looking back today on

what made

it

genius and

my

was then on recitals in

my

initial

contact with Glenn Gould,

I

wonder

so memorable. Surely the basic ingredients were this man's

readiness for an overwhelming musical experience. Gould

his first transcontinental tour, following

Washington, D.C., and

led to his recording contract with

New York

in 1955.

two spectacular

Those

recitals

Columbia and catapulted him

throughout the world with an astonishing

LP

to

had

fame

of Bach's Goldberg Varia-

18

tions.

The record cover shows young Gould

The

in ecstatic poses, singing,

and conducting the music.

playing,

to

GLENN GOULD

/

night

I

met him was

his

debut

in California.

He was scheduled

perform the F Minor Concerto by Bach and Richard Strauss's Burleshe

with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Enrique Jorda. recently

my

moved back

to

New York,

San Francisco from

after

I

had

completing

psychiatric training, to take a faculty position in the School of

Medi-

cine at the University of California. Martin Canin, a friend and well-

known

pianist

from

New

there, urged that

whom

York with

music and who had introduced

me

to a

go to hear Gould.

I

I

had often played chamber

number

"You'll

of leading musicians

be amazed. He's one of

the most interesting performers today, an astonishing technician, with a brilliant,

keen mind. The

good case

for you!

real thing,

Be sure

and something of

to go backstage

He'd be a

a nut.

and give him

my

regards.

"

I

couldn't resist.

The concert opened with composer Juan It

Arriaga,

who

a rarely

heard symphony by the Spanish

died tragically young, at age twenty, in 1826.

was beautifully conducted by the Spaniard Jorda, but received with somewhat lethargic Wednesday-night audi-

only mild applause from a

ence. Next on the program was the Bach concerto, originally written for the harpsichord and a local it

debut

seemed

somewhat unusual choice

— most performers

fitting for

him

as an

for a pianist

with something more

making

his

flashy.

But

Gould, since his reputation rested primarily on the

astounding success of his berg Variations,

will start

first

which had

immensely

commercial recording of the Bach Gold-

instantly

original

and

become

His appearance on stage was unusual, briskly but with a certain

a best-seller

and identified

effective interpreter of Bach. to say the least.

He

awkwardness, suggesting he was not

strode out at

ease in

a suit of tails that looked a size too big for him. His gaze at the audience

seemed

hesitant and unfocused.

He

didn't

look like

someone who

enjoyed being in a crowd. His attention was more on the conductor and the musicians,

whom

Steinway Grand.

It

he greeted warmly before ambling over

to

a

had been elevated on wooden blocks placed under

the three legs. That, and the rickety folding chair on which Gould sat very close to the

floor,

brought his body into a strikingly unorthodox

rela-

tionship to the keyboard. His arms were on a horizontal level, rather than

angling from above, but he

He

seemed quite

relaxed in that unusual position.

smiled, rubbed his hands, and leaned forward, his face nearly resting

on the piano keys.

The Bach F Minor Concerto opens with

orchestra and soloist in uni-

The Concert The keynote F

son.

heard on the

is

syncopated effect reiterated ornamentation.

lowed by

a

Then

there

first

in the next

is

I

19

beat and repeated, producing a

two measures with increasing

a surprising ascent to the

minor

sixth, fol-

drop to the minor third and four notes of piano solo echoing

the orchestra.

Gould obviously enjoyed playing the music and had a proits structure. He swayed his body rhythmically, and the

found sense of

prominent jaw undulated, giving

a rather simian cast to his pale, clean-

shaven face. Indeed, he was articulating every note with his mouth; one could hear him vocalize

at times.

His playing was remarkable

tured, three-dimensional; each phrase

seemed

to

have a

life

of

— sculpits

own.

With the orchestra accompanying accurately and sensitively Gould became ecstatic, his expression one of rapture, his eyes closed or turned inward, and his hands caressing the keyboard as if he were making love. This

total

dency

involvement with the music also incorporated a curious ten-

to elevate his left

hand and make conductorlike gestures, giving

direction to himself as well as the orchestra.

The combined transmitted transfixed.

seemed

visual

and aural effect of Gould's performance quickly

the audience,

itself to

who became

raptly attentive, almost

His self-absorbed movements and embodiment

to cast a spell.

It

was

a kind of seduction.

He was

in

sound

pulling his

spectators into psychological orbits both close to him and far away, in some ethereal space. His interpretation of the slow movement of the Bach Concerto was truly a revelation. He projected the soulful melody like a silver thread by articulating each phrase with immense deliberation and creating smooth continuities between individual notes. The result

was so songlike piano.

And

it was difficult to believe one was listening to a movement, in strongly accentuated three-eight time,

that

the last

inspired such a rollicking sense of rhythm that the audience

want

to

dance along with the joy and

vitality of

seemed

to

Gould's playing.

What a performer! can recall very few pianists who had that magic, who triumphed in fusing bodily display with musical intelligence. We are told that Liszt did it in the nineteenth century. More recently there was I

Artur Schnabel, sitting in a comfortable chair and caressing the keyboard

without appreciable

effort,

as

though he were having

remember Arthur Rubinstein's distinctive way upward in loud passages like a rocket, and then he were praying

had

to

to

be seen to be

a meal.

also^

elevating his face as

God. Sergei Rachmaninoff was another fully appreciated.

I

of propelling himself

pianist

if

who

His granitic body, hunched solidly

moved while nimble

fingers extracted from it the most awesome and delicate sounds. These virtuoso musicians resemble

over the piano, hardly

20

GLENN GOULD

/

dancers in their integrated appeal to both eye and

ear.

They

play on one's

responsiveness with the entire force of body and mind, communicating

emotions that can range from religious devotion to sexual

Gould launched

After intermission

ecstasy.'

the Biirleshe by Richard

into

Strauss, a mini-concerto that gave us the opportunity to marvel at his

known compoWest Coast debut again indicated a degree of nonconformity. But there could be no doubt that he was a technical wizard. Triplet chords and arpeggios literally flew off the keyboard, and the treacherous descending scales rippled like pearls. He was in absolute command of his instrument. Yet it all looked so easy. There were no exaggerated contortions, no deliberate attempts at showmanship. His hands remained close to the keys, and the wrists were horizontal except when his left hand was conducting. As soon as the piece ended, Gould again became awkward. The applause seemed to startle him. When not making music, he became almost a different person, rather shy and embarrassed, like a young boy dazzling bravura. This piece sitions,

surprised to have evoked so tory

bow

to the audience,

not one of Strauss's better

is

and Gould's selecting

it

much

acclaim. After a quick, almost perfunc-

he waved

hands with the concertmaster

to the orchestra

as soloists usually do.

and came back

stage ahead of the conductor call.

for his

but did not shake

He

scurried back-

briefly for a single curtain

Jorda then returned to end the program with a vivid rendition of

Igor Stravinsky's Petrushlia Suite.

Petrushka was over,

was planning

I

I

could barely

to

listen.

As soon

as the

go backstage to thank Gould for an

unforgettable experience. In those days before

San Francisco had a Symphony Hall, orchestral War Memorial Opera House, where

concerts were usually held at the finding one's tion.

The

guards

way

to

an

artist's

dressing

who

screened and delayed any

were equally inaccessible. But cles as a medical student,

1

when

(Menuhin,

soloists. In this

exercise in frustra-

I

ajar,

way and

ushered

and the

to get

at the

I

I

how to enter rapidly. The door

learned

street entrances

around these obsta-

opera house and occa-

who would accompany

Heifetz, Szigeti, Zimbalist,

rehearsal areas backstage

room was

visitors,

had learned

sionally turned pages for pianists violinists

room can be an

stage entrances from the lobby were controlled by zealous

the famous

Elman) and other great

the labyrinth of rooms and to

Maestro Jorda's dressing

could see the conductor inside, combing his hair

welcome guests and autograph hunters. The soloist's room was locked. knocked, but there was no response. After a second knock, the door opened and Glenn Gould politely invited me in. He had and preparing

to

I

The Concert changed from white

me was

shocked

and was now dressed

his formal attire

without

shirt

21

I

in gray pants, a

What

heavy woolen sweater, and dark bluejacket.

tie,

the temperature of the dressing room.

It

was

stiflingly

hot and muggy, like a sauna. All of the windows had been tightly closed,

and the heat turned up

full blast.

Gould was alone and seemed pleased myself as a

violinist friend of

to

have a

so

visitor,

Martin Canin. Then

told

I

introduced

I

him

that his

Bach work played so

playing had been enormously impressive, especially the concerto.

my

was

composer and

favorite

The same was

well.

I

had never heard

this

true for the Strauss piece. Gould's face grew radiant;

he obviously enjoyed being complimented. But at-ease, his face tense,

I

noticed that he was

ill-

and there was some mild twitching of the muscles

his right eye which detracted from an otherwise youthful, handsome appearance. The way Gould began speaking also suggested substantial ner\'ousness. The words poured out in a torrent. "Thank you, that's very kind of you, especially coming from a friend of hope we can get him to Martin, whose pla)ing admire very much. play in Canada some day. You know, we have a music festival there ever)'

around

I

I

and several musicians from the States have

year, at Stratford,

pated, the violinist Oscar Shumsky, and Leonard Rose, the

year

I

became one

"How

does

being so

far

"To be perfectly honest about are a big

and

problem

for

me

from home?" it,

I

detest having to travel. Airplanes

because the cabins are never

I'm extremely sensitive to temperature change.

while waiting at an airport can be an ordeal; avoid drafts at fortable, as It is

all

that

I'll

its

to play

tomorrow

The to

"It

esty.

conditioning

ver)' careful to ver\'

uncom-

think

I

I

might actually be coming

happens. I'm not

at all

I

I've

I

away from the

I

ventured, hoping

topic of health.

was supplied with

is

really first-rate,

played on in the States so

far,

only a

that the

At home he had

little bit

conductor.

He had been

on the heavy more pliable

a Chickering, his all-time favorite.

Bach concerto had gone well under Maestro

mod-

one of the better

prefer something a bit lighter, a keyboard with a

action."

sure

night's concert."

wasn't so bad, actually," he said quickly, with a look of false

"The piano

Steinways side.

be

make me

"Well, you certainly played magnificently tonight," to direct the conversation

heated

reliably air

incessant coughing and sneezing.

a fever, or a cold, as frequently

be able

have

I

times. Large halls like this one

does the audience with

hard to protect myself from germs;

down with

Last

of the directors."

feel

it

partici-

cellist.

He

agreed

Jorda, a splendid

easy to rehearse with, and the orchestra had

—

"

22

responded he's

him quite

to

my

one of

difficult

it

incidentally,

manner, and the solo instrument,

exploits in his inimitable

in this case the piano,

much

that

all

for.

figures

orchestral

maintain a proper relationship

to

between the orchestral sound, which Strauss Strauss didn't write

—

—the balance was never upset by the

Gould thought

"

by Strauss

well. "In the BurlesJie

composers and one of the most underrated

favorite

of the twentieth century texture.

GLENN GOULD

/

an instrument

But he agreed that the orchestra

"rose to the occasion splendidly."

Gould was beginning pleasantly inflected. a brilliant

he

He

self-confident,

monologue about orchestras he had played with, conductors

liked, his favorite

composers,

unabashed

vitality,

clauses.

possessed such a razor-sharp intellect and

much

of what

a fantastic sense of

humor,

as delectably as he played music. Besides,

to say

was very funny. He had

which he used provocatively rather than astating quips

Words flowed out of him with Not that one would

difficult to interrupt.

it

who

musician

to stop a

spun out words

Gould had

making

delivered in densely constructed sen-

all

embedded

tences with numerous

want

more

to relax, his voice stronger,

obviously loved to talk and to hear himself talk

spitefully.

One

was about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,

of his most dev-

whom

he described

cattily as a

composer who died too

thirty-five)

and thus escaped the influence of Viennese opera, Mozart

would have been shock, and

much

my

a far greater

late.

Had he

not lived so long (to age

composer. Such remarks were meant to

attempt to defend Mozart led to a vigorous rebuttal, with

laughter.

By now

a

few other well-wishers had

arrived, including

Enrique Jorda

and several members of the orchestra who complimented Gould on performance and wished him well

me

to wait while

for

he spoke with each

tomorrow

night's concert.

visitor briefly

me

signing a few autographs, he turned to talk to until

someone appeared

to say that the dressing

He

his

asked

and courteously. After without interruption,

rooms would soon be

closed and exits from the opera house bolted.

"Do you have

a car?

"

Gould asked. "I'm

staying at the St. Francis

Hotel." "It

would

give

me

great pleasure to drive you

replied. "Perhaps you'd

like to

stop somewhere

back

to the hotel,"

for a bite to eat or

I

some-

thing to drink. You must be famished.

"Not

especially, but

of water lotions

on

and

I

do get very

his dressing table, vials of pills.

always carry

my own

and

thirsty.

He

pointed to a large bottle

a box of soda biscuits alongside various

"Poland Water

supply."

"

is

what

my body

tolerates best.

I

Suddenly Gould's brisk monologue reverted

The Concert to aspects of his health; again

23

I

he mentioned not feeling well.

He

feared

he might be coming down with a cold. To alleviate his symptoms he was taking antibiotics and also using

he mentioned

a

nagging pain

experiencing some discomfort

"The bones of I've

found

it

my back

in his

calm

my

middle of

nenes." In

his back,

and

this context

that he

was

arms and shoulders.

mv

alignment with

ribs,

and

of considerable benefit to visit chiropractors in Toronto

who

are ver)' proficient in also

"pills to

in the

easily get out of

making adjustments

massaged the hea\y muscles of

to the spine."

his shoulders

One

of

them

and adxised him

to

have regular ultrasound treatments. Chiropractors? Ultrasound treatments? During school

I

had several times

Francisco with Peter Mark, a classmate ventional medicine as

included in our

own

dermatologist) and tors.

But

does

it

I

do?"

I

I

who was

last

year in medical

as interested in

San

uncon-

was, in order to find out about methods never

curriculum. So Peter (who has

knew about

become

a successful

the techniques practiced by chiroprac-

couldn't recall having heard I

my

visited the local chiropractic college in

much

about ultrasound. "What

asked now.

Gould, head and shoulder

portrait, late 19SOs. Courtesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

24

GLENN GOULD

/

has a miraculous effect," Gould said, grasping his

"It

his right

left

hand. "You see, the vibratory impulses break

here, in the bigger muscles, thinning

mass of muscles that are useless

shoulder with

down

tissue

them and thus reducing

for a pianist.

up

the bulky

Muscles of the shoulder

and upper arm are

likely to get hypertrophied, like a boxer's,

makes them

powerful for the amount of work needed to play the

piano.

low

I

am

far too

trying to

—

my shoulders by sitting my arms level, can accomplish

minimize the strength of

in relation to the keyboard,

with

and that

I

was

that to a certain degree. But not sufficiently." His goal generally shift control

from the upper arms

where ultrasound came it

almost every day. But

in. it

He had

his

own machine

was too heavy

down with

"I'm already loaded

hands and

to the

to transport

fingers. at

to

This was

home and used

on concert

thick blocks for the piano and

my

tours.

folding

chair."

What Gould was

saying about the use of ultrasound vibrations to

destroy large masses of muscle tissue struck

me

as highly improbable,

some warming was time to tell Gould

not actually dangerous. At most, one might expect

and other

tissues

local effects.

I

decided

it

if

of the of

my

medical orientation. "Well, don't worry, Mr. Gould. trist.

"

I

hastened to add that

needn't fear that

I

was going

I

I

happen

to

—

be a doctor

was not on duty

to practice

this

a psychia-

evening and he

on him. "You've just performed

two very demanding works, with spectacular

results.

you must be somewhat exhausted and overwrought.

My

guess

is

that

Let's get out of this

room and get some fresh air." Gould broke into a captivating smile and turned away from me to pack his belongings. He donned a heavy overcoat and cap, wrapped a woolen scarf around his neck, put on a pair of wool-lined intolerably stuffy

With

that,

gloves, picked

up

his folding chair,

and we

set off.

"

LITTLE NIGHT

A

MUSIC

those days

I

Inmal protection

drove an Austin-Healey sports car that offered miniagainst the elements. But

Gould

didn't

Despite his earlier complaints about sensitivity to cold

he kept on

talking, telling

me

excitedly that he

gian composer Edvard Grieg. grandfather. in

We

my mothers

all

"He was

stemmed from

branch the

was related

a cousin of

my

seem air

to

and

to the

mind. drafts,

Norwe-

mother's great-

a Scottish family to begin with,

original spelling, 'Greig,'

was

faithfully

and

main-

Those ancestors who settled in Norway inverted the two vowels name would acquire a more authentically Nordic ring. "You must visit that vast region to the north," he went on, adding that Canada had been rather neglected lately by Americans living in the tained.

so that the

neighboring States.

He

believed his country was blessed with

some

of the

wildest natural beauty in the world and inhabited by amazingly cultivated people. Impishly he added "though

attending too

many

of

my concerts

I

daresay the Eskimos haven't been

lately."

evoked Gould's most bovish enthusiasm. larly isolating

The

He

topic of

Canada

generally

spoke of his habit of regu-

himself for long stretches of time to study and practice in

a cottage maintained by his parents at

of Orillia, sLxtv miles north of Toronto.

Lake Simcoe, near the

little

town

26

Gould annotating Glenn Gould

It

was

it

GLENN GOULD

score at cottage, LaJie Simcoe, 1956. Courtesy of Fed News and

Estate.

summer and weekend

their

memories of childhood used

/

as his

own

there.

retreat,

and Glenn had many fond

However, since

late

adolescence he had

private sanctuary, a place for withdrawing

from the

world and devoting himself to reading, listening to the radio, making music, and taking long walks with his dog.

"That sounds

like

a

somewhat

lonely existence,"

I

said,

breaking

momentarily into the monologue.

He went on was not

at all

instantly to say that, although

I

might not approve, he

the gregarious type. Indeed, he craved solitude, and up

there in the north, in that freshness of nature close to the lake, his

mind

could dwell on essentials, "get to the heart of the matter, locate what's

important and what

isn't in

the agenda of

life."

A Little Night Music

Gould enjoying

a peacejid

walk with

his dog.

I

11

Lake Simcoe,

late 1960s. Courtesy of

Fed News and Glenn Gould Estate.

interrupted to reassure

I

him

that

Canada. Having recently traveled bec,

I

I

was able

to share his passion for

to the pro\dnces of

Ontario and Que-

could appreciate the wild expanse of his native land and

ing blend of

struck

me

European and American

as contradictor)'.

isolation while traveling

alone, 1957,

its

engag-

culture. But his quest for solitude

Here was

a

man

preaching the xirtues of

around the countr\- giving concerts. That year

Gould performed

thirty-eight times in five different

coun-

tries.

And for

at that

very

moment he was demonstrating

companionship than

for solitude.

far

more of

seamlessly, under great inner pressure. His vocal exuberance

some kind

a craving

Speech flowed out ceaselessly and

seemed

like

of primal experience, a joyous discharge of emotion and intel-

28

lect,

mockery and

listener.

GLENN GOULD

/

fantasy, all

designed to fascinate

At no time did he ask what

my thoughts

not dominate the

if

and reactions might

I'd

have to interrupt him to get a word in edgewise, which

to

do because he was such

a

resembled

me

that having

his

been an only child forced

to

be.

was reluctant

charming raconteur, and one could

virtuosity in his speaking behavior that

occurred to

I

feel a

piano playing.

It

spend an inordi-

amount of time at the keyboard, which is inherently a solitary purGould might have been starved for social contact and developed a special way of communicating primarily with himself. Now, in the presence of someone who was so eager to listen, he could "let go" and show what it was really like to be Glenn Gould. As we approached his hotel, I suggested stopping at a coffeeshop, where he ordered a bottle of mineral water and I ate a turkey sandwich. He continued to talk volubly about his current concert tour and the Stratford Music Festival, mentioning various musicians who had played with him there, including the Canadian cellist Zara Nelsova. It so happened that I too had played chamber music with Zara, who is a frequent visitor to San Francisco and a person I admire greatly. Gould brought up his interest in listening to recordings of great artists, and I told him about my own collection. The first records I had ever bought were of Yehudi Menuhin playing Bach's G Minor Sonata for Solo nate suit,

and Leopold Stokowski conducting his own transcription of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for the organ. Gould's eyes lit up. Both Menuhin and Stokowski were among his favorite performers, and as the evening progressed it became increasingly clear that we shared a

Violin

passion for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Later on

I

discovered

other interests that put us on similar wavelengths. Gould spoke knowl-

edgeably about the technology of radio and recording studios, while

was fascinated by medical research on designing

a

I

sound studio that

could analyze the emotional inflections in speech. looked at my watch. It was past He seemed unaware of my growing I

midnight, and

I

fatigue. "Aren't

wanted

to

go home.

you getting

tired?

"

I

asked.

"Oh

no, not at

have difficulty

all.

I

have no trouble staying awake

falling asleep unless

I

at night. In fact,

take a sedative."

I

He mentioned

using Nembutal and some other barbiturate drugs that could be obtained fairly easily in

Canada

at the time,

though

in the

United States they were

As Gould spoke lyrically of sedatives that I knew to be potentially habit-forming and even dangerous when used in excess, I had treated a number of severely addicted I grew mildly alarmed. more

strictly controlled.

— A Little Night Music

29

I

and suicides resulting

patients and had witnessed com-ulsions, comas,

from barbiturate overdose. But Gould would have none of

were "perfectly harmless."

that barbiturates

who needed no

expert on the subject, one I

didn

t

know

the time, but just a

at

it

He

it,

claiming

considered himself an

ad\ice from a medical doctor.

month before we met, Gould had

written to a pianist friend in Washington, D.C., touting the virtues of barbiturate drugs:

Gould's Clinic for Psycho-Pseumatic

[sic]

Therapy

32 Southwood Dri\e Toronto, Ontario

Januar\'21. 1957

Dear Thomas:

am

I

delighted to hear that Dr. Gould's perscriptions

Due

proved efficacious. practice

am

I

my

to

unusually alert to the problems of neurotic

you are planning a

trip

up

to

as usual

[sic]

long experience with internal medicine artists.

Canada my nurse w ill be glad

Whenever

to arrange

an

appointment.

The yellow Luminal.

Luminal day:

is

—one

pills are called

Nebutol

[sic].

The white

sedatives are called

beliexe that both will have to be obtained through your doctor.

I

perfectly harmless

after the

and can be taken generally three times a

noon meal and two

make

ever that you do not

a habit of

at

bed time.

Nebutol

I

strongly advise

[sic]. It

how-

should definitely

be reserved for the nights before special occasions and to break chronic sleeplessness. All

.

.

.

good wishes.

Sincerely

Glenn Gould' to go to bed, Gould nowhim in plaving some piano-violin sonatas. He asked me to go home, pick up my violin, and then drive him back to the opera house, where he could play on the Steinway that he liked so much. "But, Glenn, I remonstrated by now we were on first-name basis "the hall will be closed, and there won't be anybody to let us use the

Having established that he was not about

proposed that

I

join

—

"

stage. If you're really serious

place to go.

"

Since

I

didn't

about

this,

I

have a piano

think in

my

we should apartment,

find another I

suggested

telephoning William Corbett Jones, a friend and classical pianist that time

was working

club called Vesuvio's.

as the bar pianist at a popular Bill

who

at

North Beach night-

probably would just have gotten home, and

if

30

/

GLENN GOULD

not too tired might suggest a place for us.

apartment on 35th Avenue. "But I

its

He

did

— Matilda

Kogan's

going to have to be an upright piano,"

warned Glenn.

much

"That shouldn't be too

of a problem so long as

in tune,"

it's

he

assured me. Glenn actually enjoyed the sound of an upright piano, saying,

"The action can be rather comfortable.

my

home

with

sively

when was

parents in Toronto.

I

a child."

school to pick up Bill

had already

ory who

my

It

me

of being at

to

my apartment

near the medical

and then headed for Matilda's place.

He

a versatile

is

musician with

frequently performs in solo recitals and

in the

United States and abroad.

cisco

State

Now

acclaimed Alma Trio with the

violinist

superb

a

mem-

chamber music concerts

a professor of

Jones played for

University,

reminds

played on their upright almost exclu-

So we drove

violin,

arrived.

I

many

music

years

at

in

Andor Toth and the

San Fran-

the

cellist

highly

Gabor

Rejto.

Jones greeted us

at

the bottom of the stairs leading up to the apart-

ment, where we found two other musicians waiting: the pianist Sylvia Jenkins (later to

become

Naoum

Blinder,

Jones's wife)

and the

violinist

David Abel. Then

Abel had also been a child prodigy, studying with

just turned twenty,

who was

Isaac Stern's principal teacher as well. "This

going to be an exciting evening,"

I

is

said to myself.

After introductions were made, Glenn insisted that the heat in the

apartment be turned up to eighty degrees Fahrenheit. sensitivity to cold

he wouldn't

let

niously on the

and took

off his

anyone hang up

He

up

heavy overcoat,

for

He

scarf,

explained his

and cap, which

him, dumping everything unceremo-

and suggested playing a Bach sonata with me. I chose the one in C Minor, which is one of my favorites and a work that I felt comfortable playing with such a distinfloor.

set

his folding chair

guished performer. Piano and violin together. Gould, as

start the beautiful

slow Siciliano

would be expected, played magnificently. The theme

flowed with that structural clarity

I'd

noted earlier

in the

evening

when

he performed the Bach F Minor Concerto with the symphony. Every note

was precisely nuanced; there wasn't a

single mistake in sight-reading—

perhaps Gould was playing from memory, which was one of his major talents, but

he did look

at the score.

There wasn't much give-and-take

in

Glenn had his own expectations of how this music was to sound, and he assumed I would bend my playing to conform with his ideas about tempo and phrasing, which I was only too happy to do. Playing chamber music with Glenn was like conversing with him. He took the lead and obviously enjoyed being in control. the ensemble playing.

A Little Night Music After

we

finished the four

movements

David Abel performed the great and

by Franz Schubert. Bill listening

It

of Bach's sonata,

difficult

Duo

Bill

Jones and

Bill

and Piano

for Violin

was beautifully played, and Glenn turned pages

with great interest. But afterwards he

Schubert was not a composer he especially

remark from

31

I

Jones,

who began

liked.

made

That led

for

clear that

it

to a captious

asking Glenn about his approach to

the piano. Glenn ngorously defended the unusually low chair he used

and

his posture at the

keyboard as being the correct one.

at least for

and he repeated almost verbatim some of the things he had earlier

about the muscles

in his shoulders.

him,

told

At one point he made

me

even,'-

in the room feel his shoulder blades. The atmosphere grew a bit tense, and was surprised to see that in marked contrast to the zest for talking shown earlier. Glenn now became strangely inarticulate and seemed to want to a\ oid talking about himself.

one

I

Only much

later

would

learn that he generally functioned far better in

I

one-on-one conversations. him, he would begin

When

there were two people in a

to feel edg\'.

anxietv' to escalate sharply.

The

his social

best solution then would be to seize

which he would do by going

control immediately,

room with

and three or more caused

to the piano.

allowed him to enter another universe, free of words and best his personal needs.

Now

Sonata, opus 30, no.

2.

he asked that for

I

play with

him

the

Music

fitted to

C Minor

piano and violin by Beethoven. This

is

a

demanding composition, full of treacherous solo passages for both instruments and ensemble work that is difficult to bring off. I would have preferred that David Abel play the violin part, but Glenn insisted he wanted me as his partner, which made me feel ver\- flattered. In the opening Allegro I stumbled over several tricky runs, but Glenn negotiated the murderous double octaves in the piano part flawlessly. The Adagio he wanted to play at an unbearably slow tempo, a Gould trademark. He stretched the already-drawn-out opening theme for piano solo to an unmerciful length, which found nearly impossible to replicate when it came my turn to play it. The Scherzo went hair-raisingly fast, and the Finale was done with passionate abandon. Afterward, Glenn seemed supremely happy. David Abel now wanted to play with him, and

ver\'

I

they gave a beautiful, almost concert-ready rendition of the Beethoven

G

Major Sonata, opus 96.

Then Matilda sened ver\' rela.xed

and began

ice

cream, cookies, and coffee. Glenn seemed

to discourse

about his love for animals. While

there was gentleness in what he told us about his pets, especially his dog, he also spoke as an activist, arguing eloquently in favor of animal

32

His energy seemed inexhaustible, but the rest of us were getting

rights. tired,

and

suggested taking him back to his hotel.

I

As we

drove there,

I

noticed a peculiar quality of detachment and

Despite his overt friendliness and jovial humor, Glenn radiated

isolation. little

GLENN GOULD

/

warmth, almost as

had chilled him

spiritually.

about the musicians

the bodily coldness he often complained of

if

He

we had

spoke of music but said absolutely nothing

been with, neither

just

their personalities

nor their performance, nor did he have any comments whatsoever, positive or negative,

during the

human

five

about

my violin

playing.

It

suddenly occurred to

relations; he'd said very little

and

The

talk

that

who might

had focused primarily on himself,

his love of animals.

all

about his family and almost nothing

about any friends, teachers, or other people to him.

me

hours we'd spent together, Glenn had minimized

He mentioned

have been close

musical

his

activities,

being a composer,

his interest in

talked about a string quartet he had just written, and expressed his desire to give

up playing

in public

when he reached

the age of

so he

thirty,

could devote himself exclusively to composing and making recordings.

One

day,

he

When we

he wanted to conduct a symphony orchestra.

said,

Glenn made

arrived at the St. Francis Hotel,

it

clear that

me go, even though it was now 4:00 A.M. and was obviously dead tired. He wouldn't get out of the car and just kept on talking. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps Gould was gay and wanted me to spend the night with him. But his he was wide awake and did not want

to let

I

behavior suggested just the opposite; there was nothing remotely seductive or erotic in his

speech or gestures, nothing whatsoever

might be interested

persistently engaging in self-centered

tance, and

was I

like a

it

struck

me

I

monologue tended

was beginning

to

human

you with thoughts and ideas about myself, At

fully in control."

this point

1

I

wore also

I

could take

"

lassi-

me

and on the other hand

want it

listen, let

no

excused myself, saying

it

to

be

left

longer.

fill

to

alone and be

Nudging Gould

had been

a

wonderful

some sleep. Before we hoped gave him my address and telephone number and said

evening but parted,

I

to create dis-

respond with ambivalence and

"keep your distance, don't get too close,

he

way of

contact.

tude to the demands on the one hand to "stay with me,

gently out of the car,

to suggest

the contrary, his

that the envelope of heavy clothing he

cocoon, sealing him from

noticed that

On

in physical intimacy.

now

we might have

I

needed

to

go

home and

get

I

a

chance

to get together again before

he had

to leave

town

for his next series of concerts.

The

next day, just before noon,

I

received a phone

call. "Peter,

I

need

A Little Night Music your advice. I'm not feeling

to ask for

eight this

morning when

He had

risen just a

still felt

afternoon's concert.

"I

maybe

think I'm coming

probably hold

Could

back of

it

down with some kind

be streptococcal?

"

He

which seemed

his throat,

in that

of infec-

described

be getting

to

having trouble swallowing. "I'm wondering whether you

come down

could

couldn't sleep until

unwell and not sure he could play

a throat infection.

He was

worse.

I

while ago, "feeling quite feverish." After

little

eating breakfast, he

tion,

at all well.

took a couple of Nembutals."

I

a kind of roughness at the

33

I

to the hotel

me

and give

"Have you mentioned

this to the

"No, but

my

did call

I

That should

penicillin?

S\Tnphony management?

I

"

asked.

personal manager, Walter Homburger, in

recommended

Toronto, and he

me some

over until the end of the concert."

I

see a doctor and then go ahead with the

performance.

With

schedule of patients and teaching that afternoon,

a full

me

impossible for short notice. at

Nor

to rush

did

I

downtown and

think

it

visit

Glenn

wise to ask him to take a

the university. Like most psychiatrists in those days,

equipment

necessar}'

for

it

taxi to

my

was such

in his hotel at

office

did not carry the

I

making housecalls and performing

a physical

examination, and did not have a supply of penicillin or other medications at

hand. So

Moffitt,

After calling available,

I

recommended that we get in touch with Dr. Herbert C. whose office was ver}^ close to Glenn's hotel. Moffitt to explain the situation and make sure he would be

I

a colleague

Jr.,

Glenn

told

to

That worked. At 6:00

him some "pink

given

go there right away. p.m.,

Glenn

pills that

possible to proceed with the concert.

him. "Oh, that

I

can't tell you,

and put the whole I

need

to take.

lot in

my

Indeed,

"

handfuls of assorted unfortunate results

I

called

me

gave immediate

"What

because

I

to say Dr. Moffitt relief,

"

and

it

had

had been

are the pills called?"

I

asked

took them out of the container

coat pocket, where

I

keep most of the things

discovered later that Glenn habitually kept

pills in his

coat pockets, which sometimes led to

when he had

to cross the

border from Canada to

the United States. Often he would be detained by suspicious customs officials.

He was formance

feeling quite a bit better now, but described the matinee perin

somewhat disparaging terms,

missed a run hall.

I

told

in the Burleshe

him

I

would

I

really

himself for having in the

much to attend the following night's but to my surprise he opposed this idea

like verv'

concert and hear him play again, strongly. "Peter,

criticizing

and complaining of the draftiness

would prefer

that

you not come

to the opera

"

34

house. Indeed,

nervous cially I

when

I

must

there

is

GLENN GOULD

/

insist that

you do not do

somebody

in the

under conditions when I'm not

was very

we would

sorry to hear that,

and

audience

my

at

told

so.

h makes me

whom

I

very

know, espe-

best.

him how much

I

regretted that

not be able to meet again before his departure for Pasadena,

his next stop in California before returning to

Canada.

The friendship, formed then in 1957, lasted with various ups and downs for the next two decades, and ended just five years before Glenn's tragic story,

young

death in 1982 I

would artist.

at

the age of

like to explore

So, let us go

fifty.

But before

telling the rest of the

the forces that shaped this immensely gifted

back

to the

beginning of Glenn Gould's

life

and see what had taken place during the twenty-four years before our initial

meeting

in 1957.

As disturbing

as

he could be, how did

this fasci-

nating, likable, and surely troubled musical genius get to be the person

he was? in

Much

of this information

was so hidden during

many ways Glenn remained an enigma even

him.

to the

his lifetime that

people closest to

INFANCY

The

family's

name

ber 25, 1932. bear the

book and

It

article so far written

own name

man"

Gould when Glenn was born on Septem-

name "Glenn Gold,

"Gold, Glenn Herbert. his

wasn't

was Gold, and

"

"

in

of his early concert programs

document and signed

out this

filled

as Russell Herbert Gold.

He

described himself as "sales-

Gold Standard Furs, and noted

Emma

as well as that of his wife. Flora

"English and Scotch.

Glenn,

all

a fact completely ignored in every

about him. His birth certificate reads:

His father

for the family business, called

"racial origin,

"

Greig, to be

"'

keeping with family tradition, was not circumcised, but the

ambiguity surrounding a possibly Jewish ancestr)' has never been factorily

settled.

"despite Glenn's

Stephen Posen

many

virtues,

chortled heartily at the mistake in the

When

";

this

was

in

response

to

an

article written

confronted with the Jewish question, Glenn, in

a father who's a furrier,

was

satis-

writing a letter stating that

he was not Jewish, though he would have

typical prankster style, answered:

it

recalls

Canadian Jewish News, by Frank Rasky, about the great "Canadian

Jewish pianist."

and

his

"What? me? With the name Gould,

and you're asking

me

if

a matter of discomfort within Glenn's family

I'm Jewish?"^ Surely

because

in those

days

— 36

GLENN GOULD

/

Toronto, nicknamed "Hogtown, was not the cosmopolitan metropolis "

know

today,

and there were strong elements of xenophobia and

me

Semitism. Glenn's uncle. Grant Gould, M.D., told

we

anti-

that Glenn's

Thomas Gold, "would get upset with all the Jewish people in the fur trade named Goldstein, Goldfinger, or Goldman. He decided he didn't want his kids to be taken for Jewish, and that may have been a "^ reason for the name change later on. Thomas G. Gold, Glenn's paternal grandfather, was the son of a Methodist minister. He himself became an active worker in the early days of the Methodist Church where he was a Sunday School teacher and local preacher."* In 1902, Thomas Gold joined the staff of a well-known Toronto fur house. He established his own very prosperous fur business grandfather,

which was

in 1913,

and taken over by Glenn's

later joined

father, Russell

"Bert" Gold.

Robert Fulford, remembers that

Glenn's closest boyhood friend, Glenn's grandfather "was

would

lived in Uxbridge. People

members

of the United

But one thing

known

say,

Church

really sticks in

my

as 'Papa Gold,'

and he and

'They're Jewish,'

of Canada.

mind.

never

I

We were

his wife

and yet they were

knew

the answer.

in Glenn's father's office,

and he gave us some stamp of

a

pencils. They were commercial pencils with the company on them, and as he handed them over I remember

—

more than anything about this visit except for the skins of animals he handed them over and then he took one of them back, saying, 'No, this

And then he

I'm not giving advertising from a Jewish firm.'

name

—

off

I

guess

it

scraped the

must have said 'Shapiro and Sons' or something

like

that."5

Glenn's mother, Florence E. Greig, was nine years older than his father. Flora, as

she was usually called, had been the second of three

children and the only daughter. She was born on October 31, 1891, in

Mount

Forest, a small town in the province of Ontario. Her mother was Mary Catherine Greig (nee Flett). Her father, John C. H. Greig, was a schoolteacher. The Greigs always were very proud of their Scottish-

Presbyterian background, but they had difficulty tracing to the

composer Edvard Grieg was never

devoted son Glenn wanted

it

family (originally MacGregor)

to be.

Presumably

the spelling was changed from Greig to Grieg. thing concrete as regards the Greig ancestry,

came over with William

a

member

moved from Scotland

Greig of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

"I

it,

and the

as clear as Flora

'

"I

to

line

and her

of the Greig

Norway, where

cannot offer you any-

writes H. A.

Macdonald

have always understood that

the Conqueror, but that

is

we

possibly wrong.

Infancy

37

I

f Gould's mother, Florence E. Greig Gould, circa 1920. Courtesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

Another thing we claim

[is]

descent from Edvard Grieg, the Norwegian

composer."^ Glenn's mother was musically gifted. She studied both piano and voice in

Sauk

Ste. -Marie.

Glenn Gould wrote an obituary

for his

mother

in

1975, in which he noted that "already as a teenager she was attracted to

music

for the sacred service

groups. After she

came

—being

active in

church and young people's

Toronto for further study in vocal and instru-

to

mental music, she devoted her talents primarily

She

serx'ed as soloist in several large

a central Presbyterian

to

church music.

Church. While serving as choir-leader

United Church, she taught both piano and vocal music Bradford, and Toronto. faith and, ."' .

.

.

.

.

Florence Gould was a

wherever she went, she strove

Given Glenn's amazing fluency

which he describes

his mother's

.

.

.

Toronto choirs, then as organist in

in

woman

at

U.xbridge

in U.xbridge,

of tremendous

to instill that faith in others

speech and writing, the

style in

woman whose

musical

achievements

(a

38

/

GLENN GOULD

opinion he valued tremendously throughout his

life)

seems very dry and

inhibited.

Bert Gold, as Glenn's father was usually called, their musical associations. singer,

who

He was

a

met

Flora through

devoted churchgoer and a gifted

occasionally joined the chorus and played the violin until an

accident caused him to retire his fiddle to a case underneath the piano.

They married working

him

to

class

in

1925, on her thirty fourth birthday. Bert was already

in his father's

prosperous business, which

purchase a house

at

32 Southwood Drive,

in

made an

it

possible for

attractive,

middle-

neighborhood called The Beach, with winding streets and

hilly

parks bordering Lake Ontario. Flora supplemented their income by working in a large Toronto church, and by giving music lessons in their fortable

"Did she ever wish, herself, to be a performing father

com-

home.

when

I

artist?"

I

asked Glenn's

interviewed him in 1994. "Did she, as a child, teenager, or

adult, have aspirations to play in public?"

"She was going

and

a

number

to study operas.

She studied with David Dick

Slater,

of different singing teachers. Glenn's mother was a very

accomplished musician."

"What kept her from pursuing a career on the own way, to become a famous

didn't go on, in her

32 Southwood Drive

—Gould's home

stage?

How come

artist?"

in Toronto. Photograph by Peter Ostwald.

she

"

"

Infancy came along

39

I

wrong time and married her," he it would be unheard of for a married woman to pursue a career. Once you were married, why, you settled down to domesticity, and raised your children. expect likely

"I

I

the

at

replied with a twinkle in his eye. "You see, in those days

Now

very different."^

its

Flora

became pregnant

and

ried,

age for

baby

it

was not

women

a

having their

to term. Flora

number

of times. But she repeatedly miscar-

was nearly forty-one years old (an advanced

until she

first

baby) that she succeeded in carrying a

and Bert were understandably delighted by the pros-

pects of finally becoming parents, and Flora, in particular, insisted that the child would have to be a successful musician, hopefully a great pian-

She believed

ist.

own piano its

unborn fetus

that by exposing her

playing, singing,

would gradually accommodate

brain

all

day long

to her

and music from the radio and phonograph, from

to this art

—

a belief that

has recently gained some support from scientists.^ Glenn's father told that "Flora

would play

because she so

all

much wanted

was so musical herself. Flora was known as a that "the it

the child to be musical and because she

'"^

and demanding teacher,

strict

One

was because

Glenn was born, she

ver}'

conscientious

of

her drive was in music.

all

him

sort of instilled in

known. She would play the piano, classical music,

me

music while she was pregnant

them was Glenn's Uncle Grant, who impression she made on people was a little on the cold

with her students.

think

sorts of classical

convinced that

in

And

recalls side.

certainly

ever^'thing that she

had ever

or sing to him, or have the radio

some mysterious way

this

I

when on

to

would seep

into his consciousness.""

Glenn's birth on September 25, 1932, was fraught with more than the usual

amount of

anxiety.

"Of course we were

all

of Florie's age and her previous miscarriages,

there

was always somebody around

'housemaid'

And

then

if

you want

we had

to

to call her that,

a nurse

who

"

quite worried because

his father told

who

lived with us permanently.

stayed there at least a

—you Glenn was delivered our home, those days — and the doctor came by every

born

in

see,

me. "But

help her. There was Elsie, the

week

as

before he was

was customary

in

day."

"Was

it

an easy experience for your wife

there complications?" "It

was

a very

I

to

have the baby, or were

asked.

smooth kind of

"No difficulties at all? "None at all. "Was Glenn breast-fed,

or

labor.

?" .

.

.

No

difficulties."

"

"

40

"Well,

/

GLENN GOULD

think he was breast-fed, possibly at the beginning, and

I

remember he used

have supplementary' feedings with a bottle.

to

heated at the bedside, in a tea

We'd

A

stick the bottle in,

kettle,

and heat

something of that nature,

It

I

was

electric.

in there."

it

temperament is often exhibited right from the beginand phlegmatic at birth, others vigorous and alert, depending on numerous factors, including the time that elapses before severing the umbilical cord.'" We have no way of reconstructing Glenn's early development on the basis of objective observations. The family doctor is dead, and Glenn's pediatric records are no longer available. His ning.

child's basic

Some

are sleepy

Uncle Grant might have been of some help here, but he had not yet

much contact with who died in 1975, left development. Thus we must rely on his

entered medical school and in any event did not have

Glenn during

his early childhood.

no description of Glenn's

early

His mother,

father.

"What was Glenn

like as

an infant anyway?

"

asked him. "Was he a

I

"

lusty child, crying loudly, or

"He was reasonably

more of

baby?

a quiet

Bert answered in his typically laconic,

lusty,"

down-to-earth manner. "But something unusual about him struck us

When

from the beginning. always hum. rather than

I

think

it

you'd expect a child to

was something

makeup

Glenn would

cry,

that

made him hum

cry.

That was

a telling observation,

and musical, whereas

nal, soft

in his

indicates distress.'^

Was

I

thought.

Humming

which

ciying,

is

is

a pleasure sig-

louder and more noisy,

Glenn's father suggesting that his infant had an

The origin of musisome evidence for inborn,

innate inclination toward music from the beginning? cal talent

is

a fascinating topic.

genetic factors

seems

to

—

for

natal exposure to

show

example, the tendency to develop absolute pitch

music

if

properly stimulated.

to

respond

influence of pre-

music has already been mentioned. Future musicians

may

in

some way have been

"prepro-

"'"*

"Do you mean "Oh, sure. To

that already at birth

his dying

Glenn

Clearly, his parents, so

newborn

much

a quality of

selectively to musical

liked to sing?"

I

asked.

day Glenn liked to sing with the music; on the

piano he'd always be singing along with

in their

The

their proclivities at a very early age, suggesting that their

neurophysiological equipment

grammed.

is

be inherited, and certain parts of the brain appear

especially strongly to

often

There

in love

it.

with music themselves, perceived

musical talent, the tendency to respond

sounds and rhvthms, and

to

behave

in a distinc-

Infancy

Formal Gould

tively

Much

hah)' portrait of

I

41

Gould, 1933. Courtesy

of

Glenn

Estate.

musical way.

It

was the

of what his father can

Glenn was destined

to

fulfillment of his mother's fondest wishes.

remember conforms

to her expectation that

be a great musician. Bert enjoys

telling the follow-

ing story:

When Glenn

was three days old

like this, as if he's

His arms would be swinging back and

fingers]. It

his fingers never

showed us

that

If this is

forth,

and

Glenn was musical. And the doctor

going to be either a physician or a pianist

bility that

stopped moving, just

playing a scale [the father demonstrates by wiggling his

an accurate recollection,

Glenn, the

first

it

—one

raises

child born to a

his fingers going.

said,

or the other

"That boy

is

"'^

another question, the possi-

woman

already in her forties,

might from infancy on have displayed some abnormal behavior. The

42

absence of crying

GLENN GOULD

/

and flapping movements of

distinctly abnormal,"'

is

the hands associated with peculiarities in speech development are sug-

Glenn

gestive of a developmental disorder called infantile autism.

ously did not suffer from this disease.

Had he been

obvi-

autistic,

the

remarkable success he had in a public career would have been impossible.

But some of the behavior he manifested

ing

adolescence

his

—

marked

a

of

fear

later in

certain

childhood and durphysical

objects,

disturbances in empathy, social withdrawal, self-isolation, and obsessive attention

to

ritualized

Asperger Disease, which

behavior is

—does

resemble a condition called

a variant of autism. Asperger Disease

sionally associated with an unusual degree of giftedness in lar field of

some

is

occa-

particu-

expression such as music, mathematics, drama, athletics, or

The composer Bela Bartok and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein may both have been afflicted with this condition.''' A number of similar cases have been reported more recently by the neurologist Oliver art.

Sacks.

The

'«

family

doctor's

prognosis

when confronted with

unusual dexterity as an infant was that the boy was "going physician or a pianist filled

—one

or the other.

both predictions. His achievement

be extraordinary. Less well known

began trying

to

a sort of

It

so happens that

at the

Glenn

that already at an early age

medical expert

baby's

ful-

keyboard turned out

to

Gould

—without benefit of formal

field.

consulted numerous physicians; and he experimented with remedies, thus managing to get through ably

the

be either a

He read voraciously about cHnical symptoms, disand treatments. He repeatedly attempted to diagnose himself; he

education in the eases,

be

is

"

to

damaging

many immediate

his health in the long run.

all

kinds of

crises but prob-

CHILD PRODIGY

As

soon as Glenn was able to

to the piano,

sit

up, his

mother would take him

prop him close to the keyboard, and play for him

the music that she yearned to familiarize

him

with, including

songs she had learned as a child, old Canadian folk tunes, some of the

hymns and

chorales she played at Sunday church services, and pieces by

Bach, Chopin, and other composers that she was teaching to her piano students.

She sang while

playing, thus reinforcing the melodies

coming

from the instrument with her own pure, strong, and attractive voice.

Glenn was an extension of her body, a physical connection between the warm, enveloping mother and the hard-edged piano keyboard facing them. Flora would encourage his tiny hands to reach out and grope those shiny black and white levers, pressing them down so that sounds emerged and mingled with her own copious singing and playing. Mother, child, and piano quickly became a unity. One could postulate that this

may be

the origin of Glenn's future posture

be very close

to the

piano would recall the

when playing. His need to warm feelings and earlier

proximity of both mother and instrument.

Because Glenn's mother was always determined that he would be special child"'

and make great future contributions

to the

"a

world through

44/GLENNGOULD music, efforts were order on his if

he

hit a

activity.

made from

the beginning to impose structure and

He was encouraged

to strike the "right" notes,

and

"wrong" one, his mother grimaced, her body became tense,

and words of disapproval crossed her

lips.

He

picked up these cues

and soon learned to avoid making mistakes. Innately possessed of musical talent, Glenn seemed to revel in learning to play correctly, and before he even knew how to speak, he was able to recognize that there was a logical system governing the universe of sounds. It was instinctively

like a

moral imperative controlling what one

Conforming

the piano keys. sure, not only

because

something deep

Both of

his

as

made

his

to the

piano and be astounded by

Glenn was old enough

the piano [reports his father], he

to

instead he would always insist

down

until the resulting

like his

mother,

his performance.

be held on his grandmother's knee

would never pound the keyboard

children will with the whole hand, striking a

it

not do with

in the core of his being, his basic or intuitive musicality.

grandmothers loved music as well. They,

would take him As soon

it

may and may

seemed to give Glenn pleamother happy but also because of

to these rules

number

as

at

most

of keys at a time,

on pressing down a single key and holding

sound had completely died away."

By the time Glenn was three years old and able

to speak, his parents

noticed that he was gifted with absolute pitch, one of the earliest signs of superior musical intelligence.

What

this

means

is

that he

now showed

a foolproof ability to identify the pitch of a sound located in the musical scale.

He knew,

rather than D,

pitch

for

E

example,

when

a tone

was

A

rather than B, C-sharp

rather than F; he could also sing tones at the correct

when asked to do so, and name the

to recognize

for

example, "Sing a G-flat."

And he was

able

different notes in a chord.

Absolute or "perfect" pitch

is

a neurological capacity that enables

musicians instantly to identify tonalities (key signatures) and modulations (passing of

down music

one key into another), and

also helps

that they have heard or imagined.

them

in writing

Many composers

have

absolute pitch. But this capacity can be a disadvantage for musicians

when

they have to play on instruments that are tuned higher or lower

than standard pitch, or

when

they listen to recordings that are played

faster or slower than normal, since the

skill

that

ties also

music they hear

will

sound

dis-

wrong key Absolute pitch is a recognition resides in the temporal lobes of the brain, where language abiliare primarily organized. What makes this ability so special is

torted, "out of tune," or in the

Child Prodigy that

it is

so rare.

It

seems

45

I

be based on a genetic predisposition that

to

is

activated by early exposure to music, tends to run in families, and can

be enhanced through musical education

in childhood.

The

psychologist

Rosemary' Shuter has convincingly demonstrated that children become increasingly less capable of absolute pitch recognition as they

And

older.^

learning to speak a foreign

absolute pitch rarely It's

if

— language without an accent — spontaneous language

just as other

skills

for

grow

example,

will diminish,

ever develops after pubert\'.

not so surprising that Glenn's sense of pitch would turn out to be

perfect.

The

fortified

by both

hereditar)'

element

in his neurological

Both loved

his parents.

musical instruments, piano and

violin.

to sing

makeup was being

and were proficient on

Bert often joined Flora in recitals

church. Both are reported to have had "beautiful voices.

at their local

""*

grooming of Glenn's taste and attitude by singing and him must have enormously enhanced his precocious musical development. By the time he was three, she was regularly gi\ing him Flora's incessant

playing for

piano lessons.

"He was never allowed

to

go to the piano and play a wrong note,"

him immediately and make sure Playing correctly became firmly associated in Glenn's mind with pleasing his mother long before he could think consciously about what he was doing. He also assimilated ver)' quickly her demand to sing ever\' note that he played at the keyboard, a pedagogical device Flora strove to ingrain in all of her students. "She was reports his father. "If he did, she'd stop

he'd correct

ver)'

it

right

then and there.

and precise,

didactic

with her, "no faking, and a mistake.

"^

playing,

recalls Glenn's

was the

Uncle Grant, who

ruler across your fingers

also studied if

vou made

For Glenn, singing and playing the notes correctly seemed

like child's play. It

was

"

it

""

helped him to identify and remember the pieces he

and he retained

this habit all of his life.

Glenn was able to read music before he learned to read words, and it was soon discovered that he had a phenomenal musical memor\', able to retain knowledge of every piece he had just heard or played, or whose notes he had merely looked at on the page. "His mother often compared him to Mozart," Glenn's uncle told me. "She thought that they had parallel

courses in their upbringing and childhood, and she naturally thought

Glenn had the makings of

And

a genius at the age of three.

"'^

Glenn was, essentially, a way his father remembers him. "He had a very manelous sense of humor." That impression is

a cheerful genius at that. "I think that

very happy baby,"

is

the

sunny disposition and confirmed by

a

many photographs showing an

apparently calm and con-

46

/

GLENN GOULD

Gould, in garden with stuffed animals, of

Glenn Gould

193>3>.

Courtesy

Estate.

tented youngster, relaxed, never in pain or discomfort, playing and laughing.

But snapshots rarely

tell

the whole story. Glenn's father

makes the

point that as a small child he already had a peculiar anxiety about his

"From the time he was a tiny child, if you rolled a ball across the floor, he'd turn and get upset and wouldn't let it touch his hand at all. He always had that sensifingers,

and seemed deathly

afraid of hurting them.

Child Prodigy

tivity to balls.

touch the

was

He

47

I

wouldn't have anything to do with them at

was

ball. It

a natural

way

He

also

seems

It

have developed an oversensitivity to bright colors as

to

Gould confided in Andrew Kazdin, Columbia Records who had become a trusted friend:

When

he was four or

present of a red toy

fire

five years old,

him

He

to fly into a tantrum.

trollable

and had

down

some

at

What

for

hate the sunlight;

I

it

a

was red caused

length. Exactly

what

it

was

but he stated that

clear,

wouldn't have, as a child, any toy that was colored red at hate clear days;

at

became completely uncon-

about the color red was never made completely

day was,

producer

some woman gave him [Glenn]

recalled that he

be calmed

to

his

engine. Despite the issue that no other color would

have been appropriate for such a vehicle, the fact that

and

think.

I

just his instinct not to hurt his fingers."^

a child. Years later

"I

wouldn't

all,

of protecting his hands,

all."

He went

"I

on:

hate yellow. ... To long for a gray

I

me, the ultimate that one could achieve

in the world.

"^

better place to restrict one's visual colors to black and white,

to protect one's fingers

while

at

the

same time enjoying

motion and hearing them evoke beautiful sounds, than

at

their deft

the piano.

The

instrument became a safe haven for Glenn, his preferred place for spend-

much

ing as

time as possible

—often

to the exclusion of

outdoor

activity,

mingling with other children, household chores, and other "normal" things that children are expected to do.

The

only

punish the boy, his parents soon discovered, was

way

to discipline or

"to close the

piano

down." "You could

tell

Glenn, 'Stop practicing, go on

"That didn't have a

wTong

that

he had

down and

ment

that could have

On

June

5,

be punished

to

piano

lock

1938,

it

.

.

.

that

at

his father said.

for,

far

worse than any corporal punish-

when Glenn was first

"

if

been administered.

play the piano in public for the

church service held

was

out,'

Glenn ever did anything But his mother would just shut the

bit of effect at all.

"'°

five years old,

time, as part of a

he was allowed

to

Sunday afternoon

the Business Men's Bible Class in Uxbridge,

Ontario. This church held around two thousand people, according to

Glenn's father. As the congregation gathered there was music played by

an orchestra, then announcements, the singing of the Twenty-third Psalm, a prayer, and words of welcome. Then followed, according mimeographed program, a

to the

48

GLENN GOULD

/

— Mr. and Mrs.

VOCAL DUET 5

R.

H. Gold

year old Master Glenn Gold at the Piano

Next came more hymns, speeches, vocal solos (one of them sung by Mr. R. H. Gold), orchestral offerings,

who wrote

of the person

the piano

given in

isn't

Six

in the

months

benediction."

that "he read the

music

right off.

"'"

Glenn made

second public appearance,

his

this

time

Emmanuel Presbyterian Church on "Come and bring your friends and enjoy

concert held in the

Friday evening,

December

9.

a pleasant evening at our concert,

Admission was charged

—"Adults

Chancel Fund. Glenn was

third

on

"Piano Composition

that composition

was

reads the printed announcement.

"

25c, children, a

.

list

.

.

of eleven

Glen

[sic]

not recorded. But

is

15c"

mance, and he and this point

his

—

to benefit the

numbers performed:

Gold."

all

the parents and chil-

dren there were amazed by the superior quality of the

from

The name

audience was vastly impressed.

later

at a children's

What

finally a

Glenn accompanied on the program, but presumably it hadn't been

commented

rehearsed, for his father

Eveiyone

and

the "Vocal Duet" that

little

boy's perfor-

proud parents received so much acclaim that

on Glenn began

telling people, "I'm

going to be a concert

"'''

pianist.

This taking hold of his mother's long-standing ambition to produce a notable pianist had recently been stimulated by a concert Glenn was

taken

to, a recital

stage personality.

Hofmann who was an exceptionally appealing The Polish-born Hofmann was one of the most precoby Josef

cious musical prodigies in history, having toured Europe at the age of seven. His

One

American debut

of the

first

recording, he tic pianist,

was

in

1887 caused unprecedented excitement.

make a phonograph Hofmann, a great Roman-

professional musicians ever to also a prodigious composer.

was noted

for his transparent tone

and

brilliant

improvisa-

prime interpreter of works by Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt (Rachmaninoff had dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to Hofmann). He was also known to be gifted in mathematics, science, and tions;

he was

a

business. In 1926,

Music

in

Hofmann became

director of the Curtis Institute of

Philadelphia (founded by his heiress wife

Bok), where two musicians

who were

to

Mary Louise Curtis

have a significant impact on

life, Leonard Bernstein and Lukas Foss, received their training. Glenn was intoxicated by Hofmann's playing. A childhood dream sug-

Glenn's

Child Prodigy

49

I

gests that he symboHcally put himself in the older pianist's place

and was

able to identify with him:

I

was about

years old

six

home

being brought

.

.

in the

the only thing

.

car

And

sounds going through your mind. I

was playing them

thing

The

I'll

never

all,

and

I

I

can remember

falling asleep

which you heard

state of half-awakeness in

ful

was

I

they were

all

and all

I

was

that

is

in a

I

was

wonder-

sorts of incredible

orchestral sounds, but

suddenly was Hofmann.

And

this

is

some-

forget.'"*

following year Glenn's mother,

who

until

then had been the sole

guide and arbiter of his musical development, wisely decided that

time for his

abilities to

how

arisen about

he was enrolled

from

his

proceed with his general education,

to

Glenn was no ordinary

clear that

at

the Williamson

home, but he was and seemed

activities

threw him a

was

for

it

ball in the

was already

child. After a year with a private tutor,

Road Public School, just two blocks unhappy there and avoided social

clearly

He

detested

sport. If

someone

contact with the other children in favor of playing the piano.

group

it

be judged by an outside authority. Questions had

to

be

totally unfit for

any

schoolyard he turned away, petrified, and refused

Such behavior naturally led to taunts from the other boys, which made Glenn even more self-conscious and unhappy. According to John Roberts, later one of his closest friends, Glenn once was threatened by a bully at the school and found himself exploding with rage. "He told the boy never to come close to him again, and that if he ever did he would kill him."'^ This potential for naked to

pick

it

aggression

Glenn might

up

—

or even touch

we'll

terribly.

arise,

He

and

it.

shortly

—frightened

habitually took pains to avoid situations

where anger

hear

about

to inhibit

it,

another

he would

occasion

try to

joke about

it

or wish

it

away.

Florence Gold had taken other exceptional pupils to the Toronto Conservatory of

and the

Music

results

for testing

and examination.

Now

it

was Glenn's

confirmed exactly what she had been hoping

for.

turn,

The

test

grades he received were the highest ever recorded in the province of Ontario, and he was awarded the Conservatory's Silver Medal. Clearly

such great talent had dren

to

be nurtured. His parents, having no other

chil-

to take care of, gladly rose to the occasion.

Mr. Gold, always handy with tools and a practical man, built an annex

house on Southwood Drive so that Glenn could have a special room of his own in which to study music and practice the piano. Mrs. Gold began restricting her clientele so she could devote herself more to their

50

GLENN GOULD

/

exclusively to training her exceptional child, though she continued help-

ing other youngsters as well.

had quite a number of pupils go through the Conservatory courses and take Conservatory exams," Glenn's father told me. "Her stu"Florie

came

dents nearly always After Glenn

when

came

highest in the class, or best in the province.

along, she mostly took on charity students. However,

the mayor's son in Toronto was having difficulty with school

reports, she put that, for his

him through

exams.

and he got an

his music,

extra credit for

"'^

Seeing other children competing for his mother's time and attention

might have made Glenn somewhat anxious, he was sufficiently self-contained and able

if

to

not jealous. But evidently

work independently

at

an

early age that these distractions did not seem to bother him, at least not

consciously.

We know,

came thoroughly

however, that competitiveness was a theme Glenn

to detest.

every sort of competition

would assume

He

—

later

spoke and wrote disparagingly about

in sports, the arts, politics,

that his absolute dislike of rivalry

and

daily

life.

I

and competition was

a

reaction against what he had to endure at home, where his mother's

teaching of other children, young "competitors," deprived him of her total

and undivided a

I

attention. Generally speaking, however,

pampered child. "Was he ever expected asked his

to participate in

any of the household chores?"

father.

"No, Glenn was always for his music. He'd

was anything It

was

little

flee to the

piano

if

there

"''

to do.

was not something

there

Glenn remained

approved

his father really

that could be

done

of,

in the face of

but he admits that

Glenn's headstrong

avoidance of more "normal" behavior, reinforced by Mrs. Gold's powerful ambitions for him. Mr. Gold did but with

activities,

an

ple, of

little

ill-fated fishing expedition.

Simcoe, the family's

summer

son involved in outdoor

try to get his

success, apparently.

He

tells

the story, for exam-

Glenn's father had a boat

at

Lake

cottage near Orillia, about an hour's drive

north of Toronto, and he thoroughly enjoyed going out on the lake with rod and reel to catch

and

join

succeed hauled

He

fish.

it

He wanted

in pulling the big

in prying his

in,

said

so

much

to

have Glenn come along

ones out of the water.

son away from the piano. But

One

when

day he did

the fish were

weighed, and displayed, Glenn expressed furious displeasure.

was the

killing of the fish that disturbed

wanted nothing more such intense argument

that he

led to

him

to

do with

fishing,

him

so terribly. After

and the whole episode

that his father gave

up the

sport as well.

Child Prodigy

Gould boating of

Glenn Gould

at

Lake Simcoe, accompanied

51

I

b)'

his

dog and a playmate. Courtesy

Estate.

However, Glenn continued

to go boating

with his dog, as well as with an

occasional playmate.

more to this stor\'. The mysteries of life and death and the them are of common concern for children. In Glenn's case, such thoughts and fantasies were connected not only to his father's fishing expeditions, but to what took place in his father's fur business. (Glenn grew up in the days before television made gruesome scenes common for so many children.) His father worked in a shop prominently But

there's

fusion between

advertised as:

GOLD ST.ANDARD FURS Thos. G. Gould, Master Furrier Designers and Creators of Exclusive Fur Coats

Repairs, Restsling,

The upper It

business, established by Bert's floor of a

downtown Toronto

and Wraps

Cold Storage

own

father,

was located on the

office building, at

33 Melinda Street.

consisted of selling fur coats to individual clients and bartering animal

furs with other furriers. Freshly skinned pelts

displayed. Glenn's

come

in

Uncle Grant remembers

from their northern fur-trapping

were always prominently

vividly

trails,

how

"Furriers

and bring these

would

horrible-

52

Gould with

GLENN GOULD

/

his favorite covipanion, Nick,

1942. Photo-

graph by Charles du Bois.

smelling dead muskrats, and lay them out on the [Glenn's grandfather] would take this one away, and

say,

buy

I'll

This

is

these.'

good, this

"'^

When

the

he would gaze with horror and fascination

there,

Their heads,

feet,

and

tails

appeared amazingly

and

floor,

little

dead beasts.

at the

lifelike.

that held the

one occasionally,

whole thing

in place. Glenn's

isn't,

boy was taken

Slinky fo.xes were

often draped around a woman's neck, their narrow snouts

clamp

my dad

good, this one

is

made

into a

mother would wear

to his great distress.

Glenn's preoccupation with dead animals was enhanced by an unfortunate accident that took place story

who

was

related to

me

by

at his

home on 32 Southwood

his closest

lived next door. "Glenn's father or

boyhood

Drive.

The

friend, Robert Fulford,

someone was

driving his car into

— Glenn was

the driveway and accidentally killed the family's pet dog

Child Prodigy

Gould

called his pet hird "Mozart"

I

53

— 1944-46.

Photo-

graph by Gordon W. Povvley.

The one that was killed was a small dog, and was the reason why the next dog they bought, who was called Nick,

inordinately fond of dogs. that

was so

an English or

big,

favorite for

many

Irish setter, a big, beautiful

years.

It

was explained

to

me

dog who was Glenn's

that the

dog had

to

be

very big so he couldn't be run down."'^

For

many

and walked

would

sit

years,

Nick was Glenn's closest companion. They played and Nick (officially Sir Nickolson of Garelocheed)

together,

next to

other pets in his

Glenn life:

at the

piano while he practiced. There were

a bird called Mozart; four goldfish

Beethoven, Haydn, and Chopin; and

skunk that Glenn trapped and

much

tried to

named Bach,

amusement, a tame. Themes of vivisection and to his fathers

protection of animals remained close to Glenn's heart. Often the child felt

himself to be an animal, saying things

like. "I

am

a collie-dog, woof,

54

GLENN GOULD

/

woof."^° After capturing a skunk, he wrote: I.

Skunking

is all

.

One

on an island

to

was

I

am am

a skunk, a

am

skunk

a skunk, a skunk

I'll

to create

an

idyllic

home

for old

His father told

me

that "already as a child

have a farm for old cows and horses and everything.

go up north with him on a

where he could put up

of Indian traditions,

all

and

north of Canada, where he himself

in the

to live out his old age.

he wanted

full

"I

want no more.

of his childhood dreams

wanted

Island

I

.

stray animals

to

know,

."^'

remain

had

I

trip to

the old animals.

where the

I

even

look at a farm on Manitoulin

great god

It's

a mystical place,

Manitou

is

said to have

Some of my wife's distant relatives had lived there. "^^ When we spoke of Glenn's love of animals and his great concern about

dwelt.

Gould Roslak.

sitting

on a

rock, singing to cows,

Manitoulin

Island. Photograph by Roxolana

Child Prodigy the

harm done

them, Bert told

to

me

55

I

may have stemmed

this

in part

from Grant Gould's biological studies. Uncle Grant was fourteen years older than Glenn. "During his vacations from medical school Grant

would camp up at the lake. He had a tent up there, and he dissected frogs. Glenn was so upset. But Grant had to do it; you know, he was supposed to. Glenn and his uncle looked very much alike. I have pictures;

you

which

can't tell

is

which.

mad when Grant would come cream cone

or

something

And Glenn, you

see,

would

get so

parading into a concert hall with an ice

like that.

That mortified Glenn. "^^

Grant A. Gould, M.D., now a distinguished surgeon practicing

Newport Beach,

in

showed Glenn any of his already as a young child his piano-

California, denies that he ever

dissections. But he

acknowledges that

nephew was extremely squeamish about such things. It was around the time when Grant was a medical student that family changed its name from Gold to Gould. Court records of playing

change are reported lists

name

the

as

as "gone missing," but the Toronto telephone

Gould

for the first time in July 1939, while the

City Directory indicates the change in 1940. Glenn's his birth

name was on October

performed "Piano Preludes"

He had

26, 1941.

the

the

book

Toronto

last recital

using

just turned nine

and

United Church of Canada,

at the Islington

followed by a "Song Service led by Glen Gold.""'*

How He

Glenn reacted

to the

change of

his

never discussed this with anyone, and

and films devoted

literature

many

desirable associations

—money,

I

to give

glitter,

impossible to know.

is

has been ignored in

But

to his career.

boy had no feelings about being made

name

it

all

the

cannot believe that the

up

name

a

that has so

wealth, treasure— and that

must have become part of his positive self-image in the course of his appearances under the name "Glen[n] Gold." Surely there were discussions, if not arguments. The only evidence of a confession

he made

again to his producer at Columbia Records,

Andrew

serious friction or difficulty in Glenn's childhood

many

years

later,

is

Kazdin:

Apparently he had committed some infraction of the family rules and was

engaged

in

an argument with his mother.

height of his rage, he

on

this

woman

—

felt

He

he was capable of

revealed to

me

perhaps even committing murder.

It

was only

spark of emotion, but the realization that he had, even for a

to retreat into serious introspection,

harm

a fleeting

split

second,

The experience and when he emerged,

entertained the notion frightened him profoundly.

caused him

that at the

inflicting serious bodily

.

.

.

/GLENN GOULD

56

he swore again.

to himself that

he would never

He was determined

This memory, even

why Gould was

if it

he would

was

a fantasy,

come

so reluctant to

that inner rage reveal itself

let

practicing self-control."''

live his life

may

to a small extent explain

why he

close to people,

shielded

himself behind music, and the personality quirks he developed in the course of becoming a professional musician. Gould was quite capable of feeling rage, but dreaded the possibility that

it

might lead

since one of the earliest objects of his homicidal impulse his mother, the very

person on

whom

of his musical talent, the rage he

had

to

he depended most

for

nurturance

and everything that went with

it

be suppressed.

Most

likely that

chantment with in fishing

business. But

was

also

his father,

cult to accept. Bert

him

felt

murder. And may have been

to

one of the reasons

for his

whose values Glenn found

would have preferred

and other "normal"

Glenn found

all

raising a son

activities,

growing disen-

increasingly

perhaps even

that revolting.

The

diffi-

who could

join

in the family

skins sold at

Gold

Standard Furs were a constant reminder of animal slaughter, the very thing Glenn had to turn against by becoming (later in

and champion of animal

rights.

As he grew

older,

fonder of animals than he was of people, and

life)

a vegetarian

he often claimed

in his will

a sizable part of his estate should go to the Toronto

to

be

he specified that

Humane

Society.

CHILDHOOD

A

FRIEND

alienated from his schoolmates,

Lonely and

whose roughhousing

him and who could share none of his musical interGlenn as a child yearned to make contact with someone

frightened ests,

who might

possibly understand and accept him. Fortunately such a per-

son appeared

when he was

Bob was only

a

nine years old, a boy

named Robert

Fulford.

few months older than Glenn and was another unusually

gifted child, with strong literar\'

keen appreciation

for music.

significantly influenced

each

and

intellectual interests, as well as a

The two quickly became

and they

friends,

other's lives over a period of ten years.

Bob Fulford has an emiable

talent for obser\ing

human

beha\ior, for

reporting accurately and \i\idly what he remembers, and for steady ary' productivit)'.

He

is

a

manelous

raconteur,

famous today

as

liter-

one of

Canada's most popular journalists and authors. In one of his most successful books. Best Seat in the House:

Memoirs of

a

Lucky Man, he

describes his meeting with Gould:

One

day in

front of

me

my

class at

Williamson Road Public School the

turned around and said his

covered that

we were about

to

become

little

boy

name was Glenn Gould. We neighbors: the house

my

in

dis-

family

58

had

just rented,

visiting

GLENN GOULD

/

34 Southwood Drive, was next door

each other, and

I

Soon we were

to his.

immediately learned that Glenn was not an ordi-

nary nine-year-old.'

Bob Fulford remembers Glenn

as a nonconformist

who was

far

interested in his music than in school studies. "Glenn really didn't to

work very hard. He

didn't

to

do a

He was

lot

of the time.

want

to

do what the teachers wanted him

terrible in

penmanship. All

books and so on were always messy. But he was good course in English and mathematics.

Glenn was seriously,

lovable in fact.

He was

be with.

to

his essays

in history,

and

and of

an extremely likable person.

very funny. ...

but he didn't take himself very

tempered and fun

The

He was

more want

seriously.

He took music very He was very sweet-

""

saw Glenn's career slowly progress from

decade of their friendship

relative obscurity as a prodigy occasionally performing the piano or the

organ, mostly during church events, to national prominence as a concert artist,

making recordings and beginning

casting.

The two boys saw each other

as next-door neighbors, at school,

invited to join

Glenn and

to involve himself in radio broad-

nearly every day during those years

and on many occasions when Bob was

his parents at their

summer

cottage at Lake

Simcoe. Their backgrounds were different yet complementary. Glenn's

more libnewspaperman and an alcoholic, New York; his mother was the

family was more conservative and provincial, while Bob's was eral

and cosmopolitan. His father was

who had

traveled widely

and

a

lived in

daughter of an Ottawa bookseller. They had four children.

There was a marked economic gap between the two families. "The Goulds were extremely wealthy by the standards of our street," Bob Fulford told me. "At one point in the forties Mr. Gould told my father that he was spending three thousand dollars a year on Glenn's musical education,

and that was

my

father's entire salary! So, if they

could spend three

thousand dollars on education on top of their house and their food and their clothing,

that

meant we were

really

poor people compared to

them."^ If

we had

to rely

on Glenn's own conversations,

graphical reminiscences, nothing would be

with Bob Fulford or is

its

effect

human

interaction and intimacy

he craved contact

and autobio-

his friendship

development. The same Glenn always sought to independence, of being someone for whom

on

his adolescent

true of other major relationships in his

create an impression of fierce

letters,

known about

—always on

were

his

life.

totally inessential.

own

terms, of course

But

in actuality

—and he often

A Childhood Friend succeeded

in

drawing someone into his

59

I

orbit, as

he did

later

with me.

His remarkable charm, playfulness, and intellect attracted people, and he reveled in the attention they were willing to give him so long as he

remained

in control

way he could

this

when

and everything went the way he wanted

make

also

the time came, as

it

inordinate

demands on

it

to go. In

his friends.

Then,

inevitably did, that criticism or viewpoints

were expressed that Glenn could not

tolerate,

he would quickly break off

the relationship.

Bob Fulford

loved Glenn,"

"I

was

call

him

a sissy.

I

don't

told

know

if

me. "The

last

thing

I

would ever do

he ever got close enough to most kids

to hear the cruelty that kids are capable of.

He

didn't

have a

lot of close

boyhood friend by far. It never happened to Glenn that he would hang out after school around other kids just to be together, to tell jokes, even to sneer at someone. He really had none of

friends.

that.

I

I

was

his closest

cannot see him

in

my mind

standing with three or

age on a corner or another place, the sort of

ber as some of the happiest It

I

had

five

people his

communion which

1

remem-

in childhood.""^

was Bob Fulford who witnessed the development of many of life, and he

Glenn's anxieties, which would plague him for the rest of his is

convinced that Glenn's mother was largely responsible for giving shape

to these fears. "If villain

we know who

hypochondria could be inherited,

His complexion was too white, and his mother was worried about it

the

was. His mother was constantly worried about his complexion. it,

and

was, 'You must eat, you should eat more of this and you should do this

and

this,

you should get out into the sun, why don't you and Robert go "^ John Roberts, a later friend of Glenn's, observed that

out and play'

"from childhood on, he had a fear of germs. bit sick, sick.

they were not allowed to be near him.

If

anyone was the

He was

faintest

terrified of getting

His mother discouraged him from getting close to crowds. She

urged him to keep away from the Canadian National Exhibition and other places where there are enormous crowds."^

Glenn seems

to

have accepted his mother's admonitions on health as

gospel, without ever questioning them. In a film he his

life,

made

he explained that avoiding crowds was necessary

self against the polio

epidemics rampant

at

the end of

to protect

one-

in his childhood.^

Bob Fulford had some other important observations

to

make about

Glenn's mother:

Florence Gould was a

woman

tranquil world of rules

and

of propriety;

order, a world

when she spoke

it

was from

a

from which conflict and tension

— 60

GLENN GOULD

/

had somehow been erased. She hated

conflict,

and she hated anything

extreme or eccentric. Against impossible odds, she longed have a "normal" childhood, with the right amounts of fresh

and the

right sort of friends. In retrospect its

friendship with I

Glenn perhaps owed something

occurred to to

her son

to see

air

and exercise

me

that

my

Mrs. Gould's view that

was appropriately normal.^

Fulford described the interaction between Glenn and his parents:

Staying with them for a few days,

diffused

among seven

and

closely scrutinized

child,

He

indulged.

caught a glimpse of

how

affection and

its

intense family

opposite were

people, but there were just three Goulds and the

and tension were

lines of love

I

my own home,

relationships could be. In

me

explained to

tightly at

drawn. Glenn was the classic only

the

same time pampered and

that at the [Lake

sleep with his mother one night and his father

over-

Simcoe] cottage he would

would sleep with her the

arrangement having been worked out some years before.

next, this

Theirs was a Christian effrontery'.

.

.

home

Alone among

.

all

in

which swearing of any kind was

my male

told dirty jokes, never speculated

a grave

contemporaries, [Glenn] never

about the sexuality of

girls,

and never

said "fuck."^

That Glenn was allowed

to sleep

with his mother during those forma-

when sexual urges become intense and conscious raises serious questions. Was he afraid to sleep alone? Was she attempting to soothe his anxiety? Why would his father give in to such an arrangement? Had tive years

the marriage failed, or was sexuality such a taboo issue in Glenn's family that sleeping arrangements simply did not matter?

According

to Fulford,

Glenn's marked avoidance of sexuality resulted

from his having "internalized as a child

mother's distaste for anything

is

having to do with the erotic. She was a strikingly unattractive woman, very angular

—

I

think of her face as being sort of cubist, sharp, axlike

and anything bordering on the brother and terribly.

sometimes used

So he would

threaten us

obeyed.

I

He

use a word

—

'You'll

erotic

had

to

start lecturing at

be kept

at a distance. IVIy

and that disturbed Glenn

dirty words,

us, tell us to stop,

have to stop coming over to

my

house'

—

and even if

we

dis-

took this from his mother. His mother always said, 'You never like that.' Well,

he accepted

that,

and apparently believed

it.

Contrary to what you might expect from any teenage male on the planet,

Glenn never

said a

word indicating physical

interest in a girl."'°

A Childhood Friend

61

I

Fulford remembers Glenn and his mother remaining

and

close" as he entered puberty, their intimacy, a point that

"Glenn always

is

confirmed by Glenn's uncle, Grant Gould:

very close to his mother.

felt

his

Bob Fulford

told

me

felt

that he

not eloquent or impassioned.

And he

gruffness.

overpowering mother-

this

as he would have "" fondness for Glenn was never really reciprocated.

hood. I'm sure Bert never

and

was the complete domi-

It

nance of the mother-child relationship, of

liked,

Glenn

nearly as close to

remembers Glenn's

He wore

could get angry

—

a little

'don't

do

father as being "gruff,

mustache

that;

go with the

to

you shouldn't get into

—

the way fathers do with unruly kids. But as for remember anything like that. One got the impression that'

"terribly, terribly

his father offering little resistance to

sensuality,

that he

I

can't

was a

bit

overwhelmed by these two ver)' powerful people with whom he was living. You know that he had to give up fishing because of Glenn's distaste for killing. I always thought it a little sad that he let Glenn push him around

like that.

At the same time he was immensely proud of the boy

and did everything possible If

Glenn had

to foster his career."^"

a rebellious streak,

it

took the form of playful jousting

with his mother, mostly about differences in their musical preference was for church

hymns

like "Still, still

morning breaketh and "The day Thou gave

us. Lord,

"

she loved Italian opera.

Among

with thee, is

taste.

when

ended.

Her

purple "'^

And

her favorite records were those by the

tenor Enrico Caruso. But Glenn's taste as he approached adolescence

was taking his

own

off in a different direction,

and he was beginning

to establish

very determined and opinionated view of music.

Under the influence

of

Bob Fulford and Alberto Guerrero, the piano became interested in con-

teacher Glenn worked with after age ten, he

temporary

composers,

especially

the

Viennese

atonalists,

Arnold

Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern. Glenn also loved Wagner operas and used to say that listening to Tristan und Isolde

weep. Soon he was articulating vigor

and

faith

As Fulford described

mother, 'Caruso

exactly

made him

on music with the same

with which his mother customarily espoused hers, and

that led to clashes. his

his opinions

is

it

to

me, "Glenn would say

to

a clown, he's terrible, awful, horrible, a fraud,

what music shouldn't

be.'

And

she would answer him in a hurt

tone of voice, 'Oh, Glenn, you mustn't say things like that. Caruso was a great singer.

few records that?'

know.'

You don't know anything about he's

made, and

But he would

He knew

they're scratchy.

persist. 'I've

it.

You've only listened to a

How

that a certain kind of

can you judge him on

I've heard enough to show business tenor was the

heard enough.

62

enemy

of whatever kind of music he

amazingly fixed already I

GLENN GOULD

/

was surprised

occurred

to learn

in Flora

was developing. And

his views

were

at that early age."''*

from Bob Fulford that

a

change had apparently

Gould's view of her son as a child prodigy. Whereas

she had been delighted with his musical precocity as a baby and even

compared him

to Mozart, she

now

worried that his exceptional ability as

a pianist might actually result in exploitation of his talent. "His mother's

worst fear was that Glenn might end up not being normal," Fulford told

me. "For example, the word 'Mozart' had become a swearword

in the

Gould household, because Mozart, as Glenn's parents and history perceived it, was ruined by being a child prodigy. He was exploited. And so 'Mozart' and 'prodigy' were two very bad words. Nobody in that house ever wanted Glenn to be spoken of as a prodigy, Glenn because he just it would be so silly, and Mr. and Mrs. Gould because they feared They feared the pressure of performances, so the number of his appearances in adolescence was severely limited the rule was something like once a year on the radio and once a year on stage. They wanted "'^ him to be normal.

thought

it.

—

Indeed, Glenn's public performances were few and far between. At first met him, he played the first moveWanstead United Church. The following

age ten, a year after Bob Fulford

ment

of a Mozart sonata at the

year he played Valse Oubliee by Franz Liszt and a Waltz in A-flat by Levitsky, at the It

Cambridge

was around

this time,

experience stage

Street United Church.

during pre-adolescence, that Glenn began to

fright, so that

unalloyed pleasure.

"I

public performance was no longer an

always assumed that Glenn's later withdrawal from

the concert stage was mixed with stage fright," Fulford told me. Gould revealed to a reporter

who

interviewed him

performance anxiety basically had

and the

looked

at

boy

school

at

many

physically

ill.

years later that his

do with the discomfort of being

fear of humiliation. This surfaced

become

All eyes turned

to

when he saw another

As the reporter put

it:

on the wretched child and from that instant on Gould was

haunted by the specter of himself being

ill

in public.

That afternoon he

returned to school with two soda mints in his pocket, a small tousled boy

on guard against the

moment when he might

were soon supplemented

Gould

literally

by aspirins

counted each second

lose face.

and then by more until

The soda mints pills.

In school,

lunch hour (10,800 seconds

at

9 A.M., a comforting four-figure 9,900 at 9:15), and prayed that nothing

might happen

to humiliate him.'*'

"

A Childhood Friend

Gould playing a Heinzman Grand 1941—42.

The public

63

I

{age 9 or 10),

Photograph by Charles du Bois.

erosion of Glenn's faith in his ability to perform comfortably in

may

also have

been the product of an accident when he was ten

years old that resulted in painful physical trauma

misgivings about his health.

It

happened

at

the

and led

summer

to

prolonged

cottage,

where

Glenn's father had installed railway tracks on an incline going to the lake. Bert

Gould

quarry car" into the car,

told

down

me

the tracks were designed to carry "a heavy stone-

to the water.

One

day, as

he suddenly slipped and

fell,

Glenn was scrambling to get "He was

landing on the tracks.

in great pain."

"Were there any signs of an "No, but

we

did take

him

injury,

any bruises or bleeding?

to the doctor. In fact,

we

"

doctors over the next few years, but he continued to complain.

everything

— MDs,

practor helped.

I

asked.

took him to

We

many tried

osteopaths. Nothing did any good. Only the chiro-

64

GLENN GOULD

/

"Do you think there was

a physical injury?"

was out of alignment."'^ whose office was only ten blocks from the Goulds' home. Glenn continued seeing him as a teen"Yes, the chiropractor said his spine

The

ager,

chiropractor was Dr. Arthur Bennett,

but

we have no way

knowing what the diagnosis and treatment

of

were because Dr. Bennett has been dead

for over forty years

and

his

records are no longer available.

Canada was then at war with Nazi Germany, having joined the Allies 1939, when Glenn was seven. Bob Fulford describes the passion the two boys shared for radio, which was the medium that united the country and had such a strong influence on the young pianist that he later devoted large portions of his career to radio broadcasting. "We were vehein

mently radio

a part of the first

and

generation, the people for

last radio

whom

was the central means of communication," Fulford explained. "We

were both born

in

1932, just as the Americans and the Canadians were

clicking into the idea of national radio.

the forties

it

really

peaked because

edge of the world.

I

it

grew during the

It

became

can remember listening

thirties,

and

in

the center of our knowlto the

1948 presidential

He knew every detail, which state was going for and exactly how many votes each of them got."

conventions with Glenn.

which candidate,

"He had a fabulous memory." "He understood all that. He had a feel for it. But that was a radio event for him, as was the music we listened to. A large part of music came to Glenn through the radio, a way which would not reach most young people today. Today it's the CD. For him it was radio and live performances, and records think were a third place." "He didn't buy many records?" "I can't remember Glenn ever buying a record, although I remember him having them. What was especially important to us was the sense that radio really tied the country together. While listening to the Winnipeg Symphony one time on the CBC, I said to Glenn, 'You know, I find it I

somehow

wild, I'm embarrassed to admit

to think of those guys in the

here

it

is

coming down the

rassed about that

—

it

is

country into your head.

first

It's

experiment

They

I

find

it

said to

so

In Canada it was very hard damned big! There's so much

it

radio

goes so

was

a

in electronic

rigged

kind of thrilling

up

a

far.

way

and

me, 'Don't be embar-

thrilling.'

Canada was important, and Glenn's

but

prairie playing this music,

And he

wire.'

there are so few people, and

Bob's assistance.

it,

middle of the

To Glenn

to get the

of

it,

and

this vastness of

of encompassing that.

"'^

technology was conducted with

couple of

tin

cans connected by long

A childhood F riend and

silk threads,

When

tried to

65

I

communicate from their respective hackyards. some microphones. "I guess we were

that didn't work, they bought

time eleven or twelve,

at that

"

how we

says Fulford. "I've forgotten

set

it

news broadcast from my side, and he played something from his side, and that was about all. We couldn't think of anything more to do, so we had to shut down our

we

up, but

could speak back and forth.

1

did a

"'"^

network.

The power of electronic media in bringing music, news, and entertainment to Glenn's isolated existence seems to have kindled the ambition to exploit mass media for his own purposes, an ambition that far exceeded

his mother's desire for his career.

"What

exactly did his

mother expect him

to

accomplish?

"

I

asked Bob

Fulford.

"She wanted him

to

be a pianist, or a composer. There was never any

thought of him going into his father's business.

was

that

was

very, very rigid

What

and formal, and her attitude

opposite of Glenn's. Hers was that music

is

to

music was almost the

good because

music that involved the passions and the bohemian be within

Was

it's

educational,

The whole

part of the respectable, proper, 'cultured' world.

it's

mother wanted

his

he be cultured, that he do something elevated and proper. She

life

—

that

side of

would not

her."~'^

there a battle of wits, with

Glenn

trying to differentiate his vision

of the world from that of his mother? In Fulford's book, he remarks that "It

could hardly have been otherwise, since they looked

at

the universe

in entirely different

ways. Put plainly, he was a born intellectual, and she

He saw no

reason to accept conventional opinion, however well

was

not.

established,

and she knew nothing but conventional opinion.

According

to Fulford, Glenn's

way

—

of talking

"^'

terrifically excited

and

knowledgeable while putting forth shocking ideas with great conviction

—was already apparent by the age of

was free-ranging, almost a truly

thirteen.

wonderful thing to hear, and nothing

normally speak. pieces had to

fit

He

"The way he talked

and

wild, extremely irreverent,

And

part of

it

sound of her voice opposing him. She'd

was always aimed feel hurt

that with the onset of adolescence

an enormous balancing

continued

to

act.

life.

all

the

mother,

never forget the

I'll

"^^

Glenn was engaged

Music, the connecting link

be the supreme passion of his

at his

and exasperated: 'Oh

Glenn, don't be so extreme, don't be so opinionated.'

seems

of surprises,

way teenagers

already had a vision of the world in which

just right.

with the idea of both arousing and mystifying her.

It

full

at all like the

Other

in

to his mother,

interests (such as

66

and above

radio

all

GLENN GOULD

/

the polemical and expressive possibilities of speech)

not only provided satisfaction but also a

himself from his mother. its

How

to

consequences was obviously

own

manage

still

a

means

of safely differentiating

and the

his aggression

fear of

problem, and he was relying on his

ingenuity as well as family values for direction.

Much

the British filmmaker John McGreevy: "At age twelve the libretto for an opera, an aquatic Tod

I

he told

later,

started writing

und Verkldrung [Death and

human

figuration] about the self-destruction of the

race

— the

Trans-

planet

would be taken over by various animals. "~^ Playing the piano in front of audiences was no longer as safe and pleasurable as it had been earlier, because of the

fear,

no doubt based

partly

on

his mother's warnings

crowds, that something dreadful might happen to him.

back had further sapped Glenn's confidence

He its

rehshed the

agility of his

mind, with

The

about

injury to his

in his body. its

remarkable

memory and

capacity for verbal display, encouraged no doubt by his brilliant friend

Bob

Fulford.

And then

there was Glenn's pervasive sense of humor,

which could suffuse the endless banter with

his

mother and transform

With

aggression into harmlessly sarcastic attacks on Caruso and Mozart. all this,

sexuality

seems

to

have been suppressed. Except for his

father's

observation that Glenn "had a beautiful voice, a beautiful boy soprano voice, but as

he grew older

it

we

just deteriorated into a squawk,"""*

hear

nothing about the growth and maturation of his body, or of any erotic

dreams and fantasies about the opposite

sex.

The staunch

religiosity of

Glenn's parents and their prohibition of any sex talk apparently had this a

taboo subject. Nor were there any signs of social interest in

Being friends with

need

for

his next-door

neighbor seems to have

companionship. But above

of playing music by himself

all

he preferred the

on the piano or the organ.

fulfilled

solitary

made girls.

Glenn's

splendor

NEW TEACHERS AND FURTHER SUCCESS step back in time for a moment. Already when Let's child of seven he had passed tests and

Glenn was

examinations

at

a

the

Toronto Conservatory of Music with flying colors. At the age of ten, his

mother enrolled him

Surprisingly,

if

one

is

to

in classes there.

judge from what he wrote in a test for his

fourth-grade schoolteacher, Miss Winchester, his theoretical knowledge of music had remained rudimentary.'

On

his

own drawing

of a five-line

Glenn placed a simple tune that he had apparently composed when he was eight years old. It consists of sixteen bars in the key of G major. Below the staff he now wrote the letters "d," "m," "r," etc., to identify them as "do," "mi," "re." Miss Winchester gave him an A for this effort. Below that Glenn placed hand-drawn signs of the treble clef, bass clef, and alto clef, and the word "sempre, translated as "always." Then he staff,

'

added: "# sharp," "b

and

Miss Winchester wrote at the bottom of the page that "Glenn added the above signs of his own accord, flat,"

"^

natural."

June 1941." Surely there

is

nothing here to suggest the

an equivalent age was already

fully

abilities of

Mozart,

who

at

conversant with the musical language

and had been writing numerous piano sonatas, pieces

for violin

and

68

Toronto's

bottom

/

GLENN GOULD

Consenmtory of Music Silxvr medal

line,

1942. Courtesy

piano, and symphonies.

ivinners,

Gould, second from

left,

of the Royal Conservatory of Music.

What made

Glenn's musicality outstanding were

the miraculous quality of his piano playing, his perfect pitch, his uncanny ability to

read and memorize music

But his expertise grew rapidly

Smith gave him lessons filled

in

music

at sight,

and

his enthusiastic singing.

at the

Conservatory. Professor Leo

theory,

and before long the boy was

with ideas about key changes, chord progressions, and sequences

of vocal lines.

He

quickly mastered the basics of

particular aptitude for counterpoint, with

its

harmony and showed

a

interweaving and overlap-

ping musical themes. Professor Frederick C. Silvester instructed him in organ playing. Glenn had already played the organ in church, and he took a particular liking to this instrument, with

its

keyboards, pedals, and

stops capable of projecting a huge array of multiple voices.

Not only did

him the chance to fill an entire hall with glorious sounds, it also offered him a safe haven where he was able to relax and collect his thoughts each Sunday after returning from the peacefulness of Lake Simcoe to face the noise and bustle of Toronto: the organ give

New Teachers and Further Success Monday mornings, you all

see,

meant going back

evening sanctuarv became

ver\' special to

a certain tranquillit}; even in the

of

to school

sorts of terrifying situations out there in the city.

it.

.

.

.

but

I

69

and encountering

So those moments of

me. They meant one could find

but only

if

one opted not

a great, great influence, not onl\ on

The organ was

in repertoire,

city,

I

think also on the physical

manner

in

my

which

to

be part

later taste 1

tried to

play the piano.-

Glenn's mother had introduced him to Johann Sebastian Bach's Preludes and Fugues on the piano. Now, playing Bach on the organ, he

found that "one had that

was based

really

to

ha\e an entirely different approach, something

on the

tips of the fingers

doing the whole action

for

vou, something that could almost have the wonderful whistling gasp of "^

the tracker action of the old organs.

Gould playing

the organ at the Concert Hall, Toronto

Conservator) of Music, 1945. Photograph by tesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

P.

Teles.

Cour-

70

Gould and

his

/

GLENN GOULD

music teacher, Alberto Guerrero. Courtesy

of the University of Toronto

Archives and the National Library of Canada.

The

director of the Toronto Conservatory of

Sir Ernest

Music was the eminent

MacMillan, also the conductor of Toronto's excellent Sym-

phony Orchestra. He soon heard about the gifted boy enrolled at the Conservatory, became interested in his musical development, and met his parents. It was on the recommendation of Sir Ernest that Glenn changed piano teachers at the age of ten, from his all-embracing mother to the

master pedagogue Alberto Guerrero.

Guerrero was considered the best piano teacher

at the

Conservatory

and a formidable influence, although, typically, Glenn would later disown

him

as a teacher, claiming that everything

he had ever learned about

keyboard technique he had discovered on his own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Glenn's characteristic

way

of sitting on a low

New Teachers and Further Success

holding the fingers parallel to the keys, and of emphasizing

chair, of

through the arms,

were acquired from

all

digi-

conveyed from the shoulders

dexterity at the expense of energy

tal

71

I

his second,

and

piano

last,

teacher.

Alberto Guerrero was born and raised in Chile, where there was at that time a strongly

had

a

Germanic musical

tradition, exemplified

A versatile

pianist Claudio Arrau.

famous Chilean

pianist,

by the

Guerrero also

wide knowledge of French music and had played works by Debussy for the first time in Chile. He had worked as a music critic,

and Ravel

and had founded and conducted

moving

Canada

to

in the 1920s,

a

symphony orchestra

in Santiago. After

Guerrero became one of the

musi-

first

cians there to perform works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Milhaud, and

other contemporary composers. According to the Canadian composer

John Beckwith, who also studied with him, Guerrero's "performances of light rapid passages had not only fluency and great speed but also exceptional clarit}'

and separation of individual

Glenn's parents evidently were

then in his early

fifties,

ver)'

notes.'"*

pleased to have Alberto Guerrero,

accept their boy as a pupil. Bert Gould talks

proudly of ha\ang helped Mr. and Mrs. Guerrero to find a piece of property close to their at

own

"He spent

cottage at Lake Simcoe.

our home," Mr. Gould told me, remembering

He would

rero "sat very low at the piano himself.

rather than hit them, claiming that's the best

a lot of time

Guer-

ver}' clearly that

pull

down

the keys

way to produce came from."^

a

good

sound. That's where Glenn's ideas about the piano

Guerrero undoubtedly was a stern pedagogue, with very high standards.

He

could be "hard as

nails, "^ writes

and currently a professor

pianist himself

at

who had studied with Guerrero. Mr. Aide pianists who were studying with Guerrero and says

He

that "Guerrero

held very high

artists.""

was

William Aide, a very fine the University of Toronto,

has interviewed at the

of the

was very cultivated and artistically authoritative. and was a formative influence on major

artistic ideals

Central to Guerrero's method of teaching, as Aide explains

"the art of finger-tapping."

Finger-tapping

is

a lowly, obsessive,

and

cultish exercise for acquiring

absolute evenness and ease in tricky passage work.

motion

in the

hand and ensures intimate

tern in question.

I

thumb,

2, 3, 4, 5.

tactile

It

eliminates excess

connection with the pat-

will explain the practice in its simplest application.

Take the notes D, E, F sharp, G, and A, is

many

same time Glenn did

The hand

position

for is

which the right-hand fingering

the natural one

assumed when

it,

72

the

GLENN GOULD

/

arm and hand hang relaxed from the shoulder; the second knuckle

is

seen to be the highest point. Rest the finger pads on the key surfaces of the notes D, E, sively to the

F

either

The

on the

left

hand taps the

to their original position

fingernails or at the

on the surface of the

tips of the right-hand fingers,

first joint.

The second

fast as possible.

fingers succes-

right fingers are boneless; they reflex

hand should tap near the

left

should be as

The

keys.

from the keybed and return keys.

and A. The

sharp, G,

bottom of the

The motion

of the tapping

stage of this regimen

is

to play

the notes with a quick staccato motion, one finger at a time, from the surface of the key, quick to the surface of the keybed, and back to the

surface of the key. This

slow practice, each note being separated by

is

about two seconds of silence.^

Guerrero claimed to have

hit

dently, after attending a circus

boy do an astounding dance

went backstage

The

on the finger-tapping method indepen-

where he saw

full

meet the child and asked

to

teacher-trainer demonstrated

"a three-year-old

Chinese

of breath-taking intricacies. Guerrero

how he

his trainer for the secret.

placed his hands on the child

remained still and relaxed. Then movements by himself.'"^ do we know whether Glenn actually engaged in the laborious of finger-tapping recommended by his teacher? According to

and moved

his limbs, while the child

the child was asked to repeat the

How practice

William Aide, he was seen doing so by Ray Dudley, another piano

stu-

Gould practice every day, and that claims that he tapped everything passages, chords, whole pieces he studied with Guerrero. This would have included the Goldberg Variadent. "Ray heard the sbcteen-year-old

—

—

Gould finger-tapped every Goldberg VariGould boasted to Dudley that tapping the complete Goldberg Variations took him thirty-two hours. "'^ Glenn's father confirms that Ray Dudley would have been in a position to observe tions.

Ray Dudley

testifies that

ation before he recorded

Glenn's playing,

if

it

.

.

.

not his practicing. "Glenn and Ray used to play

together; I've heard them," he told me. "At the cottage

pianos, which was useful when one of

his friends

we had two

would come up on the

weekend. And sometimes we'd hear one playing the pipe organ, and the other playing the piano."" in

I

would

like to believe that

Glenn's experience

finger-tapping while studying with Guerrero during his teenage years

did contribute to his extraordinary fluency at the keyboard, one of the

cornerstones of his piano technique.

Glenn's custom of sitting low in relation to the keyboard was also

acquired during his tutelage with Guerrero. Posture had long been a bone

New Teachers and Further Success of contention between sit

up

me

"his

Glenn and

his mother.

mother saying over and

over, 'Glenn, sit up.'

violently defy your

mother than by adopting

that she predicted

would be disastrous

maximum

insisted

on having him

while he preferred to slouch. Bob Fulford described to

straight,

by his posture.

She

73

I

"'"

for

Guerrero believed that

How could you

in public the very

him? She was

to give the

more

posture

just appalled

hands and fingers

freedom, a pianists arms had to be on the same level as the

keyboard. During their lessons, while Glenn was playing, Guerrero would firmly press his shoulders

ing

upward against

down, and Glenn had

to reciprocate

by press-

was designed

his teacher's hands. This exercise

to

help strengthen the pianist's back muscles.

Although

seems

to

his

mother was unhappy with Glenn's posture,

have readily accepted Glenn's preference for

chair and bending over the keyboard.

Gould making tesy of

He even went

sitting

Estate.

on

a

low

to the trouble of

crucial adjustments to his chair. Cour-

Glenn Gould

his father

"

74

/

GLENN GOULD

constructing a special chair for Glenn, just fourteen inches above the

which Glenn used

floor,

whenever he played the

for the rest of his life

piano.

tried to find

I

something

saw about four inches

and then

fairly light in a folding chair,

off

each

leg,

around each leg and screw into

and

made

I

and then welded the

it,

had

I

to

a brass bracket to go

half of a turn-

buckle to the brass bracket so that each leg could be adjusted individually.'^

Under Alberto Guerrero's guidance, Glenn learned to play works by Liszt, Levitsky, Scarlatti, Bach (already his favorite composer),

Chopin,

Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Haydn. vives of

Glenn and

Hands. As music teachers

A recording sur-

two of the Mozart Sonatas

his teacher playing

typically do,

for

Four

Guerrero arranged for occasional

student recitals that were attended by parents and other guests, including prominent musicians living in Toronto. That

was how the

guished Viennese-born pianist and harpsichordist Greta Kraus,

as a boy,

was

first

in the evening, at his teacher's house,

edge Chopin, certainly not Bach. caUty, just so beautiful

essence

and

I

lyrical

admired

and he played, his natural,

and warm,

all

that

to

my knowl-

wonderful musi-

which was not the

of his playing later on."

"Did Guerrero have

this natural musicality

and warmth?

"Yes, yes, he was one of the most relaxed players you can imagine.

most admirable part of ity

and ease

nical talent.

was

his teaching

was

But

I

greatly

He was

a problem.

The

his ability to give technical facil-

to his students, especially his students

Now, Glenn never had ability

later

met him. She told me, "When I heard Glenn play he may have been with Alberto Guerrero for one or two years.

befriended Glenn,

It

distin-

who

who had

a

problem.

born with a phenomenal tech-

also think that his total, almost miraculous physical

enhanced by

that teacher,

by Guerrero, because he

had such an understanding of the hand and how to help people technically. And sometimes I wonder whether this was something Glenn didn't

want

to admit.

He

didn't

cannot understand that

Guerrero was very give

him any

want

at

much

all!

to

acknowledge Guerrero's influence.

But as

hurt, very

far as

I

was able

to

still

1

out,

much, by Glenn's refusing ever

to

credit for his success."'''

In addition to the private recitals organized by his teacher,

appeared

make

in public

Glenn

also

performances, but sparingly, because his parents were

trying to protect

him from

too

much

exposure.

On

February 19,

New Teachers and Further Success 1943, at age ten, as

we have

Mozart sonata

Wanstead United Church.

at the

seen, he played the

first

On

75

I

movement

of a

April 13, 1944, he

took part in the annual spring concert of the Ontario Music Teachers Association, performing pieces by Liszt and Levitsky. year,

he appeared on

Ted Rust,

a

On May

12 that

program that also included "Entertainment by Mr.

Ventriloquist." Glenn's father sang a solo,

"A Young

Tom

o'De-

von" by Russell, and both of his parents sang a duet, "The Spider and the Fly" by Smith. Glenn himself performed the opening Allegro from

Haydn's Sonata in A-flat Major and various short pieces by sky,

Schubert, and "Tatterewski"

In 1944,

Glenn

also entered his

ruary as part of the Kiwanis

Liszt, Levit-

[sic]."'^ first

Music

competition.

His

Festival.

It

was held

father, as

in

Feb-

an affluent

businessman and devoted member of the Kiwanis Club of Toronto, was

which were organized to to compete for prizes. was awarded a $200 scholarship and The first time Glenn competed, he over older immediately established his superiority the boys and girls who Festivals were covered had performed on the piano. The Kiwanis Music in the newspapers, which published the lists of first-, second-, and thirdplace winners for violinists, pianists, and other instrumentalists. One reporter described the eleven-year-old Glenn as having "that sort of commanding intelligence and responsibility which indicate an ability worth a

moving force behind these annual

give

young musicians

a

chance

to

festivals,

be heard and

watching.'^

The

year 1945 was a banner one, with seven public appearances.

February 16, in an organ

recital given

by eighteen of Frederick

On

Silvester's

students at the Toronto Conservatory, Glenn played the Fantasia and

Fugue in C Minor by J. S. Bach and a Concerto Movement by Dupuis. Glenn had recently gotten a job playing the organ for services at an Anglican church, but lost it because, so the stor)' goes, he would make mistakes and "often lose his place this

whenever the congregation

sang.''

hard to believe.) Also in February he competed once again

Kiwanis Music Festival, and this time

won

first

place.

(I

at

find

the

He and some

of

the other festival winners were asked to perform for a convention of the

Glenn played the open2. Another organ recital, at the Eglington United Church on May 6, featured him once more pla\ing the C Minor Fugue by Bach. In a piano recital on June 22, he played Chopin's Impromptu in F-sharp Major and Brahms's Ontario Music Teachers Association on April ing

movement

Ballade in

G

3.

of Beethoven's Sonata in F Major, opus 10, no.

Major.

Concerto no. 4

in

A major event was his performance of the Beethoven G Major in an Advanced Grades recital held at the

76

GLENN GOULD

/

Toronto Conservatory on November 29. Alberto Guerrero accompanied

him by playing the orchestra part on a second piano. What Glenn and his family always considered to have been introduction to the public

was

at large, his first truly

a conspicuous concert held

on December

his official

important appearance,

12,

when he was

1945,

thirteen years old. This time he performed the organ in Toronto's large

and

attractive

Eaton Auditorium, where many distinguished

their recitals in those days.

The

recording studio.)

(Glenn would

artists

gave

use the auditorium as a

contained a magnificent organ built by Cana-

hall

das famous Casavant Freres, and by the Casavant Society.

later

It

this particular

concert was sponsored

featured several performers,

the Malvern Collegiate Institute where

all

chosen from

Glenn had recently been enrolled

With his friend Bob Fulford sitting next to him on the organ bench turning pages, Glenn played Mendelssohn's Sonata no. 6, the Concerto Movement by Dupuis he'd performed earlier that year in a student recital at the Conservatory, the Fugue in G Minor by Bach, and as an encore, a Bach prelude. This time the press gave him a real boost: as a student.

Glenn Gould

is

just a child, really, a loose-jointed, gracious, smiling

not thirteen yet [he'd turned thirteen on

the organ

last

A

From

start to finish

ity

many

evening as

tried.

genius he

and finesse of

is,

September

a full-grown concert organist couldn't

in every detail his playing

had the

he

if

with the modesty that only true genius knows.

and

boy

But he played

25].

.

.

.

fearless author-

a master.'^

Glenn played the same

recital a

second time, on Februar)'

3,

1946, on

month he

the organ of the Metropolitan United Church. Later that

entered his third competition at the Kiwanis Music Festival, held in Toronto's large

Massey

Hall, the city's

major auditorium for classical

music. (Glenn would later deny ever having played in any competitions.)

And on

April 10, he performed works by

Bach and Chopin

at

an Alumni

Association concert given by four advanced students of the Conservatory.

That year Glenn made a discovery which he

moment" future.

in the

He was

way he would

react to his

felt

was

own piano

practicing a fugue by Mozart, K. 394,

playing in the

when

the maid

cleaner close to the piano. Suddenly his playing was

turned on a

vacuum

shrouded

mechanical noise, a sensation he found not

in

a "determining

The way Glenn reported

this

at all unpleasant.

experience later on was that "in the louder

passages, this luminously diatonic music in which Mozart deliberately imitates the technique of Sebastian

Bach became surrounded with

a halo

New Teachers and Further Success of vibrato, rather the effect that you might get

with both ears

full

feel,

movements he was making

of course

which

is

—

I

could sense the

replete with

imagine what

I

own

its

What had happened was away from the acoustical

—and he enjoyed

it.

heightened awareness of tactile

I

"I

I

could

"'"^

it.

masking noise of the vacuum cleaner

to the internal sensations of his

The

could

with the keyboard,

couldn't actually hear

that the

all at

heightened his percep-

tactile relation

results of his playing.

interior

new

it

produce that sound.

to

kind of acoustical associations, and

was doing, but

had shifted Glenn's attention

a

bathtub

in the

interfered with his perception of

the sound he was producing on the piano, but tion of the

you sang

of water and shook your head from side to side

The vacuum cleaner obviously

once."

if

11

I

It

was

body and

like a trip to the

interruption of auditory feedback led to

how he moved

his fingers while playing, a

awareness of himself. Like forms of meditation, visualization,

hypnosis, or other techniques for quickly changing one's level of consciousness, this experience with increased external noise seems to have led

Glenn

was

like

to a revelation

about the nature of musical performance.

It

an epiphany, the sort of emotional "high" that teenagers, and

moments when

other people of course, have at vulnerable

ence overwhelms them and changes their

new

a

experi-

lives forever.

As a college student, the composer Robert Schumann experienced an epiphany while reading Jean Paul Richter's novel Siebenhis,

man

pretends to be dead and goes through a

him

mad."*^ For Gould, the result of his experience with

mock

burial;

in

which

a

nearly drove

it

impeded sound

made him more keenly appreciate the difference between music heard abstractly in the inner mind and music produced concretely by playing an instrument. The simple trick of vacuum cleaner perception was that

it

noise had accomplished for

Beethoven.

"I

him something akin to what deafness did to was doing," Glenn said, "but I

could imagine what

couldn't actually hear

it.

"

And

like

I

many an

introverted artist

who may

at

times prefer the products of the imagination to the resulting creative

he enjoyed his inner hearing more than his outer performance.

effort,

"The strange thing was that without the

vacuum

hear sounded best of

all

cleaner,

of

it

suddenly sounded better than

and those parts which

I

it

had

couldn't actually

"^'

all.

This alteration in the conscious experience of music when he was a young teenager had two long-term consequences. First, it influenced Gould's manner of practicing the piano. He wrote much later that "If I

am

in a great

mind,

I

hurry to acquire the imprint of some

simulate the effect of the

vacuum

new

score on

cleaner by placing

some

my

totally

78

GLENN GOULD

/

contrary noises as close to the instrument as noise, really

—TV Westerns,

because what

is

managed

can.

very

much more

ward observation.

what

coming together

powerful a stimulant than

any amount of out-

is

"^~

that

it

became more

difficult for

him

to

own performances as become a perfectionist.

with the actual sound of music, his

It forced him to work had to be prepared for a concert, he had struggle mightily in trying to match his playing as closely as possible the inner model of what it should ideally sound like. At piano lessons

well as those of other musicians.

From now to

doesn't matter

to learn through the accidental

The second consequence was feel satisfied

to

It

and the vacuum cleaner was that the inner ear of the imagina-

of Mozart tion

I

I

Beatles records; anything loud will suffice

on,

whenever

a

with Alberto Guerrero he tortured himself mercilessly (and his teacher as well) by trying to get pieces to sound absolutely perfect. "The lessons were of great duration because Glenn insisted on getting every sound just right," recalls Guerrero's wife. "He would linger over just one or two it. Alberto would say, 'Oh, it's all right, Glenn,' but Glenn would say, 'No, it's not.' "^^ In the course of time the lessons became "essentially exercises in argument, as Glenn put it later. "They were attempts to crystallize my point of view versus his on some particular issue, whatever it was and ... I think that for me, anyway, it worked

things until he had

"

very

well."^'*

In effect, Glenn's lessons with Guerrero had

on which he could

become

the battleground

and

fight for the validity of his personal inner vision

demonstrate that pieces of music had to be expressed on the piano keyboard

That was the beginning of the highly appealing

in a certain way.

and unmistakable Gould sound, and musical interpretations. obstinate

way as

own concept

was

his often original

if

not unorthodox

also the beginning of Gould's stubborn,

of defending, against opposition from other musicians, his

personal views of

So long

It

how

particular works

must sound.

he was pla}ing a solo composition, he could indulge of the music. But

when he had

to play

were

in a

chamber ensemble,

arise

about matters of interpretation which Gould, so fearful of his

conflicts with other musicians

aggression, tried as quickly as possible to

examples that he liked [and] a misguided

to joke

pedagogue

sweep

about was "when at

my

debut with orchestra

.

.

was

One

likely to

own

of the

first

a tad of thirteen

alma mater, the then Toronto (now

Royal) Conservatory of Music, suggested that .

aside. I

his

with an orchestra or

and play [the

first

I

might prepare for

movement

of]

my

Beethoven's

Fourth Concerto." This was a work he already had performed twice in

Teachers and Further Success

Neil'

79

I

The young

public, but only with Alberto Guerrero as his accompanist.

Gould's inner concept of the Beethoven concerto had been evolving for

two

at least

set aside

he had acquired, "with funds painstakingly

years, ever since

my

from

allowance," a recording of this concerto by the great

Austrian pianist Artur Schnabel. Gould listened to the recording "almost ever}' day,"

thereby creating an ideal inner model for himself of

work must be played.

felt this

faithfully traced ever\' inflective

"I

wise

.

.

.

and glided

nuance

when he thought

of the Schnabelian rhetoric, surged dramatically ahead it

how he

minutes and

to a graceful cadential halt ever\' four

twenty-five seconds or so, while the automatic changer

went

to work.""'

(Those were the days of 78 rpm records).

The tra,

trouble started during rehearsals with the Conser\'ator\' Orches-

conducted by Ettore Mazzoleni,

Suddenly the young Gould found interpretation

it

for the

and do away with the "graceful cadential

avoid clashing with the orchestra. "There was a haps, at the

D

major

E minor

the point at the

commented on phrasing a

entr)',

and the oboes and but

stretto,

I

left in

the discrepancies: "Not too

little

hands made the piano

sing.

chanted by the poet himself.

The

Glenn Gould

high

much

.

.

is

of stress, per-

flutes didn't quite get

choppy and sometimes puzzling

in a child. For

1946.

8,

halts" in order to

moment

"~*^

spirits.

One

critic

d}Tiamic range here, to

one familiar with

Schnabel""' Another praised Gould generously: "[H]ow

ways of genius

May

concert on

necessary to modify his preconceived

awesome

are the

a genius ... his butterfly

His phrasing was eloquent as poetry

.

""^

obsen'ations of a teenage

girl

who

attended this event give an

even richer account:

Glenn

is

fourteen [actually he was thirteen] but he looks

much

think he must have been scared, because at the beginning orchestra was pla\ing, he was sort of fidgeU'

and mopping

his

brow with

however, more than

The audience encore

—

Another

a

made up

Valse. His fingers

I

while the

his hair

back

He was

mar\'elous!

moved

played an

like lightning.'''

Her home was also on Southdown the street from Glenn, and she nine, when she was awarded first place

reacted quite differently.

Drive, about fifteen blocks

was

few years

a

younger. .

Finally he

for his idiosyncrasies.

wood in a

— kept pushing

.

white handkerchief ... his playing,

nearly brought the house down.

Chopin

girl

a large

.

his senior.

At age

Kiwanis competition, Joyce Whitney had established a reputation

for herself as the

most outstanding child

pianist in the neighborhood.

80

Glenn's winning the

first

GLENN GOULD

/

place a few years later served to displace her

it badly. "It was like Christopher Marlowe having William Shakespeare moving into the same block, Bob Fulford told me. "Joyce was a wonderful pianist by the standards of her equals, but suddenly becoming the second-best pianist on Southwood Drive was devastating. Throughout her adolescence you could go to her if you wanted to know what was wrong with Glenn Gould. He was her obsession; she was terribly jealous of him." "Did that bother Glenn?

from her favored position, and she took

"

"

"Well, at school he'd say to me, 'That

jealous of me. She doesn't like

me

girl,

don't look now, she's pretty

And

too much.'

think, yes,

I

it

did

bother him because nothing meant more to Glenn than to feel admired "^^ by people.

He

participated in two other public events that year, a

Week" program held on October Department tory

Store,

1,

and the graduation exercises

and Chopin's Impromptu

Toronto Conserva-

at the

on October 28, where he played the Sonata

3 by Beethoven,

"Symphony

on the mezzanine of Simpson's in

C

Major, opus

2, no.

opus 36. Early the

in F-sharp,

Glenn made his debut with all three movements of the Fourth Beethoven Concerto, with Bernard Heinze conducting. By now, the fourteen-year-old pianist had become an established figure in the concert world of his hometown. Some of his odd behavior on stage had already become conspicuous. "Unfortunately the young artist showed following year, on January 14 and 15, 1947, the Toronto

some

Symphony

incipient

when he

Orchestra, performing

mannerisms and limited

himself was

playing,"

approaches adult status, he

will

wrote

his self-control to the periods

one news

undoubtedly learn

he

"As

reporter.

to

suppress this dis-

turbing fidgeting while his collaborators are at work."^'

We know

of course that he never did. Glenn's fidgeting was probably

symptomatic of performance

anxiety, but

he sought

to explain

it

away

at

stemmed from his having slow movement of the concerto that his

the time by telling people that the problem

noticed "during a pause in the

"

"best dark suit"

was covered with long white

father cautioned

me

was

to

keep

easier said than done."^'

my

hairs

from

his dog.

"My

distance from Nick, but that, of course,

Now,

in the

middle of the Beethoven con-

Glenn found himself thinking about how to brush the errant hairs from his trousers. It's a charming story, consistent with his sense of humor, which liked to make fun of serious things. But it did not brush away Glenn's underlying profound anxiety about having to perform in certo,

public.

GAINING

A

MANAGER

Homburger, Walter whose

the distinguished Toronto concert manager

portfolio included

after

performing

twenty-five years,

was

some

artists, as

of the world's most sought-

well as the Toronto S}Tnphony for

measure responsible

in great

for the escalation in

Glenn's career during his late teens and early twenties. fied

man, Mr. Homburger,

still

speaks with a hea\y

"How

did you

first

after living

more than

fift)'

A

modest, digni-

years in Canada,

German accent. become acquainted with Glenn Gould?

"

I

asked

him.

"He was about fourteen

years old, and

I

heard him play

Kiwanis Festivals, where young musicians competed.

I

at

one of the

believe he played

the Fourth Beethoven Concerto, with his accompanist being his teacher,

and

I

thought

it

was phenomenal, you know. So

and met the parents, and

said I'd like to

manage

I

went

to his parents,

his career."

"

"What was "Fine.

their reaction?

You know, he was

home, and they

said

And we made up don't think

managed an

I

'fine'

a little

just a kid of fourteen,

as

I

recall.

It

agreement, which

even have any more, and artist in

my

was

life."

is

that's

and

just like a

I

visited their

any other famiK.

one-page thing which

how

it

started.

I

Id never

"

82

One can assume

GLENN GOULD

/

there

must have been more discussion with Glenn's

parents than just "fine" and a quick contract, but Walter

when he

circumspect

Homburger

is

discusses his clients, whose privacy he feels

asked him what made him interested in assuming managing the responsibility of an artist like Glenn Gould when he had Homburger told me that he was twenty-two no experience in this field. obliged to protect.

I

He had

recently

refugee from Nazi Germany. Those were

difficult

years old at the time, only eight years older than Glenn.

come

to

Canada

as a

enemy

times for refugees from

under

strict surveillance

were allowed of

becoming

to travel

a concert

he emigrated

My

to

come from

"I

during the war; severely restricted in where they

and what they were permitted

manager had appealed

there.

to

But the idea

to do.

Homburger long before

Canada. banking

a

family, but

family lived in Karlsruhe, where

bank

They were kept segregated and

countries.

Some

of

my

I

I

was not interested

in banking.

grew up, and they had a private

childhood friends were very good musicians, for

name

example, a young fellow by the

of Gerhard Kander,

who was

a child

prodigy violinist and studied with Carl Flesch at the same time that

Henryk Szeryng was

there,

and Ida Haendel, you know. That's how

interested in music generally. But

I'd

always told me, 'You can't manage an

my

I

got

never been in the business. People out of Canada; that's impossi-

artist

Glenn is as good as I think he is, it makes no difference where he's managed from, because, looking at it the other way around, if I wanted to engage Horowitz in Toronto, I would find out where Horowitz's manager was living and contact him. In those days we didn't have faxes, naturally. And Glenn's parents went along with

ble.'

But

the idea that

with him.

attitude

was

maybe

could be helpful, and

I

that

if

that's

how

I

started working

"'

Here was

a

man

able to recognize a promising musician and willing to

take risks.

"What was "Glenn

it

like

working with Glenn?

"

I

asked.

knew what he wanted, and his parents own decisions. And as far as was concerned,

in those days already

I him alone to make his was Tm not a musician.' You see, I can't even read music. I'm strictly a businessman. And so had advantages and disadvantages. mean, Glenn could never discuss anything with me musically. We might have a discussion about what liked in a work and he'd ask for my opin-

left

my

attitude

I

I

I

ion about such things as a

doesn't interest

me

I'm like the public.

at all,

trill it's

before a cadenza, but

I'd

have to

the whole performance that

I

say,

"That

care about.'

-

Gaining Homburger

me

told

for

little

him

to

that

him

not "ambitious" for

Manager

a

when he first met Glenn, his parents were many concerts, so there was relatively

to give

do as manager. Besides, Glenn's father continued

a managerial role himself, wTiting letters

example, a recital

certs, for

83

I

on

to play

his behalf to arrange con-

in Brantford, Ontario, in a hall that holds

560, at a fee, including Glenn's expenses, of one hundred and

fifty

dol-

lars.

Glenn was by now presenting

programs. His

full recital

first

one

in

Toronto was announced as "Glenn Gould from the Studio of Alberto

He

Guerrero" on April 10, 1947.

played a Sonata in E-flat by Haydn, two

Preludes and Fugues by Bach, Beethoven's Sonata in no.

3,

D

Major, opus 10,

Chopin's Impromptu in F-sharp Major, and the Andante and

On June 8 he gave an organ recital Grace Church-on-the-Hill, performing works by Dupuis, Mozart (the

Rondo Capriccioso by Mendelssohn. at

"Romance" from Erne Kleine Nachtmusik), Bach Choral Preludes, and

a

"Benedictus" by Rowley, assisted by choirboys of the church.

On

October 20 of that

hand

burger's managerial recital at

year,

truly

Eaton Auditorium

when Glenn had turned fifteen, Hombecame evident. "I presented him in a

as part of the 'International Artists' series.

This constituted Glenn's debut

in a

commercial sense. His photograph

appeared prominently on glossy announcements and

He performed

five

""*

in the

programs.

sonatas by Scarlatti, the Sonata, opus 31, no.

2,

by

Beethoven; a Passacaille by Couperin transcribed for the piano by Alberto Guerrero; the Waltz in A-flat, opus 42, and Impromptu, opus 36, of Chopin; Liszt's

An Bord dime

Source; and the

Andante and Rondo

Capriccioso by Mendelssohn. Critics from three newspapers came to the well-advertised event.

Wrote one: "Glenn Gould made

of loveliness. Scales at

shaded

beauts'.

""^

all

sorts of

Another: "Here was a player

entire compositions as wholes, reveal total structures."'

especially lible,

...

And

men. Spiderlike

ever)'

note a

gem

speed were singing things of many-

who conceived movements,

and whose every

the third:

". .

.

detail

was calculated

to

he stupefied his audience,

fingers, flexible rubberish wrists, pedals infal-

nose a foot above the keys, he was

he outdid Rachmaninoff

like

for intensely

an old

supple

man on

a

music spree

art."^

Glenn was delighted with the success of his first commercial recital. when he was in front of an audience, he began to

In mid-adolescence,

ex-perience a "glorious sense of power"' that

seemed

the uncomfortable anticipatory anxiety he always in public. in a

group

His repertoire was expanding. recital for the

Home Music

felt

to offset

some

of

when performing

On November 4,

he participated

Club, performing the Mozart C-

84

Minor

program

On November

mentor

Glenn was tute,

Sir

he repeated

in

C

in

still

Major with the Toronto Symphony, conducted

mornings

from the Goulds' home. His classes

far

enough time

in order to give

"My

Plans for the School Year,

am It

at

somewhat

fifteen,

literary bravado:

of a disadvantage in writing on this subject.

must not be assumed, however,

for higher education.

On

that

the contrary,

I

I

find

.

.

.

have a complete disregard it

stimulating, enlightening,

and capable of tremendous influence on otherwise stagnant

refreshing,

minds. (For this well-defined phrase

I

am

indebted to the preface of a

Manitoba school textbook authorized and published "Crop, Cricket and Tariff Control.

My

"

for practicing

Glenn which describes

At

his musical studies at the Conservatory.

view of academic studies with typical humor and

I

Toronto, and on

Hamilton, Ontario, playing Beethoven's

enrolled as a student at the Malvern Collegiate Insti-

wrote an essay entitled his

Eaton Auditorium

Ernest MacMillan.

to the

home and

hy Rode, and three pieces

his entire

at the Art Gallery of

an excellent high school not

were limited at

he appeared

3,

Piano Concerto

his

16,

audience

for a smaller

December First

Theme

Fantasy, Czerny's Variations on a

by Chopin.

by

GLENN GOULD

/

in

1911, entitled

')

course of studies includes only three Upper School Subjects:

French, English and History.

I

consider this a most happy choice,

for, in

French, one reads Rousseau and sides with the revolutionaries; in English

one reads of Wellington and sides with the reactionaries while one writes cil,

critical analysis of the

and shows how much better everything would have been

enlightened fifth-former had been present

My

plan for this season

is

with the Hamilton and Toronto of this

is

relevant to the

show why school.

I

have not a

My plans

at

if

only

some

Congress of Vienna.

number of solo recitals and appearance Symphony Orchestras. Although very little

title [of this

moment

to

essay],

I

think

it

will

be sufficient

spend on extra-curricular

.^ .

.

comment. Glenn continued

uninvolved in any social

to

activities at

for the school year, therefore, are non-existent.

at the school,

was unhappy

at the

a

"Clever" was his teacher's written

an outsider

in History,

Milan Decree and the Orders-in-Coun-

to

activities there.

Malvern, reports an older cousin, Jessie Greig,

be

He

who was

then living with the Gould family. "He was so vastly different and ahead of his age group that I

it

was impossible

remember seeing Glenn

at recess

for

him

to

have

much

in

common.

standing up against the fence

all

by

himself, and that picture has always stayed with me, because he was

"

Ga even

lonely,

i

n

He

in those da\s.

the only one

I

really ever

M an a ge

ng a

i

r

85

I

Bob Fulford was

didn't relate well. In fact,

remember him bringing

to the house"^

Fulford disagrees, saving, "I don't think it was any more torture for him to be in school than it was for anyone else. "Do you think that he was at all interested in forming relationships "

with his peers at Malvern?

he yearned

"If

noticed

it,

I

normal

for the

never heard about

of the normal teenager,

life

was

It

it.

I

never

mother who wanted him

his

to

be normal. Glenn was committed beyond words, beyond any expression that

he could make of

me

so miraculous to

it

to us, to

music world knew he

in the

music.

he knew,

that

is

the radio.

It's

he was one of those people you

existed, that

see on album covers, and read about true that the musical

And what has always seemed moment when almost no one

the

at

in the

New York Times,

community

But Glenn believed firmly that

his extraordinary' talent.

five or six years

know about

musical world would

in the future the entire

and hear on

of Toronto was aware of

him.""^

This quality of self-confidence exidently amazed Fulford and the other students at Malvern Collegiate Institute. While none of

what

exactly

belonged

When

a genius

is,

they

all

seemed

to

know

them understood Glenn

intuitively that

in that categor)'. Fulford uTites in Best Seat in the

he walked

home from

House:

school, waving his arms as he conducted an

imisible svTnphony orchestra ("pa-puh, duh-pa"), the other students just

assumed he was acting the way geniuses were supposed fellow students

famous

came

to accept

name one

became

school,

'

favorite after

example

is

"is

the rest of us were

.

.

His

in

still

I remember about when he felt like it. My our books issued the week

"One thing

how good he was

grade ten geometr)\

Labor Day, and

.

a part-time student, his intellectual bril-

legendary' at Malvern.

says Fulford,

to act.

he would be a world-

of the great pianists of the day.'^

Although Glenn was only liance

as a given that

though few of us understood what that meant or

virtuoso, even

could even

it

at

We got

it

October he was finished with that book, while trying to get through chapter one.

another thing very well: his handwriting was

terrible.

We

I

had

remember a teacher

who had that sadistic habit of rating the entire class in every subject, and when it came to handwriting, Glenn and were always the last or next I

to last."'-

Here

is

an example, from a not too

how he was

trving to

hone

illegible

school essay, which shows

his literan.' talent, using big

words and dense

86

/

GLENN GOULD

sentences, as though he were a full-fledged musicologist as well as a

learned historian:

My

pet antipathy

is

the reaction of the general public against contempo-

and music

rary thought in the arts in general

titioners of this attitude are characterized

conversion. Several

trite

in particular.

arguments have become standard

century Cato. Music, for example,

is

The

by a firm resolution

prac-

to resist

for the

20th

reported to be without understand-

able melodic line, constructive purpose, and to have a nihilistic attitude in devoting itself to

The

experimentation

at the

expense of the listening mass.

attention of by far the largest group of composers today

toward the establishment of a

ment has claimed such

new

classicism.

The "Back

diversified writers as Stravinsky,

to

is

turned

Bach" move-

Schonberg

[sic],

and Hindemith. The aim of these men, and of hundreds of others who are less celebrated,

to recapture the

is

Baroque, and early classical

demn

is,

eras.

pure subjectivity

It is

in a sense, a reaction against reaction.

return to bygone days has been

more

ol the

true that the reaction

However, the

Renaissance,

which

I

con-

result of this

of a spiritual refreshner

[sic]

and

aesthetic directive than a reproduction of the sounds or texture of these eras.

.'^ .

.

Glenn goes on

to discuss three

composers, Prokofiev, Poulenc, and

Hindemith, who "have written occasional works systems."

He

utation of

all

to

be found

concludes with the "opinion

in the style of the old

most

[that] the

significant ref-

the arguments against the contemporary artistic idealism in the

is

famous textbook by Johann Fux, Gradus ad Parnas-

sum, which was written

in the

midst of another great period of transi-

tion— 1725." Glenn's schoolteacher graded his essay "B?" with the criticism, "Your line of

argument

abundantly clear

is,

is

to

me, not quite

two directions. Part of him yearned classical styles, while rary,

clear."

But what

that the boy's musical loyalties for the

makes in

"bygone days" of Baroque and

another part had gotten excited about contempo-

twentieth-century music.

The

intervening Romantic period he does

not bother to mention. Except for Richard Wagner,

much

this essay

were being pulled

interest for him, despite the fact that

it

would never hold

works by Chopin,

Liszt,

Mendelssohn, and other composers of the Romantic period were part of his repertory during adolescence. He would later drop these composers dropped many of his friends. Glenn claimed that his passion for contemporary music was kindled when he first heard a work by the German composer Paul Hindemith: as quickly as he

G ain

I

was 15

at the time,

in g a

M aiiage

complete

a

r

reactionan,'.

87

I

I

hated

Wagner, and a good deal of Wagner, and suddenly Painter, pletely.

in a recording

all

music

after

heard Matthias the

I

with Hindemith conducting, and flipped com-

This suddenly was the recreation of a certain kind of Baroque

me

tremendously, and

temperament

that appealed to

came

contemporary music.'"*

alive to

I,

as a 15-year old,

The Czech-born composer Oskar Morawetz, who lives in Toronto, remembers meeting the young Gould at a student recital. "His playing was amazingly beautiful. He played a nocturne by Chopin, ver\- soulful and legato. But I remember him being xery opinionated already the first time met him. At that time, studying with Guerrero, he was enthusiastic onlv about composers up to about Beethoven, which disappointed me, of course, since Im a composer myself and I like people to be open 1

new music. "How do you the genial, now to

"Oh,

I

explain the later transformation in Glenn's taster" elderly

know- exactly

adolescence.

in his

He

how

that happened.

used

to

Glenn was

a

book bv Rene Leibowitz

that

it

asked

a voracious reader

borrow books from anyone willing

them, including myself, and seldom return them.

poser].''

I

Morawetz.

One day he

to lend

got hold of

and twelve-tone com-

[the conductor, wTiter,

That book made a tremendous impression on Glenn, and

was only Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern.

He

constantly, listened to recordings of their music,

talked about

after

them

and began playing

it

himself."'^

Other influences steering Glenn toward these composers were piano teacher Alberto Guerrero,

who

in his early years as a

his

performer

had championed contemporar\' music, and the opportunity of listening

modern composers on programs of the CBC, which Glenn tuned in was his own interest in composing. This had started in childhood when his mother encouraged him to write songs. Later there were exercises in harmony and fugue wTiting assigned to him at the Toronto Conservator}'. "I was good at fughettas," claimed the nevermodest Glenn. "It was sort of like solving a jig-saw puzzle. He was sixteen years old when on February 18 and 19, 1949, an original work of his was heard in public for the first time. It was during a to

to every day. Finally, there

'

student performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night given by the Malvern titled

Drama Club. Glenn

played his

own piano

suite, in four sections,

"Regal Atmosphere, "Elizabethan Gaiety," "Whimsical Nonsense,"

and "Nocturne."

"

No

complete score has sunived, and

it

may be

that

88

parts of the suite

GLENN GOULD

/

were improvised. Glenn was very good

at

doing improvi-

sations.

He

also developed a passion for playwriting during his adolescence.

His cousin Jessie remembers Glenn "writing plays that he wanted to produce, and he wanted each family actresses in his plays

.

.

.

member

always he was the

musician,

be a

think the thing

I

writer,"

to try writing fiction

which

I

would most

he said in his twenties.

will certainly

.

.

be

.

liked to have

"I've

a sec-

to have seriously consid-

had not turned out

I

to

be a

done would be

to

always been strongly tempted

one of these times

fiction.

You were always

star.

ondary character."'^ For a while Glenn seems ered becoming a professional writer. "If

be one of the actors or

to

I'll

write

my

autobiography,

"^^

But the pressures for a musical career proved irresistible. First, there were the internal pressures stemming from his extraordinary talent and agility as a pianist. Second came the external pressures and demands exerted by his mother, his teacher Guerrero, and

now

his

manager Walter

Homburger. The balance weighed in favor of a contrapuntal arrangement between music and words, with music framing the main subject. Flora Gould bought Glenn his first Steinway in 1948. It was the model

L Grand,

5 feet

1 1

He when

inches in length, built of Honduras mahogany in

New

York in 1947.

practiced on this instrument for the next five years,

until 1953,

his

mother sold

child prodigy, Larry Miller,

On

October

recital the

9,

who

it

to the

played on

it

mother of another Toronto for the next forty years.

1949, Glenn, just turned seventeen, performed in

Seventh Sonata

in B-flat Major,

opus 83, by Sergei Prokofiev

This mighty, tumultuous work had been composed only recently, in 1942, at the height of the war in Russia. It expresses the bravura, heroism,

endurance, and tragedy that inevitably occur during times of war. The sonata was associated with the famous piano virtuoso Vladimir Horowitz, given the work its first performance in America. Glenn mastered demanding piece in just a few weeks, and, judging by his later recording of the sonata, it must have brought out all the energy and

who had the

forcefulness the young pianist could muster. His performance also fied the

impression he wanted to make, that from

would feature

original

now on

his

forti-

programs

works and move away from the staple concert Chopin were

repertory of his earlier years. Haydn, Scarlatti, Liszt and

already the banished playmates of his childhood.

8

LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE

"MY

MICROPHONE" Glenn and Bob had Ever young boys communicate between Fulford

since

rigged

wood devices.

Drive,

He was one

my

as

on South-

Glenn had been experimenting with electronic of the first musicians in Toronto to use what he

later called "primitive tape recorders

ing board of

up microphones

their backyards

to

— strapping the mikes

to the

sound-

piano, the better to emasculate Scarlatti sonatas, for

example, and generally subjecting both instruments to whichever imaginative indignities came to mind."' Tape-recording one's practice sessions makes eminently good sense in that it allows a musician to review what he or she has been playing, to listen more objectively and critically than is

possible during actual performance, to correct any mistakes, and to

modify changes in

in

tempo, articulation of consecutive notes, fluctuations

loudness and softness, and other nuances of interpretation. Using a

tape recorder artist to

may be time-consuming but

it

is

ing taught himself

how

to

use tape recorders

at

continue to rely on them for the rest of his teachers

without

rewarding, enabling the

choose between endless subtleties of interpretive phrasing. Hav-

is

an early age, Gould would life.

"The greatest of

the tape recorder," he once told a friend.

it."~

"I

would be

all

lost

90

Gould operating tesy of

GLENN GOULD

/

the tape recorder at the cottage,

Lake Simcoe,

circa 1956. Cour-

Fed News and Glenn Gould Estate.

Equally important for Glenn's musical development was his involve-

ment with radio, which became an overriding interest in his later career. The first professional radio broadcast he participated in took place on December 24, 1950, at 10:30 a.m. in the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This corporation, a unifying influence over a

huge and multicultural nation, has had a great track record

oning young

be heard

artists

live or in recordings,

and thus

to

become

better

over the radio was the beginning of

microphone

champi-

"my

first

perfor-

love affair with the

":

One Sunday morning

in

December

sized radio studio, placed

my

1950,

I

wandered

to

known through-

out that vast country. For Glenn, at eighteen years old, his

mance

in

and composers, giving Canadians the opportunity

into a living-room-

services at the disposal of a single micro-

— "M ) Love Affa phone belonging ceeded

i

w

i t

h

t

he

M

i

c ro

p h o n e"

91

I

Canadian Broadcasting Coq^oration, and pro-

to the

to broadcast "Hve

r

was already

(tape

"

a fact of

industry, but in those days radio broadcasting

still

the recording

life in

observed the first-note-

to-the-last-and-damn-the-consequences syndrome of the concert sonatas: one by Mozart [in B-flat Major, K. 281], one by flat.

[in

B-

opus 37].^

Other radio engagements soon followed, and they were Gould's development as a musician in a profound way. as

two

hall)

Hindemith

"memorable"

ence of

for

two reasons.

a gallery of witnesses,"

He

In the first place "the

which he had

change

to

them

recalled

immediate pres-

to suffer in the concert hall,

had been magically eliminated, thus neutralizing one immediate cause of his stage fright. Second, he was assured of the proof of the pudding "a soft-cut "acetate," a disc

which dimly reproduced the

felicities of

the

many years the disc would serve as a reminder of "that my life when first caught a vague impression of the direction

broadcast." For

moment it

would

in

I

"*

take.

His manager Walter Homburger was clearly aware of Glenn

mental problem with audiences. "He always said to me, ing in public so

was

much because

watching what

pairs of eyes

part of Glenn. Right

I

I

funda-

always feel there are three thousand

do rather than

from an early age,

loved being in front of a microphone.

who

s

don't like play-

'I

listening.'

I

He was

mean

And

I

think this

fourteen, fifteen, he

exactly the reverse of

microphone and don't

most

on Glenn loved it. We used to do Sunday morning recitals on the CBC Radio and he loved it. You know, he was a born ham. "' Indeed, Glenn was one of those rare musicians who positively disliked audiences. It seems as though the critical, fault-finding role of his mother was projected in an exaggerated way onto all the people who came to artists,

top of

play.

He

dreaded what he always

felt

audiences, and compared himself to a

Glenn

torn to pieces.

tried in a

the terror of stage fright.

One

number

strategy

intrusive gaze of

gladiator about to be

of different ways to eliminate

was

to

pretend that there really all

alone.

Another was

to

himself with a feeling of "power" over those people. Finally, and

fortif\'

most

was the

Roman

wasn't any audience out there and that he was

and

like television

it.

hear him live

get petrified over a

reliable,

that, as

was

we

his habit of taking sedatives before going

shall see,

became

his preferred

way

on

stage;

of maintaining self-

control.

Some

degree of performance anxiety seems to be universal

performing

and

is

artists. It

may be made worse by

undoubtedly related

among

parental overprotectiveness

to physiological arousal, the

outpouring of

92

GLENN GOULD

/

adrenaline and other stress hormones before going on stage. Usually the

discomfort abates as the musician successfully communicates with teners. Thrill or excitement

may even

lis-

take over as the concert progresses

and the musician becomes stimulated and often exhilarated by the audiSome performers overcome their stage fright by focusing on posi-

ence.

receptive qualities felt to be out there; Arthur Rubinstein thought

tive,

about beautiful For artists

women

who

his playing to them.^

enhance

their

performance, the

anonymity of a radio or recording studio may be acutely distressing

silent

and paralyze

their interpretation.

echo-proof place, the their

and directed

in the hall

find that audiences

enemy.

It

absolves no

They

feel keenly the solitude of the

environment, and the microphone becomes

sterile

human

error

and makes every interpretation

He much

permanent. Gould's reaction was exactly the opposite.

ferred playing in the privacy of a radio or recording studio.

The

pre-

sterile

room was far more desirable to him than a large hall swarming with The studio became a sort of refuge, a safe place where he could enjoy playing for himself and for what he felt to be an enormous invisible germs.

audience. lofts

I

was almost

It

where he

like retreating to

those peaceful, isolated organ

liked practicing as a child.

discovered that, in the privacy, the solitude and

stand clear) the womb-like security of the studio,

music

in a direct,

permit ...

I

it

(if all

Freudians will

was possible

more personal manner than any concert

hall

to

make

would ever

have not since then been able to think of the potential

of music (or for that matter of

some reference

my own

potential as a musician) without

to the limitless possibilities of the broadcasting/recording

medium.^

Glenn cherished

solitude,

and the public concerts he was required

give permitted Httle of that. Besides, Glenn's father or Walter

was always alone.

When

his father to

me

setting limits. At this time,

Glenn was not allowed

invited to give a concert in the province of

New

to

Homburger to travel

Brunswick,

wrote to the organizer: "Sir Ernest MacMillan has intimated

that he

had given you

concert in Frederickton

[at

my

son's

a fee of

name $600

as an artist available for a for

two appearances].

account of Glenn's age [he was approaching sixteen]

we send someone

it

is

On

necessary that

with him on such a journey."^

For years Glenn had been trying to increase the physical distance

between himself and his parents while maintaining his psychological rapport with them. At Lake Simcoe he would alarm them by taking off by

"My Love Affair with the Microphone"

Gould

astride bicycle, with his dog, Nick,

Simcoe,

1

945. Counesv

himself on his bicycle. "Oh, his father.

it

of

Glenn Gould

would be

I

93

Lake

Estate.

in his early teens,

remembers

"He'd strike off on the bicycle, and his mother would get a

and I'd take the car and maybe anxious wondering where he was him five miles away on the side of the road. And one day I came along and he was singing to a bunch of cows. They were all lined up inside the fence. Or Glenn would escape in his motorboat. "If we missed Glenn, someone would have to get another boat and get out on the lake to hunt for him. He might be fourteen, fifteen miles away in his boat. "^ We'd find him coming home singing, conducting. Glenn continued giving public concerts, of course, although by his early twenties he was already talking about retiring from the stage. The little

.

.

.

find

"

year of his radio debut, 1950, he gave four recitals in Toronto, as well as

one

in

London, Ontario, and again played the Fourth Beethoven Con-

"

"

"

94

GLENN GOULD

/

expanded

certo with the Conservator)' Orchestra. His repertoire had

to

include Beethoven's Fifteen Variations and Fugue (Eroica), opus 35, Bach's Italian Concerto, and the Third Sonata by Hindemith which he'd

played on that

first

radio broadcast.

His enthusiasm for the works of twentieth-century composers persisted.

He

unknown

in

and

in

ject,

and

strove to get closer to the contemporary scene

He

Canada.

to

acquaint

and daring works by composers who were almost

his listeners with fresh

read whatever books he could find on the sub-

1950 he began

to study the

Third Piano Sonata by the

Vienna-born composer Ernst Krenek. Glenn also wanted to learn about the music being

composed

in his native Toronto.

He had met

the

com-

poser Oskar Morawetz and liked him.

"When Glenn was

nineteen,"

my

Fantasy in

and brought him

weeks

later

and he knew

it

Morawetz

D

me,

told

"I

[written in 1948].

already by

memory and

was

played the whole

thing for me, and very, very accurate in everything. But

tempo was anything but what

I

at his cottage

came back two

I

wanted, and, contrary

I

to

thought the

what

had

I

written in the score, he used almost no pedal."

"What did

sound like?" was one passage where the melody was supposed to be very prominent, and everything else was meant to be a kind of underground color, muted by means of the pedal. He did just the opposite. The it

"Well, there

melody almost disappeared, not only because he because the melody,

accompanying a slow

like in a

figures.

melody and

And

lots of

didn't use the pedal, but

much

cantus firmus, was

of course every pianist

accompanying

melody much louder than the

rest,

figure,

slower than the

knows

that

if

you have

then you have to play the

because the piano sounds die so

fast.

"

"Did you object to what he was doing to your music?

But Glenn was always very argumentative. He told me he Chopin because Chopin only wrote short pieces and didn't know how to develop his ideas, and that all his colors are dependent on the pedal. He said, 'I use pedal as little as possible, maybe just to empha-

"Oh

sure.

doesn't hke

size a chord,

and

but not to get the kind of overall crescendo, the type Franck

Liszt indicated.'

"So what happened?

"When he performed my everything differently than

what

I

wrote, terribly

CBC, he up my mind how

for the

fast.

said to

I

piece he really played magnificently, but

wanted, about twenty degrees faster than

And when he was asked

me, 'Oskar,

I

won't play

the piece should go, and that's

it

it.

to record

for

you

my

at all.

When you

tell

I

piece

made

me

that

"My Love Affair with the Microfhone" one voice

is

more important than the other one,

And something

voices are equally important. the

way you speak, you

"How

don't understand your

that

else,

quite incorrect. All

s

seems

it

to

me

that

"

own music'

"

could you put up with that?

"Of course he played certain things wonderfully, but thing twice as

When

95

I

the record

if

you play some-

you completely change the character of the piece.

fast,

came

out,

listened to

I

it

once and

said,

'I

can't listen

"

to

it

again.'

"Do vou think Glenn was "Well, about that, or to Mr. Guerrero,

composer himself?"

interested in being a

cant remember whether he told

I

who

in turn told

to

it

me. But basically

to

it

He

with Glenn's wish to become immortal.

me it

directly

had

even when they are not the great ones, have a better chance

remembered than performers.

I

really couldn't

had advanced so

than composers.

And

much

when

fift)'

years from

formers of today will be remembered just

like

to

be

the recording

that performers are almost better

I'm sure that

do

understand why he was

so concerned about that, because he lived at a time industrv'-

to

resented that composers,

now

composers.

known

the great per"'^

Glenn wanted to be remembered as a composer, even though he a mere handful of compositions in his lifetime. During his later years, despite a phenomenal output of over one hundred recordings, he would downplay his identity as a pianist, calling himself "a Canadian Yet

produced

writer,

who

composer, and broadcaster

plays the piano in his spare

Glenn had composed a number of pieces for the piano, and then a Sonata for Bassoon and Piano. They are well-crafted, original compositions, not too difficult to play and quite would recomenjoyable to listen to. But they are difficult to obtain. time."" While

still

in his adolescence,

I

mend

a recent recording of Glenn's solo piano compositions played by

Emile Naoumoff: two short pieces

for the

piano and two movements of

an unfinished piano sonata.'"

The first piano piece is a slow and lyrical work, four minutes somewhat contrapuntal but not harshly dissonant, despite

tion,

tone clusters, wide-spaced

from the

left to

The second

inter\'als,

the right hand.

piece, one

in dura-

the wild

and complex passages mirrored

The work sounds

minute nineteen seconds

like

an improvisation.

in duration,

opens with

an upward-moving theme of three notes, an ascending fourth followed by a descending

third.

This theme

the intervals inverted.

A

which the three-note theme over the keyboard.

is

repeated frequently, sometimes with

vigorous, marchlike returns,

now

tempo

intervenes, after

with the pianist's fingers

all

96

GLENN GOULD

/

The unfinished piano sonata about seven minutes,

more

into a

is

longer.

A captivating feature

is

olos that are played very low in the bass

of

movement,

lasting

somber mood

the very prominent octave trem-

and recur

in the left

hand. This

most melodramatic. The second movement is the longest the piano pieces he ever wrote, lasting eight and a half minutes. It

Gould all

first

relaxed, lyrical section before returning to the

of the beginning.

is

The

with a vigorous, dark introduction that breaks

starts

at his

opens with

a

wash

of soft, mysterious chords.

The

top notes gradually

coalesce to form a theme, while the rest of the chord fades into the

background. Then

which recedes,

The Sonata

we hear

a

new

section of dense polyphonic structure

be followed by a short fughetta and a calm ending.

to for

Bassoon and Piano, as played on the recording by

Catherine Marchese and Emile Naoumoff,

is

an engaging work, not only

because of the contrast provided by the low-pitched monophonic bassoon set against the piano's polyphonic full range of sound, but because of the originality of the musical ideas. There are three short movements.

The

first,

lasting only

robust solo. This

is

two minutes, begins with the bassoon blowing a

quickly joined by the piano, playing a faster version

same theme at gradually increasing speed. An intricate pattern of and dialogues between the two instruments closes the movement. Rapid chords on the piano usher in the second movement,

of the

alternating duets

slightly over four

minutes long. Soon the bassoon

is

also heard, but in a

slower tempo than the piano. They continue playing together nonstop in a

bouncy perpetuum mobile. The bassoon alone

ment,

slowly, until the

agree on the

starts the third

move-

piano enters in a faster tempo. Then they briefly

same tempo and play a jumpy, fughettalike interlude that where the two instruments scramble all over the map.

leads to a section

A

long improvisatory bassoon solo follows, interrupted by an imposing

theme on the piano. After only a

little

a

sequence of duets and

solos, the

movement,

over three minutes long, ends undramatically on a few simple

chords.

Glenn had enough confidence in himself as a composer to present his Piano Pieces and the Bassoon Sonata in a Recital of Contemporary Music at the Royal Conservatory, held on January 4, 1951. It was the first time he dared to present a program consisting entirely of contempoworks that included the Third Sonata by Paul Hindemith, the Fantasy in D Minor by Oskar Morawetz, and the very difficult Third Sonata by Ernst Krenek which he had been working on for the last year.

rary

Further radio broadcasts,

recitals,

and

solo appearances with different

orchestras (Toronto Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, St. Catherine's

"My Love Affair with the Microphone" Civic Orchestra) occupied the rest of the year. In the

fall

97

I

of 1951, at the

age of nineteen, Glenn toured Canada's western provinces accompanied

by his mother.

He performed

the Fourth Beethoven Concerto with the

Vancouver Symphony, conducted by William Steinberg, and gave a solo recital in Calgary.

Steinberg happened to be a good friend of

Kathe and Eugene Ostwald, and whenever he conducted cisco he I

would have dinner with

had heard about

his

my

family.

my parents,

San FranEven before meeting Glenn, in

unusual interpretations directly from a conductor's

point of view.

—

to these public appearances and his radio broadcasts many Massey Hall concerts had been taped live not to mention the efforts of his enterprising manager in promoting his career, Glenn was quickly rising to prominence throughout Canada.

Thanks

of his

—

SELF-ISO LATI O N

When

he was nineteen, Glenn dropped out of the Malvern

Collegiate Institute.

same

time.

It

was simply too much

to fulfill the

demands of academic studies and a musical career at the This marked the beginning of a self-imposed moratorium, a

period of separation from parents and teachers and relative isolation from social involvements generally.

parents' cottage at

During

Lake Simcoe.

He

this period

he lived alone

spent the time learning

in his

new music,

practicing, reading, listening to the radio, playing the phonograph,

going for long walks. Fulford,

who had

He

did maintain contact with his old friend

himself quit Malvern

earlier,

claiming that he was "a

creative individual in rebellion against a repressive environment,"'

may have been another

of Glenn's reasons.

and

Bob

which

The two dropouts now

decided to form a business together. Consulting with lawyers and bankers,

they created a mini-corporation called

New Music Associates, whose

purpose was to organize and present concerts devoted

to

music by "new"

composers who were then practically unknown in Toronto. Fulford rented a concert hall seating three hundred people, of $31.50

a night.

two friends

He

at a cost

printed the tickets, took care of publicity, invited

to serve as ushers,

and wrote the checks

—

"all

of

them mea-

Self-Isolation

ger"-

99

I

—while Glenn selected the composers and the performers, choos-

main pianist. Memorial Concert, was held on October Schoenberg The first event, a old, played Schoenberg's Three Piano years now twenty 1952. Glenn,

ing himself, of course, as the

4,

Pieces, opus

1

Ode

Suite for Piano, opus 25; and the piano part to

1;

He

Nafoleon, opus 41.

also

accompanied

to

Schoenberg

a singer in six

Songs. As though that weren't enough to do, he wrote an explanatory' lecture about the

"the

opaque

to the

me

music heard that evening,

in

what Bob Fulford calls it was read

style later familiar to readers of his liner notes;

audience by Frank Herbert, a

CBC

announcer who confessed

afterward that he understood almost none of

The second New Music

to

"''

it.

Associates concert again featured music by

two most distinguished pupils, Alban Berg and

Schoenberg and his Anton Webern. This time, too, Glenn provided an explanatory lecture, which was printed four typewritten pages, single-spaced and distributed along with the program to members of the audience. This "lecture" not only demonstrates what Bob Fulford, himself an accomplished jour-

—

—

the "opaqueness" in Glenn's literary style, but reveals the

nalist, calls

young

pianist's

remarkable

facility, at

age twenty' and without any special

training in the field, to behave like a musicologist.

An example There

of his "opaqueness":

common

is

to

most musicians w ho have come under the influence

of the Schoenbergoan well as contemporary,

sound forms

An example

[sic]

universe an approach toward music, classic as

which attempts through

to the lowest

common

analysis,

to

reduce

of his musical erudition:

Webern began

to

use the twelve-tone technique consistently after 1925

and, subsequently the solidity and assurance which were absent in of the works of his transitional period, are felt in the

extended

treatment of his ideas.

program]

is

one of the longer of

eight minutes). texture.

It

all

denominator.

The

first

opens with

properties of his

row

more

many

forceful

The Saxophone Quartet [included on his early twelve-tone

movement

is

ternar\' in

a five-bar introduction in four three-tone

works

(it

lasts

and the

almost

shape and canonic

which

in

lays bare the interval

groups which are echoed in

row transposed down two semi-tones. The canon is rhythmically altered to display subtle relationships between these two inverted canon by a

rows;

.

100

/

GLENN GOULD

A B I^B^A C'BEl''

D

C

EF

B DE^^ C ,C»A, ^G»G B

AD

G«

F«

.

F«

.

DG

E B^F

C

-»

For this program, Glenn performed in four of the presented.

Sonata

in

five difficult

works

He played Webern's Variations for Piano, opus 27, and Berg's One Movement, opus 1, a work he had recently recorded for

commercial recording. With the mezzosoGlenn performed Schoenberg's song cycle Das Buch der hangenden Garten (The Book of the Hanging Gardens), opus 15, and

Hallmark Records,

Roma

prano

his first

Butler,

he participated

performance of Webern's Quartet

in the

phone, Clarinet, Violin, and Piano. The

Webern's Five Movements

for

Tenor Saxo-

for

work on the program, String Quartet, opus 5, required no pianfifth

ist; but Glenn had scheduled himself to perform in yet another work, Schoenberg's Variations for Organ, which at the last moment had to be

"regrettably canceled.

A

"^

third concert organized by

was devoted

entirely to

"But Glenn, concert?"

"Bach

if

we

shortlived corporation

are

New Music

Associates,

why

are

we doing a Bach

Bob asked him. is

ever new,"

but that does not sons.

Glenn and Bob's

the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

tell

is

what Bob remembers

as Glenn's explanation,^

the whole story. There were strong personal rea-

Glenn had been working very hard on Bach's Goldberg

written originally for the harpsichord and relatively

unknown

Variations,

at the time.

This remarkable work, about forty minutes in duration, consists of an

opening and closing "Aria" plus

thirty Variations all

on the same ground

Glenn wanted to try it out in public, and the all-Bach program on October 16, 1954, would give him an opportunity to do so. Only fifteen people showed up for this concert. The two contemporary music concerts had been well attended and well reviewed in the press, but the Bach concert was spoiled by Hurricane Hazel. A torrential rainstorm hit Toronto, producing catastrophic damage and much disarray. Also on this ill-fated program was an appearance by the gifted young bass.

Canadian contralto Maureen

Forrester,

making her debut

paid her agent what seems to have been our highest fee writes

I

Bob Fulford

can

One

still

in his

in Toronto. "I

—

fifty dollars,"

memoirs.

hear the applause echoing through the mostly empty building.

of those applauding

was

Sir Ernest

MacMillan, the conductor of the

^

Self-Isolation who was

Toronto SvTnphony.

.

.

Bach concert was no

.

On

work but had

already familiar with Glenn's

She was twenty-four

not heard Forrester before.

mainly in Montreal

101

I

that occasion

we

great financial blow,

lost

it

and

that year,

money

.

.

.

known

still

But while the

New

was the end of

Music

Associates/

We do know how different recorded a year later in

Bach

Glenn's interpretation of the Goldberg Vari-

1954 was from the phenomenal performance of

ations in

New York. He

adolescent years

style since his

Wanda Landowska, Edwin

Fischer,

this

had been searching

when he

work he

for a suitable

listened to recordings by

Pablo Casals, and other highly

regarded Bach interpreters; he had liked none of them. However, there

was one

New

pianist, in

York

— RosahTi Tureck—whose recorded

pretations, especially of the Goldberg Variations,

As Glenn Back

recalled

many

in the forties,

Bach

in

a battle in

which

on the way

in

I

it

in the

was

I

me

to

a teenager,

was never going

to get a surrender flag go, but her records

fight alone.

It

who

she was the one

a sensible way. In those days ...

which Bach should

dence that one did not put

inter-

to admire.

years later:

when

what seemed

he had come

I

w as

from

my

were the

played

fighting

teacher

first evi-

was placing of such uprightness,

to

moral sphere. There was such a sense of repose that had

nothing to do with languor, but rather with moral rectitude in the

liturgical

sense.

Up

Glenn worked painstakingly on his Bach interpretaIt was a time of introspection and selfrenewal. Here he could practice at all hours, play back his work on the tions

at the cottage

and other

repertoire.

tape recorder, read, study

compose, ence or

new

scores, enlarge his repertoire, improvise,

and phonograph, all without outside interferHis solitude at Lake Simcoe was interrupted only by

listen to the radio

criticism.

quick drives. Glenn was not one to obey Uptergrove and slam into

a

traffic rules.

Hed

speed into

parking space in front of the coffeeshop.

Here he chatted with the locals, who didn't think of him as a celebrated pianist. He also spent a good deal of time roaming in the woods with a

new collie named Banquo, a recent replacement who was ailing with a tumor of the back. During those vears of seclusion finishing touches

would

on

his

for faithful old Nick,

in his early twenties

unique and inimitable piano

differentiate his plaving

from that of

contrasts between staccato and

ever\'

Gould put the

st\le, a style that

other pianist: marked

legato, unconventionally fast or slow

102

GLENN GOULD

/

tempi, exceptional rhythmic

With

voices.

made

this style

went

articulating with lips

He

him

to do, often loud

on

low

chair,

own It

enough

to

that also

in

motion,

were executing

his fingers

or sang, as his

mother had

be heard by the public. Sitting

he undulated the entire upper part of

his

body

in a

motion consistent with the tempo he was playing. And whenever

hands was not busy on the keyboard, he used

his

making

tor's,

hummed

always

taught

one of

mannerisms

of bodily

and teeth the passages

nimbly on the keyboard.

his

number

a

performances unique. His mouth was incessantly

his

circular

high clarity of articulation, respect

vitality,

and deliberate emphasis on inner or hidden

for contrapuntal texture,

sorts of expressive gestures

all

and

like a

it

in effect

conduc-

conducting his

playing.

was not uncommon

ics to

for

members

of an audience or newspaper

crit-

remark on these physical mannerisms. Some found them amusing,

Many assumed

that Gould did way of calling attenthe movements were made primarily to satisfy

others distracting or actively annoying.

these things for purely exhibitionistic purposes, as a tion to himself. In fact,

some inner need. They were artificially

grafted onto

was playing alone, and

it.

in

integral to his piano playing, not

One can

observe them in films

something

made when he

segments of videotape ("out-takes") that were

never intended to be shown in public.

Glenn always ity

when playing on a piano humming would get louder, like singing and

of his musical performance. For instance,

whose sound he a

"mannerisms" helped improve the qual-

insisted that his

disliked, his

masking tone (the vacuum cleaner)

of the music.

movements

And

it

is

living alone in the this

if

the

Solitude and isolation can heighten an ecstatic

quite likely that

Glenn was using

country to experiment with such

time the social

also blossomed: his

and joking, and

a rapture, a swoon of mind has expanded beyond the

an intense state of emotion,

is

of the body.

moment, and

to

his internal perception

the undulations of his trunk as well as the conducting

delight, a trancelike feeling as

Around

enhance

of his arms were geared to the experience of ecstasy while

playing. Ecstasy

limits

to

traits that

made Gould seem

odd way of overdressing,

be signs of disease. Already (It

in those days

for his

too,

were

humor

he believed

he was running to physicians D., in Toronto,

who

complaints of diarrhea, and

Chloromycetin, an antibiotic, for complaints of lung

mannerisms,

"eccentric"

his excessive use of

was Colin A. McRae, M.

would prescribe tincture of opium

"

moratorium of

his hypersensitivity to bodily sensations that

and chiropractors.

"neurotic

his

states.

infection.'^

Gould's

integral to his artistic personality.

They

"

Self -Isolation

103

I

he seemed

were part of

a behavioral style that

need

for expressing

what he

about himself as a highly nervous creative

artist, striving

felt

constantly to excel and to special but not secure.

become

He wanted

to

the world's foremost pianist.

He was

people to notice his vulnerability as

well as his genius.

Bob

who

Fulford,

at that time,

probably understood Glenn better than anyone else

has raised the question, "Were his eccentricities part of an

intentionally self-created myth, or did they proceed inevitably from his

neuroses?

[Glenn] could act oddly, laugh good-naturedly ior,

and then

he had

act oddly again.

a curious habit of

discussing a

When

he was

at the

oddness of his behav-

a teenager,

and

a

young man,

German accent when he was German book. The year he discovered

speaking with a

German composer

or a

Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra, the accent grew almost impenetrably thick. If

you kidded him about

start again, all

satirizing

I

it

he would stop, and a few minutes

the while admitting that

it

was

a

funny way

himself or was he trying to work himself into a

to talk.

later

Was he

German mood?'°

think an additional determinant must be considered. Glenn's ego-

boundaries evidently were so fluid that he could easily absorb into his

own

personality certain qualities observed in other people.

gifted imitator of their facial expressions,

He was

a

speech mannerisms, foreign

accents, and body movements. As he grew older, he loved to engage in

playacting and make-believe with friends. television,

he found

it

When

he worked

in radio

and

possible, without any theatrical training, to imper-

sonate a variety of fictional characters such as Karlheinz Klopweisser

(modeled on the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen) or Chianti

(a

takeoff on Marlon Brando). But there

Mwon

was always something

forced or excessive about these escapes into fantasy. "He's a real

was the judgment passed by

number

a

of people

ham"

who knew Glenn Gould

well."

His indulgence in

German

accents also suggests the growing influence

of his very Germanic-sounding manager, Walter

now

Homburger, who had

replaced Alberto Guerrero as an older role model and mentor.

Glenn's withdrawal to the country to study and practice independently

marked the

final

who had done

so

When Glenn dent days, and

break

in his

much

to

ambivalent subordination to the teacher

mold

his posture

and technique

at the piano.

entered his third decade, he closed the door on his stuall

lessons with Guerrero ceased.

Glenn

felt

they had

104

become

GLENN GOULD

/

increasingly unproductive, mostly times for argument, while

Guerrero thought Glenn was socially stunted.

who knew

William Aide,

both men, told

me

that "Guerrero strongly

objected to Glenn's mannerisms and detested what he authenticity in his performances.

felt

was

a lack of

was he who rejected Glenn, not the

It

other way. Guerrero had a very cultivated and artistically authoritative influence on major Canadian

agreement with

free. Psychologically speaking,

a

much

Rather than remain in constant

artists.

this particular student,

he probably decided

Guerrero had been Glenn's

whatever his son demanded. Guerrero

really left

dis-

him

artistic father,

who

stronger personality than Glenn's real father,

to set

gave in to

permanent marks on

Glenn.'

"What were

they?"

and

flat

and tapping method, Glenn further absorbed from Guerrero

his

"Well, in addition to his basic piano technique, the low chair fingers

basic seriousness, total intellectual concentration,

supremacy. Guerrero had one ultimate concern that

one had

like

Monopoly

and

total necessity for

—music. And he believed

be a winner, whether playing the piano, or playing games

to

or croquet, or arguing,

which were what they did together

regularly."

"Do you think

that Guerrero might have reinforced Glenn's congenital

sense of always having to be "Definitely.

It

number one?"

played right into Glenn's intense uneasiness about other

example, Glenn detested Claudio Arrau. Arrau really upset him because he was a friend of Guerrero, a rival, and a visitor to Toronto. Glenn would call him 'a child.' During the nine years Guerrero was Glenn's teacher, Guerrero aged a lot, and even before they parted compianists. For

pany he stopped going

to

Glenn's concerts."'"

For an interview published

had

some

years later in

Our

outlooks on music were diametrically opposed.

and

I

wanted

anyone

to

to set out

to

be a "head"

my own

of self-confidence,

Homburger was ness and didn't

which

New

let

snowshoes, and

which has never

I

left

He was

nine years

kid. Besides,

be a student of the same teacher.

on

The

Glenn

Yorker,

about Alberto Guerrero:

this to say

I

decided

it

a "heart"

man

a long time for

is

was time

for

me

developed an insufferable amount me.'^

a very different kind of father figure.

He was

all

busi-

himself get into arguments about musical matters,

basically didn't interest him.

And

rather than criticizing Glenn's

Self-Isolation

I

105

106

GLENN GOULD

/

—

Glenn with the very thing he said he dreaded most to be looked at. The money motive obviously was a factor in his agreeing to appear more frequently in public. Glenn liked making money and became good at it. Walter Homburger introduced him to an accountant, Patrick Sullivan, and an attorney, Morris Gross, for practical help with contracts and his money. Glenn also learned at an early age how to invest in stocks and

When

bonds.

Canadian In the

Stratford

met him

first

I

1957, he bragged about his assets in

in

mines.

silver

summer Music

of 1953,

Gould participated

for the first

Festival. Stratford, seventy-five miles

time

in the

west of Toronto,

already hosted an annual Shakespeare Festival. Musicians participated in the plays,

and

as their

numbers grew

it

was decided

to give concerts

there as well, and to invite a roster of distinguished artists for a

Music

Festival.

shed

to the

A

at the

summer

orchestra played in a hall open at the sides similar

full

Tanglewood

Festival in Massachusetts.

The

hall seated

chamber The atmosphere encouraged informal mingling of musicians and and led to performances of chamber operas. One of the most

nearly a thousand people, with smaller spaces available for

music. actors,

unforgettable was Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldnt, featuring the French

mime Marcel Marceau's North American

New York playing

from

There are many

debut, Alexander Schneider

the wandering violinist.

stories

about Glenn

at Stratford.

One

of

them con-

cerns the rehearsals in 1954 for Beethoven's Trio, opus 70, no. "Ghost"),

which was

to

1

(the

be recorded and televised. In 1950, the Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation had inaugurated multimedia performances in

Canada, and Glenn Gould had become one of their most popular stars. Now he would perform chamber music with two other outstanding musicians

—Alexander Schneider, who

for

many

years had been a

member

of

the great Budapest String Quartet, and Zara Nelsova, the Canadian cellist,

who had

and

living in

risen to spectacular

London.

I'd

prominence when only twelve years old know Zara when she performed in

gotten to

San Francisco, and we played

string trios together with the violist

Mary

James. Zara clearly remembers her rehearsals with Glenn:

"There were many disagreements and arguments from the beginning. We'd start rehearsing in the morning, in blazing heat well up in the eighties. Glenn appeared wearing a heavy overcoat, muffler, gloves, and hat. Sasha [Alexander Schneider] immediately objected when Glenn kept his piano score closed and told Sasha he was used to playing everything from

memory. Sasha and

I

were planning

to play

with our parts open in front

Self-Isolation

The

107

I

practice of not using a score while performing music grew out of

the era of virtuosity beginning at the end of the eighteenth century.

Mozart seldom looked

at

when he

the music

played his

own composi-

tions; indeed, often he hadn't even put the solo part on paper. In the

nineteenth century, playing "by heart" without the music became stan-

dard procedure, despite the fact that this terrorized those musicians u hose memorv' was not totally reliable or who simply felt more comfortable with the score in front of them. Clara to the custom of playing from

abandon

it.

was famous

Franz Liszt

without looking

at

memory

until

Schumann adhered

bravely

advancing age forced her

to

impromptu performances

for his

the music. Before the turn of the century the Mei-

ningen Orchestra conducted by Hans von Bulow played entire symphon-

from memory, and

ies

when

it

has

become almost

performing with an orchestra, to do

routine for soloists, especially

so.

A number of string ensem-

bles, including the famous Kolisch Quartet, which in the 1920s and 1930s introduced much modern chamber music, almost never played

with the music in front of them.

There continues

to

be hearty debate about

this practice.

Some musi-

cians say that \isual dependence on the score reduces their spontaneity and expressive freedom. Others claim that the absence of the score

increases their apprehensiveness about making mistakes, and interferes

with the quality of their performance.

Glenn, w^ho seemed

to possess

recall, liked to say that

centurv' virtuosity, but

way and

he disdained anything smacking of nineteenth-

when

used

all

felt

that musicians "can relax

rarely

came

it

oso

the

photographic memory and immediate

a .

.

to performing,

he acted

like a virtu-

score. Alexander Schneider, by contrast, .

and make music" only when there

is

a

score on the stand in front of them.'^

But what bothered Schneider more than anything about Glenn was the pianists arrogance, specifically over aspects of interpretation. as usual

had made

the "Ghost" Trio must sound, and he perfect inner

Glenn

up his mind long before reheasals began about

now

refused to

model of Beethoven's music. times have you actually performed

"How many

budge from

this piece?"

how this

Sasha

asked him. "This will be the

first

time."

"Well, I've plaved the trio at least four

Sasha

But Glenn got the ity is

hundred

to five

hundred times,"

said. last laugh:

more important than

"My

position has always

"''

quantity.

been

that qual-

"

"

108

GLENN GOULD

/

Nelsova, a vastly experienced chamber music player, sided with "I had made my London debut at the age of eight and since Canada had formed with my two sisters a trio that concertized regularly. sided with 'Sasha,' and that forced Glenn to play the trio in a more orthodox way. [A 33 rpm recording of this performance has survived.]'^ As for his using the score, Glenn brought it with him into the concert hall and sat on it. Sasha later admitted that Glenn played Very

Schneider.

coming

to

I

weir and had a promising future."'^

Glenn made another personal contact with

a

member

of the

New York

musical establishment before his phenomenal success there in 1955:

Harvey Olnick, a newcomer

occupy a chair

"How

happen

did you

"He came wanted me

to see

to

his inevitable

do

me

to

all

Toronto and the

meet Glenn?"

I

asked Mr. Olnick.

Glenn

in the States,

the tickets

me

if I'd

to

give

It

was

all

heard that was

him

that he got, without accent I

a review. I'd heard,

heard

I

knew

and everything

of

I

Bach playing

ever

I'd

just going lickety-split.

of played that

way

at

all.

romantic playing, you know, with a very English calm.

bowled

when went

wonderful rhythmic pulse

like this, particularly in this

in Toronto that

to publicize

Bach.

"What was your critical reaction? "Then I was just dazzled. It was the only kind

one

something

go to his next concert in

very good, you know,' but nothing like what

to this concert.

to

of a sudden because his friend Ezra Schabas

a review for

me

music historian

first

university.

debut there. Glenn asked

Toronto, and promised 'Yes, he's

to

any Canadian

in

It

And

was so

I

No

all

very

was

just

over." "

"What

did you do?

"After the concert

standing there. teacher?'

I'd

I

I

went out

said to him,

to

go to

heard the Goldbergs done by

heard Glenn playing them. Certainly of

my

office,

and

'Where did you come from? this

I

found Glenn

Who was

your

Wanda Landowska, and now

I

had the harpsichord technique """^

Landowska as well as the pianistic intensity of Rudolf Serkin. That was precisely the sentiment Olnick conveyed in the article he

wrote, but did not sign, for the influential Musical Courier, published in

the States: "If [Gould's] achievements in the music of Bach are matched

by comparable insights into works by other masters, the public be confronted with an ska and Serkin. It

was

artist in

no way

inferior to

such

artists as

will

soon

Landow-

'^'

a dangerous challenge: to perform the

works of other composers

with the same degree of mastery he'd shown in playing Bach. Glenn

— Self-Isolatioii

109

I

was already experiencing some trouble with other composers, specifically Beethoven's Sonata no. 30 in E Major, opus 109. One variation in the

mo\ ement is famous hand. Glenn called

last

right

for a it

sudden

shift

from

sixths to thirds in the

"a positive horror." After starting to practice

the difficult passage, "one thing after another began to go wrong." Soon

he de\ eloped [in

the last

claimed to

"a total

"as loud as possible,"

accompaming "as

block about

—

this thing

I

couldn't get to that point

movement] without literally shung and stopping." He later have solved the problem by practicing with two radios placing by concentrating his attention on "four unimportant

notes in the

left

hand," and by placing the entire passage

unmusically as possible.""" It

apparently did not occur to Glenn to seek help from a more experi-

enced

pianist.

The two

years of isolation at Lake

Simcoe had cut him

off

from the corrective influence of other musicians and taught him to be utterly self-reliant. He no longer wanted to be advised by older musical colleagues; at least that

was what

his beha\ior

Schneider. Har\ey Olnick, and others like

with people

them

like

suggests.

Alexander

He was

tening more to business advisers

—

accountant. Glenn's handling of

money may have strengthened

lis-

manager, his stockbroker, and his

his

his

mas-

culine identification with his father, a prosperous businessman. But even

these people couldn't always get through to him. Glenn always had to do things his

own

way.

Unfortunately, this willfulness was not

which remained more

he wanted or fantasized or feared had belly

w as

matched by

childlike than adult. to

He

come

his sense of reality,

believed that everything true.

A

out to destroy him. Glenn could imagine himself in a as piano \irtuoso, music

critic,

in his

fit.

Along with that went

leonlike qualit}' of eccentric behavior, verv' appealing sure, but

variet}- of roles

composer, novelist, and medical expert

without being certain which really

be

minor ache

treated as a medical emergency. Listeners at his concerts were

masking deep feelings of

anxietv'

and

a

chame-

and entertaining,

fragility.

to

10

TRIUMPH

THE

IN

STATE

S

Glenn's nervousness and indecisiveness about the future may be gleaned from a conversation with Zara Nelsova during the Stratford Festival just six

months before

his

debut

in

the United

States.

"We rehearsed

in the

a really sickly color.

Glenn

morning, and his face had a yellow complexion,

Obviously he wasn't ready for the day

started in the afternoon.

he had

Tolstoy, that

evening he took floored

me

me coming

He seemed

He

told us he'd

to read every classic

aside and asked,

been up

he could get

"How does one

yet,

all

his

especially worried about

There was

abroad in those days, so

I

friend of mine, the pianist

arranging such tours, and

I

how he might be

in

received

if

suggested a concert tour of Alaska.

Maxim Schapiro, was active at recommended to Glenn that he

which

Canada. he were

being done for Canadian

little

for

hands on. That

start a career?'

from one of the most successful pianists

to play in the States.

which

night reading

artists

A

good

that time in

get in touch

with him."

"Did Glenn not

such things?

"Not

"

I

a word.

tell

you that he had

a

manager who was taking care of

asked Zara.

Glenn never mentioned

a

manager, which

made me

real-

"

Triumph

had no need

my

for

111

advice and was simply expressing inse"'

not to mention a bit of deceitfulness.

curity,

I

hearing about his triumphal recitals in the United States,

ize later, after

that he really

in the States

Walter Homburger had booked two dates for Glenn's debut

Washington, D.C., and January

States: January 2, 1955, in

in the

11 in

New

York City. Glenn fretted about what to perform. His repertoire was large

enough by now

to

fill

a

dozen

programs, but he was after some-

recital

thing unique that would instantly identify

Bach

display his

expertise, prove

him

him

as a very special artist,

loyal to classical as well as

porary composers, and demonstrate his keyboard wizardry In addition,

much

he was seeking

—

contem-

a tall order.

program that he would enjoy playing. After

a

agonizing and rearranging, he settled on a truly unusual selection:

two organ pieces by outstanding composers of the seventeenth century transcribed for piano, a Pavane by Orlando Gibbons and a Fantasia by

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck;

five

Three-Part Inventions (Sinfonias) and

the Partita no. 5 by Bach; Webern's Variations, opus 27, Beethoven's

Sonata no. 30, opus 109

— the one with the dangerous

the Piano Sonata opus

by Alban Berg.

1,

His parents and Mr. Homburger came along on the States, everyone trying to pretend that this

many

nothing very different from Glenn's

was

variation

trip to

—and

the United

just an ordinary event,

previous concerts in Canada.

His Washington debut, a matinee, took place in the beautiful Phillips Gallery.

A

small audience appeared, but the critic Paul

extremely complimentary review in The Washington

among

Hume

Post,

wrote an

mentioning

other things that "Few pianists play the instrument so beautifully,

and with such regard

so lovingly, so musicianly in manner,

for its real

Glenn Gould is a pianist with rare gifts for the world. It must not long delay hearing and according him the honor and audience he deserves. We know of no other pianist like him of any age."^ The news spread like prairie fire through the network of musicians,

nature and

its

enormous

literature.

especially pianists eager to

knew

"I

that Glenn's

know

New

if it

.

.

was

true.

York debut would be a sensational thing,

Harvey Olnick, whose recent

says

.

article in

The Musical Courier had

helped pave the way to his success. Harvey had excellent connections

New this

York.

"I

called people

up and

kooky guy from Canada.

I

told

them

they've got to go

called Mrs. Leventritt, who's an old friend

[and a generous supporter of talented young musicians]. 'This

is

a

phenomenon,

get the guys to go.'

in

and hear

he's playing in

Town

And

I

told her,

Hall, go for God's sake

and

So she called Claude Frank, and Gary Graffman, and

"

112

I

remember

can't

all

GLENN GOULD

/

the other guys. Who's the pianist

who

got killed in

a plane crash?"

"William Kapell.

was

"Yea, Willy

Indeed, the elite of size

up

"^

there.

New York's

A

ories of Glenn's recital.

returned to

Gould

New York after

earlier,

younger pianists went

The

their latest competitor.

pianist Martin

brilliant Juilliard graduate,

two years of army duty

through a mutual connection

"Glenn had a recording with him.

It

was

the

Town

in

Hall to

vivid

mem-

Canin had

just

Europe. He'd met

at Juilliard.

a small

Canadian

label called

And we went into the library, and put on this recording of G-Major Partita. And it simply blew me away. It blew me away! First

Hallmark.

of

to

Canin has

all,

I

the speed.

I'd

never thought of

it

that way."

"What do you remember about Glenn's Town Hall debut?" "It was very poorly attended, maybe thirty-five people in the hall. Glenn was a total unknown at that time. remember meeting somebody asked, 'How did you like it?' and this person after that was over, and I

I

said, 'Oh,

it

was

And

okay.'

I

expressed myself, 'You know, I've

ever heard. This

"He

felt

in

my

muscles as

I

phenomenal.'

is

started with the piano lid

—

almost a tightness

think that's one of the greatest concerts

I

down and

the half-stick for the Gib-

ended so softly The first half of the program he ended with opus 109, and the second part with the Berg sonata. Both pieces as you know end pianissimo. And he was so different, and the repertoire he played was so different. He was just great. I mean, he was really great. I don't think I was at the time familiar enough with the opus 109 Beethoven to say that it was authentic, and maybe his

bons

still

I

remember

because

this

playing was less eccentric than two. But

I

was savvy enough

it

became later. He was then only know immediately that this was

it

to

twentya major

league player. Triple A, no, not triple A, major leagues, quadruple

Harvey Olnick behalf. "She

heim I

A.'"*

about Rosie Leventritt's efforts on Glenn's

had coordinated

a party for him.

She called David Oppen-

Masterworks Division, Columbia Records] and and Joe and Lillian Fuchs [the famous violinist and

[the director of the

called

violist].

knew

me

told

him

too,

Of course you could have

gotten tickets for nothing, but

we

empty unless we did some last-minute Glenn played the concert and then went to the

the hall would be nearly

promotion. At any

rate,

party.

He

these

rival pianists."

didn't

know

there were going to be so

"He must have been

petrified."

many

pianists there,

all

Triumph "He

wasn't petrified!

in the States

He was

he wasn't really

He was just

ill.

is ver\'

outgoing and

Rosie Leventritt called

made

a

good

party,

to the concert.

and she hated

The

press

She

me

He

became

sick

and

feigned illness, you know, but

uncomfortable with so many people. Gary

may have asked him

things. Well,

when

the next day, she was furious because she'd

good food and said,

113

so unpetrified that he

decided to leave within half an hour.

Graffman

I

stuff,

and went

to

some

trouble going

'What kind of a crazy kook have you sent me?'

his guts ever since.

"^

was more generous. John Briggs of The Musical Courier

wrote that "Gould's complete enthrallment with the abstract, abstruse,

Gould warming up

his

hands before Goldberg Varia-

tions session. Photograph by Dan Weiner. Courtesy of Sony Classical.

114

/

GLENN GOULD

beauties of these contrastive works seems to result in a sense of almost other-worldly dedication. ...

who have iar

can only

I

call

him

and warn those

great,

new and

not heard him that he will plunge them into

unfamil-

depths of feeling and perception."^

According

to

Glenn himself, the sudden

illness,

which Harvey Olnick

described as "feigned," was an acute bout of chronic

come on

just before the concert.

clumsy feeling

in his

The symptoms

arms and hands

— had been

—

fibrositis that

pain, tension,

familiar to

him

had

and

a

for years

to cause increasing stress and disability in the future. To have happen just before a very important recital was extremely frightening. Glenn always sought to reduce the tension in his arms by bathing them in hot water thirty minutes before going on stage. And he relied on tranquilizers. We do not know what drugs he took for that Town Hall

and were this

debut. (One of his biographers reports that Gould had been "rescued" that day by "a helpful druggist

who

applied the appropriate remedy.")^

That, on top of his generalized anxiety and social insecurity,

may

well

have contributed to the embarrassing episode in Mrs. Leventritt's drawing room.

Having run the gauntlet and

finally

New York was

played in

greatly satisfying to Gould, his family,

and

his

of course

manager. Besides, his

debut there had been widely covered by the Toronto papers, and gave people

at

home something

might be some hope

for

to celebrate.

Canadian

artists

He'd proved that there actually being appreciated outside their

provinces. Yet, in a practical sense, the debut itself did

had been an expensive investment

— $450

little

It

$1,000

programs and promotion, plus the cost of coming

for

to

and

stay-

New York. Ticket sales were minimal, and only the few cognoscenti

ing in

who attended were

able to spread the

word (not always

this extraordinary pianist. All of the eleven concerts

that year, 1955, took place in It

to further

to rent the hall,

his career.

was

It

that catapulted

Glenn Gould

On

artist.

How

this

Glenn

came about sounds almost

January 10, just a day before the

Schneider, the violinist

to

a lucky accident twenty-four hours later,

which permanently changed Glenn's attitude toward himself forming

rest of

Canada.

was not the Town Hall concert

international stardom.

favorably) about

he gave the

who had

in Stratford, received a call

New

as a per-

like a fain,' tale.

York debut, Alexander

recently played

chamber music with

from David Oppenheim, then director

Columbia Records. Oppenheim had with Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, a sensation in

of the Masterworks Division of

him

a recording by the

Europe, whose career had been curtailed because of a severe chronic

Tr

n

i

VI

States

p h in the

115

I

America, Lipatti was known primarily through a small number

illness. In

which had become

of exceptional recordings

premature death

collector's items after his

in 1950.

"Why can't we find another one like that?" Oppenheim asked Schneiwho told him that there was one, a person in Toronto named Glenn

der,

Gould, "who was, at

the piano.

"^

alas, a little crazy

Oppenheim went

but had a remarkable, hypnotic effect

to the concert

and liked what he heard.

Glenn's playing "set such a religious atmosphere that izing. ...

ence

I

to see

was

—

thrilled.

he got

there. Seeing none,

"I

after only

touch with Walter Homburger that time

it

to

work out

was unheard of

be offered a contract with a major recording

to

Homb-

negotiated Glenn's recording contract, you know," Walter

what he wanted

A

wanted

let

I

him do

to record,

doing because

I.""^

the small audi-

one hearing.

urger told me. "But

his

in

Columbia Masterworks. At

young musician

company

was just mesmer-

it

Oppenheim looked around

whether representatives from any other record company were

a contract with for a

'"^

felt

I

the arrangements with Columbia,

all

and when he wanted

That was

to record.

he knew more about what he wanted

to

wise decision, for Glenn Gould, as usual, had an agenda. to record Bach's

all

do than

Goldberg Variations, that masterful dusty

He

relic

of

the eighteenth centun,' which had remained obscure, reputed to be arid

and unappealing It

was

a

him out of

for performers

and audience

alike.

bold choice, and the Columbia executives it.

Ralph Kirkpatrick had brought out

made

the Goldberg Variations in 1938 and

at first tried talking

a scholarly edition of

a recording, as

other harpsichordists and pianists, including

had several

Wanda Landowska and

Rosalyn Tureck, whose pla\ing appealed primarily to Baroque music enthusiasts. Concert pianists generally preferred

works by Bach, say

a selection of his Preludes

programming shorter

and Fugues,

or the Italian

Concerto. For Glenn, however, the Goldbergs held enormous appeal.

As the most complexly organized and shrewdly integrated contrapuntal

variations ever written, they challenged his ingenuity.

Variations are not melodic variations

on

a

theme

as

we

The Goldberg them in

think of

the tradition of Mozart, Haydn, or Beethoven. In fact, the work

is

a

majestic Passacaglia (or Chaconne, to use the French expression) that

is

built

on a descending pattern, each variation restructuring the harmonic

implications of the bass in a different way. Everv' third variation are thirty altogether

—

intenals of the scale.

is

a dazzling

The

entire

canon written

work

is

— there

at progressively

higher

introduced and comes to an end

with the playing of a lovely "Aria" that Bach had written some fifteen

116

GLENN GOULD

/

Anna Magda-

years earlier for the "Notebook" he gave his second wife, lena.

Glenn had

Goldberg Variations during his ado-

fallen in love with the

lescence while studying with Guerrero,

had performed ies,

it.

who

also revered the

During the many hours spent mastering

Glenn adorned the

work and

their intricac-

variations with unique vivacity, a youthful impet-

uousness, and occasional serenity, as well as scandalous tempi and

ornamentation that broke traditional rules of Baroque interpretation. Exactly

how Bach and

other composers of the Baroque performed their

music has been a subject

for lengthy scholarly research

and debate. But

no evidence that Glenn approached the Goldbergs

in a dryly schol-

arly way, although he did consult the wordy Kirkpatrick he used his intuition and imagination to mold the music

edition. Rather,

there's

his inner self, to

make

it

why

This, perhaps, explains

into a replica of

and

express his innermost feelings of

all

attitudes.

the many works Glenn played and

recorded in his lifetime, the Goldberg Variations have always been considered his finest musical achievement and the best example of his key-

board

virtuosity.

The

fact that

Bach had composed them

insomnia, one of Glenn's worst symptoms,

as a kind of

music therapy

may also be

significant.

von Kaiserling, the former Russian ambassador a neurological condition

and sleepless

to Saxony,

for

Count

was victim

nights. His court musician,

to

Johann

Gottlieb Goldberg, a student of Bach, tried to help Kaiserling by playing

the harpsichord for serling

him

all

commissioned Bach

smooth and

lively

He

to

Finally,

ally,

it

.

.

.

while visiting Leipzig, Kaiclavier pieces "of little

such

a

cheered up by them

Thereafter the Count always called them

me one

of

my

variations.'

would have been obvious and amusing

name had once been

in jest,

day,

his

never tired of them, and for a long time sleepless nights

meant: 'Dear Goldberg, do play

family

One

compose some

character that he might be a

in his sleepless nights.

variations.

night.

for

Glenn, whose

Gold, to identify with Goldberg. Occasion-

he spoke of playing the "Gouldberg"

his signature work,

""

Variations.

They became

heard repeatedly on documentary films and tapes

honoring him.

The recording

sessions for

one week of June 1955, York.

The

Gould

story has

in

become

Columbia Masterworks took place during

an old church on East 30th Street

in

New

legendary:

arrived in coat, beret, muffler,

and

gloves.

"Equipment" consisted

of the customary music portfolio, also a batch of towels, two large bottles

Triumph

in the States

Gould conducting and dancing

to the

Goldberg Variations, CBS, 1955.

I

117

sounds of the

Photograph by Dan

Weiner. Courtesy of Sony Classical.

of spring water, five small bottles of pills tions)

and

his

own

special piano chair.

conducted rhapsodically, did

To Glenn's

.

(all .

different colors

Glenn was

and prescrip-

in perpetual

motion,

a veritable ballet to the music. For suste-

nance he munched arrowroot the recording crews'

.

biscuits,

drank skimmed milk, frowned on

Hero sandwiches.'^

delight, press reporters

were invited

to observe

him, and

he rewarded them with capricious interviews that quickly turned him into a celebrity. (According to

another

one biographer, he began

new keyboard phenomenon named

to

Liberace.")'^

sound "like Glenn obvi-

118

/

GLENN GOULD

ously wanted and needed the attention. While recording the Goldbergs,

he discovered a better and

faster

way

of gaining

it

than by playing for Uve

audiences. Here, in one of the technologically most advanced recording studios,

he was able

to repeat

and correct

message was perfect. With engineers

at his

his playing until the

beck and

call

musical

modulating the

tapes electronically, the possibility for innumerable playbacks, and no

audience coughing and staring

to distract

him, he created a recording of

the Goldberg Variations that matched his inner ideal of Bach's

achievement:

Gould

hi a meditative

McKague.

mood, 1955. Photograph

by

Don

artistic

Triumph It

in short,

is,

v\'ith

in the States

I

119

music which obsen'es neither end nor beginning, music

neither real

cHmax nor

lovers "rests lightly

real resolution,

music which

like Baudelaire's

on the wings of the unchecked wind."

It

has, then,

unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mel-

lowed bv mastery achieved, and revealed

to us here, as so rarely in art, in

the vision of subconscious design exulting

When seller,

upon

the recording was released in 1956

and

it

a pinnacle of potency.

it

quickly

became

'"*

a best-

has never been out of print, selling well even today- This

huge commercial success gave the young pianist and his parents and manager \'ast amounts of pleasure and pride, not to mention sizable royalties.

But, as

into the

Glenn confessed

most

difficult year

demand around

I

to

one interviewer,

"It

also

launched

have ever faced."' ^ Suddenly

in

me

great

the world as a performer, he would find this role increas-

ingly unbearable.

Thus

it

was

a

media event, the

extraordinary'

and well-publicized

recording of an obscure work by Bach, that catapulted a young Canadian to the

sphere of select, great international

upon Glenn's

life

was

to last until

Goldberg Variations shortly before his death, dual purpose, also propelled

him

artists.

he re-recorded a

when

The

spell this cast

final version of

this

the

work, serving a

into the world of the immortal pianists.

11

FIRST CONTACT WITH P S YC H ATRY I

Although

in his writings

and interviews Glenn occasionally made

use of psychological terms, such as "ego, "catharsis," "traumatic "

associations," and,

more

often, spoke publicly about his psycho-

somatic problems and the sedatives he used for controlling them, he was always exceedingly coy about any personal experience with psychiatric or psychoanalytic treatment. In his

own

review of the

first

biographical

study published about him,' Glenn commented:

Payzant devotes three pages to a discussion of the various ways in which

Gould has employed psychoanalytic terminology

in his writing, presents

evidence for and against Gould having been psychoanalyzed, and, in the end, leaves the question up for grabs. Given that Payzant and Gould are

both residents of Toronto and that this sort of speculation could presumably have

been

—verging

mony

settled with a simple "yes" or "no,"

indeed on

idle

— can

musing

such inconclusive

produce

a rather

testi-

comical

effect.^

Well, the fact

is

that after recording the Goldberg Variations in

New

York in 1955, Glenn did consult a psychoanalytically trained psychiatrist

Contact uith Psychiatry

First

and even entered treatment his closest friends

Most

likely,

briefly.

and from

this

had is

to

be kept secret from

a matter of conjecture.

the idea of having to seek help for emotional or mental prob-

lems was somehow offensive

to his innate

sense of independence, his

problem by himself, and

desire to solve ever\' to rely

Why

his other doctors

121

I

on other people

for advice.

tion of stigma, the fear that

Then

his general unwillingness

there was undoubtedly the ques-

he might be looked down on or made fun of

for turning to a doctor of the psyche. In those days, especially in staid,

conser\'ative Toronto, going to a psychiatrist

of being crazy.

caUing him a

young

While

carried the implication

madness was surely

that, the reputation of

artist just

still

several of Glenn's musical colleagues to

were

alread\-

be avoided by

beginning an international career.

Nevertheless, in 1955, Glenn went to see Dr. Albert E. Moll, one of the leading academic psychiatrists at McGill Universit}' in Montreal.

know about

this

from two sources,

wTote on a prescription that Glenn the National Librar\' of

Canada

first,

filed

among his

private papers

Dr.

trip to

the

Bahamas

Molls prescription

with Glenn

is

not known.

(now

who

in

perhaps

in

1956

for publicit)' purposes."*

undated, so the exact date of his meeting

is

Most

likely

it

took place in August 1955, while

the pianist was in Montreal to perform Beethoven's Fourth Piano certo, or

at

Ottawa),^ and second, Glenn's gossipy

in

conversations with the writer-photographer Jock Carroll,

took him on a

We

the recommendations Dr. iMoll

September when he played

Con-

a solo recital there: the

Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Sonata no. 32, opus 111, and Hindemith's Third Sonata.

How

ular psychiatrist, again

it

happened

we do

that

he was directed

not know. However,

it

New

York in

amount

of anxi-

both before and after his successful recording sessions in June, Glenn had been experiencing more than the usual ety,

and that

his

customary ways of getting

relief

to this partic-

seems clear that

no longer sufficed

to

The neighborhood chiropractor, Arthur Bennett, w ho had been treating him since childhood, had recently died, and his control the symptoms.

practice

was taken over by

another chiropractor

who

Denton B. Bennett. But according to Glenn later on, the two "did not hit it

his son,

treated

Denton was kind of rough with Glenn."' On May 18, 1955, after in Ottawa and Toronto and just a month before lea\ing Canada to record the Goldberg Variations in New York, Goulds s\Tnptoms

off,

two concerts

escalated to the point where he had to be seen on an emergency basis at the Toronto General Hospital.^

The

hospital records are

problem was. But during

his

no longer available

two-week vacation

to

document what the Bahamas the fol-

in the

"

122

GLENN GOULD

/

lowing year, Glenn disclosed that he had been suffering from "a spastic

stomach, diarrhea, and tightening of the throat. treating

me

for

He

now."'

it

I've

got three doctors

described to Jock Carroll what sounds like a

psychogenic eating disorder, related

in part to the

panicky fear of soon

having to give concerts in Russia:

My

hysteria about eating,

getting worse

it's

prospect of the Russia trip

—

Moscow: GOULD THROWS UP! And cow embassy dinners impossible

—

getting worse. really

.

.

alarming

Where

it

used

.

is

to

can see what

I

to avoid

—and

Just the thought of eating that the

be just

Now,

the time.

all

just the

can see the Canadian Press writing from

I

whole area of

and

it

all I

will

be

like in

get terrified.

this thing

a fear of eating in public,

Mos-

the time this thing

seems

now

to

it s

.

.

.

is

What's

be spreading.

a fear of being

trapped anywhere with people, even having any kind of dealings with people.^

That, incidentally, may have been one reason why Glenn had to run away from Mrs. Leventritt's party after his Town Hall debut in January 1955. He had been going to see Morris Herman, M. D., a highly respected family practitioner in Toronto for medical help, and Dr. Her-

man continued to be his primary Herman told me that Glenn was

physician for the next ten years. Dr.

always terribly afraid of having some

kind of serious physical disease.

"He'd usually come in to the office very worried about symptoms for

which no explanation could be found on the basis of and X-ray

tion or by doing laboratory tests

amount

of anxiety.

his body.

Much

of

lot

much

arms and shoulders, and

a physical

He had

a

examina-

tremendous

was usually focused on the upper

it

Often there was a

studies.

of the time he

was especially concerned

about his mouth, throat, and chest. Any shortness of breath, a

coughing or gagging, or his

a

mind the absolutely

random sensation

terrifying idea that

was about

to develop a fatal

"Was

why he wore

that

so

part of

of generalized pain and tension in his

in the chest

bit of

would bring

he was catching

a cold

to

and

pneumonia.

much

heavy clothing?"

"Even on the hottest days of midsummer he'd show up

in the office

dressed in an overcoat, sweater, muffler, woolen cap, and sometimes rubbers.

He

As

far as

I

could

tell,

really believed that

against the cold,

always called

it.

this wasn't just a

he needed

and that without It

was purely

a

all it

matter of

artistic eccentricity.

that heavy clothing to protect

he was sure

him

to 'catch a chill,' as

he

mental attitude, a conviction that some-

"

First Contact with Psychiatry

thing terrible was going to happen to

joked about "Hasn't

been conjectured,

it

him

he didn

if

but the problem was really

at times,

it

"

I

I

t

123

dress that way.

He

ver)- serious.

interrupted, "that

Glenn suffered from

might have interfered with the control of

a circulatory disturbance that

skin temperature?"

found no exidence

"I

for

anything like that. His fingers were never

When you

blue like someone with Raynaud's Disease. his skin

was always warm and moist underneath

all

asked him to

strip,

those layers of cloth-

he was often sweating copiously. Although Glenn did a

ing: in fact,

lot

how the body works. But he was amazingly knowledgeable about drugs. He knew all the latest developments in antibiotics and many times asked me to prescribe something new he'd just read about. It was difficult to explain to him why this wasn't indicated. He'd just come back at you and to tr\' to contradict you with many long-winded arguments." of reading about medicine, he really had ver\'

"Did he

talk to

little

understanding of

you about any of the drugs he was taking, or about

treatment he was getting from other physicians as well as chiropractors?'

"No, he never did, except

had

to

do from time

ally gracious.

which

I

still

He

famous and

gave

me

have. But

and demanding a

to time.

ver)'

occurred to

to

that he

honored

felt

I

interesting

me

a specialist,

friendly

which

I

and person-

an autographed copy of one of his recordings,

"Did you ever refer him "It

I referred him to Glenn was always ver\'

must say

I

patient.

when

to

was

basically a verv' difficult

be his doctor, because he was

man. "

to a psychiatrist?

tr\'

to

do

that,

wasn't so easy to find the right person.

were mostly neurologists, who had

but you know, in those days

The

a ver)- organic

tered shock treatment, which would have been

younger psychiatrists were usually trained

it

older psychiatrists in Toronto

to

approach and adminis-

wrong

for

Glenn. The

be classical psychoanalysts.

They wanted their patients to come to the office five times a week and lie on a couch to engage in free association. There were ver\' few specialists practicing psychosomatic medicine, which I felt was the approach Glenn needed. I actually became interested in psychosomatics myself later on and have received training respond well

to a

Many

in the field.

of the patients

I

see today

combination of psychological techniques, hypnosis or

psychotherapy, along with medical care.

"^

Glenn's choice of Albert Moll in Montreal as a psychiatric consultant

was an excellent one.

Dr. Moll

was one of the most highly respected

speciahsts at McGill University, and a

mindedness."^

He was

well

versed

man in

noted for his tact and openthe

older

neuropsychiatric

"

124

GLENN GOULD

/

approaches and also experienced with the newer psychotherapeutic techniques. Indeed, Moll had been brought to McGill Medical School in

order to organize a psychoanalytic training program there. Unfortunately, Moll

But

available.

is

now

dead, and his professional papers are not

can imagine a cordial meeting, with the always voluble

I

pianist talking about himself

and

conversation as

little

many symptoms. As

his

Moll most

ically trained clinician, Albert

a psychoanalyt-

would have guided the

likely

as possible while listening carefully with the prover-

up information about what might be going on and troubled musician. At the end of the interview, Dr. Moll wrote on a prescription pad the names of four psychiatrists in Toronto he hoped might be able to treat Gould. It was clearly intended that the pianist would follow through and get into a therapeutic bial "third ear," picking

inside this brilliant, charming,

relationship with one of these doctors. First

on the

Dr. Parkin

was Alan

list

Parkin, a psychoanalyst in private practice.

also a medical historian

is

who

has written an informative

book about the evolution and organization of psychoanalysis cialty in

He is Moll who

mended by

Dr.

alive, so

is still

"I

was able

know

Dr. Moll personally," Dr. Parkin told

Gould

certainly a wise decision for

been an excellent choice

to consult

He

"No.

me

Next on

"

knew nothing about

I

list

recommended

of

the referral until you

who

drugs and supportive psychotherapy,

"'''

treated his

no way

to see Doyle,

nor

sulted the third doctor on the

is it

I

ever

M.

Allan, then on the staff of the

chairman of the Department of Psychiatry

was described

to

me

at

at that

friendly, affable,

time

the University of Toronto.

as "a real British

gentleman who looked

the actor Charles Laughton and had a voice to match.

have been

for

made an

possible to find out whether he conB.

Toronto Western Hospital, or the fourth, Aldwyn Stokes,

Dr. Stokes

as "an

would have chosen

know whether Glenn

to

list,

was Arthur M.

He is remembered many patients with

and by a younger colleague

old-style neuropsychiatrist, not the person

Gould."''* There's

specialists

Michael's Hospital.

St.

by Parkin as "a general psychiatrist

like

was

it

"^"

Dr. Moll's

appointment

me, "but

it.

Doyle, chief of psychiatry at

Glenn

in

as Gould's therapist.

never called me.

about

him. In

him, and he would have

"Did you ever see Glenn Gould professionally?

told

to interview

time was more advanced than in Toronto.

at that

didn't

I

and quality of mental health care

Dr. Parkin's opinion, the availability

Montreal

as a spe-

the only one of the four psychiatrists recom-

Canada. ''

He would

but not basically a psychotherapist. Glenn

might have enjoyed meeting him.

"'^

First

Thus

it

Contact uith Psychiatry

125

I

remains a mysten' which one of these doctors Glenn

finally

decided to consult for treatment. That he did see a psychiatrist in Toronto trip:

was

is

confirmed by what he told Jock Carroll during their Bahamas

"A Montreal doctor gave

me

One

a choice of three psychiatrists.

Second was

into straight analysis.

a pill

man. The

third

was

a

combi-

went to him. His diagnosis was that nothing in the environnation, so ment should be doing it [i.e., the eating disorder], nothing wrong with my se.xual development, nothing physically wrong. So it was just a quesI

tion of tranquilizers

That sounds to Carroll

like

—bigger and to

—

himself

chological roots to his illness.

was able

psychod}Tiamics. But tic

pills.

an overstatement. Most

—and perhaps

far the psychiatrist

"'^

better

I

likely

Gould wanted

were any

that there

Of course we have no way to get in anal\"zing

doubt that he ever established

of

a

psychotherapeu-

when he

in

advance and keep them, and

sufficiently frequent

and regular

international career that required

started

objections to the rules and disci-

pline governing psychoanalytic treatment, for example, the

appointments

knowing how

deep exploration of

his character structure. Barely twent)'-three years old

many

deny

Glenn's personality and

relationship of sufficient duration to allow for

treatment, he would have found

to

significant psy-

need

Glenn was on the

basis.

make

to

on

to see the therapist

a

crest of an

many absences from Toronto. He had make recordings in New York. He

signed a contract with Columbia to

was becoming interested

in

producing broadcasts and films

And he was

dian Broadcasting Corporation. string quartet that

he had begun composing

an appointment to see a doctor,

moments

notice,

and

at a

it

Cana-

for the

struggling to complete a

in 1953.

W^henever he made

was usually done

impulsively, at a

time that suited Glenn's schedule. Since he

generally did not get out of bed until early afternoon, he always insisted

on medical appointments According

as late in the

day as possible.

to those of his doctors I've

been able

to interview,

Glenn

generally liked to be in charge, telling the doctor what to do rather than listening to his opinions. This

would surely be an impediment to any would have been a further

collaborative setting. His fear of losing control

obstacle to the sort of psychotherapy which patiently uncovers sources of conflict that churn

away below consciousness. Another defense would

have been Glenn's willful

demand

His faith was in the sort of "quick

for instant relief fixes

"

from

his s\TTiptoms.

that compliant physicians

and

pharmacists are able to provide by prescribing medication, and that chiropractors can give by physically manipulating the patient's body.

To work psychotherapeutically with someone

as hugely talented

nonconformist as Glenn Gould would have called for an unusuallv

and

toler-

126

Gould with Glenn Gould

GLENN GOULD

/

the score of his string quartet. Courtesy of Estate.

ant and resourceful therapist, special

demands

that artists

would have required

a

someone free of dogma and open to the make on themselves and their milieu. It

person with sufficient musical training and cre-

ative imagination to enter the labyrinth of his contrapuntal logical thinking. Glenn's

mind could

and musico-

seize instantaneously the multiple

meaning inherent in language and music, twist them, and adorn them with rich and fantastic elaborations that surprised him as much as they did his listeners and readers. This became apparent, for example, while he was composing his string quartet. Glenn thought of himself as levels of

"a valiant defender of twelve-tone to discover that the quartet

music and

its

leading exponents,

"

"would have been perfectly presentable

only at a

work that did not advance the challenge more boldly than did the works of Wagner, or

turn-of-the-century academy, a to the laws of tonal gravity

Bruckner, or Richard Strauss."'^ We'll return to the psychological implications of this composition

later.

I

Contact with Psychiatry

First

127

I

Surely the contacts Glenn had with psychiatr)' and psychoanalysis in

tion of his

crisis. The degree becomes apparent if one reads Jock Carroll's descripbehavior during the Bahamas trip. Before leaving, Glenn's

mother had

said to Mr. Carroll, "Please see that

1955 and 1956 helped him get through a major health of his disturbance

buy some decent

and get him

to

in the sun."

On

mare

the plane,

Glenn

begin banging away

where

wake

I

this point

I'll

be

him out

told Carroll about "a recurring nightFalls.

At the very brink

Gould, 'some strangers appear and they

my hands,

at

My

up.

his laundry

try to get

catch hold of a protruding rock and hang on. 'At

to

this point in the dream,' said

The

he sends out

you can,

which he was being swept over Niagara

in

he always managed

is

clothes. If

make me loosen my

trying to

mother says

as long as

I

grip.

This

can keep waking up

at

"'^

all right.'

terror implicit

in

this

nightmare

fits

well with the reality of

Glenn's situation, up in a plane talking to a relative stranger and experi-

when

encing, as he usually did

down

to earth,

flying, a

tremendous fear of crashing

symbolized here by being swept over Niagara

An

Falls.

aquatic death suggests something very primal, a return to the watery

womb

of which he speaks

more

when The protruding

positively at times, for example,

describing the womblike security of a recording studio.

rock he hangs on to probably represents his yearning for support

Jock Carroll solid

sitting next to

and islands of

safety, hard, fatherly.

bangs on his hands, and

tries to

his unsettling neurosis

is

his hands.

ment

It's

all

swept over the brink of Niagara

it

is

a frightened lad

who

his grip. This,

I

assume,

coupled with the lifelong dread of damage to infancy. His mother's reassuring state-

right so long as

beneficial influence of her

But a strange enemy appears,

make him loosen

been there since

that he'll be

—from

him, or a friend, or even a doctor. Rocks are

he keeps waking up before he

Falls in the

pedagogy

dream suggests

in directing his

to

me

is

the

consciousness. Truly,

clings desperately to a lone rock for his survival,

hanging by the sheer strength of his most precious asset, his long, supple,

and strong he

will

fingers.

The mother

reassures

overcome the danger and prove

him

that,

time and time again,

that indeed his

hands are

and whole. There are no dangerous enemies, no shadows lurking tempestuous mist;

it is

Arriving in Nassau,

Montague Beach Hotel of

my

but a dream.

Glenn sealed himself into his room at the Fort for days on end, claiming, "I've gotten three bars

opera written since

we

got here ... a creative artist has to be a bit

of an antisocial being in order to get his

swimming because

He

fit

in the

of a fear of

work done." He refused

what the saltwater might do

to

go

to his hands.

joked about his eating disorder: "This tightening of the throat

—

— 128

managed

to avoid that

GLENN GOULD

/

when

I

was eating

in

womb-like feeling

relations aside, there's a

he made such

a

chambermaid

called the

my room to

your

.

.

.

putting Oedipal

own room." One day

commotion singing and conducting that the frightened manager to report, "There's a crazy man in

there."

Carroll

was very worried about Glenn's aggressive way of steering

motorboat too close

much

and

to larger vessels,

their

his whizzing their small red car

too fast through the narrow side roads.

"He seemed unable

'^

to

connect the possibility of accidents with the way he was driving. Some-

what

bitterly

I

was thinking

to myself,

'Only a

ing about the emancipation of the blacks.

week ago Gould was

Now

island with a total disregard for their safety'

talk-

around their

he's roaring

""°

Although Glenn never again entered into formal treatment relationship with a psychiatrist, he seems to have maintained a positive interest

mental exploration.

in the field of

established with

moments

that

me when we met in

had occurred with

I

can imagine that the rapport he

1957 was partly the

his

Canadian

result of helpful

psychiatrists. Similarly,

the seventeen-year relationship that sprang up in 1960 between

and the Baltimore psychiatrist Joseph Stephens came close a psychotherapeutic experience for him,

Glenn

to providing

and can best be understood

as

part of a continuity of involvement with experts in mental health. Typically,

the long association with Dr. Stephens was intermittent, crisis-

oriented,

and conducted

facets of his personality

made Gould

largely over the telephone. Perhaps the multiple

—

composer,

pianist,

especially responsive to

could pursue several interests are both physicians

Glenn made

it

writer,

would-be doctor

and fascinated by individuals who

once, like Dr. Stephens and myself,

at

who

and musicians.

a habit to satirize psychiatry.

exploit creatively those things

he had not

A

much

clever

use

man, he could

for.

He

took great

pleasure in lampooning practitioners. In later years he invented a tious psychiatrist, "S.

F.

Lemming, M.D," who spouted such

ficti-

inanities as

Paul D. Hicks, in his recent much-reviewed study "The Unconscious and

Career Motivation," notes that most of us six

when he wrote

would

necessitate

income stratum

in

this]

in

middle

life

[Glenn was

suppress occupational stimuli that, ambition-patterns.

redirecting

American

life.

Hicks points out,

Among this

if

upper-

the

tendency

is

times menopausally motivated, but more frequently, and especially those active in the professions,

it

thirty-

indulged,

some-

among

involves the reaffirmation of traumatic

Contact with Psychiatry

First

129

I

associations deriving from childhood resentment pertaining to the intru-

upon the parental security

sion of school discipline

This httle satire

own

struggle

may

to allow

discount

it

contain a core of revelations that apply to Glenn's

with "ambition-patterns," "childhood resentment," and

"school discipline."

humor

patter."'

It

demonstrates

how

a

secretive individual used

himself both to disclose something personal but then to

through the flippancy of the preposterous Dr. Lemming.

Gould's habit of spouting the jargon of psychiatry, making fun of this

branch of medicine, and borrowing some of

its

concepts for his

later

essays and television programs, also betokened his deeper need for

understanding the mysteries of the sive,

and conflicted mind

human mind

in particular.

—

his

own

brilliant, elu-

But entering into a formal

clinical

relationship with a psychiatric healer had evidently proved too threaten-

ing for Gould's powerful need to preserve his privacy and maintain his artistic identity.

What he

his contact with Dr. briefly in Toronto.

learned about psychiatry' was acquired through

Moll

in

Montreal and the specialist

Other sources of information were

who

treated

him

his extensive read-

ing and the long conversations, often by telephone, with the two psychiatrists

he had met on

his travels.

and myself, he maintained

Yet even with Dr. Stephens tance.

Only one person,

was allowed

his mother,

Glenn spoke with her about

Until her death in 1975,

a certain dis-

to share his inner self.

his

dreams and

nightmares, his triumphs and defeats, his concerts and the reviews they received, the radio programs

and

television

duced, everything he published, his is

what

his cousin Jessie

left

shows he planned and pro-

ambition and frustration. That

Greig told me.^- But whether he disclosed the

intimate details of his private

Florence Gould

ever\'

life

no notes,

to his mother,

diaries, or

we

will

never know, for

reminiscences about her son.

its superficial teasing and nitpicking, was like Even Glenn's father has little information about what was probably the most genuine, expressive, and supportive bond Glenn ever had with another human being. Their relationship was a touching testi-

Their relationship, despite a sacred trust.

monial to the intimacy that can this case,

exist

between

a

mother and her

an understanding that went beyond words

to the

child, in

realm of the

unspoken, the world of music where feelings are shared without a single touch.

12

CONFLICTING

DEMANDS

Glenn made 1955 debut the United he had Until been able maintain very performance schedule averaghis

States,

in

a

to

light

ing four to eight concerts a year. After that, the

he played

in public

grew exponentially: fourteen times

number of times in 1955, twenty-

three times in 1956, thirty-sLx times in 1957. \n 1959 he reached his

maximum,

fifty-one concerts, after

off until 1964,

Those eight

which there was

a gradual tapering

when he stopped appearing in public. or nine years when Glenn was heavily engaged

and giving concerts proved

stressful

because of

his

in traveling

fundamental revul-

sion against public performance, but also because of the conflicting

demands stemming from to

his multiple

ambitions to conduct, to record,

maintain his solitude, to compose, and to write. At the beginning he

rarely

certs

complained openly about

when he

him

to

and,

later,

felt this

was

his biggest conflict: having to give con-

basically an unsuitable

be making music. But he shared

around the time of

his retirement

in a series of provocative essays

Basically,

Glenn

this

and unworthy way

for

opinion with a few friends

from the stage, publicized

it

and interviews.

distrusted audiences. "There's a very curious

and

almost sadistic lust for blood that overcomes the concert listener," he

Conflicting Demands

told

I

131

John McClure of Columbia Records. "There's

happen, a waiting for the horn to

fluff,

a waiting for

a waiting for the strings to

ragged, a waiting for the conductor to forget to subdivide

.

.

.

it's

it

to

become

dreadful.

comes upon the case-hardened concertgoer, which is why I suppose I don't like him as a breed and don't trust him, and wouldn't want one as a friend."' Elsewhere Glenn described his perception of the audience as a hostile force whose "primal instinct was for gladiatorial combat."" Despite the acclaim and applause he regularly received, it seemed impossible for him to think of the people in the hall as individuals some who might be indifferent to the music, others perhaps hostile, but still others who truly appreciated what he was doing, willing to overlook a mistake and wish him well. Glenn did not believe that audiences went to concerts for the sake of the music. Rather, they wanted to be lulled into a pleasant state of reverie that would evoke memories of the past. The concert hall was like a museum where relics are displayed rather than a place for exploring the future. Glenn believed it was on its way out as a place for listening to music; that could be There's a kind of gladiatorial instinct that

I

—

better

done

at

home

with radio and recordings.

recordings interested

him

far

more than

And

of course producing

giving concerts.

With such a strong bias against public performance, Glenn naturally more comfortable playing in a recording studio where a run or a scale or a series of chords or an interpretive nuance that he considered imperfect could be repeated as many times as he felt was necessary. felt

Once he approved of it, the passage could then be spliced into the master tape and become permanent. Glenn coined the term "take two-ness" to describe this essential aspect of recorded music. There simply was no

way

of repeating or correcting something

audience would allow an

artist to

him tremendously, and he made no soon to chuck "treading the boards" sively to the electronic

when

playing in public: no

play a passage over again. This bothered secret of the fact that he planned

so he could devote himself exclu-

media.

Even during those conflicted years of playing in public, Glenn was engaged in broadcasts and telecasts for the Canadian Broadcast-

actively

ing Corporation in Toronto, and in recording for in

New York. Thus

communications industry that would creative activity. For example, there

ducer

who

Record, the

Columbia Masterworks

he gained expertise and developed friendships later

become

his

in the

primary arena for

was Franz Kraemer, the

CBC

pro-

directed Glenn Gould Off the Record; Glenn Gould on the first

Canada. This

is

film

made about him by

a fascinating

the National Film Board of

documentary showing Glenn

at leisure in

132

his

Lake Simcoe

GLENN GOULD

/

Bach on

retreat, practicing

his

beloved Chickering,

playing parts of a Schubert symphony, discussing the art of composing

with Kraemer, and going to

New York

piano

to select a

Steinways and

at

record Bach's Italian Concerto for Columbia.'' Kraemer told relationship to "I

Glenn was

was the only guy who could

monster

—

what he

me

that his

like "father to son." criticize

him.

He was

and a

a genius

impossible in the studio, you could never trust that

totally

what he

said or even

was true

felt

—he was

man

a

obsessed

with controlling everything, the weather, temperature, his medicines, and other musicians. But he was the most unbelievably gifted, capable, and imaginative pianist

known

I've

in

my

entire

life.'"*

Another, deeper friendship sprang up between Glenn and John Roberts,

who had

come from

recently

of music producer for

CBC

Australia to

P.

L.

assume the position

CBC Televi-

Radio and assistant director for

They met when Glenn played the Beethoven First Piano Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony on December 12, 1955. "He got the reception of a pop star," Roberts told me. "The audience really went quite wild at the end of his performance. But as got to know him better, I realized that crowds made Glenn very uncomfortable. It was quite intriguing, but he had an absolute thing about crowds. He could translate them into audiences, which aroused huge amounts of anxiety. To him they were hostile, intrusive, and dangerous. This got even worse as he became more famous. After I got to know his parents, I realized that his mother had instilled this attitude in him when he was a child by warning him over and over never to go to any special event sion in Winnipeg.

I

where there were exhibits

—

know, except

ence It

a lot of people, or to attend

in order to avoid

when he had

any public displays or

germs. Glenn rarely went to a concert, you

and

to play,

it

was always an agonizing

experi-

for him."^

made Glenn

sonally

was

especially uncomfortable

in the

concert

to play in Toronto, for

hall.

when someone he knew

That always made

it

per-

hazardous for him

example, and he preferred foreign

cities

because

people coming to the concert were more likely to be strangers. Often he

would beg

Glenn don't

even his manager, not to come to his concerts.

his friends,

John Roberts

told

me, "When

Music

to the Stratford

come

to

anonymous.

When

sitting in the

the reason

hear

me

play.

I

my

wife Christina and

can only play

there are people

audience, then

Glenn asked

me

I

feel

not to

I

I

know

if

in

to his

would go with

the audience

is

the audience,

can't ignore

come

I

summer, he'd

Festivals in the

it.' "

I

say, 'Please,

completely if

assume

you were that

remaining concerts

in

was San

C onf lie ting Demands

133

I

Francisco when we met in 1957. Roberts described it as "a cat and mouse game Glenn played with the audience. He always cast a spell over them, and anyone sitting there whom he knew personally or was fond of

broke the

me, "Glenn was on

upset him."

spell. It really

asked Roberts what

I

his parents.

was

much

ver\'

clothes, scores, to the airport,

still

it

at his

beck and

for a

ne.xt

to cope,

He

to travel.

and

ver)'

told

dependent

helping him with the chair, blocks, to

go along, driving him

Of course, once he was although very much in his own way, his return.

time alone in his hotel room and eating by himself."^

United States appearance after the debut

recitals of

1955

performance of the Fourth Beethoven Concerto with the

The

still

The

unusually nervous.

hair, his

artist,

to leave for a concert tour, his father

call,

March

Detroit S^onphony Orchestra on

stage.

mature

and other paraphernalia that had

ducting, and Glenn,

on

when Glenn had

as a

and picking him up on

much

Glenn's

was

like

home

Whenever he had

on the road, he managed spending

was

living at

15, 1956. Paul Paray

was con-

plagued by his eating disorder, must have been

critics

decided to spank him for his unruly ways

Detroit Free Press reported: "Gould's storm-tossed

mane

of

invertebrate posture at the keyboard and his habit of collapse at

show

the end of each solo line was sheer

Times noted

that

"it is

business,

and the Detroit

"

his tragedy that his behavior at the

piano produced

laughter in his audience."

This was not the

first

time that Glenn had to confront press criticism

of his so-called eccentric behavior.

Even

in

hometown

Toronto, the news-

papers had occasionally objected to the pianist's deportment: "His

was

leg

carelessly draped over his right

panther over the keys?

like a

a leopard leaps

upon

its

Why

knee

.

.

.

should he pounce upon the notes

prey for the

kill?"'

But

it

left

why must he crouch was

like

after his painful

Detroit appearance, and perhaps because of his recent consultations

with a psychiatrist, that Glenn took the criticism to heart and allowed to influence his level of self-consciousness.

years

I

later,

he admitted that

my

had not regarded any of the things attendant upon

eccentricities,

if

you

like

—

as being of

—my

playing

any particular note

at

suddenly a number of well-meaning people in the

arts said,

young man, you must

this

I

pull yourself together

had never given any thought

people, of visual image.

1956,

I

When

became extremely

1

to their

it

During an interview a few

and stop

importance,

Then

all.

"My

dear

nonsense."

some

at least to

suddenly was made aware of

self-conscious about everything

it 1

in

about

did.

The

134

Gould Sony

GLENN GOULD

/

in a typical slouch at the piano, 7955. Photograph by Dan Weiner. Courtesy of

Classical.

whole secret of what

I

had been doing was

to concentrate exclusively

realizing a conception of the music, regardless of

achieved. This

new

how

is

it

on

physically

self-consciousness was very difficult.^

In another article, he wrote:

I

hope people won't be blinded

my

personal eccentricities.

wear one or two

my

away

health.

in a

nose.

I

playing by what have been called

am

1

at all eccentric, h's true

most of the time and take

And

I

sometimes play with

performance

friends have complained,

my

my

to

don't think

pairs of gloves

precautions about get so carried

I

my

shirttail

look as though

I

I

a

few sensible

my

shoes off or

comes out

or,

as

some

were playing the piano with

But these aren't personal eccentricities

—

they're

simply the

occupational hazards of a highly subjective business.^

Three days

after the Detroit

Beethoven Concerto

in

performance, Glenn repeated the Fourth

neighboring Windsor, Ontario. This time he was

on the verge of collapse. The increasing burden of nervous symptoms

was taking

its

toll.

"After extended discussion with

symphony

officials

Conflicting Demands and insistence

that he

"Gould consented

to

was too

to play" reported the Detroit

ill

and went

tr)'"

135

I

News,

he decided to

to the piano." Finally

go ahead with the concerto. According to the News, "The extraordinary contortions and twitchings were missing [but he ga\e

was almost

and marked by

a]

performance

which Gould has been uproariously acclaimed.""^ Three days later he played in Hamilton, Ontario, the Bach Concerto in D Minor with Sir Ernest Macmillan conducting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Apparently this was a satisfactory performance. There would be no other appearance for three weeks, when he was that

scheduled

colorless

little

of the brilliance for

and the

by Bach; Beethoven's Sonata, no. 30,

Partita, no. 5,

opus 109; and Hindemith's Third Sonata, h was Glenn, 1

1, five

still

acutely distressed,

felt

at the

Richardson wrote him a prescription

mgm), each

to

a familiar program, but

the need for a quick remedy.

days before the concert, he went to see

one of the leading neurologists

(.25

fugues from TJie Art of

to play a solo recital in Toronto: three

the Fugue,

J.

On

April

C. Richardson, M.D.,

Toronto General Hospital. Dr.

for Largactil (25

mgm) and

be taken three times a day after meals and

Serpasil at

bed-

time."

Bach

D Minor Concerto with

Gould

Estate.

Goidd and

Sir Ernest

MacMillan.

Courtesy of Glenn

136

GLENN GOULD

/

Both of these drugs were widely used

and emotional disorders.

Largactil,

and

(in

time for treating mental

known

remedy

recently been introduced as an effective cal excitement,

at that

also

had

Thorazine,

as

for insomnia, pathologi-

higher doses) schizophrenia. Serpasil, also called

Reserpine, was also widely used as a powerful agent for treating agitation.

Both drugs are known

to

have undesirable side effects

larger than those prescribed

by

taken in doses

if

Thorazine can produce

Dr. Richardson.

motor spasms, tremors, a Parkinson-like syndrome, and,

rarely, hepatitis.

Reserpine tends to lower the blood pressure and can induce marked

and suicidal behavior. Close supervision

fatigue, lethargy,

Today they are

patients treated with these drugs.

necessary for

is

rarely

used because

been developed. Glenn added the two drugs prescribed by Richardson to the large assortment of medications he was already taking with him on concert tours. Whether he obeyed the doctor's recommendations about dosage and frequency is impossible to tell, nor do we know whether he had ever safer tools for treating psychiatric illnesses have

taken Thorazine or Reserpine before. Glenn rarely kept records of his

drug intake, and his career.

haven't been able to locate any during this phase of

I

His tendency was to use

pills

recording studio; he also depended on

The

recital in

recital in

New

before going on stage or into a

them

daily for sleep.

Toronto on April 16 evidently went well, as did another York later that month. June was devoted primarily to

recording Beethoven sonatas at the Columbia studios in

During the summer, he took part as usual val.

He had been

during the

invited to be a co-director for

festival,

along with the

cellist

New York.

in the Stratford

Music

Festi-

new musical programs

Leonard Rose and the

violinist

Oscar Shumsky. The assignment gave Gould more responsibility and control over the repertoire, and greater authority in imposing his will on

the interpretation of works that involved other musicians.

From time

time he conducted the orchestra, usually from the keyboard, as

to

in his

filmed version of the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto by Bach.'" At Stratford

he could also plan unusual programs and play works that were not part of his traveling routine. In the years ahead,

Glenn would enjoy organizing

concerts that were devoted to a single composer, such as a Richard Strauss program in 1961 that included

Shumsky and Glenn

playing the

Strauss Sonata in E-flat, opus 18, for Violin and Piano; Glenn's narration

about Strauss's role in history; and Glenn's

and

a scene

own

transcriptions of Elektra

from Capriccio.

The soprano

Ellen Faull sang in these condensed performances of

Strauss operas. She recalls Glenn's great

warmth toward

her:

"He kissed

C onf lie ting Demands me to

on both cheeks

after the

137

I

performance, a very unusual thing for him

We had a special Glenn was fascinated

do because he was so phobic about physical contact.

friendship because

my husband was

a psychiatrist.

by what he had to say and always looked

at

hiw,

together."'^ Ellen Faull later recorded a set of songs by

while

we were

Schoenberg with

Glenn.

Another program,

in

1962, featured the music of Felix Mendelssohn.

Glenn with Oscar Shumsky and Leonard Rose played Mendelssohn's Trio no. 1 in D Minor, opus 49, and Glenn accompanied the tenor Leopold Simoneau in a song recital.'"^ These annual musical festivals in Stratford gave him a chance to relax from the much more arduous work of touring around the continent and abroad. Glenn yearned to get more involved in conducting. On July 9, 1956, at Stratford he led the rehearsals and performance of Schoenberg's Ode to Nafoleon. The following year, he conducted the fourth movement of Gustav Mahler's immense Symphony no. 2, the "Resurrection, with Maureen Forrester singing the almost supernatural contralto solo "Urlicht. This performance was filmed by the CBC and is the only visual example we have of Glenn as a conductor away from the piano. He "

"

stands rigidly and appears to be quite tense in body. His face has an

anguished expression appropriate rather generous, flowing

mood

to the

of Mahler's music. Glenn's

arm movements have

a strange tendency to

curve inward toward the conductor rather than outward to the orchestra.

That would have made

some of the orchestra members to Gould used no baton and directed time with his left rather than right hand as is customary. But to judge from the film and its not ideal sound track, his conducting led to a flawless and moving performance. Less gratifying was the pain Glenn experienced each time he conit

difficult for

follow his beat, especially since

ducted, from keyboard or podium.

an incompatibility between

used

for

He

attributed the physical misery to

activity of the

conducting and those required

back and shoulder movements

to play the piano. "I couldn't

go

near a piano for two weeks, he protested after the Mahler filming. "So "

canceled like to

all

my other conducting engagements.

think about

it."'^

Vladimir Golschmann, think about

But

Don't ask

why,

1958

to the

greatly respected,

shows

a letter written in

whom Glenn

me

I

conductor that

he did

it:

You have undoubtedly heard by now of

my

temporary retirement as a con-

ductor which was due to a rather involved muscular reaction

I

don't

when

I

was

138

GLENN GOULD

/

doing some rehearsing up here

Vancouver, B.C.].

[in

alarmed about the danger of conducting formance.

be happy

.

This

.

.

present, however,

which was will,

I

one of

is

am

at

once

which I'm

an irreparable

to retire

is

fascinating

in great detail

it

I

any time close

became

symptoms and

when

I

quite

to a piano perI

would

see you. For the

my retirement after a successful career of one concert my debut and my farewell appearance [as a conductor]

sure, be

alternative

my most

you with

to entertain

at

loss in the

music world. The one

from the piano and devote myself

logical

to conducting,

seriously considering.'^

Columbia

had released

[Vlasterworks

their

second Glenn Gould

recording in 1956. This time he chose not to play music by Bach but to

whom

shift to

Beethoven, a composer for

And he

tackled the three last sonatas written by Beethoven, opus nos.

109,

1

10,

works are

and 111.

It

to his instant

was

a risky decision for so

known than

far better

he had very mixed feelings.

young

These

a pianist.

the Goldberg Variations which had led

world fame the year before. Revered by music lovers every-

where, Beethoven's

piano sonatas,

late

D

like his final string quartets

and

the great "Choral"

Symphony

cle of his musical

development. They reveal the grandeur of his achieve-

ment toward the end

of his

in

life,

rules governing his earlier

Minor, opus 125, epitomize the pinna-

when he broke away from the to create a wholly new

works

traditional

that

style

reflected not only a remarkable degree of originality but his personal struggle with deafness

and

social isolation. Beethoven's late

works are

uniquely abstract, contrapuntal, and occasionally harsh in texture. They

can also display heartbreaking degrees of lyricism and

celestial serenity.

Glenn had been performing the Sonata no. 30 in E IVIajor, opus 109, for several years, and included it in his debut recitals in Washington, D.C., and New York. But the other two late Beethoven sonatas, no. 31 and no. 32

C

opus 111, were

in A-flat [Vlajor,

opus

familiar to him,

and he had only recently begun playing them

1

10,

in

[Vlinor,

less

in public.

To record these challenging works as a sequel to his explosively successful Bach Goldberg disc was surely a gamble, and the results were not entirely satisfactory.

Although the generally

and the daring

originality

brilliant style of playing, the

make

immense

these exciting recordings to listen

vigor,

to,

one

cannot help but be dismayed by Gould's defiance of Beethoven's careful instructions in regard to interpretation tions for

tempo changes

[Major Sonata,

in different

opus 109, Gould

—

specifically, his explicit indica-

movements. For example,

totally

ignores

in the

E

Beethoven's written

— C o u fl demands

i

c

t

i

De m a n ds

ug

tempo differences between the

for

I

1

39

This

trast.

is

And

shocking.

in the

grand

C

cranked up

and

ture,

to its

maximum

the appassionata

speed.

But

is

also played

on the brisk

much

criticism.

"skimming the surface,"

to please the public. For

and

"largely unacceptable,"

not aiming to produce an authentic performance,

meant

Beethoven sona-

Reviewers used such terms as "childish-

such criticism of the recordings overlooks the

all

much

preconceived notion of

how

usually entered the studio

from beginning

to end.

to the take, noting

less

to

he was

one that was

him, the making of a record was a purely

He

rarely

had

would actually turn out. He work or a movement through

a recording

and played a

That was "take one."

He

then stopped to

listen

any errors or other moments that did not please him

and would therefore have entire piece for a

"a botch."''

fact that

personal journey, a jubilant adventure into the unknown. a

with a

side,

out of character for this very profound music.

is

surprisingly, Glenn's recordings of the last three

stimulated

ness,"

so

The performance resembles a caricatempo the pianist can't get close to Beethoven asked for. The meditative last movement,

kind of casualness that

Not

movement

like a player-piano

at that overly hasty allegro

Adagio molto simplice e cantahile,

tas

first

sounds almost dehumanized,

it

emotional con-

in

Minor Sonata, opus ill,

he plays the Allegro con brio ed appassionato of the astonishingly fast that

move-

variations in the last

ment, which makes them sound uniform and lacking

to

be re-recorded. Sometimes he recorded the

second time, or as many times as he

felt

was necessary

achieve a satisfactory' result. These were called "take two," "take

three,

and so

"

forth.

After that, the business of editing could begin. Since multiple-track tape recorders were used, a certain

amount

of mixing had to be done,

Glenn himself designed where segments of tape that he disapproved of were to be cut out and replaced by an improved version. Thus the final product often turned out to be radically different from what Glenns usually by the producer in charge of the project. a "splicing plan" to indicate

playing sounded like in a live concert. Furthermore, he expected the listener to fi

set,

modify the sound of a recording by turning

dials

on

his hi-

thus participating in what Glenn called "aesthetic narcissism"

"Through the ministrations of radio and the phonograph, we are rapidly

and quite properly learning cissism

—and

I

challenge that each

There

is

to appreciate the

use this word in

man

its

best sense

elements of aesthetic nar-

—and

are

contemplatively creates his

awakening

own

to the

divinity."'^

another form of narcissism, present in Glenn. Gould radiated

his self-love

onto the composer and music he performed. This

is

a

form

'

140

GLENN GOULD

/

of artistic narcissism, different from the simple self-adulation of normal

narcissism, or the selfish autistic love of the pathological narcissist.

Although Glenn never accepted educate, to impose his

own

he

he had

felt

a mission to

and wisdom upon the world, thus

mother's wish that he be "cultured, that he do something

fulfilling his

elevated and proper, that music

We've seen

a student,

insights

Schoenberg and

is

good because

it

educational."'^

is

of proselytizing in his efforts on behalf of

earlier signs

his followers,

performing and recording their music, and

writing learned articles about them. As for Beethoven,

Glenn had very

strong and iconoclastic ideas about this composer, which he wrote out, usually on reams of ruled pads of legal paper, in preparation for his published essays. In the liner notes for his latest recording, the three last

Beethoven

sonatas, he objected to "the rather arbitrary chronological landmarks" by

which the

"creative estate" of a

composer

is

often subdivided. In this

respect, he maintains that Beethoven's late works have

come

in for "a

greater preponderance of nonsense, not to mention contradiction, than

any comparable

Typical

is

quartets

the

literature.

comment

recommends

of Joseph de Marliave,

who

in his

work on the

the exclusion from performance of both the "Grosse

Fuge," Op. 133, and the fugue finale to the Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106.

.

.

.

Marliave

s

mention of "the intimate and contemplative appeal

to

the ear" illustrates an approach to these works based upon philosophical

conjecture rather than musical analysis. Beethoven, according to this hypothesis[,] heaps one discordant effect

upon another, and the general

impression of tiresome waste of sound cannot be dispelled by the marvel of

its

technical construction.

The giddy

heights to which these absurdities

can wing have been realized by several contemporary offenders being

Thomas Mann and Aldous

In Glenn's opinion, the three last

an

idyllic

novelists, notable

Huxley.^*'

Beethoven sonatas are

"a brief but

stopover in the itinerary of an intrepid voyageiir. Perhaps they

do not yield the apocalyptic disclosures that have been so graphically ascribed to them.""'

He saw

himself in that

role, obligated to

provide

the world with interpretations of Beethoven that had never been heard before.

Having already

told a living

composer, Oskar Morawetz, that he knew

more about how his music ought himself, Glenn was now ready to

to

be performed than the composer

cross swords with giants of the past.

C onflict ng Demands i

But

do not

his audio recordings

tell

the

I

full story

141

of

how he

interpreted

and misinterpreted Beethoven's music or that of other composers. His video recordings, now being released on tape cassettes and laser discs, give a

much

richer picture. For example,

we can

hear and see two totally

different interpretations of Beethoven's Sonata no. 17 in 31, no. 2, the so-called "Tempest."

animated and dramatic, showing

One

his

D

Minor, opus

version, filmed in 1960,

body undulating and arms

is

highly

flying. It

takes seventeen minutes, sixteen seconds. Another performance, filmed in

1966

more

after

sedate,

Glenn had stopped playing in public, far fewer body movements.

and shows

much

is

slower and

takes twenty-one

It

minutes, twelve seconds, nearly four minutes longer than the earlier per-

formance. The second movement alone

onds

in 1966,

compared

to six

lasts

nine minutes, eighteen sec-

minutes, forty-eight seconds in 1960, a

difference of two and a half minutes.

Only

in the last

Glenn's tempo in the second version exceed that of the

movement does first.

There are other discrepancies between interpretations of the same

work played

at different

times during his career. Thus

he rarely re-recorded a work.

What we

it is

a tragedy that

hear of Glenn Gould on audio

some of the sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven, but even artificial and insincere to those unfamiliar with Glenn's total conviction and commitment on how to interpret a certain work, or passage. The true grandeur of his performances is best appreciated on videotape or laser discs that show his ecstatic involvement with the music. Here there seems to be a magical fusion between pianist, composer, and keyboard, lending an ethereal, almost religious or mystical dimension to the music Gould plays. discs, especially

some

of his

Bach recordings, may sound

—

13

TELEPHONE CALLS

1957, the year Glenn and

Inme

as

I

met

in

San Francisco, he fascinated

one of the most exotic musical personalities

I

had ever met

very bright, witty, self-confident, and with a raging appetite for doing

the unexpected. He in turn seemed attracted to me as an older man whose passion for music resembled his own and who was willing to pay more than casual attention to him. He talked almost incessantly and clearly needed someone who could reflect back the admiration he felt for himself.

He

appreciated

my

being a medical doctor because

respond objectively and knowledgeably

my

attention.

I

in turn

I

his loquacity

to his activities as a musician.

directly disclose anything of a to

more intimate

I

to

Very rarely did he

him. His recent contact with psychiatrists

knew nothing

of the stresses

pri-

related in

nature, or talk about any-

had tried to help him was never mentioned, and again that

extended

seemed

marily to things musical; even his physical complaints

body who was close

could

friends.

had noticed from the beginning that

one way or another

I

symptoms he brought

appreciated his enthusiasm about wanting to play

chamber music with me and my But

to the

I

who

must emphasize once

Glenn had

to

endure during

"

Telephone Calls

"

143

I

childhood and adolescence. Thus almost anything he was willing to

me

new and

about himself seemed

Sometime

our

in April 1957, after

distance from Toronto.

initial

was happy and

I

him. The conversation went something "Hello, Peter, this

what

"Well,

"I'd like

you

from

like this:

Glenn."

is

wonderful new tape

to listen to a

me what you think of played in my debut with

it.

that

the

when he

It's

I've just

made

in

New

the piano concerto by Beethoven

New

York Philharmonic in January,

work from

the one in B-flat Major, an early

output

meeting, Glenn called long-

a bit astonished to hear

a surprise!"

York. Tell I

tell

tantalizing.

that period in Beethoven's

hadn't yet gotten so detestably heroic and pompous."

remember your telling me about that New York perfor"Oh yes, mance when you were in San Francisco." "Leonard Bernstein was the conductor, and now we're recording this concerto as well as the Bach D Minor with the Columbia Symphony I

Orchestra."

Before

He

I

could interject another word, Glenn went into a monologue.

obviously had an agenda. First he wanted to talk about "Lenny."

began by

me

telling

entertaining his guests at

He

where Lenny was the piano and had asked Glenn to join him

about a party

at the Bernsteins'

with some four-handed playing. "I

really didn't

crowded

for

my

want

taste,

to

do

and

I

that.

The room was

very crowded,

was already beginning

Lenny can be very pushy and he

insisted that

I

much

to feel a bit sick.

sit

next to

him

too

But

at the

piano. He'd put one of the Mozart sonatas for four hands on the stand

and asked which really didn't

with

my

part, the

matter to

teacher

when

started playing. But,

my

me I

upper or the lower,

since

was

I

knew both

a child.

you know,

I

I

wanted

to play. Well,

it

parts. I'd played these pieces

So he took the upper part and we

soon started to have

this jelly-like feeling

They just weren't up to their usual tactile accuracy. Glenn wondered what was the matter and suddenly remembered that earlier in the evening he had consumed half of an alcohohc beverage. "Soon I was so sick that had to stop playing. Lenny didn't seem to mind. in

fingers.

I

There were plenty of other pianists there who could have finished the Mozart with him. So I went back to my hotel and swore never again to touch anything alcoholic before playing the piano. I

was amazed

to

hear this rather sad confession and couldn't help but

observe that Glenn appeared to be more reveaHng over the telephone

144

GLENN GOULD

/

than he had been in our face-to-face conversations.

physical contact that allowed

He

perhaps the

it

him

to share this

embarrassing episode?

continued with his Bernstein monologue. There had been some disagreement while rehearsing the Beethoven concerto. "Lenny

sort of

make

He

understand the work too well.

didn't really to

Was

afforded by the telephone and the impossibility of any

veil of invisibility

the recording.

"

actually wasn't prepared

Nevertheless, they apparently agreed to proceed

and, thanks to the miracle of "take two-ness" in the recording studio,

some

initial

tapes were already available.

me

play one of these tapes for

Glenn

told

me he was

going to

over the telephone. At this point

it

was

San Francisco (3:00 a.m. in Toronto), but I agreed and was dazzled by what I heard. The pianist did extraordinary things in past midnight in

blending the aggressive staccato style of the opening theme with the attractive lyrical passages that follow.

The Rondo

ing and expressive.

The slow movement was truly movThe entire

Finale sparkled with wit.

recording displayed Glenn's masterful control of the keyboard and Bernstein's

commanding way with

But before

me

I

had a chance

to listen to

that in take

the orchestra.

to tell

There was no time

to

wasn't able to detect

liked

it,

he wanted I

sounded absolutely

in the

believe

off,

But by now

I

it.

I

was dead

when

don't recall

must have been

second tape before Glenn decided

word of

I

really

tired

and found

something Glenn did not notice, but any-

one else would have expected. it

soloist

think?"

difference between the two recordings. Both

beautiful.

ended, but

What do you

slow movement.

respond before he began playing the tape.

much

myself sporadically dozing

a single

I

two we achieved an even better balance between the

and the orchestra, especially

call finally

Glenn how much

another version of the same concerto. "Peter,

to

at least

this long

telephone

another hour after the

hang up. I'm

afraid

I

cannot

recall

Judging from the amount of time he spent talking,

the telephone must have been his favorite instrument,

c-^Lier

the piano.

His work with Leonard Bernstein interested me. The two musicians

seemed

to bring out the best in

each other. Both were ex-child prodigies

with enormous egos, narcissistic characters

commitment

to

who

shared a phenomenal

music, as well as a need to make other people do their

men were experiencing career conflicts. They were who wanted to be composers as well as conductors. Lenny was much more the extrovert than Glenn. He loved crowds

bidding.

And

both

outstanding pianists

But

and applause, had est of ease,

a

knack

for relating to other

musicians with the great-

and lecturing about music without constraint.' Glenn was

more the shy and

sensitive introvert,

who

tolerated crowds poorly

and

Telephone Calls had

to struggle mightily to fulfill his

Lenny spoke

I

145

ambition as an educator. Whereas

Glenn had to work would memorize. Another notable

freely in front of a television camera,

laboriously to prepare scripts that he

Lenny was sexually liberated. He relished embracing and fellow musicians in public, and he enjoyed sexual intimacy with men as well as women. To the emotionally restricted and puritanical Glenn Gould, such behavior was deeply offensive. Nevertheless, Glenn wanted Lenny to be his friend. After their first performance together, Glenn wrote him a warm letter addressed to "Cher Maitre; Welcome home! trust that the Caribbean sun did wonders for your slipped disc (or whatever)." He went on to recommend the use of a difference was that

and kissing

his friends

I

"high chair" for Lenny's conducting, mentioning that Otto Klemperer

used one.

"I

personally can assure you that specially designed chairs have

some fascination for the American public. We must do a concerto that way some time! ... It was a real joy to work with you."' Lenny in turn seems to have been quite fond of Gould. He raved about his rapturous playing: "He is the greatest thing that has happened to

in years. "^

music

One

sexual attraction, and that

young

pianist

may have been an element of Lenny probably found the slender, fair-haired

surmises there

erotically attractive

despite his buttoned-up manners.

Glenn in his youth was outstandingly handsome. At Bernstein's party for him following their concert performance of the Second Beethoven Concerto in January 1957 (I don't know if this was the same party Glenn told

me

about over the telephone), the conductor suddenly burst forth

with "You played so beautifully in the cadenza that

I

almost

came

in

my

""*

pants. It

was not unusual

to find

motion of panied

for Glenn's fans,

something "sexy"

it.

women

mostly, but

men

in Glenn's playing, especially in the

as well,

swaying

his torso and the expressive gestures of his hands that accomSuch an observation would make Glenn cringe; he didn't care

to associate the erotic

with the aesthetic.

And

yet after he recorded the

Brahms Intermezzi in 1959 and 1960, he described them as "the sexiest interpretation of Brahms you have ever heard. ^ One time at the Bernsteins' apartment, Glenn did literally let his hair down by permitting Lenny's wife, Felicia, to wash and trim it. Bernstein remembered that "he came out looking like some kind of archangel, radiant, with this beautiful hair which one had never seen the color of, quite blond, and shining, haloed-ish. It was really a very beautiful thing to see, what she did, his acceptance, equally beautiful, and the result, which was thrillingly beautiful."^

146

/

GLENN GOULD

Glenn called again. This time he wanted me to he was planning to have published on the cover of his forthcoming Beethoven concerto recording. He had written a number of drafts and wanted to read all of them to help him decide which was the best. The notes were to contain several musical quotations which About

a

week

later,

listen to the liner notes

he sang over the telephone:

Violins

1

"

Telephone Calls

I

147

rehash of the 'Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Choral SvTnphony, a work I've just never been sympathetic to, while the King Stephan is a useless excrescence from the end of his

life,

something simply not worth both-

ering with. I

suggested that Glenn's line of reasoning did not answer

and that

if

amthing

it

confirmed

my

my objection,

feehng that he was attaching special

status to this particular piano concerto.

The

point I'm making,

"

he countered,

"is

that the concerto

is

unjustly

maligned, whereas neglecting those pretentious works you've been mentioning didn't

is

absolutely justified.

need

my

'

Glenn's mind was

made

up; he really

opinions on the accuracy of his Beethoven essay.

But the phone calls continued. They invariably came at night, when Glenn was most alert and working. It was his habit to spend the sleepless hours calling people he liked and trusted. These were his captive audience, providing a sense of individual comfort that was exactly the opposite

of the terror induced in

him by crowds. He could be

in absolute

and terminating the long-distance auditory contact at his own whim and without any concern for the other person's need for sleep or privacy. He never asked, "Are you busy? or, "Is this a good time control, initiating

"

Nor

did he allow people to telephone

him

directly.

There was

to call?

"

Wooden

blocks installed under the legs of the piano. Courtesy of Glenn Gould

Estate.

148

/

GLENN GOULD

always an answering service or machine

would return the

call

These nocturnal absent in his daily

only

visits life.

when he

if

one

tried to reach

him, and he

felt ready.

gave Glenn a sense of companionship that was

He

kept the calls focused on themes he was

comfortable discussing, mostly aspects of his musical work that had

become jokes,

fairly

routine and were emotionally neutral.

He

also liked to

tell

do imitations, and play guessing games over the phone. Disturbing

or troublesome events

were usually withheld. For example,

in

connection

with the Second Beethoven Concerto, he said nothing about the embarrassing episode that had recently occurred while rehearsing this

with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra.

many

years

George

found out about

it

work only

later.

high level of musical excellence and

Szell, in addition to the

discipline that he tarian

I

demanded from

manner and

his players,

was famous

for his authori-

abrasive sarcasm. In preparing the Beethoven con-

certo with Gould, he apparently

became annoyed

at the

time consumed

by the soloist in adjusting his chair, and hiring a carpenter to build and position blocks under the piano.

What

said remains anybody's guess, but a

"Perhaps

Gould,

if

I

exactly the irritable conductor

Time reporter

later

wrote that

it

was:

were to slice one sixteenth of an inch off your derriere, Mr.

we could

begin.

"^

14

TRAVE LING OVERSEAS

those two long phone During tioned nothing about a

planned

for the

month

calls in April

trip

1957, Glenn men-

abroad that had been carefully

He was

of May.

scheduled

to give con-

Petersburg (then Leningrad), Berlin, and Vienna.

I Moscow, St. well-orgain his compartmentalized had suspect this was a subject he nized mind and decided not to discuss with me. (Only the following year, when Glenn became ill in the middle of an European concert tour and

certs in

canceled some of his concerts there, did he begin to share

kind of

this

information more openly with me.)

There had been intense anxiety about

and his

it

night's concert

written to

had

Moscow

to

full fur\-

had referred him

to

when

"'

tion

hope that you

which you gave

will

me

it

rest

To

some

trip for

is

time,

Mrs. Ford mentions .

.

.

Friday

comforting that you have

assured that

I

Herbert Moffitt,

will

Jr.,

remember

the doctor

I

he had an aaxiety attack earlier that year in

San Francisco, he wTOte on April 1

—

May

of the intestinal flu

be cancelled ...

re cereals et al

you with each Shredded Wheat.

which

A

escalated before his departure.

having "succumbed to the

this

letter to a

16: "I

be so kind as for

am

enclosing an envelope, in

to return a

some small yellow

copy of the prescrip-

pills

of

some

sedative

150

property. ...

and

tive

1

am

would

I

/

GLENN GOULD

very happy to say that these pills were extremely effeclike to

have a

refill

to take

me

with

to

Europe next

week."^

The that

shall

I

For the

if

shall

I

imagine

the whole complex of fears about eating, of vomiting

being humiliated

at

the Canadian

Embassy

be suppressed, along with other nervous problems:

in

and of course the old abhorrence of crowds. Performing

European

famous

capitals

Moscow had

his fear of flying,

might crash and he would be

his recurring panic that the plane

great

be

I

have a really fascinating time."^

moment

in public, of

to

woman in Quebec: "In two weeks my stomach holds up with the Russian food

next day he wrote a

off for Russia ...

for their

in

some

killed,

of the

musical traditions was an oppor-

tunity he simply could not resist. Besides, Walter

Homburger had worked come along. Prestige,

very hard to arrange this tour, and was planning to

fame, honor, and

money were

all at

stake.

1957 the rulers of the Soviet Union, having

In

Joseph

were eager

Stalin, only four years earlier,

tions with

lost their dictator,

to establish better rela-

Canada. The new regime recognized that Canada was showing

dissatisfaction with

its

status as a

Dominion of the

British

Empire and

planning to form stronger alliances with the United States. The time

seemed and

ripe to

open the Iron Curtain

aid cultural

just a bit in order to

promote trade

exchange with the West. There was even some discus-

sion about a music festival to be held in

Tchaikovsky Competition, where

artists

Moscow

the following year, the

from around the world would

the future perform and receive prizes on a regular basis.

became

a kind of cultural

ambassador.

from North America invited

was

to

He was the first in Moscow

in

Gould thus

classical

musician

—being Canadian

perform

an asset. Many comparably exciting pianists in the United would have been happy to play in the Soviet Union, but that was

clearly

States

not yet possible.

Accompanied by Walter Homburger, Glenn flew to Moscow on a "He had no problems flying with me," Homburger told me. "We flipped coins over who was going to sleep upstairs or downstairs." The two men were received cordially and given considerable freedom of movement. "In Russia was with Glenn all over the place; never sleeper plane.

I

a problem," says Homburger. "They gave us a very nice translator, a

woman. Glenn was went

to the

like

an ordinary

We

citizen.

museums."'' They were housed

where every courtesy was extended

to the

walked the

at the

young

streets.

We

Canadian Embassy,

pianist. Evidently

he

encountered no particular problems around meals. But something hap-

Traveling Overseas pened

Glenn

that

shared

it

was probably the

this

mean, he was

I

He coped

at all.

about with his friend, John Roberts,

who

with me: "The wife of one of the diplomats tried to seduce

it

Glenn, and that.

later talked

151

I

horrified,

with

it

and

first I

time that he had ever run into

don't think

he could

by pretending that she wasn't

really

cope with

there.'"'

May 7, in the Grand Hall of where he played one of his typical, wellpracticed programs: Bach fugues from The Art oj the Fugue and the ParGlenn's

first

the

Moscow

tita

no. 6 in

concert was a solo recital on

State Conservatory,

E Minor;

Beethoven's Sonata no. 30, opus 109; and the Berg

The audience was

Sonata.

transfixed.

They had never heard music by

Bach and Beethoven performed with Glenn's verve and iconoclasm. As for the Berg Sonata, it was a totally new experience for the Russians because

all

compositions by twelve-tone composers had been

officially

declared decadent and were not allowed to be performed in the Soviet

Union. According to Walter Homburger, to

be circulated

could be heard

in all

who was

Canada by the Toronto

Star,

writing glowing reports

"by intermission, bravos

over the hall [and] as Gould took his second

huge basket of blue chrysanthemums was carried up the stage.

"

Glenn had

to play

and ten of the Goldherg

numerous encores:

aisle

a Fantasia

bow

a

toward the

by Sweelinck

Variations.

following night, May 8, was even more auspicious: a concert at famed Tchaikovsky Hall with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He played two of his favorite concertos, Beethoven's Fourth and the D Minor Bach. A telegram home that night reads: concerts great success STAGING AT EMBASSY AM IN GOOD HEALTH LOVE GLENN. ^ Three nights

The

the

later,

again in the Tchaikovsky Hall, he presented the complete Goldberg

Variations as well as

Sonata. By

now

packed. Fans in

his

two Intermezzi by Brahms and Hindemith's Third

fame had spread, and subsequent concerts were

Moscow were

Leningrad, Glenn's next stop, to

and

calling their friends tell

them

to

be sure not

to

relatives

in

miss these

extraordinary events.

Glenn spent May 12 playing and lecturing, with the help of his transfor the students and teachers at the Moscow Conser\'atory of

lator,

Music. In a long

letter written the following year to the

Ottawa-based

photographer Yousuf Karsh, he described what he remembered about that appearance:

I

accepted with great delight but with the stipulation that

play just whatever

came

into

my

head

at the

moment and

be no formal program. After some discussion with

I

be allowed

that there

to

would

my manager and

the

152

Gould Gould

GLENN GOULD

/

May

lecturing in Russia, onstage with intcrprclcr,

1957. Courtesy

of

Glenn

Estate.

people

the Embassy,

at

entirely of

referred

Webern

to

I

decided

the Viennese

as

tradition.

I

them

to play for

contemporary music, most of school

program composed

a

belonging to what

it

— the

loosely

is

Arnold Schoenberg, Anton

began by re-playing the Alban Berg sonata which

included on one of the regular programs. ...

was written

It

I

had

1908 and

in

provided a wonderful point of departure from which to play for them and talk to

them about the more

serious facets of twelve-tone music.

them, by the way, with the assistance of no

to

interpreters [who]

terms and

I

talked

than four different

less

supplemented one another's vocabulary of technical

we made

out amazingly well

laughed in the right places.

.

.

.

When

—

at least the

audience mostly

announced

first

I

going to play the sort of music that has not been

.

officially

.

that

.

I

was

recognized in

the U.S.S.R. since the artistic crises in the mid thirties, there was a rather

alarming and temporarily uncontrollable murmuring from the audience .

.

to

.

many

of the students

remain or walk out. As

were uncertain whether it

turned out,

control by frowning ferociously

walk out were

a

now and

I

.

.

.

to

for

.

.

.

However, as

Webern and Krenek,

them

keep things under

then and the only people

couple of elderly professors.

playing music of Schoenberg

was better

it

managed

I

who

did

continued

there were repeated

Traieling Overseas

153

I

suggestions from the student body, mostly in the form of discreet whispers

from the committee on the stage but occasionally the odd fortissimo suggestion from the audience that they would prefer to spend their time

w

ith

Bach and Beethoven.

might have been diplomatic

It

young Canadian

for the

visitor to

include music by a Russian composer in one of his programs.

and had performed

familiar with the Prokofiev Sonata no. 7 ally in

Canada and the United

States. Earlier,

it

He was

occasion-

he had made recordings

in

Toronto of pieces for violin and piano by Prokofiev and Shostakovich. official condemGlenn wanted to play it safe by not presenting to Russian audiences music that might stir up even more contention. Besides, it was always his aim to differ from other pianists in his programming as well as his interpretations. Leningrad gave him the most exuberant reception of his life. Extra seats had to be installed on the stage; special guards were assigned to

But even these composers had aroused controversy and

nation under the Soviet regime.

My guess

is

that

control the huge crowds that gathered for each of his four concerts in city: immense bunches of flowers were thrown onto the The applause went on and on. Endless encores were demanded, and Glenn complied graciously. One day he received a handwritten note:

this

magnificent

stage.

Dear

Sir,

we

implore you to plav some Bach without the orchestra.

Many

of us had no opportunity- of attending your concert on the 16th and had

been waiting

in the street for a

long time and

all

in vain!

Your Russian admirers'^

Glenn again played for students at the Consen^atorv', and as he wrote was a sensation equivalent to that of perhaps being the first musician to land on Mars or Venus and to be in a position of revealing a vast unexplored territor\' to some greatly puzzled but willing auditors. It was a great day for me."^ He also took an interest in the canine culture later, "It

of the Russian cities, wxiting to

you would

like to

know about

"Banquo Gould"

the dogs here.

One

in Toronto: "I

sees

ver\'

thought

few indeed.

Most of them were killed in the war. The most prevalent variet)' [is] undipped poodle a few mongrels and no collies whatsoever. You would have the field all to yourself if you were here.""^ Walter Homburger told me that Glenn enjoyed his Russia experience immensely and considered it the high point of his concert career "there were never any problems." But later Glenn admitted that such wild dis.

a sort of

.

.

—

—

154

plays of adulation had

ing."" In fact,

been "overwhelming and

all

was

it

GLENN GOULD

/

he

in Russia that

just a bit frighten-

noticed what he called

first

"accruing bad habits " in his interpretation of Bach:

"all sorts

of dynamic

hang-ups, crescendi and diminuendi that have no part in the structure, in the skeleton of that

The reason

quately.

.

.

music, and defy one to portray the skeleton ade-

was

.

weren't set up with Bach in

man up

that

had

I

mind

to play in very large halls

and

certainly,

try to project

And I added this demand it, didn't need

there in the top balcony.

hairpin to a phrase that didn't

.

.

.

which to that

it

hairpin and that it,

and that

ulti-

mately destroyed the fabric of the music. "'^ Paradoxically,

Gould would

his greatest victories, the

highly

enthusiastic

Applause!

way

",

to listen to

am

Russian

audiences.

music

is

and with the

in private,

combustion

article

momentary

release of a

I

Ban

the best

"total elimination of

believe that the justification of

wonder and

to achieve this Utopia

was

men and

The purpose

ejection of adrenaline but

lifelong construction of a state of

way

in front of

"Let's

faith, that

ignites in the hearts of

it

shallow, externalized, public manifestations.

best

his

":

disposed toward this view because

art is the internal

The

In

published in 1962, he expressed his true

audience response

I

and ashamed about one of

later feel guilty

overcoming of performance anxiety

is,

of art

is

not

its

not the

rather, the gradual,

serenity.'^

to

do away with concert

on the electronic media. Not

halls

was actu-

and

rely exclusively

ally

because of the media that Gould's reputation spread widely behind

to

lovers in the Soviet

what was happening

recorded

Bach

D

live

—

in the

Union and

had

at a

time

access

little

West. Several of his concerts had been

Moscow and

both the

Minor and the Beethoven Second Piano concertos played with

officially released until after

Though none

of these recordings were

Glenn's death, they were broadcast

much

and pirated tapes soon began circulating among students and

music lovers who found "Here

I

was

in

his interpretations revelatory.

Hungary

in the 1960s," the pianist

me. "Those were pretty dark years

were completely play

satellites

its

for example, solo appearances in

the Leningrad Philharmonic.

earlier,

it

Moscow and Leningrad

the Iron Curtain to places far from

when music

surprisingly,

him

isolated.

We

had

still,

to play

Bach

in a terribly boring way, very dusty,

moonlight-lit fugues. So along

came

Andras Schiff

better than the for

fifties

but

told

we

our exams, and would

with a

lot

of pedal, sort of

these Gould recordings, and they

Traveling Overseas were so

rh\thmically interesting. TTiey were bouncing, there was

alive, so

something jazzy about

"And ver\'

it

much

155

I

it.

somehow.

really just liberated us

interested in Bach,

it

when

Later,

was wonderful

I

was already you could

to see that

play his music in other ways. Certainly not to imitate Gould.

dangerous

to imitate

Bach on the piano

him. But certainly

it

was possible

manner, and not by using Liszt.

The

clarit}'

all

I

already

would be very he showed us that when you play

knew, as a teenager, that he was a unique

and

artist

to play not in a

that pedal as

if

it

nineteenth century

you were playing Chopin or

of his pla\ing, and the part-pla\ing, the poHphony,

was

extraordinary'.

"And

was all from Russia. In a way, I think those were the most Gould recordings, like those Inventions, they are infinitely more

it

beautiful

beautiful than his studio recordings, wonderful."'"*

Following Russia, Glenn's next triumph was in Berlin, then

On May 24, 25, and 26, 1957, 3 in C Minor with the Berlin

dixided into East and West.

Beethoven Concerto no. led by Herbert

described as "a magnetic attraction" on him.

Glenn wTote tends

—

in

in late

closed and to

Philharmonic

much taken by this musician, who exerted what

von Karajan. Glenn was

possessed, fabulously successful

one of

"I

don't

his imaginary- dialogues. "As

romantic repertoire particularly

endow

his stick wielding

—

to

still

he played the

stern, self-

the pianist

mind confessing

it,"

you know, Karajan

conduct with eyes

with enormously persuasive cho-

reographic contours, and the effect, quite frankly, contributed to one of the truly indelible musical-dramatic experiences of

my

life."'^

Glenn hadn't played the Third Beethoven Concerto for about six months before he was scheduled to perform it with Karajan. He often asserted that he practiced rarely, if at all, for his concerts, but that was obviously untrue. According to the pianist Can,' Graffman, who saw Glenn in Berlin, "he was practicing a lot"'^ at the Steinway Building to prepare for the three appearances with the Philharmonic, the broadcast. Clearly,

Glenn wanted

be

to

at his

best in Berlin.

A

last to

be

recording

Glenn war-damaged German

of the broadcast proves that the additional practice had paid off.

always spoke very highly of his success in the

still

metropolis. Indeed, he often expressed a special fondness for

and the Germans. He took pleasure although he never learned to speak

The concerts with Karajan

in

Germany

mimicking the German language

it.

led to

an exceptionally

flattering review,

written by one of Europe's leading music critics, the composer H. H.

Stuckenschmidt,

who had

studied with Arnold Schoenberg and later

— 156

/

GLENN GOULD

wrote a biography of the composer. Stuckenschmidt was impressed: "A

young man

in a strange sort of trance.

.

.

.

His technical abiUty borders on

the fabulous; such a combination of fluency in both hands, of dynamic versatility,

in

my

and of range

in coloring represents a degree of

mastery which

experience has not appeared since the time of Busoni.

The name

of Busoni evokes a gigantic image of intellectual

excellence. Born in Italy in 1866, Ferruccio Busoni

istic

"''

prodigy pianist

who

an early age became interested

at

in

and pian-

was

a child

composing.

After extensive travels throughout Europe and to Russia as well as the

United States, he decided

at

age twenty-eight to settle in Berlin, where

he became one of Germany's most highly regarded performers, musicolo-

and composers, writing numerous works

gists,

transcriptions of other composers'

for the piano, including

music that are

still

played today.

He

composed many orchestral works, concertos, and five operas. To be compared to this giant was extraordinarily flattering, and it pleased Glenn also

enormously.

He

as proof of his

often quoted the Berlin review to colleagues and friends

own

worthiness. Stuckenschmidt's equating

him with

Busoni seems to have resonated with Glenn's view of himself as

who

could

make important

man

a

contributions not only as a performer but also

and philosopher.

as a creative artist

The famous pianist Egon Petri had worked closely with Busoni and became his assistant. He spoke of Busoni as a man of great culture whose knowledge encompassed was widely known as an

art, literature,

philosophy, as well as music.

influential teacher,

whose

He

ideas were valid in

the context of changing musical style from late romanticism to early

modernism. But while the musical cognoscenti respected him, he never achieved the sort of mass acclaim or cult status that characterized Glenn Gould's public career.

Vienna was the

ne.xt

Some

and

final

place for

and "sinus pains,

of recurring "colds"

"

Glenn

to perform,

he decided

and because

to go there

by

train.

of the dramatic events of this trip were described in a delightfully

long letter he wrote home, to "Mouse, Possum, Bank" (nicknames for his

mother, father, and dog Banquo).

I

was getting on the

looking white-haired

train at Frankfurt

man on

the Amsterdam-Wien-Express).

"Excuse me, but I

isn't

it

when

I

noticed a distinguished

the platform taking the air (the train was I

looked twice to

Mr. Stokowski."

make

He winced

as

sure, then said

though he thought

were a reporter or autograph-hunter and without turning

mumbled

"It

is.

"

1

ploughed ahead and said "Permit

me

to look at

me

to introduce

Traveling Overseas

myself,

upon

sir. I

like a

am GG. Suddenly "

he smiled "Are you Glenn Gould!" Where-

an hour.

for half

through southern Germany:

letter also describes his train trip I

stayed up

till

Die Meistersinger as we went through Nurnberg."

1

1;30 specially

A scary accident

occurred while crossing the border to Austria: "this morning porter

came around

the door to

it

my compartment

thumb and

left

me back my passport

to give

a bit difficult to wTite

.

.

and

.

he suddenly pushed

thumbnail

said

— Hope

compart-

'*^

"The most wonderful pastorale imaginable. to sing

my

benevolent long-lost grandfather he came into

ment and chatted

The

157

I

is

now

it

will

Glenn's recital in Vienna on June

as

I

at

6:30 the

was opening

shut again on

it

my

turning slightly blue and making

be

allright

was

7,

by

Friday."''^

yet another triumph.

He

played fifteen Sinfonias by Bach, Beethoven's Sonata no. 30, opus 109,

and Webern's

Variations, plus "encores

upon encores [with] cheers upon more applause, and a final bow

cheers, houselights on, stage lights out,

and

in overcoat, hat

He

gloves.

"^°

wasn't quite sure what to do with himself after Vienna. To his

parents he wrote about possibly renting a car

if

he could get an interna-

and then driving either south

tional driving permit,

Venice and maybe Milan, or west for sightseeing

and Frankfurt, before

Stuttgart,

Homburger had returned

He wouldn't have Masterworks If

to

be back until July for recording sessions

shall generally e.xercise

see

me home

afraid lage.

six

London and then home. Walter

and Glenn surely deserved a vacation.

do get the car [he wrote home] please

I

—

.

.

.

I

in Salzburg,

at

Columbia

New York.

in

and

in

flying to

earlier,

and Munich,

to visit Trieste

rest

utmost caution.

If

a lot sooner than expected.

I

assured

am

I

I

don't get

speed

shall not it

you

will likely

not a good tourist

—

never have had the energy to traipse around from village to

This does not minimize the fact that

Europe. In fact

I

am

months of 58-59.

I

have had a wonderful time

seriously thinking of taking

...

I

shall

be establishing

Karajan has offered to introduce

conducting

if

our schedules

fit.

me

to

any

city

So things are

in

up residence here

my European

Germany in come over and

(sounds imposing, what?) probably in (concerts permitting) and you could

I'm vil-

the early visit

fall

me. ...

for

of '58

Dr.

where he happens good shape

for

residence

von

to

be

Germany

in the future."'

But

he

it

didn't

seems want

that he

had

to stay in

difficulty in obtaining a driver's license,

Vienna because

"It is

and

absolutely impossible to

158

get

much

practise in here

should have stayed I

/

had imagined

it.

GLENN GOULD

— So many concerts going

in Berlin. ...

I

find

Vienna

much

Too much rococo architecture

in all the halls.

less attractive

for

my

I

than

rather severe

tastes."

Besides, Glenn's psychosomatic fears were once again inhibiting him.

The

eating disorder seems to have

parents about a dinner he had "in

come under

my room

control.

He

wrote his

as usual in Frankfurt

where

the food was 1st class. Steak, vegetables, fruit juice, ice cream with

kinds of trimmings, coffee." still

with

me and gives

The offending problem was

that

signs of the annual hayfever."^^ Finally

to curtail further traveling

and

fly

back home

to Toronto.

"my cold

all is

he decided

15

STRANGE ILLNESSES

Upon

returning to Toronto in mid-June 1957, Glenn plunged

immediately into his usual routine. During July and early

New York and

the Columbia studios in order book from The Well-Tempered Clavier. His interpretation of these glorious Preludes and Fugues was highly personal, with startling dynamic shifts, unexpected ornaments, and

August, he visited

to

make

a recording of Bach's second

extreme fluctuations

in

Many

tempo.

passages that are traditionally

played legato, Glenn plays staccato, and vice versa, and where several notes are to be struck simultaneously as in a chord, he often plays successively in a quick arpeggio.

The recording made

a hit

them

because of

its

freshness and unorthodox)'.

No one had

ever heard the Preludes and Fugues performed like

this,

but connoisseurs found some of them offensive and objectionable. Glenn rationalized this with his general dictum, applied also to other question-

new and

able recordings he made, that to sound

original

and

to distin-

guish his recordings from those of other pianists, he had to do what he did,

and of course one does recognize

also

used a historical explanation

Preludes and Fugues:

to

a

Gould recording

instantly.

He

defend what he had done with the

160

GLENN GOULD

/

Gould playing piano onstage of

Glenn Gould

The Well-Tempered

to

an empty

hall. Courtesy

Estate.

Clavier, or excerpts therefrom, has

been performed on

the harpsichord and on the piano, by wind and string ensembles, by jazz

combos, and by the instrument

at least

one scat-scanning vocal group as well as upon

whose name

specific sonority

is

not least

universality of Bach.

.

.

ations pertaining to the

.

it

bears.

among

One

And

this magnificent indifference to

those attractions which emphasize the

cannot, therefore, entirely sidestep consider-

manner

in

which

[the piano] should be

employed

in its behalf.'

His

first

concert after returning from Europe was in Montreal, and

it

included a performance on August 20, 1957, of the Brahms Quintet for

Piano and Strings in F Minor, opus 34. His fellow musicians were the renowned Montreal String Quartet. The hall was packed; spare tickets were being hawked for thirty dollars, an unheard-of figure at that time.

Strange Illnesses

CBC

and

made

distinctive

a recording of the quintet.^

approach and

his

marked Allegro non stately character

troppo,

is

shows, again, Gould's

It

determination to produce an "original"

The opening movement,

recording by playing games with the tempi.

its

161

I

driven forward so aggressively that

loses

it

and permits no lingering over Brahms's luscious

monies. The second movement, marked Andante, ignores the composer's direction "un poco Adagio

"

har-

un poco Adagio,

and takes so

fast a

tempo that much of its marvelous lyricism is obliterated. The third movement tries to do the opposite by reining in the tempo and thus reducing the bombast of this powerfully syncopated Scherzo Allegro. The Finale, Poco sostenuto Allegro non troppo, sounds lackluster and mechanical, as though little imagination was used in rehearsing and performing it.

—

—

Gould's tion

German

between the

biographer, Michael Stegemann, suggests that

pianist

fric-

and members of the quartet was responsible

the production of this mediocre recording. "Anyone

whose

for

chamber music is based on the principle of absolute homogeneity of sound and interpretation is bound to view this ensemble as a mismatch. "^ In addition, one might postulate the exhausting effects of the pianist's ideal of

recent whirlwind tour abroad, plus his unhappiness at having again to

plunge himself into concerts.

However, Eric McLean, the music fan,

of the Montreal Star, a

critic

was enchanted with what he heard, and pointed

itself as a

originally

mance

among

source of potential disunity

the players.

intended this work to be a quintet for

of the

Brahms was electrifying. tempo throughout.

rightness about the

.

.

.

.

.

.

to the

strings.

There was,

for

Gould

composition

Brahms had "The perfor-

me,

a sense of

There was an admirable unity

of thought and feeling in the playing of these five musicians, without a

push or pull from any one member.'"* By the end of August, Glenn was flying across the country

trace of

cert in

Hollywood and then back

to Toronto,

New

cuse, Rochester, Toronto again, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati,

and Miami. But the playing the piano

integrity of the folding chair

—was being questioned by

his

he always

wanted

to

1

worried one of these days

have some security behind him.

"^

A

York City,

sat

on while

manager.

"Glenn's old chair was rickety already in those days, urger told me, "and

for a con-

Washington, D.C., Syra-

it

"

would

Walter

Homb-

collapse,

and

I

year before the Russian

Homburger had written to ask the director of an aluminum comin Canada whether a new chair could be made for Glenn, since Glenn wouldn't "his excess baggage bill on airplanes is considerable. cooperate with this plan at all. Three weeks later, Homburger made a tour,

pany

"'^

162

GLENN GOULD

/

similar request to another manufacturing

Gould's greatest fear light that

made

that a chair

is

when he would

company, adding that "Mr.

aluminum might be

out of

play and possibly

sit at

the edge

it

might

so

slide

away from under him. Finally, Homburger had a new chair built for Glenn in Berlin. "But then he never used it. Nobody knows what ever happened to it. The chair was made out of metal. It was more solid. "^ For the rest of his life, Glenn always used the wooden chair made for him by his father. As far as I know, there were never any mishaps. However, the leather-cover on the seat deteriorated down to the last scraps of padding, which tumbled down the sides of his chair; in time, the seat "'

disintegrated completely. Later recordings

were made with Glenn

certs)

(when he no longer gave con-

on the bare wooden cross-beams.

sitting

This must have been extremely uncomfortable, but he never complained or sought to have the seat repaired. In 1958, he

He was

time.

embarked on

his

second overseas

scheduled to appear

at the

tour, a longer

one

this

Salzburg Music Festival in

Austria on August 10, then to perform in Belgium, Sweden, and Ger-

many, and

finally to

go south again for concerts in Italy and Israel ending

USSR was not on his agenda in 1958. That year Van Cliburn, won the Tchaikovsky Competition and the hearts of the Russians. Glenn would have nothing to do with in

a

mid-December. The

new American

star,

competitions.

Unhappily, before leaving for Europe, he had exhausted himself with

Canada and the United show the strain. Several music

a steady stream of twenty-two performances in States, critics

and

his pla)dng

had mentioned

Neil' York: "His tone

Buffalo:

was beginning

it:

was harsh,

"He has nothing

at

like the

times downright brutal."

technique of a young Horowitz."

Montreal: "The finger-work of the fast tions]

At

a

was not

to

as clean as usual.

movement

[in

the Goldberg Varia-

"^

performance of the Beethoven Third Concerto attended by the

James Tocco, "Gould didn't come out on the stage for a long time. Finally, a stage hand appeared with this enormous score. It was wider

pianist

than the music rack of the piano, and had a black cover. the music rack, opened

Glenn Gould. About

a

it

up,

minute

went back

He

into the wings,

after that, the

man came

placed

it

on

and again no

out again, this

time with a glass of water which he placed to the right of the music.

That kind of got ever)'body

stirring.

And

then

finally

Glenn Gould came

Strange Illnesses out, to rather

warm

down. And

the

at

He bowed once

applause.

same time

163

I

he

that

sat

audience and

to the

down, he turned

back

his

sat

to the

left arm up way he stayed

audience, swiveled in his seat, crossed his legs, propped his

on

and rested

his knee,

his chin in his hand. That's the

during the entire opening

"'^

tutti.

Glenn had behaved quite inappropriately by

In Boston,

telling the

audience that because he hadn't practiced enough he would substitute

Mozart sonata

Beethoven sonata.

for a late

He

was going

"terribly

depressed" about the

months

[actually for five months], terribly out of

that

I

said

it

tour. "I

to

knew, and everything seemed ridiculous.

was supposed

to

be fun anyway?

"''

admitted having

later

.

be

in

Europe

touch with .

.

Well,

a

felt

for three

all

who

the

life

the hell

Evidently he had abandoned

the idea of residing in Europe, the plan proposed to his parents the year before.

Walter Homburger did not accompany him on his second overseas time Gould had to make

tour, so this

In Salzburg, musical colleagues

many more

were struck by

decisions for himself.

and

his discomfort

indif-

"He sealed himself in his hotel, and I distinctly remember thmgs he didn't do," the pianist Anton Kuerti, who was also in Salzburg, told me. "I mean, Glenn was never one for doing much walking; he was definitely an indoor type, and I'm much more an outdoor type. And you know there would be some things in Salzburg that one could sightsee, but I'm ference.

quite sure he never did anything like that."

"Did he overdress there "Yes,

even though

"Did that seem

it

in the typical

to create

how was

it

in

"

I

wondered.

any sort of special interest over there?

blown way out of proportion, But

Gouldian fashion?

was midsummer." as

you know, on

Europe, where

guess people are a

I

It

was

this side of the Atlantic. little

more used

to

various lifestyles and behaviors?" "I

don't recall his

way

of overdressing as causing any interest. At that

time maybe he wasn't that well known, and nobody would have

said, 'Ah,

"

there's the

Kuerti,

famous Glenn Gould.'

who had met Gould

Roberts, tried to cheer

"We had

earlier

when

they were introduced by John

Glenn up: where we both attempted

this session

other's fugues,

and he was

sixteenths into

mine

sort of surprised that

—the theme

and a dotted quarter note and I

sort of

I

of the Biirleslie

at

each

hadn't introduced any is all

in quarter notes,

an eighth note, several eighth notes

expressed surprise that Glenn's had

fugue

to write a little

on the subject of Strauss's Burleske. After a page or so we looked

lots of sixteenths in

—and

it,

and

I

164

said

something

counterpoint?' diet. So,

like, 'Well, .

.

much

He

.

GLENN GOULD

/

was

be an exercise

to

against his normal habits and principles,

go and eat in a restaurant, and

to

supposed

this

we

went.

was

It

decided

I

trian delicacy.

bled eggs. it

It

It's

would order

called

Him

to the table,

me. I'm going

to

Glenn

have

to

convinced him

it,

and

for

and we

whatever

which was quite a popular AusThey mix calf's brains with scram-

brains,

mit Ei.

really doesn't look very different

was brought

forgive

I

I

in his hotel,

looked over the menu. There were various things on reason

in species

looked quite thin and was obviously neglecting his

said,

go to

my

from an omelet. But when

can't,

'I

room.'

can't. I'm sorry.

I

And he

Please

left."^"

Glenn's first appearance in Salzburg on August 10, 1958, went well. With Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting Amsterdam's Concertgebouw Orchestra he played the Bach D Minor Concerto, a work in which the

piano

is

relatively

of the time. three years,

unexposed, playing

in

Mitropoulos conducting. However, after plaining that he

due

unison with the orchestra

was

seriously

ill.

He

to the air conditioning in the

settled into his windpipe,

producing

that causes painful breathing

this

performance he began com-

he had contracted

said

Salzburg Festspielhaus. tracheitis,

and may

Expecting trouble, Glenn had a

which

Brunner

for a physician in Salzburg.

in Vienna.'^

14,

and 15

antibiotic

to the

it

had

an inflammation

of doctors in Europe that Dr.

The

it

closest

The man Glenn consulted

Maybegg, M.D., who came

is

bad cold

a

Now

interfere with voice production.

list

Michael Lenczner of Toronto had given him. But

mendation

much

Glenn had been performing it quite frequently over the past most recently five months earlier in New York, again with

in

contained no recom-

would have been a Dr. Salzburg was Gerwald

Hotel Bristol four times on August 13,

administer intramuscular injections of a broad-spectrum

to

and

a thyroid-gland stimulant.

We

do not know how Glenn

reacted to the medications, but because of his illness he canceled a solo recital

planned

in Salzburg.

Cancelations are not supposed to happen very often world.

Most performers adhere

and prefer

to

to the slogan

in the

concert

"The show must go on,"

appear on stage even under circumstances that are

less

than ideal. Unless they can be explained on the basis of problems that

genuinely threaten the integrity of the performance, cancelations reflect badly on an

artist's

reputation and are costly for the manager,

have to supply a substitute

at short notice.

tory infection like tracheitis flutist to

would be

a legitimate

excuse for a singer or

cancel a concert, but not for a pianist unless he

very high fever (and even then,

who may

For example, an upper respira-

many have been known

is

running a

to perform).

Strange Illnesses Similarly, the paralysis of a

hand would

I

165

disqualify an instrumentalist, but

not a singer.

Goulds

situation

was exceptional

for several reasons, in the first place,

his singing \\as integral to his piano playing, so that an upper respiratory

infection or the loss of his voice might be considered a legitimate handicap. Second, he

bodv

was so tuned

in to disturbing sensations

anywhere

in his

that these quicklv led to a general feeling of malaise, distracting

him from playing

as well as he wanted. Third, he basically detested the

concert scene so

much

that a cancelation

case, he withdrew

stress. In this

for a

meant immediate

few days

relief

to a resort in the

from

Alps to

recover from the tracheitis. Finally, Glenn did not have to rely on concerts as a source of financial security, so that canceling a

performance

here and there imposed no great economic burden on him. Recordings

provided regular income, and he was a clever businessman

who knew

how

first

from stock- market transactions. As early as our

to benefit

ing in 1957, he told in

Canadian

silver

meet-

me how successful he had been with his imestments mines. On his overseas tours Glenn always kept in

office, Bache & Co. Glenn had recovered sufficiently to give a concert at the Brussels World Fair. He again performed the Bach D Minor Concerto, this time with Boyd Neel conducting. The following month he played the same work in Berlin, with Von Karajan conducting, on September 21 and 22. This time, however, there was a mishap at the start of the first performance, attributable to a momentary lack of attention

touch with his Toronto stockbroker's

By August

25,

on Glenn's part and possibly associated with

his

growing fatigue.

He

fouled up by coming in prematurely at the beginning of the opening

movement where piano and it

orchestra play in unison. Glenn later called

"one of the most embarrassing beginnings this concerto ever had."

I

looked up

at K, saw, or

quarters of a second of their

trajectory',

I

thought

later,

as his

—

in

answered

at

the second beat

—alone— For

the matter of prep, beats.

demic requirements

them

saw, his preparatory' upbeat, and three-

made my entrance

\ice versa

rejoined

I

arms emphatically described the bottom

in the

—

I

The

K.,

up

is

down and

orchestra entered as

— Happily canonic voice-leading met

all

I

aca-

took 3/4 of a second off to compensate and

middle of the

bar.'^

By this time Glenn was becoming aware that something was seriously wTong with him. He was having new symptoms that worried him ceaselessly, and the trip north was beginning to resemble a nightmare: "Premo-

166

of disaster

nitions

unwellness.

These

.

The

.

.

.

.

GLENN GOULD

/

sweat in the night

the

.

chiropractor

.

.

"the flu.'

.

made with

brief observations,

.

.

.

.

.

.

continuing

the

Nordic hedonism."

the intention of one day wTiting

a kind of autobiographical survey of his travels, to be called "A Season

on the Road," remind

Schumann

Robert fleeting

me

of similar notes kept by the

while traveling in Switzerland and

memories intended

travel diaries into letters

reminiscences about

and

essays,

He

this trip.

C

played Mozart's Concerto in

Italy.

They

be elaborated and explained

to

who

But unlike Schumann,

detail later on.

German composer are like

in greater

incorporated ideas from his

Glenn never made

literary

use of his

and

traveled as far north as Stockholm,

Minor, K. 491,

now

available

on

disc.

He

returned to Germany, visited Cologne, and, on October 9 performed the

Third Beethoven Concerto in Wiesbaden, with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting.

Glenn's travel notes report: "Wiesbaden, Sawallisch; cut finger; the

down

drive

endless bath

the Rhine; Koln, the paternoster; cancellation No. .

.

the flight to

.

Hamburg

(Palmer method); 102 in the

—

fever

without further explanation,

Ham-

eve.; to Vier Jahreszeiten [hotel in

—the Inner Harbor. Dr Storgaharm: Remember Chopin.

burg]

it's

difficult to

the

1;

and pain; the chiropractor "'^

Again,

understand what was actually

going on. "The chiropractor might refer to Martin Muller, a practitioner "

in Berlin

whose

card, retained in Glenn's

School of Chiropractic.

dence

at

We

also

know

the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in

suggests that he

who

"'^

may have been

became

frequently

files,

mentions "the Palmer

Glenn did take up resiHamburg. "Remember-Chopin" that

thinking about the great Polish pianist

collapsed during concert tours, and died at

ill,

the early age of thirty-nine. I

had heard from our mutual friend Martin Canin that Glenn was

Germany, but knew nothing about

Unaware

as yet of

on October

letter

some

his

misery during the Europe

of his deeper problems,

I

sent

him the following

1:

Dear Glenn, I

was very happy

to see that

you

will

be

in

San Francisco again

[for

h would

give

three concerts in February 1959] to play with the Symphony,

me

great pleasure indeed to be your host while

to invite

you

to stay here [in

my

of arranging a party for you if

you can stay

in

town

—

for a

after

you are here, and

I'd like

apartment] where you might be more

comfortable than in a hotel. Perhaps

I

could also do something

one of the concerts,

few days.

if

in

tour.

you

in the

like,

way

or later

"

Strange Illnesses The

year has been a good one for me, except for the fact that medicine

me away

has kept

from music more than

York recently and saw Marty Canin.

which,

recital

167

I

Please

I

would have Hked.

I

told

me

I

New

visited

about your Carnegie Hall

hope, you'll repeat in San Francisco one day.

me know

let

He

in

what ways

may be

I

of service to you. Looking

forward to seeing you again, Sincerely,

Peter

'^

Gould answered my letter on October 29 (this reply will be cited Meanwhile, on October 2, while still traveling, he had written Walter Homburger to explain his health worries: "I have fallen victim to shortly).

another

flu a la

Salzburg (current temperature 101 degrees). Sunday's

On

concert had to be canceled."'*^

Homburger, from Hamburg:

to

we found

lung. This

about

this

am

I

"I

October

he wrote another

18,

have chronic bronchitis

out by X-rays recently. Since

not sure that the practitioner

know

too

much

seeing

me

is

don't

I

who

is

letter

in the right

the

best person for the job.

Glenn described

doctor as "very

this

and honey, cold cloths on the sure this kind of doctoring to

be getting

me

would

suit

any improvement."

high fever ever}' evening

(last

night

He

up

is

—

a

all

— milk — am

Nature Boy type

that sort of thing

you perfectly but

it

This

I

doesn t seem

Homburger,

also told

to 100.8)."''^

ture cannot be considered a "high fever.

taken by mouth,

much

right side

rise in

"I

have a

tempera-

The normal body temperature,

"

98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning, and can

rise

Thus 100.8 degrees would be considered a mild to moderate elevation unless the patient was elderly or seriously debilitated, in which case such a reading might be more one degree,

to

about 99.6,

in the evening.

serious cause for alarm. It is

difficult to evaluate

himself as 'I'm sick,

sick. I

When

can't play,'

I

Homburger's reactions

asked him about

then

said, 'So

I

this,

we

Glenn's reports of

to

he told me,

cancel.'

"^^

"If

Glenn

not have been quite that simple. Canceling a performance usually loss of

able

income

amount

for

of

both

work

artist

and manager, and often involves

for the

manager,

who

has to

and negotiate alternate arrangements. Glenn seems sensitivit)' to

his

I

am

going

to cancel the

remaining overseas concerts] and head for Die

week

later,

make to

he reported

to

Homburger even more

[sic]

means

a consider-

explanations

have shown

Homburger's dilemma. From Hamburg, he wrote,

no hope of speedy recovery,

said,

But matters could

works

"If

little I

see

[i.e., all

Zauberberg."^'

portentously:

of

A

168

The doctor concluded for ten days

on

them whatever

The

as possible. X-rays

frankly,

I

have been put to bed

I

idea seems to be to give the kidneys

showed there was nothing wrong with

organically but that they had

Quite

this virus.

and

his diagnosis yesterday

a no-protein diet.

much

a rest as

GLENN GOULD

/

don't think

I

some way been

affected by

can stand ten days with nothing

substantial to eat."~

How

This was alarming and puzzling news.

had the doctor reached

the conclusion that Glenn was afflicted with kidney disease?

could answer this question, but so far the "Nature Jahreszeiten,

I've

Boy type" was. On a piece of Glenn scribbled the names

been unable

I

wish

to identify

I

who

stationery from the Hotel Vier "Dr. Harders"

and

"Dr. Kauf-

man"; they can no longer be located. Nor do we have objective information about X-rays or other tests.

of "focal nephritis

"

According to Glenn's notes, the diagnosis was made on the basis of a urine test that showed

"bacteria [and] blood cells

clumped

he also once mentioned "blood be

"a false alarm.""'*

And

ruled out. in

if

would

I

like to

there were bacteria,

To Walter Homburger which the manager took to

together.""^

in the urine,"

know how a bladder infection was why wasn't Glenn given antibiotics

Hamburg? Even before

receiving the bad news of "kidney disease," Homburger Gould about the problem of his cancelations. The two communicated by phone. "Dear Glenchick, Homburger wrote

had written

men

also

to

"

on October 22, "I don't know what would give you the idea that I would wish you to play when you are really ill, as this is obviously the case at the present time. After tell

all,

you that you should

there

is

to do." Yet

and

find out

ideas about

it

but

I

have diagnosed your ailment,

what the causes were.

we

arrived in town, he

arm and

and

first

if

the Drs. should

months, that

Homburger expressed skepticism about how

really was. "After they to try

your health comes

rest for one, two, or three

Naturally,

won't go into that now.

When

it

I

ill

is all

Glenn

be interesting

will

shall

have

[Vladimir]

my own

Ashkenazy

was already carrying two of your recordings under his him with two additional ones tonight. Now, if

shall present

you only get on your

feet,

then everything

will

be

in clover."-''

Homburger's misgivings about the true nature and severity of Glenn's illness

was

justified in that there

had been numerous psychological and

self-induced factors such as poor diet, insufficient sleep, lack of exercise,

and overuse of medications. Glenn had

a long history of unreliability

when

My

it

came

to reporting

on

his health.

probably suffering from a recurring

impression

viral infection,

is

that he

was

complicated by mas-

Strange Illnesses sive anxiety

about his body.

diagnosis of "nephritis.

may

pressure, a condition that

know what to make of the Glenn developed high blood

difficult to

It is

Much

"

169

I

later in life

result

from kidney disease. But there was

no evidence then of structural changes

in his kidneys,

nor was any kidney

damage reported in the autopsy done after he died. There's no doubt that Glenn used medical diagnoses, some real and some imaginary, to stir up sympathy and concern among

his friends, relatives,

once wrote Leonard Bernstein,

"I

am use

expecting to use in later of.

life

have several

title will

He

diseases which

and have not yet had occasion

always find that a good disease

I

and manager.

titles for

to

I

make

impress your average

concert manager no end.""^

Hearing about Glenn's "nephritis,

Canada

him

advising

to "try

my

"

Grandma Gould wrote from

his

remedy, a

coating of mustardine or

tlain

musterole spread on a cloth and worn over the aching spot. all

my

aches.

""'^

The

Berlin harpsichordist Sylvia Kind

It

eases

recommended

a

massage by her halfTndian masseur. She was convinced that "when the circulation

is

intensive, the poison goes out

me

Glenn's letter to

weeks

from the body.

""^

of October 29, 1958, suggests that after several

Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, he was comfortable,

in the ultra-luxurious

happy, and probably symptom-free:

Hamburg, Oct. Dear

Peter,

Many good I

to

29,

me

here.

It

was

indeed very grateful for your invitation to be your guest

in

San

thanks for your note which was forwarded to

hear of you again.

am

Francisco. However, in the year and a half since

I

saw you,

I

inured to hotel existence and in fact find that on the whole

and work easier however, gave

me

try to

in a climate of indifference

If

I

Francis [Hotel]. But anyway,

am

not mistaken

plays at Carnegie Hall.

Sonata for

me and

playing than the

program

I

study better

such as hotels provide.

I

shall,

search out a less claustrophobic cubbyhole than what they

at the St.

suggestion.

have become

I

was

work

.

.

.

it

was

thanks for your kind

week that Marty [Canin]

Last August, he played the Elliott Carter

greatly impressed

itself.

much

(or is) this

But

I

though perhaps more with

think his plan to include

it

his

on the

a striking idea.

I

have been over here since the middle of Sept. [actually August] and

will

be on tour until middle of December. However, the tour has been

seriously interrupted by

some complications

after a relatively

minor

flu. It

170

was diagnosed

ever

and

diet)

almost

fully

I

have had

I

weeks

to stay here 3

recovered

—

I

them

(2 of

How-

consequently had to cancel 9 concerts. never really did feel very

ill

which

the nice part of having something interesting but relatively bearable and

is I

am now

I

and

as nephritis

on a no-protein

GLENN GOULD

/

shall

be able to get on with the tour and eat something beside

and

ridge

Glad

to

know

that

rice por-

another week.

fruit salad in

all

is

going so well with you in medicine.

look

I

forward to seeing you again in January. All the best,

Glenn Gould^^

Looking back on

his

convalescence in Hamburg, Glenn

my

such terms as "the best month of world

.

.

really

.

life

.

.

.

marvelous ... a sense of exaltation

that applies to that particular aloneness."^*^ (These

the ecstasy expressed by Beethoven

movement

magnificent slow

On

opus. 132.

Glenn used some affairs,

.

.

it's

word

the only

the poignant and

Quartet no. 15 in

A

Minor,

top of the manuscript he wrote: "Heiliger Dankgesang

nach einer Erkrankung"

—A Holy Song of Thanks

Kollitsch,

after

an

Illness.

")

of his free time to take care of pressing business

from

in particular, the costs resulting

Wolfgang

.

words remind one of

when he composed

for his String

used

later

the greatest blessing in the

an impresario

many

his

who had been

cancelations.

involved in planning

concerts for him in Germany, was especially insistent on getting his

money

back, and Glenn offered a bountiful settlement, to which

burger, in a letter dated

I

am

sure he

knows

as well as all managers, that there

an "act of God" case, such as yours, and

demands. Your suggestion to

you

is

most generous

to let

—but

So

if

expenses and

fair.

profit

am

is

no recourse

Believe me,

on a canceled

he'll

total of I

even make a

around

DM

were

profit

By November 1958, Glenn was ready

resume

I

artist

because of sickness!!^'

to

still

his tour.

owes

to analyze

on the

1250.00

have never heard of an recital

in

frankly astounded by his

him have the money which he

you were to pay him a

would be very

I

definitely uncalled for. If you

the figures you'll find that in the end ...

Hom-

October 28, objected vigorously:

deal.

think

it

paying

16

SEARCH OF

IN

A

HOME

On

November and December 1958 was a tour of Glenn wanted to cancel it and give concerts elsewhere. But Homburger talked him out of that and flew to Europe to help Glenn fulfill his obligations, writing to him in October that the agenda for

Israel.

your suggestion of getting out of the is

Israeli tour,

based on dreams rather than reahty.

know about your playing a degree that

It

[elsewhere] and

but continuing in Europe,

just can't be done.

it

They would

would antagonize them

in

such

might even have reverberations over here. They know the

it

chances they are taking with your health. ...

I

personally believe that in

own mind you have now blown up any difficulties and problems in Israel to such a degree that you have become frightened. From where I

your

sit

I

firmly believe that

environments.

And

I

once you get there

also

know

and worrisome about the pianos

you'll

enjoy playing in their

that while you might presently be afraid there,

you

will, as

always,

come through

with flying colors.'

Glenn played eleven concerts in eighteen days, some of them under The hall in Jerusalem was so impossibly cold

very difficult conditions.

172

Gould extends a hand

GLENN GOULD

/

concertmaster of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, 1958.

to

Photograph by Isaac Berez. Courtesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

that even with eight electric heaters placed to play there.

The piano

in

on the

stage,

he was reluctant

one of the communes where he performed

was "absolutely rotten. It helped Glenn to use his powers of imagination to overcome these handicaps. At one point he decided simply to project himself into the coziness of his Lake Simcoe environment and think of himself playing on his own Chickering. That seemed to make the deficient instrument feel better to him. On the whole he had happy memories of the Israel tour. To one friend he wrote, "Although I was about "

was nevertheless one of the most exciting Even I, you will be amused to know, with all the bourgeois thinking of my Western background, was in a very happy mental condition while I was there and felt myself very much attuned to stone huts, donkey carts, shepherds and flocks of goats."" With typical grandiose humor he wrote Malka Rabinowitz of the Jeru-

done

in at the

experiences of

end of

my

life.

it

it,

.

.

.

salem Post a letter thanking her for galley proofs of plans for an improved

auditorium heating system:

been achieved and

I

"I

am

very happy to

know

that

spectacle of myself over the issue,

over one register so that in future

is

all

be able to celebrate the martyrdom of

to

put a

it

has

finally

made such a plaque bearing my name

think the least they could do, since

comfortable

I

artists in

the hall will

St. Glenn!"''

Despite his eccentricities and carryings on, Glenn's playing

made

a

In Search of

tremendous impression there

in Israel.

symboHzed by one of the

is

Ho in e

a

The

I

173

and admiration he evoked

love

he received

letters

after the tour:

Dear Mr. Gould!

am just

I

an ordinary

Israeli

housewife.

public, almost bating us. Nevertheless heart, for letting

me

come. God bless

you."*

Back home

hear you playing.

I

I

know you

I

will say

went home changed

in Toronto, however, another

neglected had

it

don't care about the

thank you from

all

my

for days to

housewife might have

felt

not been for the intervention of an astute manager.

Walter Homburger wTOte Glenn on October 31: "... Your dad called

—

me

today

it

—

seems you forgot your mother's birthday today unless you Anyhow, I sent her flowers with a message

called her or sent her a wire.

'Happy Birthday

— Love —Glenn." Hope

In Januar)' 1959,

of concerts,

my

Glenn came

and we were able

apartment and played on

to

to get

my

I

did

all right.

San Francisco

much

"^

for his

second

better acquainted.

piano, a Bluthner

made

He

series

visited

in Leipzig in

World War II in the Bosendorfer factory of \'ienna. To Glenn's delight, I had dubbed it the "Bliithendorfer." It has a light action which he liked immediately, and he wanted to buy the instrument, \\ hich I couldn't agree to because needed it for my own chamber 1896 and

rebuilt during

I

music evenings.

become

Glenn's relationships with pianos have

legendar\'.

He

treas-

ured the memor\' of those he played on as a child. In an emergency,

inadequate or unresponsive, he

when

a piano

would

get through a concert, as he did in Israel, by conjuring

ries of

he was using was

truly

up memo-

playing his beloxed old Chickering and vicariously enjoying the

pleasant tactile sensations in his hands. Because Glenn's nimble fluency

and keyboard

st}le called for

an action that was especially

ple, adjustments constantly had to be

of technicians

made

who sometimes thought he was

the impossible. Here

is

and

Artist

and supdismay

going too far or expecting

of one letter he wrote in 1956 to

all

Fitzgerald of the Concert

light

to his pianos, to the

department, Steinway

8c

Winston Sons

in

New York: "An

scarcely firm, of

...

I

summary- of

explicit fail

my

complaint [about Steinway

CD

901 can

to do justice to the incredible negligence on the part of your

which

am now

I

have been victim since our

first

dealings 18

months

ago.

totally unable and unwilling to play for even the briefest

period on this instrument.

"^

174

GLENN GOULD

/

Despite such stinging criticism, Glenn preferred Steinway pianos, and his favorite

been

instrument by

his preferred

far

CD

was the Steinway Grand

318.

It

had

instrument in his early career in Toronto, and he con-

for most of the recordings he made in New York until 318 was severely damaged while being transported to Toronto. Glenn was constantly on the lookout for new pianos, and at the end of his life switched to the Yamaha. Part of his performance anxiety

tinued to favor

1971,

when

was the

it

CD

bad instrument. The Steinways

fear of having to grapple with a

he played

in

San Francisco generally pleased him, one reason that he

enjoyed visiting there.

come

This time he had

to

perform Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto

C

Minor with the San Francisco Symphony, Enrique Jorda conducting, on February 14, 15, and 16, 1959. Glenn was in a good mood and did not ask me this time to stay out of the hall. His playing was immacuin

late

—

refined, vigorous,

and without any objectionable

music. The audience response was Before his

final

distortions of the

terrific.

performance, on the sixteenth, Glenn called

the opera house around ten o'clock in

on the stage and wanted

the morning

to say

he was

me

from

all

alone

But there was nobody around

to practice.

to

help him put the wooden blocks under the piano which he needed to raise the instrument to its proper height. The piano tuner had left; the stage hands refused to do the job because

and they feared they could be sued

Glenn asked whether out.

my

I

I

could

if

it

was not

in their contract

something happened

come down

to the

opera house and help

accepted the challenge, but only on condition that

violin along so

we could

play

some sonatas

the piano was not as difficult a task as

it

1

He

together.

blocks were about three inches high and placing

to the piano.

would bring agreed.

them under the

seems, although

it

a sore back. Glenn, always fearful of physical injury, didn't

—

left

lift

The

legs of

me

with

a finger to

—

of sonatas to an empty house assist me. But our spirited performance by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven made up for everything. To be on the stage making music with Glenn Gould was an experience to remember.

Our

me

relationship

was

to give a party for

the S}Tnphony's

first

very' cordial for

most of that

year.

him, a small group of musicians.

clarinetist Philip Fath,

Glenn allowed

Iris

commented

Fath, wife of

afterwards,

"He

Glenn was seldom comfortable in a group, always preferring one-on-one communication where he could be in control and do most of the talking. However, he had a certain disarming modesty. For instance, he never mentioned being awarded the Bach Medal for Pianists seems awfully

shy."

In

the

b\'

Committee

Search of

of the Harriet

a

H ome

Cohen

I

175

International

Music Awards

in

London.

One

exening

session with

my

in Januar}',

I

him to join me for a chamber music which met once a week, and he accepted.

invited

string quartet,

This meant having to dri\e across the Bay Bridge to the

home

of Fred

and Helen Stross, in the town of Orinda. Despite the cold fog and the

my

Glenn didn't complain at all and seemed to enjoy the forty-five-minute ride. Helen was then the cellist in our group; the others were Mar)' James pla\ing viola and Austin draftiness of

small convertible Austin-Healey,

As we entered the house we were greeted by the Strosses" big Belgian shepherd. Glenn liked the dog immediately and stopped to pet it, saving, "People have to be nice with a dog like that." We usually began with a quartet by Haydn, then went on to one of the Reller pla)ang violin.

Romantic work, Brahms or Dvorak, or occasionallv a more modern quartet by Bartok or Kodaly We would close with a short early quartet by Mozart or Schubert. We asked Glenn what Beethoven quartets, followed by

and whether he might join us in a piano quintet. declined the invitation to play because there was "no applebox " for

he preferred

He

a

to listen to,

Gotdd singing and conducting.

Courtesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

176

him

GLENN GOULD

/

but he suggested that he conduct our group while playing

to sit on,

Beethoven's Grosse Fugue, the outrageously complex and dissonant fugal

movement 130.

We

that forms the conclusion to the String Quartet no. 13, opus

agreed, and after starting with the customary

launched into the Beethoven.

It

was

Haydn

quartet,

Glenn

a wild performance, with

singing and waving his arms and the four of us playing this most difficult

work with more enthusiasm than accuracy.

we

After that

played the String Quartet by Claude Debussy, which was

not exactly to Glenn's taste, but he listened quietly without commenting,

unusual for him. Glenn wore his woolen gloves throughout the evening,

even when we stopped ate nothing

for coffee

and drank only

and cake.

(If

I

remember

he

correctly,

coffee.)

As we drove back to San Francisco, Glenn told me that several years he had written a string quartet. It was in one movement reminiscent of the style of Bruckner and "very contrapuntal. He wanted our group to play the work and told me he would send me the music. He never did. Later he wrote me, "Let me thank you for the dinner Saturday night, which I neglected to do as I was creeking [sic] out of the AustinHealey. I really enjoyed the evening at the Stross' very much and it did earlier

"

my spirit good is

done

know

to

that there are

still

homes

Glenn's departure from San Francisco for

St.

play Beethoven's Fifth ("Emperor") Concerto, fortable.

He mentioned

touring and talked of

two overseas June

1

in

which chamber music

"'

live.

trips

his dissatisfaction

all sorts

were on

his

for a recital in Berlin

be played

Louis,

was

where he was

stressful

with having to do so

of horror stories and mishaps.

agenda

and the

for 1959, the first first

to

and uncom-

much

Not one but

from

May

16 to

four Beethoven concertos, to

London with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted

in

by Josef Krips; the second from August 25 to 30 for two concerts in Salzburg and a performance of the Concerto in

D

Minor by Bach

at

the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, with the Philharmonia Orchestra

conducted by Herbert von Karajan. In a letter soon after Glenn's \asit to

anxiety in a

How

way

are you?

when you

left,

that mirrored his

I

was

slightly (or

own

San Francisco,

I

expressed

more than

slightly)

concerned about you

what with bad weather, your oversleeping, the piano

and other excitements. Please

let

me

my

habit of worrying about himself:

hear from you so that

I

stor\',

don't have to

elaborate various fantasies about your demise at the hands of careless

'

In Search of

sadistic

pilots,

piano tuners,

a

Home

177

I

incompetent doctors, or lethargic

taxi

drivers.^

We

were haxing quite

exchange of

a lively

because Glenn had recommended me ford Festival as a violinist they might

summer. Soon

tra that

music director

I

to the

want

to

letters

and phone

management

engage to play

calls

of the Strat-

in the orches-

received a letter from Louis Applebaum, the

at Stratford, explaining

what would be involved. Five

weeks of concerts, opera, and chamber music were being planned for the summer of 1959, and Mr. Applebaum would be pleased to consider

me

member

as a potential

but since

I

was

of the orchestra. That

made me

not a professional musician with union

and had other pressing

(absolutely required at Stratford)

ver}'

proud,

membership obligations,

I

regretfully declined.

While Glenn was in San Francisco we had talked about books we liked. Both of us were \'ery fond of T\ie Last Puritan by George Santayana. There were times, over the telephone, too, when Glenn talked about this

book

incessantly.

It

reflected

cism and Glenn almost seemed

much

of the spirit of his

own

aestheti-

to be thinking of himself as "the last

puritan."

"Have you ever read the correspondence between Henr\' James Sr. and his sons (William and Henr)') and Emerson?" I wrote at one point. "I

think these would appeal to your Santayanism. "^ In another letter

Mr. Santayana and read Lewinsohn 's

A

Histor)' of

I

away from

uTOte, "If you should have a few- hours to spare, tear yourself

Sexual Customs (Har-

German, and a masterpiece. "'° ObviGlenn to move awav' from his professed praised a recording he had recently made

pers) a recent translation from the

room for same letter I of the Beethoven C Major and Bach F Minor concertos with Golschmann conducting the Columbia SvTnphony Orchestra. ously

felt

I

there was

puritanism. In the

[I]

wish to compliment you not only on the performance, which

but also on the scholarship and

literarv' skill

that

went

is

V^ladimir

superb,

into the article

printed on the cover. Your insight into the psychology' of the soloist amazes

me;

I

was stimulated by the notion

ble for

that, after

all,

composers are responsi-

more than the music. They must somehow synthesize the

social

prejudices of an era, the mental attitudes of individual performers, and the physical limitations of the instruments in every composition.

'

178

On

February 23,

mentioned

I

sations ivith Casals

which

I

(January 15, 1974)

made

a

that he read

a

Ma

book by J.

And

the Bridge

Corredor called Conver-

had recently read. Glenn

documentary Love, by

Is

liked

CBC,

for the

honoring the great Spanish

Portrait for Radio,

it

GLENN GOULD

/

cellist.

also

1

and

it

later

A

Pahlo Casals:

recommended

Alma Mahler Werfel,

for "the light

sheds on the death throes of European romanticism, and especially the

small personal vignettes of Schoenberg, Berg, Pfitzner and other composers

who

"to

show you

interest you."

which other

And

I

enclosed a clipping of Van Cliburn's concert

that your playing has created pianists are being

some

sort of standard against

compared. Aren't you ashamed

make

to

hfe so difficult for other pianists???"'"

Glenn had

New

York

told

me

he might return

and two concerts

recital

talking about spending

San Francisco following

to

Utah

in

his

He was

in mid-February.

more time on the West Coast. He'd found an was thinking of renting a house in San

exceptionally good Steinway and

Francisco. But on

Cher

March

13, 1959,

he wrote.

Pierre:

Many thanks

for

your

letter of the 23rd.

1

would be aware of

it

even before

I

you that

didn't inform

coming back because, knowing your telepathic

insight,

I

was. In point of fact,

I

have by no means forgotten

I

does occupy a somewhat more remote niche I

wasn't

month and

my affection for old in my consciousness.

123,

have not altogether given up the idea of spending some time

summer

out there but

I

have found

I

you

have encoun-

tered a couple of other reasonably good pianos in the last

hence, while

I

realized that

it

in the

think quite a nice piano in Boston

may take to New York. This would certainly simplify matters conthink, the best I siderably The New York concert [February 13] was,

which

I

I

have done there, despite what you might have read All the best for in again.

.

.

now and

I

shall let

in the

you know when

I

Times.

will

.

.

.

be dropping

.

Sincerely,

Glenn '^

The reference ing

me

so often

call just as

said,

city

I

I

to telepathy deserves

comment. Glenn had been phon-

could almost anticipate the next

was thinking about him.

I

call.

mentioned

One

this to

time he did him, and he

"Aha, you are telepathic." Actually, this was an example of syncroni-

(two meaningful events coinciding,

i.e.,

my

thoughts and his

call),

In Search of

rather than telepathy,

which

is

a

Home

the ability to

I

179

communicate mentally with-

out benefit of speech, writing, telephone, or other media. Nevertheless,

banter about our "telepathic rapport," which

we would

ized the closeness

Francisco

I

in

"I

hope

any case

.

I'll

.

.

suppose symbol-

drop

me

San

visit to

that next time you'll be able to stay here

and that we can have a more

exchange of ideas

I

enjoyed that year. After his January

had written,

a little longer

and

we

from

a line

St.

leisurely

and predictable

Louis about your concerts,

be in a state of readiness for any telepathic messages

during your performance. "''' Glenn loved playing around with such parapsychological concepts.

The

year 1959 proved to be an exceptionally stressful one for him. In

addition to a very busy concert schedule and the two trips to Europe, he

made numerous sion programs. finally

recordings and participated in several radio and televi-

It

was

home and

some

CBC

had been

time. John felt especially strongly about the

constant commotion at 32 Southwood Drive, with Glenn coming at all

way

which

past midnight,

giving concerts, security.

volume

clearly disturbed his parents. Besides,

he was

years old, spending

and needed

time away from Toronto

a place to return to that offered privacy

choice was a room at the Windsor

stay.

much

Having become fond of the solitude of hotel

Glenn had

Arms

his

piano there and

later

and

living, his first

Hotel, a wonderful old hotel,

where many musicians, including the

rather run-down,

home

at top

hours of the night and playing his tapes and records

now twenty-seven

own

establish his

residence. His friend John Roberts and others at the

urging him to do so for

Glenn

also a year of transition in the sense that

decided to move out of his parents'

Beatles, liked to

graduated to a

teacher Alberto Guerrero had died that year, but

we do

not

suite.

His old

know whether

Glenn emotionally. The accidental death of his beloved later certainly did. The dog had run in front of a car walk with Glenn's father and was killed instantly. That news

this affected

Banquo, a few years while on a

upset Glenn

terribly.

In October, he

was back

in California to give recitals in

San Francisco. But he looked unusually thin and

Berkeley and

pale,

and seemed

exhausted from the constant touring. His Berkeley concert, held in the University of California's Men's

Gymnasium on October

25,

entirely to twentieth-century music, by Berg, Schoenberg,

was limited Hindemith,

Krenek, and Morawetz. Despite the difficulties of such a program for listeners as well as performer, the

gymnasium was packed and the

audi-

ence wildly enthusiastic.

The

recital in

San Francisco, a matinee

at

the Curran Theater on

180

November

1

,

was

a

more

/

GLENN GOULD

traditional affair, featuring Sweelinck's Fantasia

Organ, Schoenberg's Suite, opus 25, the Mozart Sonata

in

E

C. 330, and after intermission Bach's Goldberg Variations.

A

few days

for

before the concert, Glenn told ing

ill,

and wanted

cancel

to

me it.

Major,

he wasn't feeling well, feared becom-

That made

me

very

unhappy not only

him but because I had never heard the Goldbergs played live. So I recommended that he go to see Malcolm Watts, a professor of medicine for

at the University of California

gave Glenn a clean

performance. But

and complained

way up

The door had

me

be closed for the concert to

to

odd behavior

as exceedingly

December, Glenn had the time

was

went ahead with the

seasoned

for a

artist.

and with the help of a It

former teachers. Dr. Watts

audience about a draft coming from an open door

to the

continue. This struck

In

my

middle of the Bach he suddenly stopped playing

in the

in the balcony.

concert

and one of

of health and he reluctantly

bill

to

real estate agent

do some serious house hunting,

he found the home of

his

dreams.

a very large country estate fifteen miles outside Toronto called

The mansion had twenty-six rooms, seven bathrooms, a tena swimming pool. Glenn signed a long-term lease on December 13 and asked John Roberts to help him furnish the empty building. They made lists of items needed for the different rooms, includ-

"Donchery." nis court,

—even

ing the kitchen, but because of Glenn's fear of crowds and the fact that

he was

easily recognized

wherever he went and often asked

for auto-

graphs, he asked John to do the actual buying. Stove, refrigerator, and "lots

and

house.'''

lots

of other things" were purchased and installed in the

Glenn

told people that

he was planning

to

occupy one wing,

while the other wing was to be reserved for his "manager." But

it

wasn't

was meant to be. Problems had been brewing between Glenn and Walter Homburger, whom he regarded as being deficient in the area of publicity So at one point he asked Winston Fitzexactly clear

who

that

gerald of the Steinway

Company to be

his

manager. According to Glenn's

biographer. Otto Friedrich, Fitzgerald "almost

went through the

floor."

Friedrich cites Fitzgerald as saying,

I

ultimately did not go to

which was

that

he had

manage him,

for

a habit of calling

many

me

at

reasons, not the least of

two or three o'clock

morning, and this happened several times a week for years.

him

I

was

afraid of being a prisoner of his

obligation to Steinways,

and he accepted

whims.

that.'*"

I

said

I

I

in the

did not

had a

tell

life-long

Search of

In

Ver\' quickly

Glenn

a

Home

and

got cold feet

at

considerable expense pulled

out of the lease agreement for Donchery.

He

an apartment building on Avenue Road.

was

where he thought

and

quiet,

it

December 1959

Late in

me

ried

because

it

then moved into a suite in at

received a phone call from Glenn that wor-

I

indicated something was seriously wrong. Although

me

speech sounded calm, he told

that people

fear. In his

them

way he asked me: "Should in,

that a dangerous thing to do?

you help I

leg?

me

said

he

part of a

deal with these

I

go to their place, or write to them?

Would

it

be better to

the police?

call

Or is Can

world was going on. Was he trying to pull my some kind of experiment in telepathy? Or had

in the

a prank, or

it

was

straighten this thing out?"

wondered what

Was

this

That's as close as

usual deliberate

directly, invite

if

The whole thing, he said, was Glenn came to admitting any

plot involving an illegal business deal. "

windows,

and sending him coded messages. He

noises,

rather "disconcerting.

were spying on him

lights into his

could hear them talking about him and wondered

people

didn't

briefly.

from the roof of an adjacent building, shining

making strange

the rear of the building

was furnished. But he

comfortable there either and stayed only

feel

his

would be

it

It

181

I

Glenn taken too much medication and developed a drug delirium? Might he be clinically paranoid and showing signs of delusions? As I found out

much

later,

John Roberts also noticed some bizarre behavior around

this

time. "I

asked Glenn one day where a piece of furniture, a cabinet which

had been

in the corner,

spare room.'

And he

looking at me,

it

was

had gone, and he

said to

me

staring at

said,

Tve had

quite seriously,

'I

it

moved

didn't like

me. Glenn also would ask

it

was

whether

I

him that I heard There was nothing wrong with hear-

could hear the voices that he heard talking to him. nothing, but that he shouldn't worry.

me

into the

it,

I

told

ing voices."''

As

Glenn was probSuch disorders can be focal and transitory, and do not necessarily impair judgment or other aspects of reality orientation. One sees them among isolated people, most commonly among the elderly. My advice to Glenn was, "Don't call the police, but try to get hold of your doctor right away. At that time a psychiatrist,

I

couldn't be that sanguine about

it.

ably suffering from a brief paranoid delusional episode.

"

I

didn't

know

to explain that

that he

had actually seen a psychiatrist

in Toronto.

he was experiencing symptoms that could

died by treatment from a competent physician, but that

it

easily

I

tried

be reme-

was not

realis-

—— 182

tic for

me

to try to intervene over the

"Of course

more explain what tract

telephone and

at

he repHed, seemingly relieved by what

not,"

there's

The

GLENN GOULD

/

to this

than meets the eye, and

will

I

such a distance. I

told him, "but

send you a

letter to

about."

it's all

letter arrived several days later.

It

consisted of a copy of the con-

forms Walter Homburger used for engaging

artists,

plus a handwrit-

ten note that read:

Dear

Pierre,

Herewith the contract! As possibility of

Do

think

spirator.

on the phone clause 9

said

I

is

the only

escape over and

it

let

me know

if

you

feel

moved

to

become

made

to

persuade you

Rest assured, no further attempt will be

you decide against

a conif

it

Best,

Glenn'«

Glenn had scribbled

In the margin of the contract next to clause 9,

a

smiling cartoon face and the word "regardez." This clause states that artists are

"under no obligation for failure to appear or perform in the

event that such failure ist."

(Not

was

that

a

is

caused or due

word about mental

Glenn expected me

to physical disability of the Art-

Now

disability.)

to do.

became

it

He wanted me was too

against his manager, certifying that he

to

clear

what

it

be "a conspirator"

sick to honor the obliga-

tions of his contract to give concerts.

This request put

way

me

possible, but giving

unethical, since

examined

I

in a terrible bind.

him an

I

wanted

to help

him

in

any

medical excuse would have been

official

was not Gould's physician or psychiatrist. I'd never So I decided to do the next best thing: send a

or treated him.

formal letter on

my office

stationery, giving

an opinion that might perhaps

carry some weight with his manager.

Dec. 31, 1959

Dear Glenn: I

cannot

having. I

began

tell

When

you how dismayed

you were here

for the first

was

to hear

You did

I'm afraid that

I

about the trouble you are

and almost canceled your concert

time to suspect that there

kind of artistic eccentricity.

Hamburg, but

I

in the fall

tell

me

is

more

earlier

to this than

about your

took your statements

much

some

illness in

too lightly.

In Search of a

When

it

became necessan'

the concert

I

realized

how

for

you

Home

to call Dr.

my

advice,

I

trip to

Europe

Watts to see you just before

feel

think you should under no circumstances

to

183

serious your disturbance really

Since vou have asked for

about vour

I

until

it

make any

I

think you

owe

it

you have consulted a physician qualified

to yourself

and

to

is

clearly amiss,

your career as an

artist to

whatever consultations and treatment may be medically indicated. that

you

will feel free to call

me

I

definitive decisions

understand and deal with your problem. Something

and

is.

necessar)' to state that

again as soon as possible so that

I

seek

hope

we may

discuss this matter further. I

have put these remarks

in the

form of

Gould's penthouse a-partment, 110

a letter at

St.

your request, and

Clair Ai'enue

West, Toronto. Photograph by Peter Ostwaid.

184

you permission

give

help to you.

weight and

I

to

GLENN GOULD

/

use this letter in any way that you think

do hope that the statements

I

have made

may

may be

carry

of

some

may assist you in ironing things out. My comments, as you much from a sincere feeling of friendship and concern for

know, stem as

your happiness as they do from medical knowledge. Yours, Peter'''

What Glenn

did with this letter

his otherwise scrupulously

Library of

Canada

at

memory

Ottawa.

when

Walter Homburger,

I

do not know. There's no sign of

maintained correspondence

I

I

assume he

it

in

National

in the

either lost or destroyed

it.

interviewed him recently, said he had no

of this entire episode and

knew nothing about my

Nor

letter.

Glenn respond by calling, writing, or giving me any further information about what was going on. This left me greatly concerned since I assumed that Glenn had probably been mentally ill. Fortunately, the episode was short-lived. During the early months of did

1960 he was able

While self

to

continue his search for a suitable place to

looking at different places with

"Mr. Roberts" and to

call

Roberts "Mr. Gould," a switch of identities

that led to rather comical situations

from potential landlords and

calls

live.

John Roberts, he Hked to call him-

when John would

receive "strange

what he wanted

landladies" asking

to

rent.2« Finally, a

Clair

six-room penthouse apartment was discovered at 110

Avenue West

in Toronto,

which Glenn

liked.

It

was

neighborhood and the rooms were spacious. Glenn managed

St.

in a quiet to

purchase

the furniture from the previous owners and asked his lawyers to buy

him

out of his earlier lease on Avenue Road, again at considerable expense. In the course of time,

remain his

him

to

official

he adjusted well

home

move back into hotels or to stay And later he spent many of his

to time.

the daytime

—

wooded

much

place,

which would

But restlessness drove

in auxiliary residences

nights

part of Toronto,

equipment and did much of

scene of

new

life.

from time

— Glenn generally

slept in

on the Park,

modern

in a studio-apartment at the Inn

hotel in a beautiful, tronic

to the

for the rest of his

where he

his tape editing.

a

installed his elec-

This was to be the

of his later creative work, as well as an ideal retreat from

the world at large.

17

JOSEPH STEPHENS

DR.

Back working

in 1952,

had met Joseph Stephens when both of us were great knowledge and love

I

New York Hospital Joe's

at the

of music

was

a key ingredient of our friendship.

He

plays both

the piano and the harpsichord extremely well and over the years

we have

had many enjoyable chamber music sessions together. Joes home is in Baltimore, where he joined the Psychiatry' Department of Johns Hopkins

Medical School, developed a private practice, and became well known in

both medical and musical

circles.

His

many

years of research into the

course and outcome of schizophrenia have brought him international

He

attention.

is

about his acute mental manager,

I

and

also a highly respected consultant

After the difficult episode in illness

therapist.

December 1959, when Glenn

and then asked

me

to intervene

decided to ask Dr. Stephens for advice.

He was

March

concert on

Orchestra. to

I

1960,

2,

Piano Concerto no. 4

tr\'

to

it,

but he

urged him to go to a

perform Beethoven's

G

major, opus 58, with the Baltimore S\Tnphony

my

concern about his health and urged Stephens

in

explained

go backstage and

when Glenn was

I

me

familiar with

the pianist's recording of the Goldberg Variations and admired

had never heard or met Gould personally So

told

with his

to find out

how he was

getting along.

He

agreed.

186

Drs. Peter Ostwald

and Joseph Stephens, both

Clinic, 1952. Courtesy of

and

me

told

Dr.

ps}'chiatrists at

Payne-Whitney

Joseph Stephens's personal collection.

afterwards that he had introduced himself to Glenn by say-

ing, "I'm a friend of Peter

neous

GLENN GOULD

/

Ostwald, which seemed to have an instanta"

effect.

After the formalities were over, Glenn proposed leaving the hall with

him his

right away.

home

The snow was

nearby. But Glenn,

falling heavily, so

accustomed

Joe wisely headed for

to driving in storms

and

bliz-

zards in his native Toronto, immediately rebuked him. "You understand

nothing about driving

do

it."

in the

snow. Let

me show

you how we Canadians

Within moments Glenn had driven through an intersection nearly

ramming on the

into a car, put his foot

icy road. "I

initiate

was scared

on the brake, and caused the car to skid who was hoping to

to death," relates Joe,

a significant conversation

found himself wondering how

this

about Glenn's playing. Instead, he

man had managed

to survive all those

Canadian winters.

was close to the concert hall and they Glenn noticed the harpsichord there and told Stephens he

Fortunately, Stephens's house arrived safely didn't

want

to

touch

it

because he had the idea that everything

in his

playing had to do with "tactile sensation," and that the secret of his play-

Dr. Joseph Stephens

187

I

ing was the feeling at "the very tip of his fingers." Stephens asked

what he meant by if

this,

and he said the

him

would be disturbed

tactile feeling

he touched the harpsichord, because he remembered from the past

the

instrument that he played. "He couldn't switch from the piano

last

organ or the harpsichord without disrupting this tactile sensation

to the

which was so important to his playing."' "I liked him very much," says Joe Stephens. "Glenn seemed very warm, very natural, very unaffected, and for some reason he seemed to like me, I was already invited to come to Canada to visit him." It was apparent that Glenn was the one who would do far more of the talking. Joe recognized that Glenn "was always a monologist." Two-way conversations were hardly possible because he was always pontificating to anybody who wanted to listen. He soon discovered that Joe was a perfect Ustener. Only a week after they first met, Glenn began calling Joe, always late at night, after eleven. "There was never, 'Am I disturbing you? Do you have company? Are you alone?' or

because before the evening was over

anything

like that.'

Doktor,' or

one of

The

calls usually started

his awful imitations of

with 'Ah, Joseph' or 'Ah, Herr

someone. And soon followed

the 'Twenty Questions' business where he would want to play guessing

games with me. "~ Thus began one of Glenn Gould's most important friendships, conducted largely by telephone two to three times a week and consolidated by occasional meetings. Glenn invited Stephens to visit him in Toronto, and several times they stayed together in the country retreat at Lake Simcoe; also, they saw each other in different East Coast cities where Glenn gave concerts. The relationship lasted for seventeen years, and I think it was as close as Glenn ever got to being involved in a kind of psychotherapy. Although there was never an exchange of fees, Stephens tried consistently to

maintain clinical objectivity with Glenn.

He

kept his

personal views in the background and never criticized, teased, or belittled

him

in

any way, whereas

I

did occasionally raise questions about Glenn's

behavior and criticize certain recordings. (For example, after his oddly manneristic version of the Preludes and Fugues from Bach's Well-Tem-

pered Clavier was released, to

I

asked him whether

break chords as often as he did.

don't

you

see, that's

my

He became

it

With Stephens, Glenn found

example,

whole secret of if

there

is

really necessary

and

replied, "Ah,

trademark.") it

possible to converse at length about

aspects of keyboard technique. As Stephens recalls that the

was

ruffled

his piano playing

is

it,

"I

once told him

the internal precision. For

a passage with sixteenth notes

and eighth notes, the

188

the sixteenth notes which are so beautifully precise.

secret

is

And

said, 'That's

I

that

GLENN GOULD

/

it's

why your

playing

appealed to him because he knew

is

so marvelous.'

was

it

true.

Of

"

was

It

course this

time

at a

when

people were playing very sloppy Bach, and he was playing extremely rhythmically precise Bach, very

much

like

admired was Rosalyn Tureck. Stephens playing and

felt that

resemblance dislikes

to hers.

And

so

between two very

Stephens

told

that the person he

all,

didn't especially care for Tureck's

was established an interplay of

One

intellectual musicians.

—

"Brahms, Schubert, Rachmaninoff

them

at

Glenn's approach to the piano bore absolutely no

He was

asked Glenn to improvise for him.

vised

He

Landowska.

he hadn't been influenced by Landowska

likes

and

time Stephens

amazingly good

that.

at

—he impro-

you name the composer ""^

all

beautifully in their styles.

Another reason why the relationship with

and lasted so long

is

that, unlike

many

Dr.

Stephens worked so well

of Glenn's other friends (including

myself), Stephens wasn't immediately taken in by the pianist's charisma.

Because he had befriended many

awe

He

of famous people.

pianist in terms of genius

when

I

celebrities, Joe

explained, "To me,

compared

to

Gina Bachauer,

was about twenty-seven and had

had kept

had learned how

was

thirty-three

to deal

really

whom

when he heard

much

Gould couldn't stand

being too

fast. "I

of the Partitas

Bach Partitas, compared

and found there

Stephens admitted

difference.""*

criti-

actually

really

who was

to Glenn,

delighted with this research and urged Stephens to publish did,

and

go to her

records that he despised, he never said

criticized for

them with many other recordings wasn't

to

when he met Gould, and by then he Maybe that's why the two men

anything. However, he did defend Gould's tempi in the

which had been widely

had met

I

a follower of,

my way

in

secondary

a

with celebrities.

got along. Joe sensed from the beginning that

cism, so that even

been

and gone out of

a very close contact with

concerts. Stephens

Stephens was not

Glenn was

it

(which he

under the name of Timothy Swanson).

Their relationship had another side as well. "One of Glenn's attractions to

me was

chondriac,"

the fact that

says

Stephens.

I

was

that

he was

during their

initial

a doctor,

Indeed,

and

a

superhypo-

meeting

in

Glenn had opened up about a serious problem with his left shoulder. It had been bothering him for some months, but he had said Baltimore,

nothing to

me

was supposed

about to

it

during that stormy period

in

December when I now explained

be his "conspirator. To Dr. Stephens, he

that during a visit to

"

New

York in

December he had requested

that the

Dr

.

oseph Stephens

J

Steinway technicians make certain adjustments 3 18.

Glenn wanted the action

to

be

much

189

I

to his favorite piano,

lighter,

which

CD

arguments

led to

with William Hupfer, the chief technician assigned to work on two

demanding pianists' instruments, Gould's and Horowitz's. Hupfer was worried that the modifications Glenn was asking for would interfere with the true Steinway sound. During one of Glenn's visits to

the Steinway workshop, Hupfer, trying in a coarse

friendly,

apparently slapped

him on

a surprise to this vulnerable individual,

(The

jolt

may

hood back

who

also have activated forgotten

injury.)

The move was

the back.

Glenn immediately

way

a

to

be

shock and

abhorred physical contact.

memories of Glenn's

started to

child-

complain about severe

and he claimed that he had been badly injured. In describing the

pain,

incident to other people, he often insisted that "Hupfer had actually

grabbed him by both shoulders and shaken him so violently as physical damage.

cause

to

"^

After this frightening incident, Glenn had rushed to see his general practitioner, Morris

Herman, who examined him

carefully

and

told

him

there was "no evidence of an injury"^ But to be on the safe side Dr.

Herman recommended

a consultation with

one of Toronto's leading

orthopedic surgeons, Morris D. Charendoff. Dr. Dr.

Charendoff examined Glenn on February

Herman

Glenn presented with complaints also

informed

position,

4,

1960. His report to

contains the following information:

me

that about six

referable to his left upper extremity.

weeks

someone had pressed down

earlier,

when he was

He

in a sitting

firmly in the region of his left shoul-

der and scapula as a "demonstration of their affection." Since that incident

he has been experiencing several rather vague complaints with reference to his left

arm, consisting chiefly of a sense of fatigue, aching, and a sense

of incoordination in the

left

arm and

especially the left hand.

He had

noticed the latter symptoms particularly in his attempts to play the piano.

He had

also

been aware of attacks of numbness and

tingling affecting the

4th and 5th digits so that he was unable to properly co-ordinate these fingers in difficult technical pieces

on the piano and

that the above prob-

lems had represented a disability to him.

Examination of Glenn to his cervical spine. all

joints of the

at

the time revealed no unusual findings relating

There was

a full range of

motion

shoulders and

in his

upper extremities. There were no signs of any major motor

nerve dysfunction or other lesions affecting the nerves of his

left

arm.

The

— 190

movement

of the fingers

GLENN GOULD

/

and hand were

normal

entirely within

limits,

although he himself did not feel able to co-ordinate these movements as easily as

usual7

The symptoms

Dr.

Charendoff had described so

numbness

incoordination, tingling and

in the fourth

coupled with the absence of physical findings that has often

been observed among

pianists

—

far

—

and

fatigue, pain,

fifth digits, all

constitute a

syndrome

and other musicians who

seek help from physicians specializing in the care of performing It is

among

a condition that not infrequently develops

those

artists.

who

drive

themselves mercilessly, practice and play their instrument excessively,

and work under conditions of undue tension and

stress.

A recent change

of instrument or playing technique occasionally contributes to the prob-

lem, and

some

studies have

shown predisposing anatomical

factors

such

as disproportionately large or small hands.

The

labels usually attached to this

der" and "repetitive strain injury." als

who do

It

syndrome include "overuse

occurs also

among

disor-

other profession-

high-speed work with their hands over long periods of time

such as computer operators. To what extent an overuse disorder

is

associ-

ated with some structural or physiological damage in the arm or hand is moot; but rest, physical therapy, and improvement in work habits are usually recommended to avoid permanent disability.^ If not promptly treated, the disorder may lead to more serious complications like tendinitis or focal dystonia (abnormal muscle movements). What Dr. Charendoff concluded in 1960 was that Gould "could have suffered a minor traction injury to the various nerves entering his upper

extremity and particularly the roots of the ulnar nerve. referred to as neuropraxia.

They can

eight weeks, but do not lead to

had quite

permanent

disability."^

a different course, however. First of

rather bizarre theories of his

He became

own

convinced that his

left

as to

left

injuries are

all,

Glenn's condition

he developed some

what was causing

his

symptoms:

shoulder had been pushed lower than

his right shoulder. X-rays taken at the time

on the

Such

usually last anywhere from sLx to

do show the shoulder blade

side to be slightly lower, but this cannot be considered a

significant finding since

many people who have no symptoms whatsoever

demonstrate the same inequality. But Glenn treated the whole thing as a major catastrophe. He canceled concerts, fretted that he would never

be able

to play the

piano again and that his career had been ruined.

Furthermore, he instructed his lawyer to take legal action against the

— Dr. Joseph Stephens

Company

Steinway Piano

was

$300,000

for

later settled out of court for a lesser

Glenn

Between

191

I

in personal

damages. The case

amount.

also sought several different kinds of treatment for his shoulder.

and October 22, 1960, he received a

Januar\' 8

home

(almost daily)

visits

total of

from a masseur, Cornelius Dees.'°

of these massage sessions were witnessed by Joe Stephens,

117

A number

who

says that

"the massage consisted of Mr.

Dees continually rubbing and kneading shoulder, arms, and back while Glenn talked and laughed

Glenn's chest, non-stop.

He

obviously enjoyed being massaged, and

sometimes won-

I

maybe Glenn had an aversion to

dered, considering the sexually inhibited person he was, whether this

gave him

some

He

physical contact.

time

me

let

shake hands with him only once, the

told

also received chiropractic treatment

from Dr. Herbert Vear,

me: "Regarding the Steinway matter,

I

found

around and above the scapula [shoulder blade] on the

complained of numbness

and he nar\'

first

we met.""

Glenn

who

erotic pleasure. Ordinarily,

felt that

problems.

sporadically,

what

him

did gave

I

He was

hand.

in the left

I

relief.

treated

But

I

a lot of tension

He

left side.

also

him with ultrasound,

often

felt

he had imagi-

coming for treatment only what was wrong with him and how I

a ver\' difficult patient,

and always

me

telling

should treat him."'"

On

Eugene Ormandy in PhilaGlenn began consulting an orthopedic surgeon in that city, Irwin as well, who would treat him intermittently for the rest of his life. the recommendation of the conductor

delphia, Stein,

At

this point Dr. Stein

elevating his left

would

rise to a

placed Glenn's upper body into a firm plaster cast,

arm over

his head, so that the left shoulder

presumably

higher position. This had the effect of totally immobilizing

him and making piano playing completely impossible. Joe Stephens once accompanied Glenn to Philadelphia to obserxe this procedure and found it appalling. Dr. Stein also recommended: "It would be nice to have vitamin B, (100 mgm), B,, (1000 micrograms) around three times a week cut down frequency in 2-3 weeks."' ^ Whether Glenn had this treatment I

do not know, but he did take cortisone,

roid, for

Dr.

some

time, apparently with

Stephens wanted him

out any ner\e damage.

to

a s\Tithetic adrenocortical ste-

little relief.

have

a neurological

Numbness and

examination

tingling in the fingers

to rule

can be

caused by compression of a peripheral nerve, and Dr. Charendoff had earlier postulated

an

injur}' to

So Stephens took him

the ulnar

nene suppKing

to the office of a

Gould's hand.

neurology professor

at

Johns

"

"

"

192

GLENN GOULD

/

Hopkins, Dr. Lutrell (since deceased),

who examined

Glenn's body very thoroughly and also tested

tendon

had

reflexes. Lutrell

hysterical

—

talking with Yehudi

is

the upper part of

of his cranial nerves and

on the

right side of his face,

world wrong with him neurologically.

a conversion reaction.

while Glenn

all

pointed out to Stephens that although Glenn

"a slight tic, a little involuntary- twitch

there's not a thing in the

"

"'"*

(The

"slight tic

Menuhin

It's

purely

can readily be seen

"

in a film

made

for television

in 1965.)'^ I

have asked Stephens, "Would there have been any way of explaining emotional conflict,

to this highly intelligent individual that

can have an effect on the body, on the way we

way the body

He

feels to us,

answered,

want

didn't

"I

and how well

think that

hear anything

to

I

fear,

anxiety

about the body, the

feel "

functions?

it

had already sized Glenn up

as

one who

like that."

"Did you ever think of saying to him, 'Look, maybe you're seeing the wrong kind of doctor; maybe you should consult a psychologist or a psy"

chiatrist?'

"Never,

I

wouldn't have dreamed of

it."

"That never crossed your mind?" did, but I would never in a million years have suggested would have been the end of our friendship." To this day Joe Stephens feels that "the whole business with his shoulder was too absurd. Never for a minute did I think he had been hurt by

"Of course

such a thing.

anybody

at

it

It

the Steinway Company."

"What about the lawsuit?"

"Much ado about

nothing.

But

I

thought, 'Well, they're litigious

people.'

"So

how

did you, as a psychiatrist, interpret what was going on?"

Glenn already had the reputation of being a great hypochonthought this was part of it. driac, so "And what does 'being a hypochondriac' mean to you? "Well, that he gave undue importance to physical symptoms that really were not on an organic basis, and that he exaggerated their significance. Actually, the concern about his shoulder was out of proportion to anything that made physiological sense. It bordered on the delusional. My own view is that Glenn probably had been physiologically dam"Well,

I

some

way, most likely because of the wear and tear resulting

aged

in

from

his incessant

emotional

more

to

strain.

do with

it

I

piano playing under conditions of poor posture and

doubt that William Hupfer's "slap on the back" had

than to provide a focus for Glenn's complaining. There

Dr.JosefthStephens had been

earlier nasty run-ins

and we know turned chery,

with the people at the Steinway Company,

that their artist liaison,

down Glenn's invitation and become his manager.

Winston

move

to

Fitzgerald,

had recently

into his intended

home, Don-

agree with Dr. Charendoff that Glenn

I

a

minor traction injury

Such conditions

to

his

suffering from

upper extremity.

and may require spe-

are extremely difficult to diagnose

conduction that were not done

much worse by

on Glenn. His misery was made

flicting

may have been

one of the nerves entering

cialized electrophysiological tests of nerve

tendency

193

I

his h^'pochondriacal

and dramatize physical symptoms. And the con-

to exaggerate

opinions and multiple treatments he received from different doc-

may

probably confused him further. Being encased in a body cast

tors

even have worsened his

by forcing him

illness

immobilization, something

we

to experience the terror of

will return to shortly.

Final proof of the ephemeral nature of Glenn's disability in

pated

in the

Vancouver Music

Festiv^al

1960

summer, he

that he continued giving concerts that year. In the

is

partici-

both as pianist and conductor.

There he met the London writer and radio director Humphrey Burton,

who was interested in the newly upcoming field of television for music. They developed a friendly rapport and agreed to collaborate in the future on

a series of films It

was unusual

about major composers.

for

Glenn

to find

any merit

nineteenth-century

in the

piano literature, but around this time he began to feel an affinity for

Johannes Brahms, whose Quintet 34,

for

Piano and Strings in F Minor, opus

he had recently performed and recorded.

Much

of Brahms's music

is

suffused with a characteristic bittersweetness, a blend of melancholy and elation. In his personality,

Both

men were

Brahms

also shared

outstanding pianists

duct. Brahms, like Gould,

some

who wanted

was keenly involved

to

of Gould's qualities.

compose and

musicological analysis. Both led an isolative, almost secretive

and both remained unmarried.'^

It

a

woman who was

married to another well-known pianist-composer. As with

Glenn had taken Concerto no.

1

in

it is

based on

a special interest in

D

on April 24, 1960, and

all

in

8,

Brahms's

1959, then

great

men,

fact. ver\'

demanding Piano

Minor, which he performed for the

Winnipeg, Manitoba, on October

and

lifestyle,

reported that Gould, as well as

is

Brahms, experienced an intimate relationship with gossip will endure, whether or not

to con-

in contrapuntal study

in

first

time in

South Bend, Indiana,

Vancouver, B.C., on August 17, 1961, with the

young Zubin Mehta conducting. He also spent much time in 1959 and 1960 recording ten of Brahms's Intermezzi for Columbia Masterworks.

194

These are stunningly

/

GLENN GOULD some with unexpectedly

original performances,

slow tempi and exposure of inner voices. Glenn himself called them "sexy,"

which was

a very unusual statement

never explained whether or

whether he thought

it

it

meant

that the

coming from him, but he

music stimulated him sexually

might turn on other

listeners. In

1960 he also

recorded three important works of Beethoven, the Sonata no. 17 in

D

Minor ("Tempest"), the "Eroica" Variations, opus 35, and the Variations in F Major, opus 34. In 1961 Glenn was still complaining about problems with his left arm and shoulder.

He

again canceled several concerts, including perfor-

mances with the San Francisco Symphony, which I regretted especially because I had hoped to introduce him to my wife, Lise Deschamps. Lise and I had met two years earlier after a concert of the Santa Rosa Symphony conducted by Corrick Brown, in which her teacher, Egon Petri, performed the Beethoven "Emperor" Concerto. I was playing in the vioHn section and met Lise at a reception after the concert. Lise did not suspect that I was a psychiatrist, nor did she know that was a violinist. Seeing me in a tuxedo serving champagne, her initial impression was that I must be the butler of this beautiful home with two Bosendorfer grands. One source of attraction between us was our mutual fascination with Glenn Gould, whom we spoke about that first evening. Lise, too, is a professional pianist. She had been so enthralled by Gould's rendition of the Goldberg Variations that she performed them at age sixteen shortly after his recording was released. When we met, Lise was preparing to enter the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. A French-Canadian from Montreal, Lise shared with Glenn similar cultural attributes. After the "conspiracy" episode late in 1959, Glenn had stopped communicating with me; no more phone calls or letters, but I continued to hear about him from Dr. Stephens. Glenn knew nothing about my marriage to Lise Deschamps, on December 22, 1960, and when he received our bilingual wedding announcement he must have been quite surprised. He had been traveling, and the news did not catch up with him for I

several weeks.

me

clearly disturbed him, as

It

on February

—you

Dear Peter

What

we

see in the letter he sent

17, 1961:

dog:

mean by announcing your marriage two months And may say that you have incensed not only psychiatric community as well. Our mutual friend,

the h ... do you

after the fact.

The

nerve!

the musical but the

Joe Stephens, fully shares

I

my wrath

at

receiving such tardy notice. [Glenn

Dr

Peter

and

J ose

.

ph Stephens

I

195

Lise. Photograph by Audrey Larsen. Courtesy of

Peter Ostwald's private collection.

was being hyperbolic; Joe had been informed much earher]

I

man,

that

a limit.

while

I

come

to

you do

am

in the

Now

that

things casually, but, after

mood

Montreal

me up when to

all

[I'd

to tell

have

off,

may

to

meet

gone there

you are that I

you

close.

let off

.

steam,

.

all,

there

is

realize, old

And

say that you must never again

I

Lise's family]

without looking

.

let

me

say seriously

how

delighted

I

am

hear of your marriage and compliment you on having the good taste to

marry

a

Canadian.

I

meeting her

certainly look forward to

in April.

All the best for now,

Glenn''

As

a

wedding present he sent us

book about Yugoslavia, with

several

illustrations of

months

later a

magnificent

superb frescoes from the old

churches and monasteries, most of them probably destroyed by

now

in

196

the recent

and

war.

civil

GLENN GOULD

/

Thus our

communication reopened, and Lise

line of

both thanked him for his thoughtful

I

Some

gift.

A

cancelations were easier for Glenn than others.

particular

when he was scheduled to perform Beethoven's "Emperor" in Philadelphia with Eugene Ormandy conducting. Glenn was fond of Ormandy, who like a good father figure had earlier recommended the orthopedist, Dr. Stein, in Philadelphia, who had put him into a plaster cast. That, as we shall see, was one reason for Glenn's terror in contemplating a concert there. He agonized over how to explain this to Ormandy and prepared several drafts for the letter he finally sent. problem arose

Here

is

1961

in

one of the

drafts;

Dear Eugene I

but

daresay you have received some strange requests from time to time, I

daresay that few of them will have been as stealthy(?) as the one I'm

going to

you

make

you now.

to

I

have developed

that

felt

extraordinary that only by writing can I

what

give

I

it

Never before

Philadelphia.

for

it,

I

I

in

have come

my

some

become

months what can only

I

experienced anything

weeks

[The draft breaks

off,

terror at the

my

imagination

will not

There were further

Emma. They

there and with the fact

at least pianistically.

but in another one he adds]

dreadful and quite idiotic

hope that you

my weeks

was immobilized

I

feel

I

judge

me

at all

something approaching

inextricably confused with

that during those

so

better form.)

thought of playing there. I'm afraid that Philadelphia in has

call is

in regard to giving concerts in

have

life

to feel

courage to

have to ask of you

the word) over the past

(if that's

be described to you as a great apprehension

similar to

summon

have been trying to

(I

for the last several days, but

about

this

I

.

.

.

can only say how

whole business and can only

too harshly'*^

drafts, including

one

for a letter to

Ormandy s

wife

are riddled with apologies, with concerns about letting the

orchestra down, with misgivings about his fee.

bad person, not

a sick person.

There

is

Gould views himself

clearly

an emotional

as a

illness

involved here, a phobic reaction to the idea of making a public appear-

ance

in Philadelphia,

"immobilized

"

which

again. "It

is

kind than to shake (dislodge) fantasy away;

He

it

is

is

so

associated in his

much

it,"

mind with becoming

easier to develop a phobia of this

he writes.

He cannot chase

the horrible

obviously connected with the saga of the bad shoulder.

dream about self-injury: "I had a dream, for instance in which I seemed to be waiting first offstage in the [Philadelphia] Academy and as moved toward the stage fell over a even reports

a

quite a few nights ago

—

I

Dr. Joseph Stephens

rope of some kind and the dream ended as arm.

197

I

apparently broke an

I

."''^ .

.

Glenn couldn't simply admit himself

Tragically,

be emotionalK

to

ill

and seek help from an appropriate professional. Not once did he mention

make

the Philadelphia phobia to Dr. Stephens. Instead, he had to deal out of

though

as

it

was

"idiotic"

by dealing with

Ormandy

Ormandy, dramatize and

to

it

on

his

it,

He had

and "an aberration."

entirely

it

mystifv'

to

maintain control

own.

took the situation in stride. Van Cliburn. recent first-prize

Moscow Tchaikowsky

Competition, replaced Glenn as

winner

in the

soloist.

Trying to shield Glenn from embarrassment,

him: "Perhaps

it

will give

it

you

a

chuckle

some psychological

talked to X'an, for third time

a big

and blame himself

happened, he said he

Glenn and he considered

it

when

reason,

didn't

I

mind

Ormandy wrote

you that every time

tell

I

because he loved

at all

an honor and a pleasure

I

him Glenn. The

called

to

be called by that

name. That a

sort of flatter)'

maniac

always went a long way with Glenn. "He was such

search of praise and attention," says Joe Stephens. "Yet he

in

him

couldn't see that the ver)' things that he did were giving

that.

best example possible [from the perspective of his music making]

he would play things him]

[to

this

was not

at a

else,

He was

to gain attention in

me

it

consummate

that

any way. This was the way he

was,

'I

can play faster than any-

and with great accuracy, and so I'm going

the

The

speed which was absolutely remarkable, but

percei\ed the music. Whereas to

body

is

show-off, and he couldn

t

to

see

be a show-off.'

it

at

He was

all.

how he hated virtuosity insight to know that he was

always talking about the purity of the music, and

He didn't have the who wallowed in attention.

for the sake of \irtuosit\'.

the supernarcissist

"-'

Although Stephens expresses skepticism that "somebody who of touch with his

own

is

did at one point attempt, subtly and diplomatically, to introduce a colleague in

him

a recent

in Toronto,

and Stephens wrote

to

Stanley E.

Canadian graduate of the Johns Hopkins psychiatric

training program:

Dear Stan, I

nist.

suggested that Glenn Gould

What he

to

who might have been able to treat him. This is the summer of 1962 Glenn asked Stephens for the

Toronto

how it happened. In name of an internist Greben,

so out

motivations" could benefit from psychotherapy, he

needs,

I

call

you about being referred

would assume,

is

someone who

to

will take

an

inter-

him

seri-

198

ously but reassure

sophistication.

son even visit

him

Knowing Glenn,

case.

.

when

.

.

GLENN GOULD

/

that there this

You might

he's

nothing wrong with him

is

the

if this is

could take patience and some psychological

knowing Glenn who

like

being hypochondriacal.

is

a fascinating per-

Maybe he might come

over to

you some evening since you are practically neighbors.""

Glenn did

call Dr.

Greben, who

now

is

a professor of psychiatry

and

psychoanalysis at the University of Toronto and a leader in the treatment of performing artists. But the request was for an ear-nose-throat special-

because of

ist

"a persistent cough,"

W. Goodman. About six weeks invite him and his wife for drinks at

and Greben gave him the name of

Glenn

Greben to Avenue and dinner at Benvenuto, a restaurant in the apartment-hotel on Avenue Road where he had once considered living. "He was cordial," Dr. Greben told me. "He was clearly a very sensitive and shy person, but not standoffish. He didn't behave in a way which said, 'I'm a celebrity and you're lucky to be with me.' On the contrary, he was gracious and as comfortable as a shy person can be, and he obviously felt indebted for what little I did, which was five minutes over the telephone. But he was repaying my Dr.

later

called Dr.

apartment on

his

St. Clair

debt."

"What kind of impression did he make on you as a psychiatrist?" "He wasn't finicky about his food, and he wasn't difficult about it, and he didn't give anybody a hard time. or

demanding

in

He

wasn't difficult with the waiter,

any way. I'm very cautious

to

interpretations of any kind, but the impression

was worried and frightened, and I would have "What would make you say phobic?" "Well, the

was

make any got

little bit

and he seemed

a

person

who

to say phobic."

He seemed

dressed, for one.

psychological

was of

to

afraid of being chilled, of being infected, of being

that way,

He

way he

I

me ill.

a person It

just

who

seemed

[weakened, debilitated], a

a little bit asthenic

worried about himself, but not in a way that he put into words.

didn't

seem hardy

sively self-protective,

in his attitudes

and

I

about his health.

would think

He seemed

was based on

that

exces-

fear for his

health."

"Did you

feel

you might want

"The inclination was there.

to

have befriended. But his shyness didn't

want

to intrude

on him.

was hoping something might interested,

and somewhere

in

be

He was I

his therapist?"

a

man

I

would very much

felt like a barrier to

doing

that.

liked to I

felt

I

did have the feeling that Joe [Stephens]

click.

me

I

I

would have been very

positively

always regretted that Glenn didn't

Dr. Joseph Stephens

choose

me

to ask

w ith many

people, and so loved to see tion

if

artists,

if

we could work

and

his

way

I'xe

As you know,

of handling himself, and

he could be helped with what

and avoidance.

199

worked

I've

have a great respect for highly creative,

I

admired

I

together.

I

worked with

I

I

artistic

would have

took to be a phobic condi-

a lot of people like that, so

it

would

ha\e been interesting." "You opened the door as widely as you possibly could." "Yes,

but Glenn never got in touch with

Glenn

man

certainly

as sensitive

not materialize,

me

again.

"^^

would have benefited from treatment sessions with

and knowledgeable

it is

my

as Stanley

Greben. Since

a

this did

belief that Glenn, laden \\ith terrible fears,

was

fortunate to have enjoyed the therapeutic friendship, professional objectivlt)',

musical rapport, and subtle guidance which Joe Stephens pro\ided

so generously for

many

years.

18

THE PITFALLS OF COMPOSING AND

PERFORMING As

he approached the end of

his twenties,

Glenn

felt a

sudden

compose again. This time he wanted to write an opera. He hadn't composed anything since 1955, when, at twenty-

urge to

three, after his "opus

two years of intermittent work, he completed a string quartet, As we learned earlier from his composer friend Oskar Mora-

." 1

wetz, Glenn's ambition to be a composer was linked to his wish for "immortality"

—

a desire that

something tangible, stamped by the unique-

ness of his personality, would remain after his death.

According "a sort of

to

an interview given

musical Renaissance

Man

obviously wanted to be a composer.

convinced that early film

sions with

it

was

true.

1962, Glenn thought of himself as

in

I

capable of doing

many

things.

I

And who had directed Glenn's CBC, used to have long discus-

still

do."'

some people were

Franz Kraemer,

and recording projects

at

the

him about composing. (Kraemer himself had wanted

to

be a

composer before emigrating from Austria to Canada; he had been a student of Alban Berg.) "Basically Glenn was a composer," Kraemer told me. "He worked everything out in his head, and his approach to music was absolutely contrapuntal and logical. His sense for counterpoint was absolutely extraordinary. While playing he always sang an extra voice.

The

Pi tfa lis of

C om posing and Pe rfo r m in g

Glenn was so highly creative, and '~ he would have composed more.

The

if

—

proud because he

expression of his musical creativity

("a

felt

made Glenn

it

to

"),^

feel

be a genuine

subjective synthesis of

most deeply affected [my] adolescence

knew

201

he'd lived another twenty-five years

successful completion of his string quartet had

both proud and embarrassed

I

all

that has

and embarrassed because he

that the quartet betrayed his unfamiliarity with the capabilities of

string instruments.

While working on

it

he had asked

for technical advice

from several experienced musicians, including Harvey Olnick.

He

used

to call

me sometimes

at

one ociock

had written three more bars

to the quartet

whole thing [Olnick

He wanted

indeed

recalled].

in the

morning because he

and he wanted

to play the

admiration the whole time, and

thought what he was doing was miraculous. But as a piano piece,

I

not as a quartet. Because he didnt really learn that you have to

around

registers

was an

in order to

make

things interesting.

act of will, of deciding beforehand that he

And

wanted

move

the composition to

do

this."*

Glenn seems to have learned quickly, for in its final form his quartet makes quite effective use of the string medium and is surprisingly free of pianistic cliches.

ousness of

this

What immediately

strikes the listener

is

the seri-

work. Rarely does the music show any of that lightheart-

edness or facetiousness which Glenn radiated in his social behavior. Instead,

we have

thirty-five

minutes of deeply somber, occasionally

agi-

The underlying tonality, F minor, sets the basically melancholy mood. The quartet is composed in a style that has become thoroughly outmoded, tated,

and

sounding

at

at

times almost unbearably intense polyphonic music.

times like something Anton Bruckner or Richard Strauss

might have written. There

is

no trace of the

atonality of those twentieth-

century composers, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, whose work Glenn

was

so familiar with

Glenn wrote

and had been championing

a long essay

in his concerts.

about his string quartet, commenting that

it

does not reflect "my great admiration for the music of Schoenberg" and that

it

happily declared an equally strong affection for "the Viennese

romantics of a generation before Schoenberg."' Indeed, he was coming to

develop a strong partiality for the music of Richard Strauss, a contem-

who adhered stubbornly to the late Romantic style new twelve-tone method of composing. Glenn devoured Strauss's tone-poems and operas. He knew many of them by heart, and he loved playing his own piano transcriptions of these works porary of Schoenberg

while totally ignoring the

202

GLENN GOULD

/

while singing or mouthing the vocal

when

string orchestra written

compositions

may have

was writing

work within

whom

a

adored,

I

"

lines.

Among

for

served as models for Glenn's string quartet.

harmonic language

a

he observed, "yet

recent and, indeed, from

second

were the

Strauss was eighty-one years old. Both

I

was working

kind of contrapuntal independence which

The

his favorites

opens the opera CafHccio, and the Metamorphosen

string sextet that

much

utilized

"I

by composers

in this language with a

had learned from more

I

older masters."*^

quartet begins mysteriously, with a four-note motive played by the violin hovering over a fog of notes held

by the lower

strings:

3^

U* y !

$

jq:

V

Musical example of Gould's quartet.

This nuclear motive generates everything that happens throughout the entire work.

It

permeates the lengthy introduction, empowers the gor-

geous, songlike second theme, controls the very complicated develop-

ment

section,

and

is

even transformed into

three hundred measures of what

the instruments replay lier

many

a fugue.

Glenn was hesitant

At one point, to call a

in

"Coda,"

of the contrapuntal evolutions induced ear-

A

by the four-note motive.

long recapitulation section mingles the

various themes in a dense counterpoint and again exposes ever^'thing that has

happened

before.

Glenn's quartet tends to exploit the mid- to low ranges of the four string instruments almost exclusively, sonorities,

which produces

a

seldom venturing

into high-register

sense of uniformity. But the resulting

monotony is dispelled by occasional dramatic "subclimaxes," achieved by a sudden brightening of the texture through harmonic resolution. Finally, he puts

this great slithering

contrapuntal beast of a string quartet to rest

amidst layers of calm tremolos played by the different instruments.

One

is

left

with the impression that the composer has done a

rate job resurrecting the juicy

Romantic

style that

was

in fashion

first-

during

the latter half of the nineteenth century and that Richard Strauss so successfully carried forward into the twentieth. in

mimicking

this style

Gould shows

great

skill

while displaying an adroit use of counterpoint.

Although the work seems overly long

moving experience. But considering

in places, listening to

that this

it

can be

a

music stems from an icono-

The

Pi tfa lis of

who

clast

ser\atism his

own

Composing and

P e rfo rming

prided himself on being highly innovative, is

Gould

exasperating. Perhaps

as

its

203

I

downright con-

composer hadn't

yet

found

voice, the ability to "speak in a tongue that has not previously

Maynard Solomon puts

more what was most certainly a conservative side of himself. In many ways Glenn did indeed have the qualities of an old Canadian backwoodsman, settled been heard," likely, this

in his

own

as the musicologist

was

his

own

true voice,

and he was using

it

it7 Or,

to express

beliefs, loyal to his national origins, self-sufficient,

terested in progress.

seldom varied

He wore

his diet; for a

but scrambled eggs.

He had

a passion for solitude,

cian

Glenn worshipped, so why not borrow the mantle of

Perhaps that

He

regarded

it

how is

far

disin-

and he pursued

projects with single-minded energy. Besides, Richard Strauss

while exploring

and

same kind of clothes all his life. He while it was steaks, then fish, later nothing the

he himself could go as

a

was

a

this older

man

composer.

the most important message of Gould's string quartet.

as a highly personal expression of his formative years.

of the things he

his

musi-

had enjoyed most

in his

youth was listening

to

One

Wagner's

und Isolde, which he said made him weep.^ (Weeping was someGlenn was never observed doing.) He recognized that there had

Tristan

thing

been unconscious factors motivating him

was not shaping the quartet

remarking,

"I

knew

he could do

that

better.

a native lack of invention.

It's

it

tr\'

did,

And he of Opus

"^

this spiritual catharsis will not

Opus

remedy

2 that counts!"^°

But there would never be an opus 2 during ever again

compose the way he was shaping me.

"The system must be cleansed

Ones, he wTote; "the therapy of "

to

—

his lifetime,

to write a strictly instrumental work.

nor did Glenn

(However, other com-

positions were published after his death.) His desire to articulate his

and to dramatize them through performance and filmmaking, was to consume much of his creative energy, so that "being a composer remained largely a matter of fantasy, part of his imagined self-image but ver\' rarely a reality. Only sporadically did he tn,- to make the fantasy come true, as can be seen when one looks through his personal papers and here and there finds a reference to something he wanted to compose or a fragment of music he had actually written. For example, in a letter to the composer Da\id Diamond in 1959: "I am struggling with the sonata for clarinet and piano, which am desperately trNing to prevent from becoming a quintet. My ideas in speech and writing rather than pure music,

"

I

piano writing always has a habit of getting over-rich and assuming a short [sic]

of organ pedal for the left

able except for the cello.""

No

hand which always ends up being unplaytrace of such a composition has survived.

.

204/GLENNGOULD As soon to

have

it

member Reach

as

he finished writing the string quartet, Glenn was pushing

performed.

He browbeat

the violist Otto Joachim, a founding

of the Montreal String Quartet, into taking a look at the score.

for

your most reliable sedative [he wrote Joachim]. You are about

As you

to receive a blast!

will

no doubt recollect

—the quartet has been

in

your possession for well nigh on 2 months [....]! have waited with exemplary patience, not usually identified with

past couple of months,

I

my temperament. And

have given you guys a helluva

lot

Your performance? of [the quartet] has been mentioned interviews on

my trips

—

Naturally,

all this

in the

of free publicity. in

numerous

stems from motives of the great-

est altruism.''

The Montreal

String Quartet

Glenn's quartet for the

CBC

made

broadcast transcription of

a

1956, and in 1960

in

it

was recorded

for

commercial release by the Symphonia Quartet of Cleveland (Columbia

MS

6178).

An

excellent recent recording

the one by

is

Bruno Mon-

saingeon, Gilles Apap, Gerard Causse, and Alain Meunier (Sony

These recordings probably

184).

No

famous musician.

exist only

of the Claremont Quartet, about playing

Mark Gottlieb, it,

"This juvenile work was just impossible for us," of a bygone age; piece.

a

major string ensemble has made his quartet part

of their repertory. At one point he buttonholed ist

SK 47

because Glenn was such

Mark

no audience today would want

first violin-

but was turned down. told

to sit

me.

"It

reeked

through such a

"'^

Glenn spoke repeatedly about wanting

to

compose an

opera, and at

twenty-nine his infatuation with the music of Richard Strauss actually inspired II

him

to jot

down some

or Richard Strauss Writes

an

2.

The composer The composer's daughter

3.

her husband

1

4.

12-tone composer

5.

Diatonicist

ideas for an opera to be called Children O-pera.

The intended

cast was:

6. Electronicist

An

autobiographical element

ments of dialogue here):

(I

assume

is vers'

it is

obvious in the few sur\'iving frag-

the composer's daughter

who

is

singing

— The Pitfalls of Composing and Performing Father,

what

is

success

you have succeeded it

if

you cannot enjoy

— look

at

.

.

you need the proof that

.

Wagner, how the world was

prevent him from writing more? No,

father,

it

it

205

I

inspired him.

at his feet .

.

.

your opera given by Karajan, your sonata played by Cliburn

symphony given by

— did

Think of

—

it

your

Bernstein.

Here's another fragment, presumably the "12-tone composer"

talk-

is

ing to "the composer":

Surely, doctor, is

the only

way

and orders because

you must know that

ludicrous. This

of yours

to express

all,

there's

this infinitely

heaving romantic

the day of atonality, not tonality

your age, doctor, an age in which the

commands no one

is

to

all, lift

.

.

.

man

style

this

is

creates

doesn't kneel, doesn't beg, doesn't cry

him up,

to grant

him

favors, or to

wipe

his

tears.'"*

Gould composed any music for this or any other operas, he must it, for nothing resembhng notation for an opera can be found among his papers. But one shouldn't belittle his creativity. He just didn t have it in him to be a composer of operas or other large-scale If

have destroyed

works. His String Quartet, opus

1,

is

sufficient proof of his talent as a

composer. But the time and energy needed for doing

this

kind of work

he directed elsewhere.

The

period 1961—62 saw recordings of three piano concertos

no. 24 in

C

— Mozart

Minor, K. 491, with Walter Susskind conducting the

CBC

Symphony; the Schoenberg Piano Concerto, opus 42, with Robert Craft conducting the CBC Symphony; and the Beethoven Concerto no. 4 in

G

Major, opus 58, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the

New

York

Philharmonic. In addition, Glenn recorded Richard Strauss's setting of Alfred Lord Tennyson's epic poem,

Enoch Arden, with Claude Rains as A Major for Cello and Piano,

the narrator; Beethoven's Sonata no. 3 in

opus 69, with Leonard Rose; Beethoven's Trio 1,

("Ghost"), with Leonard Rose

in

D

Major, opus 70, no.

and Oscar Shumsky; Bach's Art of the

Fugue Nos. 1-9, played on the organ of All Saint's Church in Kingsway, Ontario; and the Preludes and Fugues Nos. 1—8 from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

During those twenty-four months Glenn also made

grams and participated

in five radio broadcasts.

five television pro-

Most

of the television

programs featured his discussion and presentation of various musical works,

many with

the collaboration of other musicians and singers, and

206

Gould

/

GLENN GOULD

at the organ, 1962. Photograph by Dale Barnes. Courtesy of

CBC.

often on a very ambitious scale. For example, a Richard Strauss Festival televised

on October

15, 1962, included, in addition to Gould's discus-

sion of his affinity for this composer, three sets of songs by Strauss with

the soprano Lois Marshall; the Suite, opus 60, "Le Bourgeois Gentil-

homme," with an orchestra conducted by Oscar Shumsky; and the first movement of Strauss's Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat Major, opus 18, played by Shumsky and Gould. Notable among the radio broadcasts was Glenn's first venture into a documentary

style

focused on an important musician. This one was

The Man Who Changed Music. Over the years would be followed by other radio documentaries on Leopold Stokowski, Pablo Casals, Richard Strauss, and a series called Master Musician presenting Yehudi Menuhin. When Glenn was in San Francisco for concerts in February 1962, he mentioned the Schoenberg documentary and I told him that I had met the composer in 1948 when he was teaching at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. I was enrolled there as a summer student and privileged to attend Schoenberg's lectures on musical analysis. He would explain in a breathtakingly precise way the

called Arnold Schoenberg: it

The

Pi tfa lis of

Composing and Pe rfo rniing

detailed structure of a major composition,

and

I'll

207

I

never forget his

bril-

Brahms Second Symphony. Schoenberg also invited selected students and faculty members to his home. Since was studying with Sidney Griller of the Griller Quartet from London, which was planning to perform one of the master's string quartets, was able to attend an evening totally devoted to Schoenberg's chamber music at his own liant analysis of the

I

I

house.

He

their construction.

me

ney Griller asked speech,

There was

small

little

the end of the evening to

at

became completely

I

commented

played recordings of the four string quartets and

on

liberally

and when Sid-

talk,

make

a thank-you

tongue-tied.

Glenn wanted to interview me for his two-hour Schoenberg documenHis plan was to include interviews with people who felt strongly about the composer and would have contrasting opinions of him and his work. The final selection was Aaron Copland, Winthrop Sargeant, Goddard Lieberson, Istvan Anhalt, Schoenberg's wife Gertrude, and myself. Glenn then edited the tapes in such a way that we seemed to be talking to each other, at times contradicting each other. When the project was tary.

nearing completion, he wrote to me:

Dear

Peter:

Just thought

would

I

let

most valued contribution tried to

surround

it

Goddard Leiberson

you know that our interview has become a

to the

Schonberg

documentary.

[sic]

We

have

with rather good company including Aaron Copland, [sic]

and Winthrop Sargent

all

of

them reminiscing

to

various degrees about experience with Schonberg or giving their views of

But

his music.

I

must say

the most valuable of

Schonberg.

There

is

I

am

all,

that, in

since

grateful to have

one moment

in

it

some ways your interview has proven throws an especially

Copland's interview

thing to the effect that "Schonberg was really not the sort of person

I

would want

human

to

in

kind of person

spend an evening with.

the views of others in conversation, but 1

think, with that in

Schonberg" Copland,

—

or

words

if

I

am

which you begin

to that effect. In

at this point there will be,

which should provide,

"

He

I

give

my

Glenn Gould'"

to

absorb

"I

spent an evening with

any case, between you and

Mr

hope, a rather delicious dialogue

not a clear picture of Schonberg in toto, at least

best to Lise and, of course, best to you.

Sincerely,

— not

says this

going to truncate his com-

an illuminating contrast of view.

Do

on

which he says some-

my

by way of indicating that he found Schonberg rather reluctant

ment,

light

it.

208

8,

GLENN GOULD

/

The Schoenberg documentary was broadcast by the CBC on August 1962. A month later Glenn wrote me that "the show was apparently a

great success

and

CBC] now wants

[the

to re-run

have been on a commission)."'^

(gad, Sir,

it

you should

—

Although he continued to give concerts thirty-two in 1961 and they were getting to be increasingly joyless affairs. in 1962

—

twenty-two

Stephens was with him on January

Dr.

remember he had

"I

2,

1962,

when he

Brandenburg Concerto and Strauss's Burleslze

Fifth

says.

"The

pill

calm himself down," Stephens

to take his pills to

he took was called 'Soma' [carisoprodol, manufactured by

Wallace Laboratories; usually prescribed as an adjunct therapy,

and other measures

joints,

also has sedating effects].

certo,

it

he got

played Bach's

in Baltimore.

lost in

the

first

to rest, physical

muscles and

to relieve discomfort in the

While playing the Brandenburg Con-

movement and made

he absolutely insisted that the tape of any of the orchestra's broadcasts.

this

mistakes. Afterwards

performance never be used

in

"'^

Gerhard Samuel conductOakland Symphony, Glenn played the Fourth Piano Concerto by Beethoven, a work he knew backwards and forwards, but he had the In Oakland, California, on February 6, with

ing the

miniature score open in front of him and even while playing the cadenza

consulted notes in the back of the book. "The

and ponderous," wrote Alfred Frankenstein

first

in the

movement was slow

San Francisco Chroni-

"but the whole was nevertheless suffused with the Gould and with his incomparable singing tone."'^

cle,

of

irresistible

poetry

during an all-Beethoven recital at Hertz Hall in Berkeon the printed music but played quite a few unexpected notes in the Sonata opus 3 1 no. 2, (the "Tempest"). My wife had recently performed that sonata in a concert at the San Francisco Conservatory. Five days

later,

he didn't

ley,

rely

,

We

couldn't

tell

whether Glenn was improvising

to cover a

memory

lapse

work contain the notes in question.) After the concert, Lise congratulated him on his beautiful performance and added, earnestly: "We must be using heard you play some very different editions for the 'Tempest' because unexpected note sequences in the recitative." Glenn brushed the com-

or

had mislearned the sonata. (None of

his recordings of this

I

ment

aside with "Oh,

it's

quite possible;

For a solo recital on February

1

5 in

I

don't recall."

the San Francisco

Opera House,

he again relied on the score, pasted on very large pieces of cardboard, for the Beethoven Sonata opus 109, no. 30. This was another

played many,

many

times and recorded. Evidently he had

work he had

lost

confidence

in his memory. But the playing was outstanding. "Gould's supremacy

is

'

The

C omposing and Pe rfo rming

Pi tfa lis of

partly a matter of rh)lhm, ing, free

tone.

piano.

rh)thm held

Nobody draws

in

"

wTote Alfred Frankenstein, "a

check by perfect

and

taste

209

I

living,

breath-

partly a matter of

and singing a sound from the

so richly colored

"19

came over to our house. By now we had a home in our car to relieve the baby-sitter, while Glenn drove with Lise in his own rented car. First they stopped at After the concert, Glenn

SL\-month-old baby, so

drove

I

the Huntington Hotel to deposit his folding chair and pick

up

a

few

items of clothing. "The disorder in his room was unbelievable," Lise

remembers. "Clothes, music, and boxes of books were strewn around I had to help him find what he needed, because he room without an e.xtra scarf, a warmer pair of gloves, and a heavier sweater." She found Glenn's driving "as unpredictable as his musical st)'le." Red lights were sometimes ignored and he veered erratically between lanes (1962 was one of the years Glenn nearly had to forfeit his Canadian driver's license). Just before getting to our house, you make a sharp right-hand turn off the boulevard into a street that goes

helter-skelter,

and

couldn't leave the

"Glenn turned so abruptly that he landed on the sidewalk, and he

uphill.

continued

to drive

on

for a

moment,

nearly hitting a tree while trying to

avoid the cars parked along the curb, in

one piece when we got home. But

says Lise.

"

I

must add

"I

was surprised

that

to

he apologized

be

in a

most charming manner."

Once humor.

there,

We

sat

he was a delightful guest, relaxed, charming,

down

in the dining

room

for a

full

of

midnight supper. Lise had

prepared one of her elaborate meals, thinking he would be famished, but

he spent more time singing than eating. "Oh, about the food, "but to

let

me

sing you

my

latest

it's

ver)'

good,

"

he said

composition, So You VJant

made a bee-line for the Bluthner which how can you possibly play on this chair," he

Write a Fugue." After that he

he'd always liked. "But Lise,

scolded after spotting the Chippendale with a conventional high seat she

was then using. "We searched

for a

box he could

sit

on

to

approximate

own chair. We found none, so he had to settle for the Chippendale. And then it was Strauss, Strauss, Strauss nonstop for the next two hours. his

Glenn played huge selections from Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Die Frau ScJiatten, and Capriccio, mimicking all the vocal parts and producing a lush orchestral sound from the piano. He was having great fun, and it was an exhilarating experience for us. But we were getting tired, and

ohne

when

Lise suggested preparing an early breakfast for the three of us

before our daughter's to his hotel.

six

o'clock feeding, he took the hint and drove back

210

Only three months

GLENN GOULD

/

an unhappy event took place that proved

later

embarrassing to Leonard Bernstein and hurtful to Glenn Gould. They

were scheduled opus

perform Brahms's

to

with the

15,

New

already performed

about

Piano Concerto in

three times and had been doing a

it

which

this concerto,

First

York Philharmonic on April 6 and

is

D

Minor,

Glenn had

8.

of thinking

lot

one of the more problematic works

in the

chamber music piece, it generated a very negative response when Brahms himself first performed it as a concerto. To understand Gould's interpretation of this work, one must piano

literature.

Conceived

originally as a

recognize that he held an exceedingly biased view of the conventional concerto. soloist

.

.

.

Gould thought

of

as a vehicle for "competition"

it

between

and orchestra:

the

come

monumental

off

sensibilities balk at

structure:

figures like

Beethoven and Brahms almost always

second best as concerto

writers,

perhaps because their native

pampering the absurd conventions of the concerto

the orchestral pre-exposition setup, to

titillate

the listener's

expectation of a grand dramatic entrance for the soloist; the tiresomely repetitive thematic structure, arranged to let the soloist prove that really

can turn that phrase

clarinet

who

just

cadenza writing

more

to a

announced

and above

it,

—the posturing

rakish

trills

all

tilt

than the fellow on

he

first

the outdated aristocracy of

and arpeggios,

all

twitteringly super-

fluous to the fundamental thematic proposition. All these have helped to

build a concerto tradition which has provided rassing examples of the primeval

Of course we know Glenn Nevertheless, he claimed

to

dize

it

—

[the concerto's] contrasts.

ment

in

to

to integrate rather

inine contrasts of

some

for

I

most embar-

off."**

have been a notorious show-off himself.

the other one, in B-flat

subordinate the

than to

Brahms

isolate. ...

I

D

Minor

Major) was con-

soloist's role,

not to aggran-

have chosen

to

minimize

have deliberately ignored the masculine-fem-

theme which have become the cornerstone

the classical concerto tradition. ...

traditional accents

of the

showing

that his interpretation of the

Concerto (he never performed cerned with "an attempt

human need

of senti-

In the process, certain

have been avoided; certain dynamic proclamations

have been understated; certain opportunities for the soloist to take the "^'

hand have been bypassed. What immediately bothered Leonard Bernstein was Glenn's approach to the tempo. The first movement is in 6/8 time, marked Maestoso, and Brahms had written into his own score the metronome mark 56 for the

reins firmly in

The Pitfalls of Composing and Performing

211

I

half-measure. Conductors therefore usually give two beats to each mea-

But Glenn wanted Lenny to conduct

sure.

which

down

drastically slows

discussion: "You're not going to really do

me what

it

remembered

this way. You're just

their

showing

you've found, with these mathematical relationships between

one movement and another. And he

way

said, 'No, this is the

we'll play

"~-

And

It.'

beats to the measure,

six

the tempo. Bernstein

said. 'All right.'

I

Even

New York

after rehearsing the

Philharmonic using Glenn s slow

tempi, the conductor remained unconvinced. For Bernstein and the

was embarrassingly

orchestra, this basic pulse

too

much

some words

that

be frightened

is

here,

hear a rather, shall

to

am

I

in total

we

laughter.

say unorthodox performance ...

"What am

I

doing conducting

I

am

I

must take seriously anything he conceives

conducting

it

still

the conductor"

because Mr. Gould

is

so valid

remains, "in a concerto, [laughter]

.

.

.

it?"

[laughter]

and serious an

artist that

good

in

who

faith.

.

.

.

But the age-

the boss, the soloist or

is

Almost always the two manage

.

achieve a unified performance.

submit

to a soloist's totally

the

time

I

I

have only once before

new and

get

to

in

my

life

to

had

to

incompatible concept, and that was

accompanied Mr. Gould [loud

laughter]. But this time the

discrepancies between our views are so great that small disclaimer So why. to repeat the question,

Im

I

this

by persuasion or charm or even threats [more laughter]

together,

Because

them, "Don't

telling

which precipitated gales of

"

agreement with Mr. Gould's conception, and

raises the interesting question

old question

decided

on:

You are about cannot say

began by

to hear. Bernstein

— Mr. Gould

Then he went

much

He

of explanation were needed to prepare the audience for

what they were about

last

But Bernstein had

slow.

respect for Gould's musicianship to withdraw.--^

fascinated, glad to have the

I

feel

am

chance

I

for a

played work; because, what's more, there are

I

must make

conducting

new look moments

it?

this .

.

.

at this in

Mr.

Gould's performance that emerge with astonishing freshness and convic-

because we can

tion; thirdly, artist

who

is

what Dimitri Mitropoulos used of

curiosit)'.

learn something from this extraordinarv

all

a thinking performer;

adventure, experiment.

an adventure

this

week

and

finally

because there

to call "the sportive

And

I

can assure you that

collaborating with Mr.

is

in

music

element." that factor

Gould on

this

it

has been

Brahms Con-

certo.-

It

was

ductor

vv

a risky thing to do.

and

totally out of line for a

hose protocol requires him either

to

renowned con-

perform without complain-

212

ing to the audience,

or, if

/

GLENN GOULD

he

feels so

much

odds with the

at

soloist, to

ask an assistant conductor to take over. Lenny always claimed that he

had given Glenn advance notice of what he was going

them

that there

is

a

because of the sportsmanship element with your tempo and try

was

"a great idea.

to say.

just tell

"I'll

disagreement about the tempo between us, but that

it,"

in

I would like go along Glenn even thought this

music

and he insisted

that

""^

The performance was

very slow indeed, but at that

tempo Glenn was The per-

able to bring out aspects of the concerto that one rarely hears.

formance was recorded and one can hear the audience applauding Except for a few moments that

enthusiastically.

really test one's

endur-

Brahms concerto. But there were people in the hall who disapproved. Anton Kuerti remember very favorably. The tempi told me, "It was not a performance were not just slow, they were ludicrously slow, heavy. I guess it was boring "^^ as well. The professional critics were unusually cruel. "Mr. Gould is ance,

I

too rather like this leisurely interpretation of the

I

indeed a fine

artist,

Lang the

New

in the

New

unfortunately at present suffering from music hallu-

make him

cinations that

unfit for public appearances,"

York Herald Tribune.

York Times,

made

wTote Paul Henry

And Harold Schonberg,

writing in

statements under the guise

totally outlandish

of an imaginary letter to Ossip Gabrilowitsch (Gabrilovich, according to

the

New

Grove), a famous Russian pianist

who

died in 1936, and a fre-

quent performer of the Brahms concerto:

Such goings-on noon! ...

when we

.

at the

.

... .

New

York Philharmonic concert yesterday after-

you, Ossip, like you never saw. But

studied the

Academy. Ossip?

tell

I

Brahms

D

Minor Concerto

at

maybe

different

the Hohenzellern

from [sic]

So then the Gould boy comes on, and you know what,

The Gould boy played the Brahms D Minor Concerto slower we used to practice it. (And between you, me, and the corner

than the way

lamppost, Ossip, maybe the reason he plays

nique

It

is

around

is

it

so slow

maybe

his tech-

many television films Gould made which could not have been tampered with by

perfectly obvious from the this

time and

later,

splicing the tapes, his technique

was

in fact

miraculous, impeccable.

could have played the Brahms concerto flawlessly Schonberg's diatribe was completely uncalled hurt by

is

not so good.)"^

it.

As

for Lenny's

at

for,

He

any tempo he chose.

and Glenn

felt

very

undiplomatic behavior, Glenn showed no open

animosity, although their friendship definitely cooled after this incident.

The Pitfalls of Composing and Performing Among

Glenn's private papers the following

comment

is

213

I

scribbled in

pencil:

.

.

.

the only misinterpretation of Mr. B's remarks which troubles

that the oddities of his

Mr. L. Bernstein

norm

in

my

performance were perhaps calculated.

who drew undue

.

.

.

me

is

h was

attention to certain departures in the

interpretation of this work. ...

He

suggested that

it

was the

slowest most intractable performance he had ever heard. "^

One

result of this grotesque episode

was

already jaded view of the "competitiveness

ent in concert

life,

and strengthened

"

that

it

reinforced Gould's

and "destructiveness" inher-

his resolve to get out of the business

of public performances as soon as he possibly could.

19

RETIREMEN T FROM THE STAGE

was not so much an abrupt withdrawal from the concert stage in 1964 as a gradual petering out of an activity he had never really

It

liked,

and one

had led

that

to increasing

amounts of

strife

and

comfort over the preceding years. There had long been talk about

dis-

retiring

when we first met in 1957, numerous people, including news reporters who didn't keep it a secret. Lately he had been canceling performances left and right. A note Glenn wrote at the Beverly Hills from

his

performing career.

I

heard about

and over the years he had mentioned

it

it

to

Hotel discloses that he had developed a painful, severe, and unexplained

rheumatic condition

in

neck

"which makes

area,

it

extremely difficult to

perform. Regret terribly that have no alternative but to cancel

engagements.

Humphrey give

"'

In 1962,

Burton:

"I

he wrote

to his friend at the

decided that when the next season

no more public concerts. Mind you,

announcing ever since

I

that does not take these

think

I

really

Lise and

I,

mean

BBC I

Seattle

London,

over,

is

this is a plan

all

in

I

shall

have been

is

a part of

my

pronouncements too

seriously,

but this time

was

18,

and there

public here I

"~

it.

together with Joe, visited Glenn one

month

later in

Toronto

during the 1962 conference of the American Psychiatric Association

— Retiremeittfrom the Stage

Gould

I

215

at LaJie Sinicoe. Courtesy of Dr. Joseph Stephens's personal collection.

He seemed

coming to Glenn was very fond of different guessing games. He initiated Lise into his favorite and most mystifying one. After that we chatted about a variety of things. Glenn admired the blue dress Lise was wearing, and when it became time for us to leave we were due at a banquet of the Psychiatric Association he seemed to there.

elated at the prospect of his concert career

an end but didn't want to discuss

it.

—

have difficulty letting us go. "The only reason you're leaving," he said to

me

peevishly,

"is

because you want

to

show Lise

off to your friends.

"

To

we agreed to visit him again the next day, while Joe stayed behind. The following evening Glenn invited us to have dinner at his "club his rather grandiloquent way of referring to the restaurant where we ate and talked endlessly. smooth

his ruffled feathers

"

—

—

Glenn gave only nine concerts, three of them in San Francisco in February, playing the Bach D Minor and the Schoenberg concertos. He had stopped flying because of his fear of being killed in an airplane crash, a very real fear since several important musicians had been killed in crashes the pianist William Kapell, the conductor Guido Cantelli, and the violinists Jacques Thibaud and Ginette Neveu. So In 1963,

—

216

GLENN GOULD

/

Glenn was now relying on train transportation, which proved to be timeconsuming and uncomfortable. He complained especially of cold, drafty compartments and thoughtless porters. When he visited us that year, he asked Lise

all

Oh! youre

just a baby,"

such

sorts of personal questions

as,

"How

old are you?

and then quipped, "You know, I'm

in love

.

.

.

with

Jacquehne Kennedy." He also treated us to anecdotes about recent train trips, and I suggested he ought to look into the possibility of purchasing

A

a private railway car.

book of

lavishly

photographed railway antiques,

with luxuriously appointed private cars, had just been published,^ and gave a copy to Glenn. His letter of thanks included the sentence,

them makes me

say looking at

did survive

till

springing et

al

realize that

even

if

some

I

must

"I

of that collection

the present, they probably would need such extensive re-

one would take quite a chance on trying

that

to

buy one,

""^

so

I

guess I'm talked out of that successfully.

Paradoxically for

someone who feared crowds and hated to appear in Glenn began a brief stint as a lecturer. He paper at Hunter College in New York about harmonic

public, just before retiring

read a long, erudite

and musical structure

relationships that

seems

to

in

Beethoven's Sonata, opus 109,

have been way over the head of his large audience. They

apparently had assumed that Glenn would perform the sonata for them,

but he played only a few snippets to

was repeated

at the

Gardner

illustrate points.

Museum

The same

in Boston. Next,

lecture

he spoke

the

at

University of Cincinnati about the music of Arnold Schoenberg, and this

time was so well appreciated that the university published his lecture.^

And and

of course there

television work,

was the constant involvement

in radio, recording,

which interested Glenn much more than the giving

many works by Bach: the Partita no. 4 E Minor, Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, Nos.

of concerts. In 1963, he recorded in

D

Major, the Toccata in

9—16, and the Two- and Three Part Inventions. That same year he mas-

terminded

a

remarkable television program for the

The Anatomy of Fugue, of fugal structure in

CBC

called Festival:

which he analyzed the historical development music, and with help from other musicians and in

singers gave examples of contrapuntal writing from the fourteenth cen-

tury (Landini), the Renaissance (Orlando di Lassus,

Luca Marenzio), the

Baroque era (Bach), the Viennese or Classical period (Mozart), Romanticism (Beethoven), and modern times (Hindemith). Then came what

Glenn was the high point of the program,

a

performance of

his

for

own

recent experiment with counterpoint, the piece for four singers and string quartet called

So You Want

to

liberally treated to early versions of

it

Write a Fugue. (Lise and

when Glenn was

in

I

had been

San Francisco.)

"

Retirementfront the Stage

217

I

He called it "a five-minute, fourteen-second singing commercial. What it plugs is one of the most durable creative devices in the history .

.

.

of formal thought and one of the most venerable practices of musical

man."^

So You Want

Write a Fugue

to

is

and an earnest advocacy of fugue

both a delightfully effervescent spoof

wTiting.

The

bass sings encouragingly,

"You've got the ner\'e to write a fugue, so go ahead.

cerned about

The

sing."

practicalities:

"

The

.

just forget

.

.

tenor

mind

contralto wants to discard the rules: "Pay no

we've told you read,

"

"So go ahead and write a fugue that

all

that we've told

you and the

con-

is

we can to

what

theor}- you've

which the soprano lends support: "Pay no mind, give no heed. all agree, "For the only way to wTite one is to plunge right in

to

Finally they

and write one,

just ignore the rules

and write one, have a

lar

When

tn.^"

the

quote four of Bach's most popu-

string quartet starts playing, they briefly

themes, as well as Wagner's Overture to Die Meistersinger. "But never

be clever for the sake of being

canon

in inversion

is

clever," cautions the contralto, "For a

a serious diversion

and

a bit of

augmentation

is

a

serious temptation.

Glenn would have been the Fugue

first

no profound or entirely

is

to

admit that So

and playful work showing Gould

ironical

uttering whiffs of

wish was

to

themes attributed

make

it

sound

piece he confessed that the

like

Yoii

at

the

Want

to

Write a

is

an ingenious,

helm of

fugal sailing,

original composition. "It

to illustrious composers."''

His basic

Bach, but in a lengthy analysis of the

harmony

is

"Mendelssohnian.

"^

Yet this

is

probably the most appealing piece he ever composed. His ardor for fugal structure

"The idea

As he explained in his long essay about the work, which fugue is most conspicuously the servant is a concept

infectious.

is

to

of unceasing motion.

It

is

this nonstatic

concept which makes fugal

structure the perfect vehicle for the adventurous and subjective traffic of

baroque

art.

And

since this concept

is

carried forward into other eras,

it

offers us a partial explanation of the extraordinary' historical unification

of fugal practice."^

Glenn gave only two concerts his last one, in

Francisco still

in

1964, one in Chicago in

Los Angeles, on April

10.

March and

Appearances with the San

Symphony were scheduled for that same month while he was but he canceled them and was replaced by the pianist

in California,

iVIoura

Lympany.

On

returning to Canada, he went to the Lake Simcoe

and work on intended new projthem was an important essay to be called "The Prospects of Recording, in which he articulated his philosophy about the demise of

retreat for rest, rejuvenation, practicing, ects.

One

of "

218

GLENN GOULD

/

the concert hall and the superiority of recorded over live performances.

He

called

pronouncement, predicting that "the public con-

a "radical

it

we know

cert as

"

today would no longer exist a century hence, [and]

it

functions would have been taken over by electronic media."

Glenn wrote

that public concerts have

predominated

in

musical cul-

ture for only "a brief span," primarily because of the "substantial rial

its

"^

manage-

investment" currently committed to them. These were not accurate

statements, however, and they betray the fact that Gould's approach to

musicology was

and

artistic

intuitive, not scholarly.

certain kinds of musical performance have

Though

it is

true that

been called "concerts" only

since the seventeenth century (in contrast with operas, church music,

music

for dancing, etc.), the playing of

music

very beginning of civilization.

And many

ones have contributed

way

and listened

to the

in

in public goes

back

to the

other factors besides economic

which music

is

composed, played,

including changes in the notation systems, the kind of

to,

musical instruments used, room architecture, acoustics, and social as well as religious attitudes."

Gould's long essay touts recent changes and improvements in the recording industry that have resulted in "conventions which do not

always conform to those traditions that derive from the acoustical limitations of the concert hall.'

He

praises the recording industry for the

"astonishing revival in recent years of music from preclassical times

.

.

.

the neobaroque enthusiasm of our day."'^

But most important,

this archival responsibility

establish a sense of contact with a

the composer's

music and vital part

own

to analyze

of his

some other

relation to

and dissect

h it

life for a relatively

challenge.

.

.

.

distorted by overexposure, tive "niceties"

it.

work which

enables the performer to is

very

much

in a

most thorough way,

brief period,

and then

His analysis of the composition

and

his

intended to woo the upper balcony, as

a time

to

make

to pass

will not

it

on

a to

become

performance top-heavy with interpretais

the case with the overplayed piece of concert repertoire.

Glenn envisioned

like that of

permits him to encounter a piece of

when

listening to

almost inevitably '"^

music would be entirely a

matter of manipulating a radio, record, and tape-playback system to pro-

duce whatever the limited

way an

listener

wanted

to experience. "Dial twiddling

interpretive act."'"* Listeners

is

in its

would "compose" acoustical

events for themselves by picking the composition, the interpreter, even shuffling

between

different interpreters of a work,

and of course control-

ling the parameters of loudness, direction, and balance. This vision has

Retirementfrom the Stage to

some

extent been fulfilled.

ences entirely

It is

home by

in one's

219

I

possible today to create musical experi-

using electronic equipment. But Glenn

never seemed able to admit, or to accept, that the electronic approach really quite

practice of recording "live concerts has brought the two "

together. that led

It

is

compatible with the tradition of concert giving. Indeed, the

was

him

own

his

media

ver)'

close

exquisite discomfort with public appearances

to disparage the concert hall, plus his conviction that only

in the recording studio

could he get results that matched his expectations

of musical perfection.

Glenn was only thirty-one years old when he stopped playing in puband at first it wasn't exactly clear whether this was to be a temporary situation or whether his "retirement" was permanent. Walter Homburger kept making future bookings and Glenn himself hinted that he might return to the stage from time to time. Homburger told me he had warned Glenn that "there's one thing you have to realize. Generally when an artist comes to town and plays, record sales go up, because there's renewed interest in him. If you retire, what can happen is that your record sales income is going to drop. So every six months he would call lic,

.

me and course

say, I

'I

got

my

.

.

statement. Guess what?' So

guessed high and was

still

low

.

.

.

I

would guess, and of

and he would

tell

me how

much, and then he got suspicious of whether it was reported right, from Finland or wherever it may have been, and I said, 'Its not worthwhile checking.'

"'^

Glenn never again played in public. He became ever more it would be "a terribly retrogressive step to retreat back into the embrace of a concert."'^ In his box of mementos called "Keepers," he placed a note from Marshall McLuhan: "Bless Glenn Gould for throwing the concert audience into the junkv'ard. "'' With the hated crowds out of his way, he was free at last to indulge his fascination with radio and television. The problem, as ever\'one who worked with him In fact,

convinced that

soon came to

realize,

was that Glenn didn

t

have the same natural

flair

As John Roberts explains it: "Music was the talent with which he was born, and he had been perfecting his piano playing since he was a tiny child. His media

for these electronic

education

in other areas

and never attended certs there

was

that

was

he had

really quite limited.

a university, so that

this great

for playing the piano.

vacuum

that

when he needed

He

didn't finish school

finally quit giving

to

be

filled.

con-

He had

to

begin amplifying talents that had been more or less latent until now, and that

were not

tremendous

as reliable as his

effort of will.

As music program

immense musical

talent.

This required a

"'^

organizer,

and

later

head of Radio Music

at

CBC,

220

/

GLENN GOULD

John helped Glenn enormously by

facilitating his

use of the studio, giving

him access to the technicians there, occasionally suggesting projects, and at the same time letting him have the freedom to do anything he wanted. John made an office for Gould by installing a desk in a corner of the Music Department, adding dividers, and giving him his own telephone. He also commissioned a number of Glenn's radio recitals, some documentaries, and both sessions of The Art of Glenn Gould series. For Glenn all this was certainly a step upwards in the communications industry, but it was by no means a total transformation in his life. He had long been doing radio and television programs at the CBC, sometimes with assistance from Vincent Tovell, one of the most gifted directors there,

could

whom Glenn

trust. Tovell,

had handpicked

a

decade

niques of broadcasting after years of radio work in

Gould

directing

Toronto,

earlier

and

felt

he

ten years his senior, was vastly experienced in tech-

1

and producing

New York and Toronto.

his shouts at

965. Photograph by Herb

CBC,

Nott. Courtesy of

CBC.

Retirementfroni the Stage

He worked

I

221

Glenn and became deeply impressed with what

closely with

the young pianist was able to contribute to radio.

"Over the years Glenn had become

his

own producer

me, "and he had mastered the business of taking

told

He was

extraordinarily

good

at extracting material

conversational situations, then removing his ing his

own program

in radio,

"

Tovell

microphone and

when and where he wanted

recording what he wanted to record, that.

a

own

voice,

do

to

from people

and

in fact

in

mak-

compositions."''^

Unfortunately, that was not the case with television. "You couldn't do tele\asion the

way Glenn

did radio, not then," Tovell explained.

cameras and a studio

"It still

was

a matter of four

And

the complications organizationally, that you could only have the stuthat there would be unions and all those probGlenn would write the scripts and be one of the

and

dio for certain hours,

lems of the

performance program.

for a

costs. ""'^

performers, but in contrast to his radio work, he did not operate the

equipment, did not handle the tapes, and never directed his own programs. Tovell obser\'ed him closely:

"One was

at

of the curious things about seeing

home. He was

tainly comfortable in that milieu.

He would

the elements together.

now

him

in the studio

is

that he

friendly with the crews, not gregarious, but cer-

of \ideotape and

all

And he

enjoyed the process of putting

have loved,

I

suspect, the possibilities

the ways in which one or two people can

man-

make of it what they want. It was very clear that he be his own director. But with television you couldn't do

age the material and alwa)

s

wanted

to

was not easy to perform between 10:00 and 10:20 and then have take a break. That was like the whole concert business which was so

that. It

to

unsatisfying to him, because he didn't really have the kind of control of

circumstances that his temperament required. of himself as visual, but he really for all of that.

ver\'

.

.

.

He wanted

Glenn

for

Only one

television

to

do

It

""'

in the studios that first year of

program was produced

called Concerti for Four Wednesdays.

to think

dependent on other people

His mastery was of the sound, and of the words.

There wasn't much retirement.

was

in

1964-65,

shows Glenn performing (without

an audience) one of his typical concert programs: Variation no. 30 and the nine canonic variations from the Goldberg Variations; Beethoven's

Sonata, opus 109; Sweelinck's Fantasia in Variations,

opus 27,

all

D

Minor; and the Webern

impeccably and beautifully played.

appear in public twice that

year,

And he

did

but as a speaker, not a pianist. In June

1964, he was awarded an honorary' Doctor of Laws degree by the University

of Toronto and gave the graduation address. In November, he gave a

222

GLENN GOULD

/

"Advice to a Graduation,"

talk,

at

the Royal Conservatory of Music.

He

somewhat pompous speech by advising the graduates to reject advice and not live "too much by the advice of others. Then he presented them with a partially incomprehensible thesis: began

his

"

All aspects of the learning

you have acquired, and

ble because of their relationship with negation

which appears not

to be.

The most impressive him

the one thing that excuses that

of

all

will acquire, are possi-

—with

that

which

not, or

is

thing about man, perhaps

his idiocy

and

brutality,

he has invented the concept of that which does not

is

exist.

the fact .

The

.

.

implication of the negative in our lives reduces by comparison every other

concept that

I

wouldn't

man

has toyed with in the history of thought."'

call that a particularly

upbeat message

for

music students

about to enter the professional world as teachers, performers, and composers. But in view of the difficulties ahead, perhaps to inject a bit of negativism, for

were discouragingly limited

work opportunities

in the sixties, as they

Glenn was

realistic

in the field of

music

continue to be today.

Only a tiny percentage of these well-trained graduates of the Conservatory and the university would find employment in orchestras, choruses, and academic often

Some might

institutions.

demeaning business

go into the not very lucrative,

of giving private lessons; the majority

would

probably have to find other careers and be retrained in a non-musical field.

So

it

was not inappropriate

dangers of positive thinking.

'"^

for Dr.

Gould

warn them of "the

to

Besides, he himself

was

in the throes of

a career change. In 1965, the Russian-born Vladimir Horowitz returned to the concert

stage after a prolonged absence

due

emotional

to

cess alarmed Glenn, who, while saying tion

between

artists,

the older pianist.

He

had long harbored discussed this

at

illness.

how much he

Horowitz's suc-

despised competi-

a distinct feeling of

"That Horowitz business was so ridiculous," Stephens felt that

he had

to

outdo Horowitz.

can outplay Horowitz. that was,

'I

What

is

He

envy toward

great length with Joe Stephens.

told

me,

in

recalls.

the mystery of Horowitz?'

My

answer

have no doubt you could outplay him.' Glenn had

that to himself by learning

"Glenn

no uncertain terms,

to

I

to

prove

and recording two of the big pieces most

closely associated with Horowitz [the Prokofiev Sonata no. 7 in B-flat

Major, opus 83, and the Scriabin Sonata no. 3 in F-sharp Minor, opus 23]. told

"""^

But that did not diminish Glenn's childlike sense of

many people

famous

for,

that

rivalry.

He

Horowitz "faked" the octave passages he was so

and even made the outlandish claim that he once showed

— Re tire ment from the Stage

RCA

the

Victor technicians in

New

how

York

223

I

Horowitz tape

to repair a

by inserting a measure played by Gould."''

New York many times that first year (1964—65) after make recordings for Columbia Masterworks. He put on an amazing amount of music by Arnold Schoenberg: all of his solo

Glenn went

to

his retirement to

tape

piano works (Six Little Pieces, opus 19; Five Pieces, opus 23; the Suite,

opus 25; and Pieces, opus 33a and 33b); the Ode

to

Napoleon, opus 41

(with the Juilliard String Quartet and speaker John Horton); the Fantasy for Violin

and numerous songs Gramm), opus 2 (with Ellen Donald Gramm and Helen Vanni), and Das Buch

and Piano, opus 47 (with

the early songs, opus

all

opus

Faull),

3 (with

1

Israel Baker);

(with Donald

der hcingenden Garten, opus 15 (with Helen Vanni). three sonatas by Beethoven, no. 5 in

D

7 in

C

He

also recorded

Minor, no. 6 in F Major, and no.

Major, and three sonatas by Mozart, nos. 11, 12, and 13 (K. 331,

332, and 333).

January

In

1965,

Glenn

aired

his

Dialogue on

Prospects

the

of

Recording, a formidable radio program that comprised interviews with

McLuhan,

seven people, including Professor Marshall Fleisher,

and Diana Gould Menuhin, who had been

the pianist Leon a ballet

dancer

before marrying the great violinist. Glenn introduced the program:

Electronic media have in the that

last half

century drastically altered the effect

music has had upon our society Music surrounds us

done before. Music comes out of speakers

Music provides background

for the

as

our homes and

in

has never

it

in

our cars.

images on our television screens, help-

ing those images convince us to purchase things

we

don't need;

music

is

piped into restaurants to relieve us of the nuisance of conversation, into public places to

make

claustrophobic.

.

He

.

us less riot-prone, into elevators to

us less

then demonstrated the different qualities of sound that can be

obtained

when music

is

recorded

in a large

with microphones placed close to or Next, he elicited fully

make

r^

comments from

at a

concert

hall, in a studio,

his guests.

Their discussion, most care-

modern

sculpted by Gould, was about the function of music in

society and the influence of critics, editors, technicians, and others are part of today's

communications

industry. Paul

I

think one of the glories of music

is

that every

and that no two conductors, no two

who

Myers, a producer

Columbia Masterworks who had been working with Glenn,

different,

and

distance from the instruments.

performance

said;

is

a little

pianists, will ever play the

at

224

same piece

GLENN GOULD

/

same way.

exactly the

In the case of

many

artists

they will play

the same piece slightly differently on each different occasion. This

makes music so and

would see no harm

I

phony with

KJemperer

a

and

interesting, in

this

is

why

many people

so

is

what

listen to

it,

having a performance of the Beethoven Sym-

movement,

first

second movement, a

a Karajan

Toscanini third movement, and a George Szell

.^^

finale.

.

.

Another record producer, John Hammond, took a

less optimistic

view

of current acoustic trends:

I

feel that

the artists

.

inflation. .

to

recorded sound

.

.

.

the soloist rather prides himself in being able to be heard

.

sorry to say, four

... In a string quartet very often

microphones are used as with

who

that people

nowadays,

I

emphasiz-

stereo. ... In

ing the parts you so often destroy the unity of the whole, is

summed up

can be

think the reasons for this are perhaps the egos of

I

one hundred pieces.

in over

am

what has happened

word

in the

my

and

feeling

are not musicians, in recording, very often take over

the role of the musician [and] most recordings by the major companies of

symphony orchestras

who

are so cluttered with

give equal importance to

almost invariably flouted.

all

microphones and engineers

the voices that the composer's wishes are

^^

Robert Offergeld, the music editor of Hi Fi Stereo Review, commented

on the "unprecedented

"

revival of interest in

Baroque music attributable

to the recording industry.

The

Leon Fleisher was more negative about the value

pianist

of

recorded music:

I

it.

.

.

.

The record

unfamiliar in

record where

it.

we know

how each

exactly

is

and that

Diana Menuhin

I

live

am

is

—

a

also

it

phrase

going to be shaped,

is

its

how

purpose,

it

no longer contains the essence of what

renewing of

had

something

is

get to the point in our relation with a

going to be held, the record has served

is

should be thrown away, because

music

that are available

retains vitality only as long as there

The moment we

long the fermata

and

media

don't think that art should be governed by the

to

life at

each performance.^^

critical things to say

about both recorded

musical performance:

afraid of pinning things

scientific

way

down

of analyzing too

too

much.

I

am

afraid of the

much, the modern way of

modern

trying to catch

Retirement from the Stage what should be

elusive.

225

I

always think of the studio interpretation of the

I

record as something that crystallizes too much. [But, regarding

thought

certs] I've often this

is

.

absolutely absurd,

.

.

it

con-

live

about people beating their hands together is

something so prescribed, so

idiotic

.

.

.

.

.

you

.

cannot meet Beethoven on these grounds.^"

Schuyler Chapin, director of Columbia Masterworks, was enthusiastic that "for the

new media

time through records, through electronics, a

first

has been given to the composer.

.

.

.

We

are talking about something that

has never been in existence before."^'

Marshall

McLuhan

of the University of Toronto addressed the elec-

tronic revolution in visionary terms:

With the

recorder, the electronic

becomes

available at

develop a vast

tribal

cannot speak of

drum

any moment, just

as

it

were, the music of the world

an encyclopedia.

like

We

begin to

encyclopedia of musics. Music becomes plural

it

any more

is

a strong

in the singular

—and

—you

as an international lan-

guage I

think there

for the general

ing into an age, for

computers,

when

els of industry

of

tendency in the electronic age on many levels become more creatively engaged. We are movexample, when children will be taught how to program

audience

to

the entire production

making process

computer technology.^^

All of these

comments were

interlarded by Glenn's brilliant

logues, as well as musical illustrations from the rary

at the highest lev-

can be entirely run from homes by housewives under a type

work

of such

mono-

contempo-

composers as Lukas Foss, Henk Badings, Henri Pousseur, and Igor

Stravinsky.

Glenn had been criticized for his way of speaking. "There are times," reported the producer of one of his radio programs, "when even '^^ I couldn't understand what he was talking about. And when it came to participating in impromptu interviews, Glenn was reticent since he'd once had the painful experience of being called "you nut by someone who disagreed with him.^"* That convinced him to write out in advance At the beginning of

his radio career,

highly intellectualized and often arcane

'

not only the questions he planned to ask but also the responses he

expected from anyone he was to interview or be interviewed learned to simplify his language and quial.

make

his scripts

TelePrompTer machines were used

in

his

by.

He

sound more

television

also

collo-

shows

to

226

Yehiidi

Meniihin joins Gould

/

GLENN GOULD

in the

CBC

recording studios. Courtesy of CBC.

remind the participants what they had and

to say

and

to avoid digressions

errors.

An outstanding piece of television work was made in October 1965 when Yehudi Menuhin joined Glenn in the CBC studios. "It was very easy playing with him," recalls the violinist, "because when we had different points of view we resolved them by just playing. It's no good talking. Music You

isn't

resolved like that, any

just play,

and you

adjust,

and

more than any emotions are rational. if you're of goodwill and respect the

other person, you adjust and you find your true meeting place. And "^^ what happened, because he was so genuine, so great. The program began with a flawless rendition of Bach's Sonata for Violin

and Piano

in

C

Minor.

Then

Gould:

When

I

had scripted the

approached

no. 4

the artists briefly discussed the

piece they were to play next, Beethoven's Sonata no. 10 in 96. Glenn, as usual,

that's

text in

this piece ...

I

G

Major, opus

advance:

had

in

mind the pipe and

peasant aspects of Beethoven, the quasi-militaristic quality of the early period.

—

— Retirementfrom the Stage Meniihin:

—because

was wondering

I

dynamically and cally

and then

phrasing of the

in

on you seemed

later

my

whether that was

at first

you took certain

you were very

line;

become

to

bad influence.

hope

I

227

I

strict

liberties

rhythmi-

less strict rhythmically

because

not,

it

was rather

romantic!

Gould:

1

did find one compromise a

thought of

as

it

something

achieve ...

little difficult to

movement

the Fughetta in the last

odd

a bit

terribly angular

in that way,

I

because

found I

had

and tense and involved and

looking toward the sort of Bachian counterpoint of the last Beethoven period, something in this fashion, at the

keyboard].

about

it, it's

it is

know

I

that

Sturm und Drang [he demonstrates you

well you

tell

me what

you

feel

wish Beethoven were here to hear you, because the way

I

absolutely convincing.

I

don't have quite the courage to go

against the indication in the score, laugh].

—

quite different.

Menuhin: Well, you do

And

which

is

simply pianissimo [both

^^

Following their well-integrated and not

at all dissentient rendition of

Glenn had programmed the Fantasy for Violin and Piano, opus 47, by Arnold Schoenberg, a work that Yehudi had never played before and didn't much care for. the Beethoven sonata,

Gould: The Fantasy

me

if

of

is full

sorts

all

—genuinely

Fm wrong

—

I

suppose,

don't know, correct

I

violinistic things, [it] exploits

harmonics

on the instrument and Yehudi {beginning Yes,

Gould

and yet (also

Putting

it's

break away from the lines Glenn had written for him):

to

curiously clumsy in another way.

now and

speaking more freely

.

.

.

with a slightly mischievous smile):

your cards on the table, Yehudi, you really don't

all

like

the

Schoenberg, do you?

Menuhin: Well, Glenn, to play

it

because

I

I

else.

if

genuine understanding of Schoenberg perhaps I'm always interested in learning about some-

you could put

someone who understands it

is

your

real anxiety

disturbs you the most about

Menuhin: Well, the

about

It's

and loves

it

.

.

.

it

doesn't quite

this piece.

I

fit

the instru-

mean, what basically

it?

fact that there

gesture and the words.

it

one or two basic complaints other than

into

the registrational ones and the fact that

ment, what

you up on the invitation

a

thing through the eyes of

Goidd: But

to take

And

Schoenberg and have than anyone

was very anxious

admire you and know that you know more about

as

if

is

the curious discrepancy between the

you had taken the words apart of say a

228

play,

/

GLENN GOULD

Hamlet of Shakespeare, and merely strung together an

sequence of

syllables

which had no meaning

arbitrary

as such, but the

rhythm

and the gesture of the play were copied absolutely so that the person

who knew

the play would recognize where the love scene takes place

and where the ghost turns up. Gould: That's a marvelous analogy.^^

A

closer look at Glenn's face during this disputation reveals his acute

discomfort with Yehudi's deviation from the carefully prepared

The one

right side of his face twitches conspicuously. to

kowtow

me

to

Glenn's

way

script.

But Yehudi was not

of putting words into people's mouths.

He

warned Glenn, "I really would prefer to have a genuine conversation," to which Glenn responded rather arrogantly, "But I know exactly how you think." Indeed, Glenn never did understand why Yehudi wanted to digress from what had been so conscitold

recently that he had

entiously written out for

him

in

advance. "The

man

just doesn't

know

Glenn explained to the CBC technicians.^^ "You see, Glenn's mind was so well organized that he didn't trust himself ever to be taken by surprise," says Yehudi. "He didn't like a situation

how

to read,

"

where he wasn't voices.

music, of the people, of the

in total control, of the

"39

These two musicians had much

in

common, both having been

dinarily successful child prodigies, but that

cussed.

was

extraor-

a topic they never dis-

They had met in New York a few years earlier, "quite by chance," and Glenn immediately was "much taken by [my wife]

says Yehudi,

Diana, he loved Diana and she loved him.

"'^'^

This might have cast an

Oedipal tinge on the relationship, had there not been such mutual admi-

and genuine friendship. Diana would send

ration ters to

Glenn,

on "the old

full

long, affectionate let-

of sarcastic and not altogether complimentary reports

busy

fiddler's"

life,

to

which Glenn responded

gallantly, in a

rather sardonic mode:

My

dear,

am

I

at

one with you

in

your embarrassment [over Yehudi's

attaining honors throughout the world]. for

you

adversity.

ment

know

to .

.

.

One

directly

frankly,

my

that

is

.

.

.

But what a comfort

it

must be

of goodwill will rally round in this your hour of

thing more, dear Lady Diana:

upon

nose

men

Sir Yehudi's elevation

I

have chosen not to com-

to the

Knighthood because

out of joint.'"

Yehudi had enormous admiration for Glenn and invited him

to partici-

pate in one segment of his eight-part television series. The Music of Man,

Retirement from the Stage originated with

CBC

229

I

They debated the relative merits of Glenn did not wish to expose

in the 1970s.

versus recorded musical performance.

live

himself as an

nor disclose his true

artist,

to a live audience.

self,

The

preferred the insulation of the recording studio.

gives a wonderful insight into their differences both as artists

human

He

following e.xcerpt

and

as

beings.

Gould:

It

seems

me, Yehudi, that what technology

to

all

is

about

is

the

elimination of risk and danger.

Menuhin: Has technology music.

reduced

really

and danger, apart from

risk

there a risk of losing the sense of

Isn't

the sense of risk

life,

itself?

Gould: Obviously, technology has of technology

is

Menuhin: Are you

to give the

satisfied

own

its

to live

is

think the purpose

I

life.

with the appearance of

Gould: Well, a recorded performance

Menuhin: So we have

dangers, but

appearance of

only?

life

not exactly real

on two different

levels.

life. .*"

.

.

Indeed, Yehudi's idealistic perception of Gould even today seems to

be on two different his

own

ways.

or fished or

people.

People

2.

He was not an ordinary man, eccentric in who were attached to the country, who hunted

levels: "1.

worked or belonged

Ones

that

had

him

those interested

to

do with

less.'"*^

to the land

his

—these were

own musical

his kind of

agents and others,

life,

In reality, Glenn's contact with "people of

the land" was very peripheral and limited to his outings to rural nities

northwest of Toronto.

He no

much

longer spent

time

commuat

Lake

Simcoe, and he was heavily involved with directors, writers, engineers,

and technicians

at the

CBC. made

Glenn's reciprocal admiration of Yehudi was

manifest in a radio

program. Master Musician/Yehudi Menuhin, aired on

which he played

a recording Yehudi

the Violin Concerto by Sir article

about the

of us, Yehudi

seems that

to

violinist in

Menuhin,

Edward

had made

Elgar.

1967, in

also published a laudatory

human

artist extraordinaire,

in the affections of

of Albert Schweitzer.'"*"*

7,

Musical America, concluding that 'Tor

be one of those rare individuals

unique place

He

May

the age of sixteen of

at

who

could

mankind

left

in

many

being nonpareil, time succeed to

vacant by the death

20

THE SOLITUDE TRILOGY

1967,

Intwo art

when Glenn was

thirty-five,

of his most burning ambitions.

form

—something

composition, in

fact,

One

of

them was to create a new same as musical

related to but not quite the

way

a

he successfully accomplished

of fusing musical structure with literary

expression. His other long-term ambition, not unconnected to the

was

to acquaint himself with the experience of solitude

vast, icy,

by

first,

visiting that

and sparsely populated region of Canada called the Northern

Canadian North. Glenn a cherished state of

Territories, or simply the

Solitude was for

being alone. "People are about as important to

existence.

me

He

as food,"

1964, the year of his retirement from the stage. "As

I

preferred

he said

grow older

I

in

find

more and more that I can do without them; I separate myself from conflicting and contrasting notions. Monastic seclusion works for me."' Solitude reduced the tensions he

felt in

the presence of other people and

allowed him to focus exclusively on himself

music, and

artistic aspirations.

of solitude

was he able

unfortunately,

was

He

—

his thoughts,

feelings,

often said that only under conditions

to experience ecstasy.

The

negative side of this,

that conditions of solitude also brought into Glenn's

The Solitude Trilogy

Sitting in

231

/

doonvay of boxcar, Gould embarJts on a Jong

northern journe}'. Courtesy

of

CBC.

consciousness those bodily sensations that he

all

too easily misinter-

preted as symptoms of disease. Yet he claimed that "isolation

is

the indispensable

component of

human happiness ... for every hour you spend in the company of other human beings, you need x number of hours alone."" He believed, along with many prominent artists, writers, scientists, and scholars, that solitude is beneficial if not essential for the creative process. And he shared with many Canadians a sense of awe and respect for the inhabitants who sought or were forced to endure solitude through much of their lives, in those mysterious northern Canadian lands stretching

all

way up

the

the Arctic Circle:

The north has

fascinated

me

since childhood. In

pore over whichever maps of that region

I

my

school days

could get

I

used

my hands on

.

to .

.

to

232

but

my

notion of what

GLENN GOULD

/

it

looked

like

was pretty much

restricted to the

romanticized, art-nouveau-tinged, Group-of-Seven paintings which in

day adorned north ...

was

I

virtually every

began

to

draw

really a very limited

sure to

all

second schoolroom. sorts of

.

.

.

When

I

went

my

to the

metaphorical allusions based on what

knowledge of the country and a very casual expo-

it.^

Indeed, Glenn never actually penetrated the Northern Territories. To

do so would have required traveling by boat or plane, neither of which were acceptable to him. But in June 1965 he took a train as far north as

town of Churchill on the western shore of Hudson Bay, in the province of Manitoba. Here he found the solitude he needed to start working on what he later called "technically a documentary [but] at the very least a documentary which thinks of itself as a trains could go, to the little

drama."

The

idea had been proposed to

him by

directors at the

CBC who were

looking for special projects to celebrate Canada's centennial year, 1967.

Glenn wasn't quite sure what was

to invite four "guests"

—

this

was going

to lead to,

but his strategy

a nurse, a geographer-anthropologist,

two writers who "had a remarkable experience of the north"

them

to talk

added a

fifth

and

—and ask

about the North into his portable tape recorder. Then he speaker, "a pragmatic idealist, a disillusioned enthusiast,"

These people did not know each other, nor did they They were interviewed separately. In this way Glenn collected an enormous amount of tape-recorded material that he brought back to to

be the

narrator. "*

ever meet.

Toronto for the complex job of editing and splicing into a one-hour radio to be called The Idea of North. With assistance from technicians at the CBC, he fashioned the material into a "prologue" and six scenes focused on different topics such as "the Eskimo" and "Isolation and Its Effects." But that led to a program which would have run to nearly ninety minutes. A possible solution was to eliminate a scene or two, but Glenn was unwilling to make the sacri-

program

fice.

And

that

is

how he came

to the crucial decision of using overlapping

voices, "contrapuntal radio," as

grams by having the speakers

he called

it,

a

way

of constructing pro-

talk simultaneously rather

than sequen-

tially.

Although simultaneous dialogue had been experimented with in Holin the 1930s, Glenn claimed it as his own invention. He had long

lywood

been expressing dissatisfaction with the

"linear"

way

radio programs were

structured according to the tradition of having speakers follow one

The Solitude Trilogy

233

/

another in conversation. Influenced by Marshall McLuhan's uxitings on

and under the sway of

non-linearit)',

mention

(not to

his

own

contrapuntal way of thinking

his pathological experience a

few years

earlier of hearing

Glenn

hallucinatory voices along with normal conversation),

might represent a new

discover}- of "contrapuntal radio"

that his

felt

form. His

art

confidence in this method of recording simultaneous dialogue was

human

braced by the belief that

we can

believed that

beings tend to underuse their ears.

He

more information by ear than we

are

take in far

and he enjoyed demonstrating

willing to admit,

multichannel listening by tuning

his

own

capacity for

on multiple conversations

in

in diners

and other public places. Glenn's technical approach to 77je Idea of that

were

He wove

iVort/?

and the docudramas

deep understanding of counterpoint.

his

the voices in and out as a composer might write lines of music

in a fugue.

The prologue

trio sonata," is

was based on

to follow

of Tlie Idea of North he referred to as "a sort of

alluding to the

way

three speakers interact.

The

first

voice

that of the nurse:

I

was fascinated by the countn,' as such.

flew north from Churchill to

I

Coral Harbor on Southampton Island at the end of September.

begun

to

and the countr\- was

fall,

ice floes o\er

some

Hudson's Bay, and

seals that

covered by

partially I

it.

was always looking

...

I

Snow had could see bear or

for polar

could spot, but unfortunately there were none.

I

After a w'hile the second voice enters, that of one of the writers.

Exactly what he says

is

nurse continue talking

I

dont go

—

let

me

a bit difficult to

at

the

same

say this again

make

—

for this

northmanship

knock those people who do claim that they want north, but

I

see

it

were you ever up

as a

at the

game,

this

out because he and the

time, but here are his opening lines:

northmanship

North Pole?" and, "Hell,

I

—

you know,

Then we hear them

is

I

dont

say,

"Well,

did the dogsled trip of I

did one of thirty

its pretty childish.

a third voice, the

tw o previous speakers,

of

People

bit.

twent)'-two days," and the other fellow says, "Well,

days"

at all.

go farther and farther

to

making

it

second

writer.

even more

He

talks along

difficult to follow

w ith

the

what each

saying:

And

then, for another eleven years,

ties.

Sure, the north has changed

my

I

ser\'ed the north in \arious capaci-

life;

I

can't conceive of

anyone being

"

234

in close

GLENN GOULD

/

touch with the north, whether they lived there

simply traveled

it

month

after

month

or year after year

—

all I

the time or

can't conceive

of such a person as being really untouched by the north.

In addition to the voices of these three speakers

barely comprehensible a train rolling along

on

— there

ment

lets

voices plus a continuous bass), being conducted

manner that was difficult for the ear to comprehend but removed from the tonal effect of contrapuntal writing.

by Glenn not far

(five

in a

As Charles Rosen

states in his impressive

book The Romantic Genera-

speaking of the unparalleled contrapuntal

tion,

— simultaneous and

background noise: the steady beat of

Glenn likened it to a "basso continue. us hear a few bars from the last moveSymphony. One might equate this symbolically

of Sibelius's Fifth

fugue

a

tracks.

its

At the end of the program he

to a six-voice

is

art of

Johann Sebastian

Bach's Musical Offering: "The independence of the voices in a fugue of this

kind

is

absolute, but

can only be

it

aural perception of six individual parts

is

partially heard. ...

A

constant

neither a reasonable nor a desir-

was what Gould was

imbued Gould could not write musical fugues such as Bach's, he could and would produce sound images related to a style that had so permeated his soul. able goal."^ Perhaps this as

trying to emulate,

he was with the masterful language of Bach.

He

If

deeply enjoyed working on The Idea of North.

The way Glenn

applied his knowledge of musical structure to the verbal material he had collected during the trip north

engaged

in a

made him

form of musical composition,

ering his relative lack of success as a in fact creating

what he called

"totally

feel that

he was actually

a satisfying experience consid-

more orthodox composer. He was

new sound

perspectives for radio. "

But he wasn't using the sounds of musical instruments; he was manipulating the

sounds of speech. Glenn knew the difference only too

"Sometimes one must tions of form,

ness."^

try to invent a

which takes

as

Had he been more

its

form which expresses the

well:

limita-

point of departure the terror of formless-

familiar with the visual arts, he might have

—

compared

his work with sound painting a way of presenting voices in a shadowy manner that resembled the Impressionist painters, who had created a new way of viewing nature, of coloring, and of interpreting structure and shape. Instead, he stubbornly and incorrectly compared it

veiled,

to opera:

It's

perfectly true that

.

.

.

not every word

by no means every syllable

in

is

going to be audible, but then

the final fugue of Verdi's Fahtaff

is

either,

The Solitude Trilogy when

it

comes

to that. Yet

utilizing trios, quartets,

235

/

few opera composers have been deterred from

and quintets by the knowledge that only

a portion

of the words they have set to music will be accessible to the listener

.

.

?

This shows the degree to which he was willing to delude himself, for

what Glenn was doing was sing,

nor do they

act,

His protagonists never

totally unlike opera.

and there

is

no plot or

libretto. All

they do

is talk,

same time. Nor did the production of contrapuntal radio have much to do with working in solitude, the condition Glenn so often often at the

touted as a creative necessity. Gathering the voices by doing interviews

was

a social activity,

and the laborious job of

editing,

splicing,

and

repeated re-editing and resplicing, until Glenn's demanding aesthetic sensibility

was

satisfied,

was

a collaborative enterprise.

and nightly contact with technical experts to achieve his extraordinary effects.

Tulk, a

man

six

a

Lome

in

him was

Tulk working with Gould on

Ron Andrews.

It

required daily

CBC who helped Glenn

who became

was Lome

his dedicated co-

friend.

wonderful person

was very noticeable

the

of these technicians

years younger than Glenn,

worker and a close

"Glenn was

One

at

his

to

work

with,

tremendous

The Latecomers

"

Tulk told me. "What

intensity.

in

I

mean, when

CBC studio.

Photograph by

236

/

GLENN GOULD

Glenn took hold of a subject or he decided to do something, his intensity was focused and so he just zeroed and focused in to where he was going. There was no room for anything else. If he worked on a project for a month or two months or three months, he was completely focused in that area."

The

project they

first

worked on together was

called

The Search for

Petula Clark, a radio program based on Glenn's frequent exposure to the

voice of this popular singer from his car radio while driving along the

northern shore of Lake Superior on Queen's Highway 17, a road that "defines for

much

of

its

of agrarian settlement.

passage across Ontario the northernmost limit It

is

endowed with

.

.

.

so."^

Experimenting with solitude

home, Glenn would

Marathon

Wawa

or

stay for a

less

week

than

two

or

five

in

mining

fishing villages,

camps, and timber towns that straddle the highway every

miles or

fifty

hundred miles from

motels at villages like

on Lake Superior. There he wrote and edited many

of his preliminary radio scripts.

Petula Clark's voice had the double appeal of stimulating Glenn's

thoughts about pop music and giving him the illusion of an imaginary

companion. The program he wrote about her a

in the Marathon Motel is manic melange of ideas about "the Max Reger—Vincent d'Indy chro-

matic bent which infiltrated big-band arranging in the late forties

.

.

.

more formidable precepts

'pitch class'

.

.

.

thirties

and

of Princetonian Babbitry such as

the Beatles hav[ing] as

little

regard for the niceties of

voice leading as Erik Satie for the anguished cross-relation of the Ger-

man

postromantics," and other heady themes. While listening to Petula

Clark's voice,

Glenn would speculate about her emotional

expressed through song: "After the prevailing euphoria of [her songs, [her despair.

which it's

It

state

first

as

three]

Am I' reads like a document of symptoms of disenchantment and ennui

most recent one] 'Who catalogues those

inevitably scuttle a trajectory of emotional escalation.

.

.

.

Clearly

a question of identity crisis, vertiginous and claustrophobic, induced

through the traumatic experience of a metropolitan environment and, quite possibly, aggravated by sore feet.

Lome

"^

Tulk remembers that The Search for Petula Clark was

sented "for a children's program, a young people's program.

It

first

pre-

was primar-

disc jockey show. He had a bunch of records and he simply talked between the records, and played the records while he continued talking. ily a

It's

a brilliant piece of work,

to Petula Clark herself.

I

and

it's

really in

and the way she was able

many ways

a

compliment

to publicize herself, to

think he was fascinated by that element."

market

—

"

The Solitude Trilogy "Did he "Yeah,

most of

237

/

work at night?" was always nighttime. That was actually my wish. I'd spent career working evenings and nights, which obviously was the

like to

it

my

when he was coming off performing, in the days when he concerts. And so think the fact that liked to work nights, and time

I

I

he did

still 1

gave

suspect

too, sort of coincided.

"Are conditions in the studio better at night?" quieter in the sense that there are fewer people around, so you

"It's

could get into a studio and work for

many hours without somebody open-

Lome, have you seen

ing the door and saying, 'Gee,

immediately breaks your concentration, and as intense person.

reasons

I

And

so

I

so-and-so?' That just

said,

I

Glenn was a very

think working evenings he enjoyed for the same

because somebody didn't intrude on you. But

did,

I

got the

impression that Glenn had never really stayed up the entire night. a

new

It

was

experience for him."

"Really?"

"Because when we finished it was like five or six in the morning, and when we walked out the sunlight was coming, the dawn. It was getting

Glenn was like a little boy. It was like he was having some new experience. The bogeyman hadn't gotten him. [Laughs] It was like he'd been a bad boy and nothing bad had happened to him. In many respects Glenn was a little boy, you know, there was this very boyish quite bright, and

quality about him."'°

Lome

Tulk's technical collaboration in splicing Glenn's tapes

essential ingredient in completing

broadcast on critical

December

The Idea of North

28, 1967, Canada's

first

in

was an

time for the

centennial year.

The

response was gratifyingly favorable: "A poetic and beautiful mon-

tage of the North

emerged

.

.

.

more

real

than the entire ten-foot shelf of

standard cliches about Canada's northlands

forerunner of a

new

radio

art,

.

.

.

likely to

stand as the

a wonderfully imaginative striving for a

new

way to use the only half-explored possibilities of an established form."" The following year, the CBC celebrated the introduction of its national stereo network and invited Glenn to do a follow-up to The Idea of North. This time the subject was to be the people of Newfoundland Canada's most recent acquisition, in 1949. Hence the title of the new radio program. The Latecomers. In the summer of 1968, Glenn drove east and took a boat up the St. Lawrence Gulf for his first visit to this fiercely independent community, ment's decision to

at

that time battling the provincial govern-

move people from

their isolated outports into larger

urban centers. Again Glenn's purpose was

to depict aspects of solitude

"

238

and

GLENN GOULD

/

defend nonconformity. "Newfoundland

to

wrote]

—

tures,

unable to forget

a fantasy [he

itself is

a disadvantaged piece of real estate set adrift between two culits

spiritual tie to one,

economic dependence on

the other.

.

.

unable wholly to accept

The

.

reality

its

in its separate-

is

"12

ness.

With help from Howard Moore, a local CBC technician, Glenn interviewed and tape-recorded thirteen individuals. He then instructed

Moore

to

make

extensive recordings of the ocean, rumbling waves, crash-

ing surf, gentle backflow on beaches to be used as a "basso continuo"

Hie Idea of North. the "Gale warnings were hoisted

background, similar to the railway noise heard Glenn's return

trip

was

also by boat.

in

.

.

.

The gulf was turbulent that night; the coast of welcome sight next morning. But Newfoundland

coastline disappeared.

Cape Breton was

a

remained behind, secure."'^

itself

Now began again Arthur Rubinstein,

they met a few years

four hundred hours in a studio."'*^ loyal

Lome

other,

Tulk always

He worked

mostly

at night,

"Lome and Glenn

in close proximity.

and so between them there was utter peace,"

CBC directors, later described

pher Otto Friedrich.

"It

Lome

he has that kind of relationship.

would

like a

loyal devotion, is

way Janet

to Glenn's biogra-

it

way about

Middle Ages.

in the

which was

just so rich in

feel that

the

is

with the

loved each

knight and a page, you know, on a

should have lived

And Lome

course people

Lome

was

told

he "spent almost

later, that

Somerville, one of the

great adventure.

Glenn

the arduous labor of splicing and editing.

when

it.

the

human

And Glenn

.

I

mean

virtue of that .

.

felt that

of

him."'^

more as a kind of sibling relationship. "Glenn's and so has his cousin, that was probably the brother he never had. I remember he asked me one time whether I minded him thinking of me as a brother, and I said, 'In all deference to my own brothers, if they don't mind I don't mind.' And he was so touched Tulk sees

father has

by

that,

it

mentioned

this,

you know, that

I

Lome was concerned ium

in his pocket,

and

be a confrontation, the

room and pop

a

if

I

had mentioned

my own

he met somebody and

first

"How do you

first.

it

looked

like there

thing he would do was go

down

come

back.

couple of Valiums, and then

them

confrontations immensely and would avoid

I

brothers

about Glenn's drug taking. "He would carry Val-

explain that he

would be so

to the

He

might

wash-

disliked

at all cost."

fearful

about coiifrontation?"

asked.

"He was an extremely that sensitivity

sensitive person,

and tended

to dull

it.

He

and confrontation intruded on preferred to remain sensitive

"

The Solitude Trilogy and sharp, and

/

239

think he tried desperately to avoid confrontation or

I

conflict.

that the feeling of anger might have interfered with his

"Do you think ability to

"Oh

concentrate?"

sure,

no question. His feeling toward anger was that anger

not just the person, but

it

the incentive, and

kills

it

kills

the artistic

kills

ability."

"An impressive piece of insight. But whose was it," I wondered. "Did Glenn put that into words as well as you just did?" I'm only describing what Glenn told "Well, this is what he told me

—

me," was Lome's

reply.

Working together

'^

anger.

and with other technicians

in the studio,

moments of To prevent them from

there had to be

"killing"

him, Glenn usually relied

he would adopt the pose of

a conductor, the superior

directs his lowly minions in their grinding drudgery. (Tulk

technician, given the job of working with

had nothing

I

at

work on one

A

him on

this

"I

:

was

who

just a

program. I'm just a

film called Radio as

of his contrapuntal docudramas.

ering over the control panels in a

First,

musician

do with the concept. I'm not a

really to

creative or artistic individual.")''

Glenn

(in addi-

on three psychological mechanisms of defense.

tion to his drugs)

button-pusher.

at times,

tension, disagreement, confrontation, even

CBC

studio,

waving

technicians as though he were leading an orchestra.

Music shows

He

is

his

arms

And he

seen hovto the

refers to the

work of editing almost entirely in musical terms: "Let's give this voice a more diminuendo here," etc. In keeping with the little crescendo idea that he is creating a musical composition, at one point he holds up .

.

.

a piece of paper that resembles the sort of score conductors use, claiming it is

his

master plan for the work.'^

way of protecting himself and his studio colleagues undue tension was suddenly to lapse into sophomoric humor. He would do hilarious imitations of some of the characters he had met on Glenn's second

against

his trips, or begin talking in a

mock German

accent:

"Now zis

vhere ve haff to be zuper careful not to drown out poor Mr.

would provoke laughter and induce

a

moment

iss

ze place

Scott.""

of relaxation.

This

Then

the

work continued. Finally, there

was the process of symbolic transformation, the opportuwork Glenn was doing of deflecting aggression from

nities inherent in the

himself and targeting

one of the turned on

it

on various characters

in his

drama. For example,

women he had interviewed had given him a hard time. "[She] me with a fine fury, stopped short of insult, but indicated that

240

my

line

of questioning

/

GLENN GOULD

was

When Glenn

foolish."

edited her tape-

recorded voice, he removed himself completely from the dialogue and fused her annoying

like "a

men he man and

gentleman who are engaged

in rather

comments with those made by one

had interviewed. That made his wife, certainly a lady

it

and

sound, thought Glenn, a

of the

intimate conversation."'^ Using a razor blade to cut the tapes, which

the

first

is

step in engineering a tape splice, can also be seen as a sublima-

To create something

tion of aggression.

an

original,

artist

must know how

debate three years later with Arthur Rubinstein about the

to destroy. In a

merits of tape splicing, Glenn gave the example of "a delightful

had tape-recorded

man" he

Newfoundland:

in

[He] was very articulate and very perceptive, but he had a habit of saying "urn"

and "uh" and

fact, that

"sort of"

and "kind

of" constantly

you got absolutely sick of the

word was separated by an "urn" and an no exaggeration

Monday, eight

repetitions.

"uh.

'

.

.

—

I

Well,

.

—we spent three long weekends— hours per day—doing nothing but

so constantly, in

mean every third we spent this is

—

Saturday, Sunday,

and

removing "um"s and

"uh's and "sort of "s and "kind of "s and righting the odd syntactical fluff in his material

.

.

.

alone in order to

there were sixteen hundred edits in that man's speech

make him sound

Glenn employed the

lucid

and

which he does now.^°

fluid,

principles of contrapuntal radio,

now enhanced

with stereophonic sound, in several other documentaries, including the

one about Leopold Stokowski, which was aired

in 1971.

Here the

juxta-

position involves only one speaker, the octogenarian maestro himself,

whose mellifluous voice

made

is

heard against samples of the recordings he had

over half a century. His philosophy of music and culture mingles

beautifully with the rich orchestral

mark. Pahlo Casals:

A

Portrait for

contrapuntal radio technique. Casals's students

and

It

sound

that

was Stokowski's

Radio (1974) also makes

trade-

use of the

consists of interviews with several of

his biographer Albert

Kahn,

as well as

segments of

the cellist talking about Bach.

Glenn began working on the

third installment of

called his Solitude Trilogy~^ in 1972.

Lake Superior, then west of interviewing nine for a radio

program

what was

finally

again driven north along

Manitoba with the hope Mennonite community in Winnipeg The Quiet in the Land. He also tape-

into the province of

members to

He had

of a

be called

recorded two services in a Mennonite church

background sound, along with church

in

Waterloo

to

be used as

bells, choral singing, cars

on the

The Solitude Trilogy road, children at play,

and other

local noises.

241

/

But a

CBC

by the

strike

engineers delayed the project. Hoping to obtain additional material,

Glenn wrote

I

to a

community member, requesting an

should point out that this program

interview:

many

will not, unlike

others

which

have been done about various Mennonite communities, be unduly con-

cerned udth the purely historical aspects of the evolution of those nities. Inevitably,

the history of the communities

—the sense

of the threat of materialism, of one's relation to the state, etc. felt,

but what

hope

I

to achieve, primarily,

is

makes

a "mood-piece

essay dealing with the degree to which, as one of

my

commu-

of transience,

"

—

itself

a radio-

interviewees put

the Mennonites are able to remain "in the world but not of the world." is,

in short, a reflective and,

succeeds,

and the

will,

I

believe, rather poetic

I

program and,

it,

It

if it

hope, capture the essence of the Mennonite communities

life style

of the peoples involved

more

faithfully than

any

recita-

tion of historical facts possibly can.~^

Glenn did not complete until 1973.

It is

by

far the

Canadian themes. His result of

this third installment of his Solitude Trilogy

most appealing of the three docudramas on

editorial skills

had by now advanced tangibly

as a

accumulated experience with the new medium and what he had

learned from master technicians at the

CBC.

In

The Quiet

in the

Land,

he gave speakers more time to be heard individually before other voices

were superimposed, thus improving

their intelligibility.

tapestry of background sounds: fragments from a

companied

cello, snippets of

some informal piano

for

a rich

unac-

Janice Joplin crooning 'Mercedes Benz,"

and reverberations from a

playing,

He added

Bach Suite

children's chorus

being trained to improve their singing. Several scenes include the sonorous voices of preachers telling their congregation about the ethics of a

Mennonite

life,

followed by

ground of the Mennonite tive believers

who wish

men and women commenting on

faith

to

the back-

and the tension between more conserva-

remain isolated and those who seek greater

contact with surrounding communities.

However, The Solitude

who had

contributed to

Trilogy,

did not always go over well with those

There were some dissenting voices. One

it.

speaker in The Idea of North expressed his irritation at "the absence of a

coherent series of statements," while a Mennonite professor of economics

Glenn had interviewed

been "led

to believe that

an individual but as a

for

my

in the Land objected that he had would be used not as the expression of the ideas of others. You can't abstract an

The Quiet

ideas

foil for

a

242

much more

individual

/

than

GLENN GOULD that,

even

in a totahtarian society.

person becomes a note in a larger symphony.

composer.

.

.

The

.

dictator

.

.

Each

.

a social

is

"^^

Such remarks expose the ambiguity of Gould's position as a creative He was a musician who had abandoned his personal contact with live audiences and now moved exclusively into the bigger, more modern

artist.

and more popular area of electronic communication. In clear defiance of an ethos that required musicians to be heard and seen in public, he was

now ensconced more

in studios

and getting

to

and provocative radio and

original

be known

as

one of Canada's

television personalities. Janet

him "an authentic National Treasure."'^'* which didn't hear and see Glenn Gould's programs, thought of him more as a recluse or a hermit. Yet he continued to have a major impact on the music world. Outside Canada it was only the steady stream of recordings he produced, and the hope that he would one day return to the stage, which kept the image of him as a great pianist alive. Glenn had given up his Canadian manager Walter Homburger in Somerville called

The

rest of the world,

1967 and, hoping

more worldwide

to get

York manager, Ronald Wilford,

publicity, signed

who helped many

on with

New

a

celebrated conductors

with their careers. But Glenn no longer did any traveling, except to

New

we

shall

York for his recording sessions see,

diminished after

at

Columbia, and even

that, as

was agreed he could do the taping in Toronto.

it

Sporadically he went to Philadelphia for consultations with the orthopedist Dr. Stein. After the

completion of The Quiet

do

because of

his unwillingness to travel

Glenn claimed

that his health

concerts in 1964. "Most of

sheer protest against

was

my

my

this

down

such a long distance. had improved since he stopped giving

earlier illnesses

were psychosomatic

—

regimen," he told one interviewer."^ Perhaps he

referring to his health crises while abroad, for he continued con-

sulting doctors in Toronto regularly. that

Land, he was

documentary on China but turned

invited to

a radio

in the

The

"Glenn worried constantly about

radiologist A. A. Epstein told

his chest

me

and having pneumonia

the time, and he complained of gas and flatulence.

He was

all

worried that

he might have cancer. His family physician, Dr. Morris Herman, followed

him very

carefully

and would send him

rays, usually a chest film

studies.

The

to

me once

or twice a year for X-

but sometimes some GI series and esophageal

findings were invariably negative.""^

In a letter to

Leon

Fleisher, the pianist,

who

himself was having an

agonizing hand problem, Glenn writes: "As you know, no one

is

better position to realize what you have been going through

than

.

.

.

in a I,

The Solitude Trilogy even though

my own

243

/

experience with this sort of malaise

son limited both as to duration and,

1

expect, severity

.

.

.

is

by compari-

you are one of

the few original performers and, as such, far too valuable a person to

absent the scene for long. Glenn also mentions having seen their mutual "

orthopedic counsel, Dr. Stein (who had once put Glenn in a body cast), in Philadelphia,

"because

I

threw

my

out of whack."^^ Dr. Ste-

left leg

phens, for his part, noticed absolutely no difference in Glenn's "hypo-

He

chondriacal complaining" after leaving the stage.

was

a terrible tragedy that this musical genius felt so

away

by making radio documentaries

his energies

plished with the music of Debussy, Schubert,

which he was

far

Schumann, other compos-

whose works he tended to ignore or dismiss. But Glenn had sworn never to return to the

"^^

stage. "I think that [the

of the concert artist] has no relevance to the contemporary music

life

scene ...

I

couldn't conceive going back to that

was an experience that quickly as I could, and when

interview in 1968.

shuck

to

for

"It

to fritter

than he was as a pianist. Just think what he might have accom-

less gifted

ers

maintains that

compelled

off as

"It

life,

I

"

he said

wanted

that

to

in a lengthy

be

rid of

moment came

I

and did

."^^ it

.

.

my

In

opinion, Glenn's retirement had the great benefit of allowing

him

to

lain

dormant

go in

new

But

solitude.

directions

for years. at the

It

and explore aspects of

same time

it

interaction throughout the world

ductors, critics,

his creativity that

and above

all

— contact with other musicians,

self-esteem and breadth of artistic vision. Working

much

now

to his

primarily in stu-

and engineers, he no longer had

to

contend so

with either the flattery or the fault-finding directed at his earlier

musical performances. (That happened only released.)

The

result

loss of the primar)'

built

con-

audiences whose reactions to his playing,

even when he complained about them, might have been helpful dios with technicians

had

him closer to an understanding of cut him off from important human

also brought

up

in

was

when

a

new

recording was

a kind of diffusion of Glenn's identity, a certain

image of himself as

a pianist,

an image that had been

childhood under his mother's guidance.

Did this indicate personal maturation, a step in the direction of greater autonomy and strength of character? Or did it betoken weakness, a capitulation to his performance anxiety and social withdrawal in the face of fear-provoking crowds? Perhaps both factors were at work simultaneously, so that Glenn lured himself into believing he was on the right track, and at the same time remained riddled with doubts as to where his career

was going.

21

CHANGING VIEWS OF COMPOSERS

Glenn freedom than

break from giving concerts provided greater

felt that his

ever before to explore the range and variety of

musical compositions.

"It's

about four years now, he told John "

McClure, music director of Columbia Masterworks,

my

and they've been four of the very best years of

come

I've

to

didn't realize start

was possible before

.

means

look

.

.

.

it's

in a

first

of

down from

all

really like, or I

Bach was

really like, in

might translate that decision

that

I

to

a fairly considerable height .

.

to

terms of an

an audience.

.

really

upon

for

you by

just

itself, it

totally enjoyable

music'

to you. It

of a tremendous range of repertoire which

is

makes you aware of the mental process of assimi-

lating repertoire very quickly,

makes you aware

also

a vast literature that's

encountering music as a

and personal experience. That encounter does curious things

makes you aware not

It

you cover an immense terrain of music. You can

that

spread out before you

good

way

been a remarkable experience

thinking about music not via an instrument, not by having to decide

instrument by which .

four years in which

terms with music and with myself qua music

what Beethoven was

.

life,

in 1968,

of the

—

it

which sounds

is

also very

a little

good

corny

—

for you.

But

it

also

of the magnitude of

Changittg Views of Composers

It

was

perform

newly

this

—

it

programs

for

that

felt

freedom

had generated,

BBC2

music

to explore

245

I

— not necessarily

to

1966, four forty-minute television

in

Glenn Gould, "which were

called Conversations with

Humphrey Burton, who came out from London for a ten-day period last March more fun to make and, all in all, more satisfying than any television I've ever produced here

in Toronto,

with the immense help of

.

done.

.

.

"~

on the

In an informal studio setting, with cables

floor

ton, the British

CBC

tures for

producer with

whom

and electronic

Humphrey

gear standing about, Glenn sat at the piano talking with

Bur-

he had collaborated on several fea-

The

during the I960 Vancouver Music Festival.

first

program was primarily about Bach, the second about Beethoven, the

and the fourth about Arnold Schoenberg. Glenn would play examples of their music, talking in a typically effervescent and controversial way about diverse challenges their music prethird about Richard Strauss,

sented for performers and listeners.

amount

of preparation that

He

the public debate.

went

into

Burton

the astonishing

recalls

each of these programs: "He liked

loved to shock. Despite the apparent high-spirited,

almost jokey informality of the conversations, they were in fact carefully structured, the result of

many hours

of talking (round the subject) at

Glenn's incredibly disorganized Toronto apartment.

rehearsed

—

a

The spontaneity was

paradox Glenn enjoyed."^

That same

year,

Glenn proposed

a totally different kind of enterprise

to

John McClure, hoping Columbia Records might be

to

be a "spoof of the recorded public piano "

I

would be presented

knife,

Northwest

[could] fake the

in recital at

Territories; or

interested.

White Horse, Yukon

was

Territories; Yellow-

some other such romantic

spot ...

we

whole event studio-wdse [and] concoct an irreproachably

chronological recital format consisting exclusively of pieces that

be unlikely

It

recital.

to record as part of

any more sober project. ...

It

I

would

would, of

course, be recorded to the best of our ability with perhaps just a few

conspicuous clinkers

dub the

Neville Chamberlain

Did Glenn fantasies,

left in to give

splutters, sneezes,

really

and

it

credence.

and sighs of the

was shouted down

mean

it?

in the

.

.

Then we would damn audience

lead to exorbitant

"This

quite mad." Yet he tried to justify the recording because

madness

that the [Gerard]

ov^er-

since

House.

humor could McClure he admitted,

His sense of

in his letter to

.

noisiest

"it is

all

sounds

from such

Hoffnung concerts and the Baroque Beatles

246

Book

grew."'*

in this

/

GLENN GOULD

Columbia Records was unwilling

whimsy, but fourteen years

at first to

later did allow

him

to

indulge Glenn

go ahead with a

memories of Horowitz's successful Glenn mimics a public con-

similar parody. Still spurred by jealous

return to the stage after a lengthy absence, cert held in

on an

oil rig in

1980, under the

the Canadian Arctic.

title

A

Glenn Gould

celebrating his silver anniversary with

example of Glenn's use of humor

The recording was

Fantasy, as part of

Columbia Records.^

to deal

released

an album

It is

with a painful subject

a prime

—every

was painstakingly deleted. recording event was Glenn's work with Leopold

unflattering reference to Horowitz

A

very satisfying

Sto-

kowski, a musician he truly venerated. He'd interviewed the maestro in

"Why have we never An agreement was reached with

1965, and Stokowski himself raised the question:

been invited

Columbia

to

make

records together?"

to record Beethoven's Fifth

(the "Emperor") with Stokowski's

own

Piano Concerto in E-flat Major orchestra, the

American Sym-

phony. Conferring beforehand about their interpretation, Glenn told the elderly conductor that "whatever the tempo, a

symphony with piano

Gould and Stokmvski

obbligato;

I

we can make

really don't think

it

this piece into

ought to be a

discuss scores while having tea, 1969. Courtesy of CBC.

Changing Views of C om pose rs virtuoso vehicle,

and Stokovvski couldn

was not one

Glenn had much respect

that

t

I

247

help but agree. ^ This concerto

He remarked

for.

that "Like

most of Beethoven's middle-period blockbusters, the 'Emperor' Concerto is

a rather

simple-minded work harmonically.

this side of

It

concentrates on primar}'

premium, and nowhere Grand Old Opry can one encounter more unadorned II-V-I

chord materials, modulatory' subtleties are

at a

"'

progressions.

The recording was made

March 1966. Glenn phrased

in

his

opening

cadenzas in a truly original way, and he acceded to Stokowski's tactful

admonitions about modulating the tempi: "But do you not think there are a few moments which should perhaps go a little faster and a few which might go a little slower?" Miracles of acoustic balance and coherence were achie\'ed by the Columbia producer, Andrew Kazdin, who was

beginning to play a major role in Glenn's recording career, working

him

closely with

to achieve the

many

discs that

were now forthcoming.

Another version of the "Emperor" Concerto was made sion four years

later,

when Glenn was

CBC

Televi-

Arturo Benedetti MichelangeU, another musician famous

Italian pianist,

for his last-minute cancelations.

When

about Glenn's willingness to step "Michelangelir Gould?

in,

conductor Karel Ancerl heard

he

is

Where do you people

During the intervening years, Glenn went

month, and

for

a last-minute substitute for the

his

record output in

supposed

to

have

said:

get such kooks?"^ to

New

York about once a

1966 and 1967 was stupendous,

including

Beethoven Sonatas: No. 8

in

C

Minor

No. 9

in

E

major, opus 14, no.

("Pathetique"), opus 13 1

No. 10

in

G

No. 14

in

C-sharp Minor ("Moonlight"), opus 27, no. 2

No. 18

in E-flat Major,

No. 23

in

major, opus 14, no. 2

opus 31, no. 3

F Minor ("Appassionata"), opus 57

Beethoven, 'M Variations in

C Minor

Numerous Lieder by Richard Strauss, recorded with his favorite singer, the German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf ("no vocalist has brought art").^

me

Of

because

greater pleasure or

more

insight into the interpreter's

these, only the Ophelia Songs, opus 67,

Mme

Schwarzkopf objected

to

with the accompaniments

Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book

II,

were released

Glenn s improvdsatory way

Nos. 1—8

248

GLENN GOULD

/

Bach, Piano Concertos no. 3 in

Golschmann

Vladimir

D

G

Minor, with

Columbia

Symphony

Major and no. 7

conducting

the

in

Orchestra

Hindemith, Sonata no.

A

in

1

Major, and no. 3 in B-flat Major

Prokofiev, Sonata no. 7 in B-flat Major,

opus 83

Various pieces by William Byrd

Canadian music

Oskar Morawetz, Istvan

in the twentieth century:

Anhalt, Barbara Pentland, and Jacques Hetu Six Sonatas by Mozart: 1

in

C

No. 2

in

F Major,

No. No.

Major, K. 279 K.

280

3 in B-flat Major, K.

No. 4

281

in E-flat Major, K.

G

282

Major, K. 283

No.

5 in

No.

15inC

Major, K. 545.

Glenn's policy in recording was always to

make

the music sound

dif-

what might be expected. It made no sense to him to record anything that resembled what had been produced by other pianists. Thus ferent from

he took enormous

liberties, especially

work

sary "recomposing" parts of a

with tempi and dynamics,

to give

This could lead to interpretations that were

it

at

if

neces-

Gould touch. best startling and at worst

that special

outlandish. For example, the opening of the "Appassionata" Sonata

is

wrong with the playback equipment. At that lethargic tempo, the music loses all forward momentum and caves inward like a cold souffle. Given Glenn's outstandplayed so slowly that one wonders

ing control of the keyboard and

one can only be dismayed

be,

course, this

is

stant approval.

of

them

if

how awesome

at his

a subjective reaction;

As

for the

—these have

something

is

his interpretations could

choosing to play

no

pianist

Mozart sonatas

manner. Of

in this

on earth can

elicit

con-

— Gould ultimately recorded

all

up more contention than almost anything

stirred

he ever put on tape.

He had it

a

most peculiar attitude toward Mozart

had started

"as far

back

as

1

in the first place,

can remember," suggesting that

his

and

myopic

view and the love-hate relationship he had with Mozart's music was

determined by childhood out,

was between

fidelity to his

own

conflict.

loyalty to

The

conflict, as far as

what he had learned from

personal beliefs. Mrs. Gould, as

I

his

we saw

can figure

it

mother and

earlier,

feared

that her son's musical talents might be exploited prematurely, and she fiercely resisted

any attempt

to

compare

his early

accomplishments with

Changing Views those of the Salzburg child

of

prodigv'.

Compose rs

The

ver\'

249

I

mention of Mozart's name

was forbidden at home. This may have kept Glenn as a boy from forming a more positive view of one of the greatest musicians of all time; a pity, because children thrive on the inner images of desirable role models. It would not have been surprising if the young Glenn Gould, with his immense musical gifts, had aspired to be Hke Mozart. But that's exactly what his mother did not want to see happen. "You're no Mozart, and don't let

anybody think that you

are,"

was the attitude she conveyed

to

her son. Yet the negative implications were contradicted every time he

picked up pieces by Mozart. "The actual pla\ang of them sonatas]

ning

my

was always very enjoyable," he

up and down the

fingers

arpeggios."

recalled.

"I

keys, exploiting

[i.e.,

the piano

had

a lot of fun run-

all

those scales and

'°

Playing Mozart's music evidently was a positive, enjoyable experience,

odds with

but

at

On

the one

his negative

way

hand he was ready

died too late rather than too

of thinking about Mozart as a person.

to denigrate Mozart, sa\ang that

early,

and that

his

he had

musicianship had been

which made his music too theatrical. "Why Mozart is a Bad Composer. "" And in keeping with his preference for the Baroque period and his antipathy toward romanticism, he said he "hated" late works by Mozart such spoiled by involvement in opera,

Glenn even

as the

tried to write

Symphony

in

G

the late viola quintets?

On the other hand,

an essay on

Minor, K. 550.'^ (Had Glenn never listened to

How

could anyone "hate" such sublime music?)

his favorite

childhood pet was the

little

bird

named

Mozart, and the only surviving recordings of his pre-adolescent piano playing (four hands with his teacher Albert Guerrero) are of works by

Mozart.

One

of Glenn's most sublime interpretations in his twenties

Mozart's Concerto no. 24 in his thirties

was

C

Minor, K. 491.'^

to record all of Mozart's

And

was

a major project in

Piano Sonatas and Fantasias.

He

had more fun with these things than anything I've ever done, practically, mainly because I really don't like Mozart as a comconfessed that

poser.

"I

"'^

—

These recordings were made over a period of nine years between March 1965, when he was thirty-two, and September 1974, when he

was barelv

many

forty-two. Considering Gould's simultaneous involvement in

other projects, as well as his change in recording techniques and

studios (from the

New

York Columbia studio to Toronto's Massey Hall

and Eaton Auditorium) during that stretch of time, the unevenness of the product should not come as a surprise. Glenn was the first to admit its

deficiencies, for example, to the critic

and writer Tim Page, who

told

250

GLENN GOULD

/

him, "Your performances of some of the [Mozart] Sonatas strike

me

as

possibly your least successful records."

Yes, a couple of the later

works

them

love, the

I

Mozart Sonatas [he

middle ones

I

went about recording works

to skip those

of Gould's interpretations. This

defies

many

silk

brocade.

is

The

and

I

like;

find

can certainly

The honest

thing to do would have

is

immediately struck by the vigor

not the porcelain-doll Mozart in pow-

playing

conventions: the texture

full-blooded and powerful.

It

jangly and percussive; there

is

is

is

in

keeping with Glenn's contrapuntal bias

Dynamic

voices should be equal, often overwhelm the theme.

all

early I

legato phrasing but a great deal of staccato; especially in the

little

accompanying passages which, that

The

Page].

do not

but the cycle had to be completed.'^

entirely,

Listening to these recordings, one

dered wig and

I

a piece like the Sonata in B-flat major, K.

570, with no conviction whatsoever

very

Tim

intolerable, loaded with quasitheatrical conceit,

say that

been

told

love, the later sonatas

I

changes are minimized or ignored

tempo markings

entirely;

are rarely

acknowledged; accents are choppy and ordinary chords are often arpeggiated in bizarre ways. Above

all,

what's missing

is

the

charm and repose

make Mozart's music so universally appealing. And yet there are some model performances. The Sonatas no. 6 in D major, K. 284 that

(Glenn's favorite), and no. 7 in played.

I

disagreed with

him

C

Major, K. 309, are especially well

that the Sonata no. 17 in B-flat Major, K.

570, should have been eliminated, because as a violinist

I

think of

Mozart's other version of this work for violin and piano, and actually

enjoy listening to Glenn's performance. But the beginning of the second

movement in

my

of the Sonata no. 16 in

composer and those who

how plays

C

Major, K. 545 ("Sonata facile"),

is

opinion a disaster, an ugly caricature, and an insult to both the love his music.

not to play Mozart. This it

at

movement

the speed of an Allegro,

It's

is

much

Glenn's demonstration of

marked Andante,

too

fast,

yet

Glenn

hiding the fluidity of

theme under bluntly detached configurations of the left hand. FurGlenn softens this and actually plays quite lyrically. Thus, in the same movement, one can appreciate Glenn's ambivalence toward the

ther on,

Mozart.

He was

far less

ambivalent toward Richard Strauss, who, according to

the laudatory essay

Glenn wrote about

this

composer, "always fancied

himself as a kind of twentieth-century Mozart, and this

is

not an alto-

'

" '

Changing Views of Composers

251

I

"'^

Glenn was seventeen years old when, a sympathy "with the flamboyant extroversion of the young Richard Strauss [and] I have never grown out of it."'' Considering how passionately he defended the

gether insupportable conceit.

listening to Ein Heldenleben, he

grew naturally into

.

.

.

radicalism of Schoenberg, his simultaneous advocacy of the ultraconservative Richard Strauss exemplifies Glenn's striking capabilit}' for

embrac-

ing opposites. TTius he could think of Schoenberg as "one of the greatest

composers who ever est

as

musical figure

Glenn

called

lived, "'*^

who

him

led

it,

and

also believe that "Strauss

was the

great-

has lived in this century."'*^ Such "high prejudice,"

produce innumerable radio and television

to

programs about Strauss (including the two-part radio documentary

1979 called The Bourgeois Hero),

to record

many

B Minor,

as well as his very limited output for solo piano (the Sonata in

opus

5,

was Glenn's

final recording,

made

in

of the composer's songs

shortly before his death in

1982), and to write the persuasive essay "An

Argument

Richard

for

Strauss.

In that essay, rents of fancy

yard

for

character

Glenn expressed

which

.

.

romantics,

who had

.

make

cunning cur-

his opposition to "those

haste to consign old Strauss to the grave-

pronouncing

him

the audacity to live

great

a

fift}'

nineteenth-centur\'

years into the twentieth.

most

Instead, he regarded Strauss as "a central figure in today's

dilemma of aesthetic morality

we attempt

— the hopeless confusion

intrigued

Glenn

mously

of collective chronology.

good fortune

to

be writing mas-

Brahms and Bruckner and the luck

into the age of Boulez

Strauss's

summation

that Strauss "had the

terpieces in the days of

Webern

when

to contain the inscrutable pressures of self-guiding artistic

destiny within the neat, historical It

crucial

that arises

concern "with

beyond

to live

and Stockhausen." And he admired enorutilizing the fullest riches of late

romantic

tonality within the firmest possible formal disciplines ... his interest

primarily the preservation of the total function of tonality. able to produce by the simplest

an overpowering emotional Glenn's

endowment

attraction to polyphonic

and almost deceptively

.

.

was

Strauss

.

familiar

is

means

effect.""*^

for

contrapuntal

thinking

music made him search

and

strong

his

for these qualities in his

He had to admit that Strauss "was by no means a composer who practiced counterpoint per se. In his music the absolute hero's compositions.

contrapuntal forms

—the fugue, the canon,

etc.

—appear primarily

in the

operas (and even there infrequently) and are almost without exception the occasion for a self-conscious underlining of the libretto

.

.

.

but one

252

GLENN GOULD

/

always has the feeling that Strauss

saying 'Look,

is

means

that he regards such diversions simply as a

on the

static situation

stage.

"

can do

I

to enliven

But Glenn couldn't leave

it

at that.

it

and

too!'

an otherwise

He had

onto Strauss an expertise that he either didn't possess or

to project

dom

chose to exercise.

in a

spasm of hyperbole,

"[I]t

sel-

cannot be overemphasized," wrote Glenn

on

"that Strauss,

his

own

terms, was the

most contrapuntal-minded of composers. The fundamental strength of Strauss's counterpoint

between the

relation

reflective, always

.

.

create a sense of poetic

lies in his ability to

.

dexterous soprano melodies, the firm,

soaring,

cadential-minded basses, and, most important of

the superbly filigreed texture of his inner voices. Finally,

Glenn had

comparing him thoven,

to

to

pay Strauss the highest compliment of

Beethoven. "Indeed, short of the

last

by

all,

quartets of Bee-

can think of no music which more perfectly conveys that trans-

I

Metamorfhosen or

figuring light of ultimate philosophic repose than does Ca'priccio

—both

written

when

was past

[Strauss]

Glenn's amazing musical erudition, gained, as

much

all,

"^'

seventy-five." Yet

have said before, not so

I

through scholarship as by attentive listening and conscientious

made him take note of one fundamental difference between the two composers. "Beethoven, after all, in the last quartets did review of scores,

.

.

.

afford a link with the taut motivic complexities of the Schoenbergian

generation, future.

"

whereas Strauss "has promised nothing whatever

In his

panoramic view of Western musical

have had blind spots century composers.

I

for

it,

Glenn seems

history,

to dismiss their work, or

worse

yet, to

especially the piano compositions of that so-

Romantic period.

have always

felt

[he told

Tim

piano recital literature repertoire half of the nineteenth century

pretty

much

Page] that the whole center core of the is

a colossal

to

some degree

of a washout as far as solo instrumental music

Mendelssohn, because

I

The music

is

concerned.

— I'm tempted not

is

pretty bad. You see,

composers knew how

to use the pedal,

effects, splashing notes in every direction,

posing going on.

Schumann

his piano writing

don't think any of the early romantic

Oh, they knew how

Liszt,

is

first

—

have a tremendous affection for his choral

and chamber works, but most of

piano.

waste of time. The whole

—excluding Beethoven

This generalization includes Chopin, to say

to

most of the accomplishments of nineteenth-

He tended

denigrate and ridicule called

for the

"^"

of that era

and how

to

but there's very

is full

of

empty

I

to write for the

make dramatic little real

com-

theatrical gestures,

Chattging Views of C omposers and

of exhibitionism,

full

turns

He

me

it

253

I

has a worldly, hedonistic

qualitA' that

simply

off.~^

B Minor, opus 58, for a CBC Romantic compos-

did play Chopin's Sonata no. 3 in

Radio program

in

1977 about the

revival of interest in

bombastic, insensitive rendition of this magnificent work, with

ers. It is a

peculiar voicing of the opening chords and delicate right-hand themes

buried under brutal left-hand accompaniments. frigid

that

am

woman

being forced to kiss a

Glenn took told

One

reminded of a

is

she despises.

It

is

regrettable

toward the Romantic composers, because

this attitude

he rarely played music by Chopin and one clearly senses

were directed elsewhere. Also on the program were

that his affections

five Soyxgs \Yix\\oui VJords

by Mendelssohn, played

Another foray into unwanted

territorv'

Schumann Piano Quartet

1968, of the

OstwalA:

far less objection-

was Glenn's recording,

in E-flat Major,

members of the Juilliard String Quartet. Mann, first \dohnist of the quartet.

I

What do you think led Gould, despite his Schumann and the Romantics, to agree

strong reser\'ations to record the piano

quartet?

Mann:

In his

own

kind of inverted and ego-centered thought about the

he saw music, he thought

vvav

could make of Ostwald: So

Mann: No,

it it

was actually on

quartets,

[Bernstein],

Since

Mann:

Had you

Well, to

a challenge to see

his initiative?

We'd recorded

We

at that

tell

you the

truth, no.

Glenn

The

in public?

only time

did the Schoenberg, you know.

Was

Yes,

that

and

it

So You Want

also

he wanted

Ode

to

I'd

in

ever experienced

non-public situa-

Napoleon, and also he

Christmas Cantata that was not

little

serious piece, but he wTote Ostxvald:

the three string

time wanted us to do this with him.

ever performed with

wrote kind of a funny

Mann:

all

and we'd recorded the piano quintet with Lenny

any music making with Glenn had always been tions.

what he

and we wanted to do the piano quartet with somebody we had done any number of other things with Glenn,

Columbia Records Ostivald:

would be

it.

wasn't on his initiative.

Schumann else.

it

and we recorded

to

really a

it.

Write a Fugue?

ver\'

much

and we had some experience with

in

opus 47, with

discussed this with Robert

regarding

tet,

I

he performed Chopin beautifully when he was quite young. In

his later years

ably.^"*

man

for us to record his string quarthat.

So when Columbia

said,

254

GLENN GOULD

/

Schumann with Glenn Gould, we

wouldn't you consider doing the well, find out

he wants

if

do

to

said,

it.'^^

There was trouble during rehearsals because of Glenn's

fixed opinion

that the piano quartet should be played in a "symphonic" style.

The

difference between a string quartet and a

period, or even the romantic era,

[Glenn expostulated on I

I

don't believe that

effectively.

would have

takes

it

.

.

way formal

program about the Schumann quartet], so

some

cult.

some

"holier-than-thou" dedication,

.

to depict

up-tempo

relentlessly

the time the sessions the

of the classical

renunciation of the virtuoso ambition, in order to play chamber

selfless

I

symphony

purely textural, in no

buy that whole elaborate mystique of the chamber music

just don't

music

a radio

is

way

it

my own

driven.

came

to

.

.

.

contribution as oversymphonicized,

We

weren't speaking to each other by

an end, which was pretty childish, but

that's

was."^

Another deviation from the obstinate neglect of the nineteenth-century piano literature tions of the

was

his interest in

Franz

Beethoven symphonies. This

Liszt's

keyboard transcrip-

stemmed more from

interest

Glenn's curiosity about their technical construction

made

from any

true admiration for the

Hungarian

pianist,

referred to as "a second-rate composer.""^ Although

of

some

sound

himself later

whom

— than

he often

Glenn disapproved

of the devices Liszt habitually used for converting orchestral

to the piano, for instance,

drum

imitate

rolls,

having octave tremolos on the keyboard

he gave very serious thought

to recording all nine of

Beethoven Symphony transcriptions.

Liszt's

As

—he

piano transcriptions of Richard Wagner's operatic music

it

turned out, only the Fifth Symphony and the

the Sixth ("Pastorale") were ever recorded.

"by far the best of the Liszt realizations

— quite

musically, to play with authentic respect for the

dynamic

movement

shifts,

of

latter

was

a miracle really"^^

But

both recordings are excellent examples of Glenn's

versely distorting the tempi or

first

Glenn thought the

ability to toe the line

composer without

and

to

use a

full

per-

palette of

tone colors from songlike purity to percussive bombast.

Symphony's last movement contains passages of such diffiGould applied the technique of "overdubbing," i.e., recording separate two-hand versions and combining them into an essentially "fourhands" performance. His playing of the "Pastorale Symphony's opening movement was broadcast on one of CBC's Tuesday night Glenn Gould

The

Fifth

culty that

"

w changing V

i

6

e

of

s

Composers

255

I

(June 11, 1968), and also filmed for a tele\ision program that

recitals

shows the

pianist first playing the transcription in an

later strolling along the shore of

Lake Superior

empty auditorium, town of Wavva.

in the little

This was one of his favorite hideouts, a "therapeutic environment for his creativity.

[W'awa]

an extraordinan,- place [says Glenn]

is

happened

to

me

the

first

time

I

was up

weeks, away from Toronto and away from

and

life at

and

thinking,

cit\'

and

that time,

I

I

did

.

here.

.

I

cities

.

something ven' strange

was away

about two

for

and away from

city living

some of the best writing of my entire was the sort of therapy needed, and

think

I

decided

it

I

Ive been coming back for more of the same ever since. "^

Three unlikely candidates tein Valen,

ing for

and Georges

new works

Concerto

caught his attention

was an odd choice

for

when he was

search-

Griegs popular Piano

to record in the early 1970s.

A Minor

in

enthusiasm, Edvard Grieg, Far-

for Glenn's

Bizet,

someone who claimed

to

despise the virtuoso tradition of the nineteenth centur}-. Yet Glenn was

hoping stro

to record this

was engaged

to

There were rumors facilities in

concerto with Herbert von Karajan while the mae-

conduct operas

at

that Karajan might

Toronto, but nothing

New

York.

of the

CBC

the Metropolitan in

wish

came

to

make use

of that. In a letter to his

new

manager, Ronald Wilford, Glenn mentioned plans for recording the Grieg concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Karel Ancerl, and

by way of promoting himself, he suggested that "Uncle Edvard's opus deser\es inclusion in whichever token

library'

of 'serious music'

is

1

initially

made

available via cassette. '^° (Although there is no objective evidence Glenn always wanted people to believe that he and "Uncle, sometimes "Cousin, Edxard were blood relatives.) John Roberts was present

for

it,

"

"

when Glenn, tried "I

told

it

claiming never to have played the Grieg concerto before,

out for the

time.

me. "The treacherously

were incredible.

The

first

had never heard the concerto played

difficult

He

at

such

difficult arpeggio

a fast

played with such intensity that

cadenza came off

perfectly.

I

tempo, Roberts

passages and octave runs it

was

frightening.

couldn't believe that he had

never played the work before, but he insisted that this was the

he had ever taken a look

at

it,

and he was using the music.

He

the orchestral parts he could, and sang the others. 'Glenn,' 'this is

sensational, you'll have a

'No, John,' he answered,

'this

1

first

is

not for me.'

"'"

all

told him,

tremendous success with the

piece

time

played

Grieg.'

256

GLENN GOULD

/

made

Nevertheless, plans were

in

1971 for Glenn to record the Grieg

concerto, as well as Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto, in Cleveland.

CD

His Steinway

New

318 had already been transported from

York to

Severance Hall, and the Columbia recording team was poised for action with portable equipment to be shipped to Cleveland. But

moment Glenn

at

the last

canceled, with the excuse that "he had contracted the

some other illness. Minor, opus 17, which is

"^"

wrote about having been

"at

flu or

piece. In the liner notes

in

he

almost perverse pains to underline those

dour, curiously dispassionate qualities of Ibsenesque

be on predominant display

E

Instead, he recorded Grieg's Sonata in

more subdued

a

even the

earliest

gloom that

I

feel to

works of cousin Edvard."^^

Glenn was contemplating a radio program devoted to a "Scandinavian theme Grieg Sonata, Nielsen suite, and possibly a sample of the .

.

.

'^^

current Baltic avant garde, tein Valen, an obscure

but dropped Carl Nielsen in favor of Far-

Norwegian twelve-tone composer whose Sonata

opus 38, he presented along with the Grieg sonata

no. 2,

Tuesday night radio

recital

on July

Glenn had

18, 1972.

first

in a

CBC

heard about

American composer Alan Stout, who was introhim by Joseph Stephens. "Valen's music," wrote Glenn enthusi-

Fartein Valen from the

duced

to

astically in a letter to 'refined'

—

if that's

Jane Friedman of

the appropriate

CBS

word

—

Records, "provides the most

utilization of conventional 12-

tone techniques this side of Alban Berg [without having] any of the netic hyper-romantic qualities of Berg. ...

many

time in music.

years, that I've

Coupled with

rity

a

really

do

feel, for

major figure

in

the

frefirst

20th century

"^''

Grieg sonata

opus

encountered

I

3, a

is

his not very ingratiating

fascinating composition that

by calling

Columbia recording

of the

a vivacious rendition of Bizet's Variations Chromatiques,

it

emerge from the

Glenn

lifted

out of relative obscu-

"one of the very few masterpieces for solo piano to third quarter of the nineteenth century

"

and giving

it

an unusually erudite performance. Also on that side of the record was the Premier Nocturne in

D

Major by

Bizet, "[c]hiefly

frustrating the cadential inclinations of a ness.

concerned with

melody of Methodist prim-

."^^ .

.

Finally, in

summing up Glenn's "new

look" at composers and their

music, one must mention his resurgent interest in two English Tudor

composers, Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd, a selection of whose

works (Rounds, Grounds, Pavanes, and Fantasies) he recorded with great vitality

and exuberance

1968 and 1971. Gibbons had long been

in

Glenn's "favorite composer,

"

he told Jonathan Cott. "There

is

... a spiri-

changing Views tual

attachment that

or fifteen

and

first

and consequently thrilled

Glenn

ingly well

began

I

of C ompose

to feel for his

wanted

to

make

a

to discover that this late

I

257

music when

heard some of the Anthems; I've

rs

I

fell in

Gibbons album

I

was fourteen

love with them, all

Renaissance music

my

life.

"^'

It

"sits surpris-

on the modern piano," and he enjoyed comparing Gibbons

to

the "more introverted Gustav Mahler" and Byrd to the "decidedly extro-

verted Richard Strauss.

"^^

22

IMPERSONATOR, PHILOSOPHER, AND TECHNICIAN Glenns

high level of anxiety did not change as a result of the

transformation in his career;

kind of

activity,

it

was merely displaced from one

the public concert, onto another, the recording

When

the writer Jonathan Cott asked him to talk about his anxiGlenn disclosed, "I only have one dream of that kind, which one would think would have abated the moment I stopped giving concerts, but it didn't. It simply transferred itself to other media, and I now have it in relation to recording sessions. He went on to describe "the most elaborate variation" on this dream, in which he was supposed to session.

ety dreams,

"

sing the baritone role in a Bellini opera with Maria Callas.

tested

—"This

is

absurd, I'm no singer

way, and started to sing. "But

all

"

—but was forced

to

He

pro-

go ahead any-

of a sudden a diminished chord,

which

thought was heading back to E major, decided to veer off and go to

I

G — as

diminished chords have a tendency

to do.

And

I

was

left

hanging

there."'

This dream, to the extent that that Glenn's unconscious to

musical symbols, probably as

mother how

to

we can

take

it

mental processes were a result of his

at face value, suggests

intrinsically

connected

having been shown by his

manipulate tones, scales, keys, and other musical con-

"

Impersonator, Philosopher, and Technician

259

I

cepts before he learned

how

points to his high striving

— singing an opera with Maria Callas—and the

and write words. The dream

to read

when he

sense of being forced to perform even

wasn't ready for

it.

Fortunately, along with the transition from concert artist to radio

Glenn perfected

television star,

way

a

roots in earlier patterns of pretense

someone other than

.

himself,

burdened by self-imposed

less

.

.

my most

moments

joyous

ones, perhaps, are those Cott].

ability to portray

the mid-sixties.

I

Territories.

Glenn would

in radio, as

The reason

opposed

my most

to

in a sustained

humorous

myself pseudonymously

Hi^

von Hochmeister

for that

more relaxed and

feel

creative

turn to impersonation [he told Jonathan

I

wrote a few articles for

a critic called Herbert

its

He became an own invention. By

and make-believe.

artistic responsibilities.

was incapable of writing

I

developed an

up

when

and

of coping with anxiety that had

expert in impersonating fictional characters of his feigning

also

I

Fidelity in

who

style until

I

started this in

which

lived in the

I

turned

Northwest

metaphor was that Herbert could thereby

survey the culture of North America from his exalted remove, and pon-

The

tificate accordingly.

Hochmeister was a

character was also vaguely based on Karajan:

retired

Germanic culture and things had

make him

to

sufficiently

so that he could speak of

once a

did that,

I

humorous

vented

me

quently

I

I

found

style.

it

of that nature.

so.

Once baxdng

gotten into

it,

I

aware of other and more recent innovations

them with some

no problem

Until then, there

from doing

Von

conductor and was always spouting off about

was

But in any event,

authority.

at all to say

what

wanted

I

to say in

a degree of inhibition that pre-

But then the floodgates were open, and subse-

developed a character for every season.^

Except for an occasional impersonation over the telephone or with his studio colleagues,

Glenn

at first

confined this activity to his writing. In

the liner notes for his Beethoven/Liszt recording issued in 1968, for

example, he expressed himself in the guise of no less than four invented characters. Sir

Humphrey

Price-Davies

comments

that "in the releases for the

CBS, includes an

current month, that colossus of American industry, offering

it

rather immodestly describes as a 'keyboard

transcription of the Beethoven Fifth

Symphony

extravagantly eccentric Canadian pianist

first'

as

— Franz

Liszt's

rendered by that

Glenn Gould.

Professor Dr. Karlheinz Heinkel draws attention to "bars 197 and 201 of the

first

movement

of this work, in both of

which

a middle

C

is

miss-

"

260

ing. ... If these

Liszt]

GLENN GOULD

/

notes are dismissed by this Hungarian transcriber

we must ask why

has this been done?

Is it

[i.e.,

that this transcriber

thought to be helping Beethoven? Does he dare to instruct us with our

own musik? Does he presume

to a private

knowledge of Beethoven's

notes?

Lemming, M.D., ha\dng attended "several recording contributes some psychoanalytic insights:

S. F.

sessions in

New York City,"

As recording ensued a major factor.

...

The work

it

became evident

symphony orchestra and the assume the authoritarian

that career disorientation

artist's

role of

choice clearly reflected a desire to

conductor The ego

gratification of this

denied by a lack of orchestral personnel, the

role being

was

selected by the artist was, in fact, intended for

artist

delegated

the record's producer and engineers as surrogates and, in the course of the session, attempted to demonstrate approval or disapproval of various

musical niceties by gesticulating vigorously and in a conductorlike manner.

He

developed increasingly laconic speech patterns as the session pro-

gressed.

And

.

.

.

Zoltan Mostanyi cites an article from the Journal of the All-Union

Musical Workers of Budapest. "What would you think, beloved Franz [Liszt] ... if you could know that this, your work, your enterprise, distorted, serves only to enrich,

good Franz.

.

.

.

No

impoverish the many. You played for them,

glory did you seek, nor profit either. But eighty

denied the right to work, dear Franz. Eighty colder

still

tonight.

And

all

men

children will be

because one timid, spineless pianist [Gould]

sold his soul to the enslaving dollar,

yours.

men whose

and

in his lustful

quest exploited

"^

Glenn's impersonations also began appearing in some of his radio programs. Sir

Humphrey

CBC

Price-Davies spoke up during an imagi-

nary musicologists' conference on one of the 1969 series of weekly broad-

The Art of Glenn Gould. Another program in that series named Theodore Slutz. A 1972 program called The Scene debated the merits of competitive sports, with Glenn taking on several roles, including the boxer Dominico Patrono. Only three times in

casts called

featured a character

his life did

he actually disguise himself

to

resemble one of his surrogates.

This was for a series of television commercials in the mid-seventies proa radio program called CBC Tuesday Night. First Glenn would show up undisguised, asking the audience to listen to the programs, and then he appeared dressed up as one of a number of characters.

moting

Impersonator, Philosopher, and Technician

Twitt-Thornwaite was a "superannuated" British conductor,

Sir Nigel

with shoulder-length

podium

hair, spectacles,

fussily instructing

in his staging instructions,

utterly dotty

have a

261

I

.

.

and

mod

—he

sort of Pearson-like bow-tie [Lester B. Pearson,

Canada from 1963

to 1968, usually

wore

a

bow

camera should cut from a rather low angle honor which

his

stood on the

Adrian Boult was his model. "Sir Nigel

the epitome of Edwardian

.

who

a long baton,

an imaginary orchestra. As Gould explained

to

tie],

should,

I

is

think,

prime minister of

and,

if

possible, the

emphasize the enormous

presence confers upon our studios.

'"^

This impersonation obviously allowed Glenn to express disdain for

some to his

of the

more conservative

British conductors

who

did not conform

image of Stokowski. (Stokowski actually was born and raised

in

England.)

Myron Chianti was Glenn's the Waterfront.

He

Gould

takeoff on Marlon Brando in the film

On

wears jeans, a leather jacket, and cap, slouches about

as "Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite.

Robert Ragsdale. Courtesy of

CBC.

"

Photograph by

— "

262

GLENN GOULD

/

the studio mouthing inanities, stumbles into the piano, and holds a stick

microphone. Here we see Glenn portraying a tough, uncouth char-

like a

acter, barely literate

and

strikingly

bad-mannered, the very opposite of

Myron Chianti

himself and yet the image of someone he admired.

way

afforded a

for

Glenn

to enter, vicariously, the

also

contemporary world of

filmmaking that fascinated him.

German com-

Karlheinz Klopweisser combined two characters, the

poser Karlheinz Stockhausen and his ex-wife, the painter Mary Bauermeister. For this impersonation,

golden tunic.

He

Gould was dressed

in a

blond wig and

strode about the stage barefoot carrying a huge Geiger

when he brought it close to differis much given these days

counter that emitted whistling noises

ent empty frames hanging about. "Stockhausen to

pronouncements on the

cosmos," Gould wrote in his stag-

state of the

ing instructions, and he followed suit by having Klopweisser

absurdities in a high-pitched

my

world

is

mock German

accent.

"I

German

French silence which

is

which

silence

ornamental.

My

is

mouth

convinced that

—verstehen

concerned with the resonance of silence

but although with

am

organic, as

Sie?

opposed

to

work can only be properly '''

understood seen in the proper perspective Role-playing had by

now become

helped him, as he

a

in the radio.

fundamental ingredient of Glenn's

said, to inject fluency

and humor

into

personality.

It

his writing,

but also provided opportunities for externalizing aspects of

his contrapuntal

mind. Glenn's make-believe characters allowed him

step outside of himself and give voice to inner doubts and conflicts.

to

They

provided a harmless, even ludicrous vehicle for bringing internal preoccupations out into the open, in

much

less threatening

ways than the

hallucinatory

phenomena he endured

away from

home. Disguised as "Hochmeister, "Thornwaite, "Klopweisser," Glenn in his late thirties and early forties

in his late twenties, trying to

his parents'

"Chianti," or

break

"

could bring himself to articulate the most absurd, fantastic, even crazy

which no longer had

ideas,

The

to

practice he gained in doing impersonations also led

create imaginary dialogues in

have been published. The

Here

which

first

he talked to himself.

Gould

Two

.

.

.

like

explored Glenn's ideas about Beethoven.

most professional musicians, you have

chant for the G.G.:

1

listen to

late [string] quartets

them

to

of these

a fragment.

is

g.g.:

remain dormant or unexpressed.

a lot, yes.

a

and piano sonatas.

pronounced pen-

—

——

—

Impersonator, Philosopher, and Technician

g.g.:

That's not really

what

I

was asking you, Mr. Gould.

G.G.: Well, those are very problematic works, you see, and g.g.:

Please, Mr. Gould, with

all

due respect, we

thank you

Yes,

accompaniment G.G.: That's

right.

—even

of

to tell us

—what was

Well,

How about

it?

he committed suicide more or

Op. 132, didn

are very elusive, you g.g.:

I

need you

name?

his

G.G.: Spandrell or something, wasn't g.g.:

don't

mistaken, even one of Huxley's characters

that. If I'm not

263

I

t

less to the

he?

apologize for the cliches, but those works really

I

know

"ambivalent

—very enigmatic, very

'?

G.G.: Don't be hostile.^

A much self

longer imaginary dialogue, in which

Glenn interviewed him-

about himself, makes the cantankerous nature of his inner voices

even clearer;

G.G.: g.g.:

May

Of

speak now?

I

course,

I

didn't

mean

to get carried away,

but

I

do

feel strongly

about the G.G.: g.g.:

G.G.: g.g.:

—about the

artist as

That's not quite

Or

fair,

superman?

Mr. Gould.

as the interlocutor as controller of conversations, perhaps?

There's certainly no need to be rude.

tory response

from you

—

I

I

sophical claims in regard to these issues just

once you'd confess

to a personal

ist-to-listener relationship,

didn't really expect a concilia-

realize that you've staked out certain philo-

I

— but

I

did at least hope that

experience of the one-to-one,

had hoped that you might confess

art-

to hav-

ing personally been witness to the magnetic attraction of a great artist visible at

G.G.: Oh,

I

work before

his public.

have had that experience,

g.g.:

Really?^

It is

difficult to think of

from piano playing or

Glenn's philosophizing as merely a distraction

a defense against aaxiety. Since early

adolescence

he had manifested an unusually contemplative mind and spoken, even pontificated, in

ways that suggested a need

to

probe deeply into funda-

mentals. His wTitings, too, veer into philosophical depths from time to time. However,

it

would be stretching the point

to call

Glenn

a philoso-

pher; he did not take himself that seriously, nor did he write in a philo-

264

knew two

sophical style. Yet he

Jean Le

Moyne and

GLENN GOULD

/

of the leading Canadian philosophers,

Marshall McLuhan, personally, and was aware of

their ideas.

Le Moyne was a Montreal-born theologian and writer who had

partici-

pated in Glenn's 1968 radio program dealing with technological issues, including the achievement by Walter Carlos of Switched-on-Bach, an

example of electronically synthesized music. Le Moyne's

ultra-positive

statements about technological innovation pleased Glenn because he

spoke of "a kind of Christianization going on

Le Moyne

in the

machine world,

in

Bach and wrote disapprovingly of Mozart's "frivolity" and the "enormous quantity of prattle that his music contained.^ Le Moyne and Gould were jointly technology.

"^

also expressed great reverence for

"

awarded the Canada Council's award the

humanities,

arts,

or

outstanding achievements in

for

the

sciences:

social

Molson

which

Prize,

included $15,000, in 1968.

Marshall

who

called

McLuhan had

appeared

also

him "communication

boring mixed feelings about him. twice, Glenn wrote to a friend "

know him

rather well.

He

frustrating in his writings brilliant perception.

I

in

"I

1966, "and have between times got to

remains for

—

debate with Glenn,

in radio

man of the hour"'° while harhave now interviewed McLuhan

theory's

me

a subject

both fascinating and

an extraordinary mixture of wackiness with

had the

feeling, however, that

he has

in

many

rather significant ways put his finger on some of the central issues of our time, and notwithstanding all the cafe society cult that is now growing up

around him

in the U.S.,

he remains,

figure."" In a conversation with

1

think,

an intriguing and important

John Roberts

in 1972,

Glenn character-

someone who "did not communicate by answering questions but was more like a medium," while Glenn saw himself as ized

McLuhan

"perhaps

become

as

somehow

closer to the 'the message.' "'" This dichotomy

readily apparent in Glenn's radio

had

program about the prospects

of recorded music:

McLuhan: The most hopeful

thing about this process

—about the

ble lapse of the identity factor in the creative situation,

encourage a climate

in

inevita-

that

is

it

will

which the biographical character of the person-

age involved will no longer be the cornerstone for subsequent assumptions about his work,

and consequently an

extra-historical participation will

which the creative act

results

become

infinitely

inevitable

more and

.

altruistic .

.

the

and

way

in

from and absorbs and re-forms individual

opinion and action will be subjected to a most radical consideration.

/

m personator, Philosopher, and Technician

Gould:

We

265

are too close to the invention of electronic material to be able

properly to judge

If

I

its

effect

upon our world. '^

is to be drawn from Glenn and tape-recorded commentary on

anything resembling a philosophy

Gould's

music,

immense corpus

of written

and the world,

life,

it

would have

to

be

a three-dimensional struc-

ture comprising his horror of competition, his preference for solitude,

and

his belief in the equivalency of

vinced that competitiveness

human

is

speech and music. Glenn was con-

unnatural and corrupting and should be

With no siblings, Glenn never experiHe was an only child, extraordinarily brilliant, adulated by aging parents, and quite unprepared for the rivalry at large. As a child, he had chafed under classroom conditions, where performance is graded and compared. As a teenager, while entering and vv inning a number of them, he abhorred the musical competitions where gifted youngsters were pitted against one another. As a concert pianist, he came to detest what he perceived (wrongly, I believe) as a struggle to the death between the performer and the audience. And as a media artist, he expected (wrongly again) that advances in technology would reduce human competitiveness. "Gould claimed to be an avowed socialist [although he was a practical exponent of the stock market] and would eliminated from

enced any

behavior.

sort of competitiveness.

spend many hours of conversation berating the capitalist system," wTote Andrew Kazdin, after working closely with him for fifteen years.'"* The attorney of his estate, Stephen Posen, relates that Glenn's stockbroker

once

was

told

him

philosophy

even when the market was doing poorly, Gould who made money. Geoffrey Pawant, a professor of

in jest that

his only client at the

University of Toronto, observed:

Glenn Gould's writings and recordings separate music from cruelty, to civilized

Nature may be red

life.

show

are evidences of his intention to

that competitiveness

in tooth

is

not a law of

and claw, and competition

in the

may be a law of nature, but technology (Gould says) human culture between man and nature, between man and

struggle for survival

intervenes in

the beastliness that

is

in

men

concerts and

audiences

at

Nowhere

in

(at least in

the hearts of

men

such as

sit

in

bullfights).'"'

Glenn s philosophy was competitiveness felt to be more which he believed was basically a musical opposition between soloist and orchestra. One of his greatest ambitions was to produce a series of television programs that would "look at the rampant than

in the concerto,

— 266

development, decline and death of the piano concerto. This would

birth,

be

GLENN GOULD

/

which

a project

from the

.

.

.

because

would watch the keyboard player rise ensemble

it

so to speak, flex his muscles vis-a-vis the large

pit,

disappear, would effectively deal with more than its nominal Glenn was well aware of the immensity of this task. "It would, essence, cover approximately 300 years of history and by inference,

and then

.

.

.

subject." in

since the formal problems of the concerto are simply an elaboration of

other forms, detail, in large measure the processes of sonata and sym-

phony of his I

am He

The

as well."'*^

own

enough

visual essayist

Dr.

gigantic project never

came

limitations as a television producer:

attempt

to

"I

about, in part because

am

not really sure that

it."''

did attempt a radio debate on the subject with none other than

Joseph Stephens. Glenn asked Stephens whether he had ever

encountered fixation,

a patient

who

want desperately

I

requested,

off the stage.

.' .

.

my If

him?" Stephens replied

such

a patient

nomenon

to

against, as

opposed

.

.

.

and

an

the end to

in

colleagues get up and meekly walk

though

it

what would you say

would be

strongly: "I don't think

to

feels that

seems

"it

on behalf

on the audience.

when one "

playing

a rare

it's

to

phenomenon, to the

at all a rare

phe-

have that particular kind of exhibitionism turned loose

a sort of assault

an assault.

this incredible

"would not be suffering from anything unknown

Glenn disagreed

tered that

my

have

I

at a piano, in front of

a patient like that,

that,

virtuoso."

neurosis

my

effort while

you had

'Doctor,

be up on a stage,

to

orchestra, subduing that orchestra with

be applauded for

"

of, .

.

an audience. .

compulsion

is

think

to aggressivity."

greatly oversimplified to see

But Glenn persisted: "The great

that attention

I

it is,

in a sense,

there has to be a kind of underlying

evil

all

Stephens coun-

concertos as simply

of the concerto ...

being directed away from the person

who

is

is

listening."'^

What Glenn never seemed able consciously to perceive or acknowlhis own extreme competitiveness in having to play faster and

edge was

more

brilliantly

than any other pianist, in his need to make every

recording sound "different from what anyone else had ever produced, in "

gamcoming out the winner

his acerbic criticism of Vladimir Horowitz, in his highly successful

bling on the stock market, in conversations

and

and games of

in his sheer joy at

wit. In fact,

one might consider

won, posthumously, the biggest competition of public memory.

two decades

Among

the great pianists

— Rubinstein,

all,

who have

his having

that of survival in

died within the

Kempf, Arrau, Horowitz,

Bolet,

last

Serkin

Glenn Gould continues to be the one who is most talked and argued about, seen in films and on numerous laser discs, listened to on records.

Impersonator, Philosopher, and Technician

cassettes,

and compact

even

discs, and,

Canada, venerated

in

267

I

as a quasi-

saint.

The second

facet of his philosophy,

if

one can

call

that,

it

is

his

cham-

pioning of solitude. In a 1974 television program, he said that "Solitude is

the prerequisite for ecstatic experience, especially the experience most

valued by the post-Wagnerian

artist

—the condition

without having

feel oneself heroic

perhaps by having done the casting-off oneself. In

The Solitude

and having been

to repeat this effort

of

life

as

and

"

among

off

One

can't

by the world, or

"'^

tribute to conditions of aloneness

He wanted

minority groups in Canada.

also "take a look at the

Thoreauvian

way

[sic]

evidenced in present-day America ... a south-of-the-border

adaptation of to

Gould paid

Trilogy,

"cast-off

of heroism.

been cast

first

my theme,

project, like the

the relationship of isolation and solitude

[i.e.]

ones productive capacity;

in effect, to one's life in the world. "^°

one on competitiveness, never came

one senses Glenn's ambivalence. Looking

This

to fruition. Again,

at the realities of his life,

with

work with technicians and studio crews, the all-night telephone calls to distant friends, and the many trips to the Columbia studio in New York, one wonders just how much soliits

frenetic schedules, the incessant

tude he actually allowed himself to experience. Finally, there are all

made about

the written and recorded remarks that Gould

electronically recorded music. Geoffrey Pavrzant has divided

"New

these into an "Old Philosophy' and a

The "Old Philosophy"

of recordings

who

rently by the majority of people

is

Philosophy.

"the conservative view held cur-

listen to classical records.

the

It is

view that a good record played on good equipment should bring concerthall realism into fidelity to the

our homes.

sounds

actual performance.

.

.

.

we might .

.

High-fidelity

.

is

e.xpect to hear

The performer

if

both aim and criterion:

we were

present at the

supreme, and the technicians

is

are there to see that his performance, intact

and unaltered,

is

accurately

preserved in the final result, the disc.'"'

Gould practiced this philosophy only when he would step into a studio

career tions

from

his concert repertoire.

No

briefly in the early days of his

to record

editing

and broadcast

was done;

his

selec-

performance

wasn't altered in any way. But already he perceived ways to modifs' his playing according to the possibilities inherent in the electronic media,

remarking: "The microphone does encourage you to develop attitudes to

performance which are entirely out of place

in the

concert

hall. It

per-

mits you to cultivate a degree of textural clarity which simply doesn't

pay dividends in the concert

hall."""

And

it

didn't take long before

he

268

condemned

/

GLENN GOULD

Old Philosophy

the

toward the concert

for perpetuating a worshipful attitude

hall tradition,

almost religious devotion

[to]

which,

an acoustic halo, cavernously reverberant, cathedral-like

accorded "an

in his opinion,

music" and wanted music if

be

to

"fitted

with

possible to resemble the

sound which the architects of that day

tried to capture for

the concert hall.""^

According has

to the

final control

New

Philosophy, "neither composer nor performer

over any stage in the whole recording process, nobody

Making a recording is a collaborative process which at any stage leaves open further modifications or adjustments at another stage, and has.

there

no

is

final stage

each repetition

is

because records are listened

subject to the

New

ments. The whole process, however,

comes

into

prominence

for the first

Listener's is

to repeatedly,

judgments and adjust-

presided over by a person

time in the

and

New

Philosophy

who

—the

producer."^"*

Glenn

how

own

liked to think of himself as the producer of his

because he invariably made the to edit the tapes.

final decisions

about where

recordings

to splice

However, he was no "tape-wizard."^^

He

and

always

depended on specialists for assistance, and it took people with immense amounts of tact, patience, and respect for his artistry to fulfill this necessity.

Luckily he found such a person in the exceptional producer

Kazdin, two years his junior and a graduate of the

New

vatory of Music. Kazdin had received a degree in engineering called

it

works

in

a "doctorate"^^

New York.

—before going

work

for

—Glenn

Columbia Master-

Their collaboration was of a very high order.

Kazdin helped Glenn maintain the siders""''

to

Andrew

England Conser-

from recording sessions.

keep away out-

"airtight security to

He

always followed with a score the

music Glenn was recording and thus picked up occasional errors that

had

to

be called

to the pianist's attention very diplomatically.

Glenn

would deny having made a mistake, or say that it didn't matter, or attribute it to his having memorized something incorrectly. But as far as the interpretation of a piece of

ered that it

"it

was your

life's

music was concerned, Kazdin quickly discovblood to mention anything.

through the soles of your feet

play the piece.

.

.

.

—

that

you

.

.

.

You could

just didn't tell

feel

him how

to

That's suicide. "^^ Elsewhere Kazdin stressed: "The

fundamental quality that Glenn's producer had

to possess

was the

ability

to

bathe the recording studio in a kind of nonthreatening Gemuthlichkeit

in

which Glenn could create

his

piano interpretations.

were wrong, the session was doomed, and so was the It

was customary

for

Glenn

to record a

number

If

the vibrations

producer.""'^

of different takes of a

"

/

in

person ator, Philosopher, and Technician

269

I

two or three, but sometimes as many as eight or The takes for works by Bach generally went quickly because "Glenn had a more stable notion of exactly how a Bach piece was going to go before he even started to play. Works by composers he was less familiar with would require more time. Once recorded, or in the "can," to use particular work, usually nine.

"^'^

one of Glenn's

him

given to a

master tapes were

favorite expressions,^' copies of the

for review

back

in Toronto, or sent to

drawn-out period of gestation that might

him. There followed

months

last

or even years,

during which Glenn mulled over in his mind exactly what he wanted the final

product to sound

When

like.

came for a recording to be released to the pubGlenn would go back to the original tapes and listen to them very carefully, planning precisely where any splices, changes, or insertions had to be made. "[Tjhe splicing with Gould wasn't just to eliminate wrong the time finally

lic,

notes or

of any sort," says Kazdin.

fix fluffs

that the profile of the piece

also very often

"It

was established.

was the way

mean, the interpretation of

1

"^^

a piece

emerged sometimes only

Whole

sections of one take might have to be replaced by splices from

in the juxtaposition of various takes.

other takes to achieve Glenn's goal of a satisfactory interpretation. Above all,

the result had to sound like something never heard before. That he

succeeded

in

doing so

is

a tribute to his creativity.

of his editing into his score,

and once he

He

copied every detail with

felt satisfied

he called

it,

Kazdin over the telephone and gave him exact instructions to put into his score, for

example: "on the fourth 16th of bar 32, on the

change from take

3 to insert

the electronic equipment available in the

Columbia

him over the telephone, having

for

Glenn

to

Glenn and play up a special

rigged

connection that bypassed the mouthpiece for improved

way

we

studios, altering the

the editing was completed, Kazdin would call

the entire tape for

the ideal

flat,

correspond in every way with Glenn's wishes.

original takes to

Once

E

4 in take 2." Kazdin then set to work with

fidelity. It

wasn't

judge the quality of his recordings. "Certainly

there were niceties about the sound that could not be detected this way, says Kazdin, "but so we'd go

would be

who

cared

— [Glenn] \inew what the

takes

sounded

on making improvements, and then he'd approve

it,

like,

and that

"''^

that.

Kazdin's "expertise

John Roberts

in

is,

in

1971, after

my

opinion second to none wrote Glenn to

some

"

technical questions had

come up about

tapes for a European broadcast.^'* Kazdin no doubt held an equally high

opinion of himself; he wrote that "Thinking that rectly

cued the engineer, [Glenn] ran over

.

.

.

somehow

I

had incor-

held up his hand with

270

extended

deny

it,

and

first finger,

the master do

it!'

.

.

.

GLENN GOULD

/

said to

He was

me, a

bit

condescendingly: 'Here,

the master of piano playing.

to

but the phrase accidentally popped out in relation to recording

technique

—about which

was, and

I

am, unwilling

still

of admiration as well as opposition to each other,

book about

it,

Glenn Gould

believe that the closeness

delusion.

One cannot

acknowledge

to

Their relationship was that of two masters

his superiority over me."^^

a

let

He wanted

Work,

at

felt in

I

in

full

and Kazdin has written

which he

states that "I

do not

our relationship was a self-induced

survive the literally thousands of hours of tele-

and personal conversations without coming away with the feeling that there was a friendship that transcended the working relation-

phone

calls

ship."'^

Working with Kazdin inspired Glenn to become an outstanding techhe decided that it was much too cumbersome to do his commercial recording with Columbia entirely in New

nical expert himself. In 1970,

York,

and began moving

Eaton Auditorium,

made

available to

site

him

his field of operation to Toronto,

of

many

as a recording studio.

agreed to move his favorite

CD

where the

of Glenn's teenage performances,

318

was

The Steinway Company

there; but the following year, after

being returned from Cleveland where Glenn was supposed to record the Grieg Concerto, the piano was severely damaged in an unloading accident in Toronto. Despite extensive repairs, to

it

never sounded quite right

Glenn, and a temporary replacement had to be found. In the mean-

time, he

made

recordings using a harpsichord and a substitute Steinway.

Columbia Masterworks was willing

to let

Andrew Kazdin come

to

Toronto as Glenn's producer, but rather than try borrowing electronic

equipment from the CBC, Glenn decided to purchase his own. At considerable expense ($20,000 in 1970 dollars), he acquired two Ampex 440 tape recorders, three Neumann U 87 microphones, four Dolby 360 noise reduction units, two power amplifiers, three track editing

expense), plus

system all

(later

upgraded

the necessary

boom

to

St. Clair

eight

loudspeakers, a two-

tracks,

at

all this

first,

when

equipment

additional

and assorted

stands, audio cables,

devices needed to do his recordings. At

Eaton Auditorium, Glenn stored

KLH-5

not in use in the

in his

apartment on

Avenue. Later, he moved everything to the apartment he rented

the Inn on the Park. When Joe Stephens and I visited him in 1977, Glenn proudly showed us the highly professional and totally self-sufficient editing and recording studio he had built for himself. From concert pianist to radio producer, he was now a technician for all seasons. at

23

NEW FACES, NEW CHALLENGES

To

hold a recording session in Toronto's Eaton Auditorium, boxes

of microphones, cables, recording equipment, tapes,

and other

necessary items had to be lugged there from Glenn's apartment

and then returned. ally

proved too

It

much

was

a ver\'

demanding physical chore that eventuLome Tulk, who was working with

for the faithful

Glenn and Andrew Kazdin. So Lome asked a friend, Raymond ("Ray") Roberts, to help him. This was in 1970. Ray was a thirty-one-year-old Coca-Cola salesman, married, who welcomed the e.xtra cash brought in by such part-time work. He was, and still is, an unusually warm, levelheaded,

reliable,

and generous man. Glenn, seven years

his senior, felt

comfortable ha\ing Ray on the team and quickly discovered that he could call "I

to run errands and "do different jobs for him. and not one of the musicians," Ray Roberts told

on him day or night

was always

his 'gofer'

"

memo-

me when we

recently spent a ver\' long day together to review his

ries of their

twelve-year relationship.' Although Ray never lived with

Glenn, he came closer than anyone else to being constantly

and

call, to

observing and assisting his daily and nightly

forming a trustworthy account of Glenn's private his

death in 1982.

life

at his

activities,

up

to the

beck

and

to

time of

272

Ray Roberts Lome Tulk.

Ray

GLENN GOULD

in Gould's studio at the

also drove to

Inn on the Park, Toronto. Photograph by

New York with

sometimes

night,

all

/

Glenn many

in separate cars.

times. They would drive Glenn owned two large automo-

biles, a

1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that he called "Lance," and

Lincoln

Town

Car, "Longfellow."

The

a black

big Lincoln not infrequently devel-

oped engine problems. Ray always took care of servicing and

repairs to

Glenn's cars, a recurring necessity due to Glenn's bad driving habits,

which

led to

many

collisions or getting stuck in a ditch

tried explaining several times that flying to

than driving there

at night,

New

but Glenn would have none of that. Crossing

the border, he was often checked for drugs.

One

searched.

—"He was

Glenn's work habits were very predictable felt

best

when

somewhere. Ray

York was actually safer

time he was even

everything was under perfect control.

"

a workaholic

Day and

the

first

in

and

night were

reversed for Glenn. Having retired in the morning after the sun

he usually got out of bed between three and four

strip-

came

up,

the afternoon, and

thing he did was to call his stockbroker for the latest market

.

"

New

"

New Challenges

Faces,

information and to place orders

Other urgent

calls

were made

if

he wanted

to

I

buy or

time as well.

at that

273

always the same way. His clothes, invariably in basic blue,

were purchased

at a very

were times when Glenn

something.

sell

Then he

got dressed,

gray, black,

and

expensive men's shop in Toronto. There

lost track, of

what he was wearing. He might

appear with unmatched socks and he might also forget to bathe. At least

once he welcomed split

up the back.-

a guest while

When

underwear because he sweated and changed

"Why

so oddly?"

"Isn't that typical of artists?

clothing.

calls attention to

It

he brought along many changes of

when he

a lot

played and always bathed

right after a recording session.

Glenn dress

did

wearing trousers that were completely

traveling,

"

asked Ray Roberts.

I

he replied. "They

them and

singles

like to

wear

distinctive

them out from the crowd.

Glenn's clothes were always on the formal side.

"But he was uncomfortable about being recognized. Didn't he avoid having people approach him, ask

try to

him questions, request auto-

graphs?" "I've noticed,

seem

said Ray, "that

and reactions, and the

feelings

And sometimes

gets to see. in. It

"

many performers

have two personalities, one

to

as well as politicians

that's their true self,

which

other,

is

with normal

the personality the public

these people don't

know which

role they're

can get very confusing.

Here's an example of instructions

Glenn would

give to Ray, typically

tongue-in-cheek:

ROBERTSIANA Tues. Oct. 13, 1975 1

(if

not sooner)

Arise

lA. IB.

Meet Meet

with, consult and/or direct Clifford Cartage with, insult, and/or direct Stanley Ford

re:

IC.

Radiator Valve

I.

II.

III.

2.

Radiator Trim

Supervisory Maintenance Personnel

Collect

library'

books

(3)

and

return, paying

such

fines as

may be

levied.

2A.

Make

ers

if

note of said books, and order from retailers and/or publish-

possible

— 274

3.

GLENN GOULD

/

While executing above assignments, proceed with physiotherapy, taking heed not to

a) soil

books

b) electrocute Clifford Cartage handlers and,

if

deemed neces-

sary,

c)

drown Stanley Ford Respectfully and fraternally,

G. Herbert Gould (representing Busch Enterprises, Scheduling Division).^

The

radio

was always turned on

He would

Glenn's apartment and often the

in

"He loved The Mary

television set as well.

also play tapes

Tyler

listened to rarely once they

Shou^," says Ray.

his

own, which he

were finished, although he did play them

sometimes commenting about himself

friends,

Moore

and recordings, but seldom

for

in the third person, for

example, "Wouldn't you agree that the way Gould brought that voice out bass makes for a

in the

welcome return

to the dominant?'"^

Glenn prac-

ticed the piano quite regularly, "but not in the usual way," according to

Ray Roberts. He ideas and

was working exercise.

at

a

walk

in the fresh

out

try

new

to

swim, he never went swimming, and

air.

not involved in making a recording or working on a radio or

spend the whole night writing and

while Glenn rented a room

work

would

anyone around while he

the keyboard. This was Glenn's only form of physical

television show, he'd

Street,

didn't like having

Although he knew how

he rarely took

When

didn't play technical exercises but

work on them. He

where the

there.

CBC

at

the

editing. For a

Hampton Court Hotel just

across Jarvis

studios used to be, so he could be closer to his

Around eleven

o'clock he'd stop to call his friends,

and

this

often continued until 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Usually between 4:00 and 7:00 A.M. he had his only meal of the "day,

"

which always consisted of scram-

bled eggs, salad, toast, and tea, eaten at an all-night diner. "scrambleds," and on trips he invariably

He

woke Ray up around

called

it

that time

so he could get his "scrambleds." His only other source of nourishment

and liquids was the constant drinking of fee (only twice a day),

Coffee-mate into

tea, water,

orange juice, or cof-

and nibbling on arrowroot crackers. "He dumped

his tea

and

coffee.

"

There was never any food

in his

kitchen, and he never prepared any food for himself. Several attempts at

New domestication were shortlv diet

made by

women

Glenn's

—and by Ray Roberts himself, who

so,"

Rav

many me.

told

when

times "I'd

friends

— more about

it

complain about

me on

that

him on proper

got too messy.

couldn't agree with him, and

I

he'd sav. Dr. Roberts, don't advise

275

I

tried to advise

and would clean up the apartment when

"There were

him

New Challenges

Faces,

told

I

his terrible eating habits, food.'

He

me

called

"Dr.

and

Rob-

because I had to assist him with his self-administered wax baths worried that he might be and ultrasound treatments for back pain. overdoing it. I had no training in this field. We had a ver\' comfortable relationship so long as I was always available to help him and do practical erts'

I

things for him. For instance, once

I

my

brought

children and their dates

along to clean up Eaton Auditorium for him. But

with him,

we

talked about

my

when

replacement, because

I

couldn't agree

was

it

clear that

I

Glenn always stopped a relationship at a certain point when he felt it encroached on his freedom to do what he wanted. He reallv had no close friends, only over the telephone. His first love was

would have

to

be

let go.

somehow we continued, and no replacement was found." Glenn had a number of superstitions. One had to do with writing checks. He was often incapable of doing so because he was convinced that it was an "unluck)'" day or the check had an "unlucky" number. music. But

Andrew Kazdin commented about this; 'In some convoluted psychological way, Glenn reasoned that when he wTOte someone a check, he was "^ On the other hand, there somehow giving away a piece of himself. are reports of his unexpected generosity to musicians who needed help. According to the cellist Conrad Bloemendal, who participated in several .

.

.

of Glenn's musical projects, he once wrote a

who had

check

for

$2,000

for a

from Czechoslovakia.^ John Roberts speaks pianist behalf of fellow musicians. Glenn usually acts on of other generous because he was afraid that by writing the "Glen Gould signed his name just arrived

"

second "n

"

he might end up making too many squiggles.

He was

also

superstitious about giving away copies of his recordings, although he very rarely listened

them. "There might be twent\'-five of them lying

to

around," says Ray Roberts, "but

if I

asked for one, Glenn w ould

say, 'Well,

"

no. Dr. Roberts, I

wanted

to

it's

not lucky today'

know whether he had any

family might have been

no signs of But

that.

Nor

in the later years

Glenn devoted a

religious tendencies.

Jewish at one time,"

did he go to church.

he became attracted

radio program

Ray

told

He was to

"The Gold

me, "but there were

basically an agnostic.

Zen Buddhism.

"

In 1981,

to reading selections from Tlae Three-

Cornered World, a popular work by the Japanese novelist Natsume

276

Lome

Soseki.

Western

GLENN GOULD

/

Once, when somebody asked

moralistic.

religion,

have believed he was a

Sufi,

have been.'

Although Glenn liked his closest friends, for

came

the

because

title it

about both his sexuality and

think he would love for you to

that's

what he would have

about

liked to

he maintained a high

sex,

level

many

sexual involvements, so high that

of

Lome

Glenn was basically asexual. Ray Roberts doesn't "He was definitely involved with women." Glenn

Ray about having had

one with

a

soprano

on one of

"a torrid affair in his twenties,

and there were several complicated

who had

women

singer evidently inspired

that

me

'I

example. Dr. Stephens, John Roberts, and

recordings, and others with

The

said,

I

to gossip

own

his tours in the States," thirties,

with non-

to believe

agree, maintaining, told

flirtation

"'

of discretion about his

once

about Glenn's

"You know, he was an unbelievable purist and highly

about his morality and

Tulk,

me

Tulk had also told

religion:

him

collaborated with

him

he met while working

compose

to

affairs in his

at

in

making

the

CBC.

a song, unfinished, with

"Das Kind der Rosemarie" (Rosemary's Child), "and instructions

be performed "mit grossem [G]efuhl und seelicher Kanadischer

[R]uhe" (with great emotion and soulful Canadian repose)."^ The pianist

and harpsichordist Greta Kraus. who was fidante to

with

some

of his

women was

women

a friend of

me

friends, told

Glenn's and a con-

that his basic

that "he could not accept love. ...

that any expression of affection

would cause him

to

I

problem

had the feeling

panic ...

I

know

of

which he was possessed with absolute jealousy. ... He couldn't make one phone call without mentioning her ... he was stirred whether it was ever fulby her, was passionately wanting to see her one

affair in

.

filled?

I

assume

distraction.

And

then, whoosh,

finished! Absolutely finished.

word. Well,

.

.

that with the person I'm thinking of, he drove her to

that's a sick

mind,

it

was

Never

a

over, from one day to the next, word of explanation, not another

"^

isn't it?

Glenn's most significant relationship with a

he said he wanted

it

to last

woman,

in the

and even considered marrying

sense that

her,

was with

the wife of a well-known pianist, composer, and conductor from the

United States. Glenn held

this

musician

in high

esteem, studied his

scores, and asked him to contribute to his radio discussions. Perhaps he also envied him for being able to combine the role of pianist, composer, and conductor so much more successfully than Glenn ever did. His wife apparently adored Glenn, and in the late 1960s, when serious problems developed in her marriage, she moved to Toronto with her two children to be closer to him. He arranged for them to live in an apartment not far

"

New from

his

New Challenges

Faces,

own and

And even when

her to Dr. Stephens,

she said that.

He

evidence of the Sullivan,

some

who

their

conductor's wife.

says,

to

me

domes-

a trial at

bills also

tell

fell

asleep.

He

me

she did

this,

mind.

"

often

and

Indirect

by Glenn's accountant, Patrick

"He shacked up with

know, because

I

them

"He'd

I

a

broad for about a year,

saw the expenses."'" Some of

include the woman's name, another sign of

closeness. He grew quite fond of her children

who was

was

to get her out of his

was supplied

said frankly,

Glenn's pharmacy

who

seem

couldn't

affair

it

they were not together, Glenn would spend hours

talking to her over the telephone, until both of

mentioned

277

spent a great deal of time there. Friends Mke John

Roberts and his wife would be invited for dinner; ticity.

I

ha\ang trouble with his

—

especially her son,

mathematics homework. Glenn would

coach him.

We

know how long it lasted, but their relationship seems to have come to grief when she decided to move back to the United States. My hunch is that Glenn's personality and lifestyle had become unendurable and

don't

that she realized a long-term relationship

highly narcissistic an individual.

was impossible with so

Glenn continued

to pine for her

and

kept hoping she would marr)' him. But Ray Roberts noted no deep regret after her departure.

him

"He

didn't

wear

his heart

on

his sleeve.

I

never saw

cn>'."

"He was

usually happy,

"

Ray observes, "but he could be

swore. Four-letter words would be used

when

angr\',

and he

things didn't go right in

the studio or with his work. There was no envy or jealousy toward other

He had a thing about him and often commented negatively about what Horowitz did." Whether Glenn knew of Horowitz's homosexuality is a moot point. He never mentioned it to anyone. According to Ray Roberts, Glenn was aware of homosexuals in the studio but felt no attraction and didn't respond to them. "I met Lenny musicians except Horowitz.

[Bernstein] once,

"

Ray

told

me, "and Glenn was much aware

went both ways. He had no limitations

of bachelorhood,

involved with

and

in

the

He came

later years

that

he

to accept the

was much

less

women.

Glenn was quite able to sex. Joe

interest in that.

Stephens

to display a childlike

recalls

innocence when

one astonishing phone

call in

it

came

which Glenn

man sitting beside him brought some pornographic pictures and asked him if he wanted to buy any. Glenn put on the most amazing posed naivete, telling Stephens, "I've was absolutely shocked that never seen anything like this in my life. there were such things. "" He also shared some thoughts about sex with

reported that he was at a diner and the out

I

"

278

his

GLENN GOULD

/

Columbia producer, Andrew Kazdin. sit

hour or more ...

seemed

a kind of

it

"It

was very common

in his car in front of [my] hotel

reports Kazdin, "to

for us,"

talk for

an

Glenn viewed women with His fantasies at once exhibited the

clear to

prepubescent naivete.

me

and

that

immaturity of a teenager and the creative sophistication that could come only with his chronological years.

Glenn was the oped It

a

many loveletters from women who develwe know of only one such letter that he wrote. draft form, among his 1980 papers, but is undated

recipient of

crush on him, but

was discovered,

in

and may have been penned it

was

"'^

some other time. Nor is it clear whether was addressing, someone named whole thing was a fantasy. It is interesting to note the at

actually sent to the person he

"Dell." Perhaps the

analogy to the "Letter to the Immortal Beloved," found in Beethoven's

drawer after his death. The identity of the "beloved" a

in question

remains

mystery in both cases. Glenn had written:

You know I

am

deeply in love with a certain beaut,

me down

but she turned

world and every min. to

be a bore and

if

I

I

She has

help.

go any time but

can.

The

her,

still

girl.

love her

can spend with her

like to

you see

I

could only get her to

would

if

but

is

it

asked her

pure heaven; but

marry

to

I

don't

want

I

to me she never has time for me. Please me know when can see her and when I

seems let

I

.'^ .

.

letter stops here.

Although Ronald Wilford was now

his official manager,

requests Glenn received for his artistic services

came

to

"from some small place," and Glenn dard response,

if

Glenn asked

where they want you

to play

for

directly by still

calls.

arrived

His stan-

an explanation, was, "Oh, one of those

may have

a

pink piano up

originated partly in Glenn's

popular cocktail pianist Liberace. Glenn

Stephens that the reason he "had the greatest admiration

told Dr.

for Liberace

for the

Ray handle these

Chopin while pushing

York Street naked." This fantasy

outspoken fascination

let

most of the

him

mail or telephone. Occasional solicitations for a piano recital

once

me

in the

me when could see her, it me take her anywhere she'd

tell

a standing invit. to let

ask her to

I

more than anything

was "because of the

was maligned by some he fought the

suit

critic

and won.

suit that

who claimed

he won that he

in England when he was homosexual, and

"'^

Another pianist Glenn genuinely respected was the Polish-born

virtu-

— New

New Challenges

Faces,

oso Arthur Rubinstein. "I'm drunk on

I

279

[Rubinstein's recording with the

it

Guarneri Quartet of the Brahms F Minor Piano Quintet]," Glenn told Rubinstein during an interview that was published in Look magazine in 1971.

the greatest chamber-music performance with piano that

"It's

ever heard in

my

life."

The two

debated the value of

pianists

live

I've

versus

recorded performances, and the use of edited versus unedited tapes in recordings; "vou were born into another world than myself," the elderly

Rubinstein told Glenn, then half his age. "Therefore is

being taken in by that,

is

absorbed by

all

your

own

talent

by the circumstances of

that,

your entourage."'^ Glenn returned the compliment by publishing a

hilari-

ous spoof on Rubinstein's well-known habit of directing his piano playing and often his libidinal activity to an attractive woman in the audience.'^

A new

opportunity opened up for Glenn

1971 by the film director George Roy

background music

Hill,

when he was approached in who wanted him to provide movie based on Kurt Von-

for Slaughterhouse-Five, a

negut's novel about the disastrous firebombing of

Dresden

at

the end of

was "thinking of Bach and possibly improvisations on Bach themes throughout the film" to provide a whiff of Baroque atmosphere linked to the city. Glenn wasn't exactly wild about Kurt Vonnegut, commenting, "I suspect that much of his work will date quickly and

World War

Hill

II.

supposed profundities of an opus

reveal the

like

Slaughterhouse-Five as

the inevitable cliches of an overgeneralized, underparticularized view of

humanity."''

But

baroque ambiance

Hill's

was difficult to resist. "Certainly a Dresden sequences sounds both appealing and

invitation

for the

appropriately ironic." he vvTOte the director. "I'd be particularly pleased to

have a look

When

at the

rough cut when available."'^

Hill visited

Glenn

spent "about

in Toronto, they

five

hours"

room and agreed to include works that Hill had already selected from Glenn's Bach recordings. But it would be necessarv^ to provide musical continuity, so Glenn went to New York

talking together in an airport motel

and recorded "wildly imaginative" improvisations on the harpsichord well as the

no. 4 with

Bach Brandenburg Concerto

members

of the

as

New

York Philharmonic. Hill objected to the sound of the harpsichord, which "simply did not connect," and a piano version was used instead.

When

Slaughterhouse-Five was finally released, Glenn disapproved of the film "it's

not a work of art that one can love

things about his contribution,

sound liatt in

track. "Bach's

music

is

"

—but

critics generally said

which amounted

to fifteen

good

minutes of the

splendiferously used," wTote Penelope Gil-

The Neiv Yorker Another

critic

marvelous sense of timelessness.

.

.

.

praised the music for "offer[ing] a [It]

gives

added meaning

to the

280

and an

setting

GLENN GOULD

/

ironic counterpoint to the screen actions."'^

Warner Brothers used excerpts from the Goldberg their film The Terminal Man. But it was not until 1982 that Glenn was asked to provide his own original music for a film called The Wars, based on a novel by the Canadian writer Timothy Findley. Here was the break he needed to show that he was the composer he always said he wanted to be. The producer, Richard Nielsen, sent him a preliminary version of The Wars, which Glenn liked very much, but he balked at working on it because one of the scenes showed Three years

later,

sound track of

Variations in the

a

dead horse. Only

been did

after

Nielsen assured him that the horse had not but had "expired from natural causes"

killed expressly for the film

Glenn agree

to go ahead.

Nielsen and a colleague were invited to his

what he had recorded over the

studio for an all-night demonstration of

how

years and

could be matched to scenes

it

away flabbergasted by Glenn's

in the film.

virtuosity in using his

They came

own

electronic

equipment, "timing [the music] before your eyes with the picture, playing it

and modulating

it

.

.

.

my

one of the most fascinating nights of

really

life."20

Glenn slaved over the sound track for The Wars but composed almost original music for it. Instead, he assembled, tastefully and with great Brahms, Strauss, and church hymns skill, segments of music by others like "Abide with Me" that he remembered from his childhood and arranged for children's voices. To provide the exact effect he wanted for these hymns, he even went to the trouble of directing the chorus and no

—

the three boy soloists, and wrote "two, excerpts

harmonica ...

down

distance

monica.

.

.

.

as

it

or not, a short

the trench

My

believe

though they're being played by a doughboy .

.

my

.

first

for,

professional exposure to the har-

ignorance was such that

I

had

to

ask what the lowest

note of the average government-issue harmonica might be it

turns out, but

According

— looked

in a

— Middle C,

not covered in your average text on orchestration.

to Nielsen, "It

crouched down ing out

it's

was

pew where

like a totally

a bizarre .

.

.

[a]ll

scene because Glenn

you could see was

a

.

.

.

""'

was

hand reach-

disembodied hand. Utterly mesmerizing

to

watch.""

The Wars had some success remarkably fine picture ing particularly for

dian 'Winterlight'

in

Canada, and Glenn thought

—very understated,

what

it

leaves unsaid

—the only Bergman

and unshown. film

it

"a

rather slow-moving, interest-

I

It's

can relate

a sort of

to

Cana-

—though not

quite as well sustained structurally""^ But distributors in the United States

showed no

interest,

which led

to bitter

disappointment among the

New Canadians. Robin

New Challenges

Faces,

281

I

suggested that the music

Phillips, the film director,

much more

popular music score Glenn was furious. "He would just launch into this tirade on the phone about their working problems," recalls his cousin Jessie Greig, on whom, as we shall see, Glenn depended greatlv for emotional support at this time. "And he would be

was "too good"

for the

movie and that

would have helped the

"a

film more."

so angry."""*

During the

and in

decade of

last

his

life,

Glenn's

was strongly stimulated by

essayist

activit)' as a writer, critic,

developed

a relationship that

1972

(almost entirely over the telephone) with Robert Silverman, a

composer, pianist, and editor of a widely read magazine, the Piano Quarterly.

Bob

Vermont and

lives in

and appreciated recordings,

a letter asking

was

me

he told

"

New York but

whether

had often been

admired Glenn since

its culture. "I'd

during a long interview, "and

first

wanted

willing to publish anything he

to

carte blanche in regard to content, length,

Canada

simply wrote him

I

contribute articles to

he'd like to

to

hearing his

my

magazine.

send me. He'd have

and

Well, the timing

style.

couldn't have been better because he'd been having

all

He

I

total

kinds of trouble

me, said he phone for over had an article, 'May I read it to you?' and we were on the "^^ an hour. I told him to send it, and I published it. Glenn liked the Piano Quarterly and became interested in certain

with High Fidelity about getting things published.

issues,

with

one especially that carried the diary of

whom

he

later got in touch.

a

called

woman

piano teacher

She may have captured

his attention

own mother had been a piano teacher. Glenn was of two minds about teaching. He repeatedly insisted he could never teach the piano because if a student ever wanted to know how he played it would make him feel like a "centipede when asked to describe in what order because his

"

it

moved

its

legs; that

creature unable to

would produce instant

move any

worried Glenn that he really didn't lous results at the piano. pianistic things.

.

.

.

He

"He

paralysis with the poor

John Roberts observed that "it know" how he produced such miracu-

legs at

all.'^^

didn't ever

want

loathed pianistic

did things with fingers and hands. All he

to think analytically

talk, that

knew was

how one

is,

about

actually

that he could do

it."-'

But he also had a conceit about teaching. To a group of educators he

once made the outrageous remark that "Given half an hour of your time

and

and your

spirit

the piano

—ever}thing there

a quiet

room, is

to

I

could teach any of you

know about

taught in half an hour, I'm convinced of ever accepted this challenge.

"''^

it.

how

to play

playing the piano can be

As

far as

I

know, no student

282

Over the years

that

GLENN GOULD

/

Glenn wrote

Piano Quarterly

for the

—fourteen

"Stokowski in Six Scenes,"

articles altogether, including his very long

—

which required several issues^^ he also became acquainted (over the phone) with Bob Silverman's wife, son, and daughter. Once he proposed doing Hamlet with the family. Daughter Andrea was supposed to play Ophelia, but couldn't bring herself to do

Gilbert and Sullivan operettas

it.

sung with Bob over the telephone were more successful. sions gave

Bob

All these occa-

insights into aspects of Glenn's character, for example,

his self-indulgent clowning.

"Glenn was no

actor," says

Bob. "He was a

college-variety ham."^°

As

far as

who was

any reciprocal sensitivity was concerned, Bob,

than Glenn, told

me

no time did

that "at

I

feel that

older

he was thinking of

me as a friend. I was a convenience, publishing his material. Glenn would complain to Bob that Ray Roberts didn't pay enough attention to him and was causing him problems, for example, by not taking the car to be serviced properly. "It was the only time I picked up Glenn's class"

Bob Silverman. "This man felt himself to be a supeThough Ray was not his manservant, Glenn sometimes spoke though he were. One time Glenn called me from New York: 'I've got

consciousness," says rior being.

as a

problem. Ray has rear-ended two old ladies on the throughway I'm

from the police station

calling

in

Tappan Zee. Can you get a lawyer for settled."^' (I suspect it was Glenn

me?' Bob helped him get the matter

who had done

On days:

the rear-ending and was letting Ray be the

two occasions, they met

"We went from

in Toronto. In 1981,

three or four p.m. to

including his string quartet.

I

me and went on to Glenn revealed to me that

told him,

dawn Ustening

'It's

other things.

ignored

guy.)

to

all

a lousy fugue,' but It

was around

he'd gotten canned at the

lengthy, difficult session, the technicians

fall

Bob stayed

this

for three

his tapes,

he

totally

time that

CBC.

After a

had rebelled. The board of

met and decided they couldn't risk losing their staff and with regret would have to let Glenn go. Glenn told me, 'They were justi-

directors great

"

fied,

I

pushed them too

According

to

far.'

John Roberts, Glenn was never actually

not an employee of

CBC. The

board of directors per se

do with programming. The head of

he was

had nothing

music, John Barnes,

to

who had no

Glenn did not understand the technical limitaand time constraints of the CBC. Glenn felt that John Barnes could

musical background, tions

TV

fired as

felt

not or did not understand his developing ideas on music television. His association with

Bob's second

CBC visit

went

was

in

sour.^"

1982. "Glenn looked awful. His pants were

New completely blob. full

He

of

split in

New Challenges

Faces,

He needed

the back.

a shave.

apologized for his appearance.

pills,

me

and he gave

Ingrid [Bob's wife]

I

I

He

283

looked gross,

like a

noticed that his bathroom was

descriptions of a

had had enough and we

lot

of them. After two hours

left."^^

Though Bob asserted that Glenn always asked if he was disturbing him whenever he called, Joe Stephens maintains the opposite in his case. In 1975, Joe received a call from Glenn in the middle of the afternoon. This was quite unusual, as he only called at night. Joe explained that he was in the middle of rehearsing the Ophelia Songs by Richard Strauss, with Mildred Allen, an excellent singer. Expecting Glenn to say, "Sorry, it's obviously not a good time to talk, he was astounded to hear, instead, "

"Oh, the Ophelia Songs!

Glenn asked him

Go

get the music." Joe returned with the score.

such-and-such a page and proceeded

to turn to

dynamic marking. Glenn

didn't

seem

to care that

to

and each

recite every note of the piano score as well as the vocal line,

he was interrupting

other musicians; he was too intent on displaying his total recall. But Joe

was well aware of Glenn's incredible memory, and

this display

seemed

superfluous and inconsiderate.^"* In terms of boosting Glenn's career as a television artist during the last

decade of

his

1965

a

"just to learn the

playing the

no new face was more

life,

Bruno Monsaingeon,

young French

Bach Inventions. "

"It

Monsaingeon continued

finally

decided

"to

in

later.

"It

completely altered

my

giving concerts, but he also began to write

approach that

of a collaborative project "in ect was

Moscow

while in

was, for me, something of the intensity

he recalled

and then produce musical programs he

influential than that of

who

language" happened to hear a recording of Glenn

of a religious experience, life."

violinist

French

for

man

television,

which you would be the

to be financed by a

German

and

1972

in

of legend" about the possibility subject.

The

"

proj-

corporation, Clasart Films, and

shown in Europe by the French National Broadcasting System. Glenn couldn't have been more enthusiastic. He responded with "an enormous letter, fifteen or twenty pages, filled with his own ideas about "

how

and

to proceed,

August 1972.^^

inviting

Glenn

Bruno

to

come

to Toronto,

which he did

programs they planned, but as was

his

custom, he wanted

remarks, and Bruno's as well, written out well in advance.

had so much experience documentaries

in this

tener to bet against

its

in

was even prepared to speak in French for the four all

"I

of his

have

.

.

.

in drafting dialogue of a similar nature for radio

country

—dialogue which

virtually defies the

having been created for the

absolutely confident this system would

work and

moment that,

—

that

I

lis-

am

with a French

284

translation returned to

/

me,

GLENN GOULD for

example, several weeks in advance,

my

This plan would benefit enormously. was eventually abandoned and Glenn's translated commentaries were

own

"''''

security with the language

read by a native speaker. In 1974,

Bruno Monsaingeon brought

a

ten-man French

film

Toronto, and the work began, starting "at two in the afternoon six in la

crew

.

.

.

to

until

the morning." This resulted in a film series called Les Chemins de

Musique

sides of

in four parts,

Glenn

each forty minutes long, bringing out different

as musician

and technician. The

first,

called "La Retraite,"

deals with his retirement from the concert stage and

shows him playing

works by Bach, Byrd, Gibbons, Schoenberg, and Wagner (a new piano arrangement made by Glenn of his Prelude to Die Meistersinger). The second program, called "L'Alchimiste," is about a recording session in which Glenn plays a Bach English Suite, and with Lome Tulk's help demonstrates the effect of having the recording microphones placed at varying distances from the piano while playing two pieces by the Russian

composer Alexander Scriabin, "Desir" and "Caresse dansee,

Bruno Monsaingeon, with Gould

Estate.

his

'

opus 57.

French crew, filming Gould, 1974. Courtesy

ol'

Glenn

New The

third

Faces,

New Challenges

285

I

program discusses Glenn's So You Want

to

Write a Fugue,

The Idea of North in a film version that had recently been made, and has him playing selections by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. The final program is a complete performance of the Bach Partita shows

a bit of his

no. 6, in

E Minor.

Bruno Monsaingeon has published three books about Glenn, mostly containing his own translations of the pianist's voluminous writings.^'

He

continues to admire Gould and generally speaks very softly about his

eccentricities.

But when he was interviewed by Otto Friedrich, he did

reveal a typical episode of Glenn's hypochondriacal theatrics:

When we

had that

some point

"My God,

—

session [Glenn]

first

very gently

very,

a concussion."

And

—and

bumped

into the

he collapsed into

I

was

if

this has not

terrified.

happened, then I'm

And he

tion go, I'm lost.

said,

at

said,

"Well

I

all right."

know,

I

— Now —you know,

in thirteen

And then

know, once

I

I

let

my

imagina-

"^^

Upon completing

their

work on Les Chemins de

and Glenn began planning another sively to his playing of

Bruno would

and

then he said, "Well, look, in two hours there

should be this effect; in four hours, that; in twelve hours hours,

microphone

a chair

fly to

series that

la

Musiqiie,

Bruno

would be devoted exclu-

Bach. Glenn insisted on being in

total control.

Toronto and spend evenings in Glenn's studio at the

Inn on the Park going over details. They spent three years drafting the

programs before the shooting could begin, films

in

1977, of three remarkable

showing Glenn Gould performing and discussing the music of

Bach. This was to be Glenn's legacy to the musical world.

24

APPROACHING MIDDLE AGE

On

February 25, 1971, Glenn, then thirty-eight years

sulted for the

first

his massage-therapist Cornelius

doctor. office

It

was convenient

was located

at

Glenn's apartment.

262

A

con-

Dees, himself a patient of this

John A.

to see

St.

old,

time a physician recommended to him by

Clair

Percival,

Avenue West,

M.D., because

his

few blocks from

just a

now

distinguished-looking older man,

retired

and

confined to a wheelchair, Dr. Percival saw Glenn off and on for the next eleven years, until Glenn's death in 1982.

equipped

to step into the

Dr. Morris

He was

a general practitioner

shoes of Glenn's earlier primary care physician.

Herman, and,

like

Dr.

Herman, he was keenly aware of

Glenn's excessive attentiveness to various sensations in his body and his to get alarmed about them as possible signs of serious disease. "He obviously needed psychological help, Dr. Percival told me. "Many visits to my office were that he wanted someone to hold his hand. He

tendency

'

wanted words of encouragement, something things were

all

right after

all,

to reassure

because many of

his

him, to hear that

complaints were,

I

thought, not worthy of any treatment."'

"But didn't you make a

number

of specific diagnoses,"

ing such conditions as "intracostal fibrositis,

"

I

asked, includ-

"gastroenteritis,

"

"spastic

"

"

Approaching Middle Age and

colon,"

"prostatitis"? (I'd

come up with

a

medical

287

obtained this information from Dr. Percival's discarded.)'^ "Perhaps

which Glenn had never

bills,

I

it

was necessary

to

from Canada's

diagnosis in order to collect a fee

national health plan. "You're quite right,

he

"

said.

"These diagnoses came to mind as

tened to Glenn's complaints, but after off for laboratory

remember,

—but

maybe due

thing which

me

it

about

I

I

to

it

him, "Well

tell

seldom recommended

Many

really,

I

I

—he was very I

had the

stress or anxiety he'd started to feel

really couldn't identify.

would

manually

his prostate

obviously was entirely normal. So

some

lis-

nothing positive ever showed up.

tests,

examining

for instance,

cooperative about idea that

and X-ray

I

examining him and sending him

of the things he

came

someto see

don't find anything here,'

and

I

any medication for him. He'd be very receptive to

word of reassurance and encouragement. He'd talk for a while, we'd have a very nice visit, and he seemed to get up quite refreshed after." I wanted to know, "Did he ever accept advice from you about generally

a

healthy things to do, like not overdressing so much, wearing lighter clothes, getting

some

exercise,

and eating

a better diet?

never gave him that kind of advice, Dr. Percival replied.

"I

"

Glenn

as being rather eccentric.

eccentricities

We

and

I

I

accepted

"^

won't try to have him change them.'

will return to Dr. Percival

"I

thought, 'Well, he's happy with his

when Glenn,

in 1974,

developed

new

and serious symptoms. In the meantime, there were the many stresses associated with work and personal relationships. Glenn was ceaselessly struggling to keep

two contradictor)^

strivings in

achieving the privacy, solitude, and freedom he

and

write, the other

balance felt

—one aimed

he needed

concerned with achieving success

at

to think

in the electronic

media.

More and more music had

to

be recorded over the next few years for

Columbia Masterworks with Andrew Kazdin's help: Bach's French Suites and English Suites; the Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard (with cellist Leonard Rose) and Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard (with violinist Jaime Laredo); Hindemith's Sonata no. 2 in G Major for Piano and five Sonatas for Brass Instruments and Piano (with Gilbert Johnson, trumpet;

Henry Charles Smith, tromand Glenn's own piano transcriptions of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, "Dawn" and "Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Gotterdammerung, and the Meistersinger Pre-

Mason

bone

—

Jones, horn;

all

members

Abe

Torchinsky, tuba;

of the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble);

"

lude.

He had

written his manager Ronald Wilford about wanting to

com-

288

GLENN GOULD

/

Guiild with violinist tesv of

Glenn Gould

Jdiiiic

Laredo,

jiiiiiiaiy

1976. Cour

Estate.

plete the entire cycle of Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas, as well as

recording

all

ing from

Columbia

to

Suites, and more than fifty Haydn Glenn was toying with the idea of switch-

Handel

sixteen of the

sonatas, a stupendous project.

DGG

decided that he "could not,

(Deutsche Gramophon Gcsellschaft), but

recording at

CBS

and which

regard to piano pick-up but,

abandon the

in all conscience,

close-up, highly analytical sound

reflects, not only

more

relatively

which has been the hallmark

my own

significantly, a

of our

predilection in

continuing persuasion

as to the validity of the recording experience as a manifestation divorced

from concert practice. Events of a

""*

less artistic

nature also took their

toll

on Glenns limited

Approaching Middle Age

289

I

physical and psychological reserves. In August 1972, he found a stray

dog wandering on

Jarvis

couldnt bring himself turned lems,

it

trying to sleep

first

CBC

staff

it

Mrs.

Despite his sympathetic feelings he

own apartment and

on Mrs. Gould's bed and then attacking

was taken

to Brown's

a neigh-

Animal Hospital by the

relatixe

announcer, Glenn thanked the veterinarians for their

"special kindness. like

Street.

accept the animal into his

over to his elderly parents instead. But the dog caused prob-

bor's child. After

of a

to

Widman

"

"It's

most encouraging

[the relative]

to

who, quite

know

that there are people

literally,

devote their

lives to

kingdom and, since I understand from her that you took a special interest in the dog and were more than generous with your time in relation to its care, I do want you to know how ver\- grateful the lot of the animal

I

am.

"'

0\er the next few

\ears,

Glenn s workload grew

ver\' heavy.

Radio, in addition to the programs mentioned earlier,

and participated part production

CBC

in a

weekly

began

Aliisic

For

oj Today/Schoenherg Series. This ten-

in the fall of

1974 and culminated

in a

meticu-

Radio where GottM presented many of his documentaries. Photograph by CBC.

Robert Ragsdale. Courtesy of

CBC

Glenn constructed

290

GLENN GOULD

"documentary

lously worked-out Years,

/

fantasy," Schoenherg, the First

Hundred

with interviews by the composers Ernst Krenek and John Cage,

the conductor Erich Leinsdorf, the musicologist Dennis Stevens, and the

Mahler Casals: sion,

historian Henri-Louis de la Grange. Glenn's contrapuntal Pahlo

A

major productions

The

Radio was also broadcast in 1974. For

Portrait for

with Mario Prizek, producer and visual

first,

for a series called

Musicamera: Music

Televi-

in three

Our

in

Time.

"The Age of Ecstasy," on February 20, 1974, featured music by

Berg, Debussy, Schoenherg,

Order," on February vel's

La

was

a virtuoso

Valse,

5,

and Scriabin. The second, "The

own

1975, included Glenn's

opus 45, quite a divergence from

performance of the highest

still

one of the world's foremost

from

his usual repertoire. This

on the same scale

order,

2,

a

as

doubt that

Other works on that

pianists.

program were Prokofiev's Visions fugitives no.

Flight

transcription of Ra-

any of Horowitz's flamboyant transcriptions, proving beyond he was

CBC

he starred

artist,

opus 22; seven excerpts

from Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, opus 2 1 and Strauss's Three Ophelia ;

Songs, opus 67 (with Roxolana Roslak, soprano).

"New

The

third

Musicamera

on December 26, 1975, with works by Hindemith, Francois Poulenc, Schoenherg, and William Walton (his Fagade Suite, in which a costumed Glenn Gould show, called

sings the It

Faces,

Old Forms," was

telecast

"Rhapsody" with soprano Patricia Rideout).

was during

Glenn developed one

this period of intense activity that

of his most distressing symptoms, a peculiar feeling of lightheadedness,

almost dizziness, coupled with a slight loss of balance. Percival seven times

between December

5,

He

1974, and

consulted Dr.

November

24,

1975, for what the doctor diagnosed as "labyrinthitis," a disorder of the semicircular canals of the inner ear, usually caused by an infection or allergic reaction.

Early in 1975, Glenn's parents sold the house at Lake Simcoe where

he had enjoyed such eighty-three,

was

She missed the

become

too

blissful solitude in earlier years.

in declining health

place, but packing

much

for her.

Glenn,

and being treated

now

for hypertension.

and driving there on weekends had at forty-two, felt

buying the property for himself and declined believed that having to give up their second part" in causing his mother's death,

His mother,

to

do

home

so.

ambivalent about

His cousin Jessie

"played a tremendous

and that Glenn thought so

too.^

But

the real culprit was Flora Gould's chronic cardiovascular disease. In July

1975 she collapsed while unlocking the side door of their Toronto house for her

husband coming home from work.

It

was

a

massive stroke and

she was taken to the East General Hospital and later transferred at

Approaching Middle Age

He

Glenn's request to the Toronto General Hospital.

Stephens during

Dr.

"When

me

called

291

I

leaned heavily on

this crisis.

Glenn's mother had her stroke,

me

nearly every day to ask

if

I

"

Stephens,

recalls Joe

'he

had any advice, the names of

I know about strokes, and their treatment, and was in a coma for several days, and he was very upset about that. He was afraid she was going to die. And I had nothing to offer whatever, except to say that nature will take its course and that I'm sure, since she was in a reputable hospital, she would get the best possi-

any

what did

specialist,

the prognosis. She

ble care."' Despite Glenn's expressed concern for his mother's grave condition,

he did not once

her in the hospital. In a place

visit

he feared getting infected and coming down with an

full

of germs,

illness himself.

But

before she lost consciousness, he talked to her over the telephone for

many

hours.

The death

of his mother was probably the most traumatic event of

Glenn's entire

him

Having

life.

failed to

woman, she had remained

other

form

a significant

bond with any

a tremendously important figure for

—the only woman with whom he could share

his joys

and disappoint-

ments, his dreams, the reviews of his concerts, and other aspects of his

And

career on a regular basis.

her understanding of his personality was

unique. She had given him birth, instantly recognized his musical genius,

molded him

to

become

and exchanging of in

speak

profound distress

much about

ev^er

I

verv^, verv'

saw him

internally,

irreplaceable. Yet

he displayed

Lome Tulk

for

where he wasn't

Glenn, you must appreciate

that.

Even

phoning

though Glenn

emotion. "He didn't

little

Ray Roberts

recalls the

moving experience

in a state

his incessant

silent partner in every vicissitude

his mother's death,"

could sense the pain."^ as "a very,

and through

remained the

She was absolutely

of his hectic career.

was

a great pianist,

ideas,

told

me, "but you

death of Glenn's mother

him. That was the only time

really thinking.

know. And it w as the only time I ever saw, and when he simply could not seem to bring his

it

And

if

you knew

he was thinking, you

in his sleep

lasted for about a week,

thoughts to

jell,

couldn't

"^

them organized at all. Jessie Greig remembers that "Glenn missed [his mother] terribly he was really devastated by her death and he became more introspective. He turned even more to me at that time. Then became the one he shared his reviews with. It's very interesting, because whenever he would come to something very flattering he'd say: 'Now who would like seem

to get

.

.

.

I

.

and enjoy still

this?'

And he

.

.

always wanted the response, 'Mother.'

trving to please her, even at that late date.

.

.

.

He was

After his mother's

292

GLENN GOULD

/

death he phoned and he said that he never knew what the loving support

He

of a family could be until that time.

first

became aware

of

then."'°

it

During the process of mourning, Glenn had recurring dreams about

and he would

his mother,

call Jessie to "tell

dream, about where she was doing."

me

in great detail

about

this

and how she knew what we were

living,

The cousins had attended church

together

when

they were chil-

dren, and over the years they occasionally spoke about religious topics,

example, the hymns that he incorporated in his soundtrack for The

for

Glenn was "fascinated by the book of Revelations his own interpretations." She remains convinced

Wars. Jessie says that in the Bible [and]

that

had

Glenn "believed

in

God

[and] in a hereafter."''

Less than a year after the death of his mother, Glenn himself was

diagnosed with hypertension. The elevation in his blood pressure was not very impressive at to discover

told him,

it

"It's

first,

so

who was

that Dr. Percival,

little

during a routine physical examination on

nothing to worry about, don't give

it

March

the 1,

1

first

1976,

a second thought.

"

Dr.

no longer exist, but he recalls the blood pressure and I'm not one to have Glenn have been "150 over 90

Percival's office records

reading to

.

.

.

fussing about this, because he was so suggestible.

reassure him: 'We'll just keep an eye on

something about the

day, the

right off the bat. 'That

is

way

it; it's

remember

I

just borderline;

trying to

it

may be

you're feeling.' But he disputed that

quite wrong,' he said, 'my father has been bat-

tling high blood pressure for years.'

"'•^

Nothing was mentioned evidently

about his mother's hypertension and her recent death from a stroke.

As was Glenn's habit, he consulted other physicians about the problem. He went to the Toronto General Hospital complaining of "lightheadedness, and the diagnosis of hypertension was confirmed. On April 19, he was examined by Alexander G. Logan, a specialist in nephrology (kid"

ney diseases)

and urinary

at

the

tract

Mount

Sinai Hospital.

An

X-ray study of his kidneys

was done (intravenous pyelogram)

that evidently dis-

closed no structural abnormalities, but Dr. Logan took Glenn's mildly elevated blood pressure seriously enough to prescribe an anti-hypertensive rial

drug called Aldomet. Aldomet (methyldopa) effectively lowers blood

pressure

(adrenaline) receptors.

Glenn

in a fairly

by

causing

It is

an

inhibition

of

arte-

alpha-adrenergic

given in tablet form, and was prescribed for

low dosage, 250 milligrams twice a

day. Later, this

was

increased to 500 milligrams twice a day. Patients with severe hyperten-

may need to take as much as 500 milligrams four times a day. Glenn kept extremely detailed records of the changes in his blood pressure, which he measured every hour, and sometimes as often as every sion

Approaching Middle Age

293

I

Fearing that his American-made blood pressure cuff

fifteen minutes.

—one made —and frequently compared the readings

might be inaccurate or go "kaput," he purchased two others in

Germany, the other

Japan

in

from the different machines. Here

is

an example of one day's measure-

ments:

April 24th.

AM— 128.5/100 AM— 126/97.5 2-15 AM— 118/90 4-15 AM— 119.5/92.5 5-30 AM— 111 LO/81 LO 2-30 PM— 120/85 H A 3-30 PM— 122/87 4-30 PM— 136/104 6-30 PM— 130/98 practice 12-30 1-30

-F-

1

1/4 hrs

8-OOPM— 136H//106H/ 9-OOPM— 114/90'^ many

Judging from these and

other readings Glenn recorded, the

medication he was receiving apparently helped keep his pressure within fairly

slash)

normal

limits.

Only the

diastolic readings

were on the high I've

His systolic readings (the figure to the

would not be considered remarkable

been able

side, for

to find

for a

(second figure, after the slash) occasionally

among

Glenn's notes

is

time, he did have "really high blood pressure

error

of the

left

in his mid-forties.

example, 100, 104, or 106. The highest reading

both John Roberts and Ray Roberts, the two

Aldomet. John Roberts

man

recalls

an incident

158/1 10, but according to

men "

if

when

closest to

him

at this

he stopped taking the the pharmacy

and dispensed the wrong medication. "He immediately

unwell, and on checking his blood pressure, found

it

to

be

made an felt

quite

ver\^ high."^"*

Unfortunately, Dr. Logan has not been willing to release any of his

which makes it difficult to know whether Glenn had more than the "borderline h\-pertension Dr. Percival had diagnosed origi-

clinical findings,

"

nally.

Dr.

But we do know from Glenn's

Logan prescribed

a

own

second drug

for

records that on April 15, 1976,

him

— Inderal

(propranolol), a

chemical substance that blocks the effects of beta-adrenergic stimulation,

thereby slowing the pulse and respirator)"

prescribed was

ver\' low,

20 milligrams twice a

would commonly be used by

rate.

da);

Again the dosage

much

a patient with heart disease,

lower than

and resembling

294

the level of dosage often ety in concert artists

GLENN GOULD

/

recommended

Glenn often worried about he would check cause

it

it

for control of

performance anxi-

and public speakers. and there were days when

his pulse rate,

along with events that he suspected might

ever>' hour,

to fluctuate:

Pulse Chart Jan. 18 [1977?] (4th.

Aldomet

at

bedtime; 7 3/4-8 hrs solid [sleep])

Wakeup 1:45—104 2:00— " 2:15— " 3:15

— 102

an animated conversation)

(after

3:30—94 3:45

—96 (animated conversation)

4:00—88 4:15—84 4:45

—90 (phone conversation)

5:00—90 5:08—80 (w.c.) 5:10—88 6:00—88 6:15—82 7:15—82 (Aldomet) 7:30—82 8:00—88 (Aldomet)

12mid— 78 5:00

AM— 86

5:15—88 (Aldomet)

'"^

Despite Glenn's dispute with Dr. Percival about the seriousness of his hypertension, he continued to a

month

for the rest of his

was receiving treatment he also kept Logan

Wagnerian

and

similarity in

Parsifal (the

Glenn

to

for

in the

call

life.

him and went

to his office

However, he never

about once

told Percival that

hypertension from Dr. Logan and

dark about Percival.

names

Was Glenn aware

of his two physicians, Loge

Holy Knight)?

On May

5,

after

of the

(God of

Fire)

1976, Dr. Percival noted

be unusually nervous about cramping sensations in

and prescribed capsules of Librax, one

he

assume

1

his

stomach

each meal and one

at

bed-

time. Librax capsules contain a combination of two drugs, 5 milligrams

of the tranquilizer Librium and 2.5 milligrams of the anti-spasmodic

"

Approaching Middle Age And

Quarzan.

as

though

it

medication for him, Glenn

Dr.

wasn't enough to have two doctors prescribing felt

necessary that

it

summer

to consult yet a

Dale McCarthy.

third physician,

ders,

295

I

McCarthy

is

an orthopedist, specializing

and he listened patiently

bone and

in

joint disor-

Glenn's complaints of chronic tension

to

McCarthy remembers how difficult it symptoms or the physical findings, which were mostly negative. They didn't fit into any particular pattern but suspected some kind of inflammatory process stemming from and discomfort

was

in his shoulders.

make anything

"to

specific of these

I

poor posture and overuse of the upper extremities

his

piano. "'^

McCarthy prescribed

in playing the

non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,

Indocin (Indomethacin), 25 milligrams capsules to be taken at bed-

first

time, and later (in 1978)

Naprosyn (naproxen), one 25-milligrams

tablet

twice a day.

Almost every medication can produce undesirable side tion to the desired therapeutic benefits for

which

is

it

effects in addi-

prescribed. For

example, Aldomet often brings about sedation and dryness of the mouth,

and sometimes produces changes platelets

in his "large

Ray Roberts describes

he intended

to discuss

Symptoms 1. 1

inhibit the formation of the blood

which control bleeding. Glenn always read

he was taking as

in liver function. Indocin, in addition

may

to its anti-inflammatory function,

(re

medical book

it.'^

He

also

carefully about

what

listing the effects of all drugs,

made

long

lists

symptoms

of

that

with Dr. Logan:

Logan) December 22, 1977

Blood pressure escalating

A. Chills as indication of

—evening 140/100 even without

rise;

activity

on occasion absolutely uncontrollable

shivering;

most frequently mitigated by even small amounts of cold

liquid but

sometimes [word

illegible] this assistance

—

alleviated

by

activity.

2. Nostrils

—plugged

([illegible 3.

.

.

animated variety

.

Gastro-intestinal— hiatus hernia style symptoms for (!)

4.

after conversation, especially

words] with difficulty in breathing.

give history

— Barium meal

1

month

or so

test, etc.

Sleep 3—4 hours segments for 4-5 months; currently improved.'^

Glenn had always looked rather youthful and quite attractive. But now illness and medication began taking their

middle age and the effects of toll.

John Roberts describes

his

appearance as "haggard."'^ Photographs

296

Gould

as he

show

a

atric

appeared in 1974. Photograph by

more wrinkled

ture. In

May

Robert Ragsdale.

face, increasing baldness,

three psychiatrists

—

and myself

visited

Glenn

—

shocked by the

He

tragic deterioration.

looked

fat,

Stephens, Dr. Robert

Dr. Joe his

in

greeted us cordially, but not having seen

bloated.

and a stooped-over pos-

1977, during a meeting in Toronto of the American Psychi-

Association,

Fiscella,

GLENN GOULD

/

St.

him

He

Clair apartment.

for over ten years,

I

was

His face and body had become

flabby and stooped. (A side effect of Aldomet

can be the accumulation of

fluid,

which leads

ments were slower than before. His

skin,

to

weight gain.) His move-

which had always been on the

pale side, had acquired an unnatural grayness, roughly the color of steel,

due probably

to the lack of sunlight.

His eyes seemed smaller, as hadn't changed at

all,

if

His hair was thin, sparse, and greasy

sunken inward. But

his vivacity

was

still

his

way

of talking

intact. In conversation

he

was the same exuberant, animated, and funny Glenn, a provocative but charming host and delightful raconteur. And, of course, the subject he most wanted to talk about was himself. It was no longer Glenn the pian-

Approaching Middle Age however; what

ist

I

we heard most about was Glenn

297

the radio producer

and filmmaker.

Around midnight he drove us tion of his latest

equipment and did most of

his electronic

and

usual,

it

on the Park

to the Inn

demonstra-

for a

accomplishments. The studio-apartment where he kept

work was overheated

his

as

got to be difficult after a while to pay attention to every

tape, every recording, every television program,

Glenn wanted us

to savor.

What

interested

and every comment

me most was

his latest

that

album

of Bach, the Six Violin and Harpsichord Sonatas recorded with Jaime

Laredo.

I

had played several of them with Glenn myself during the early

years of our acquaintance and

remembered the wonderful

rhythmic precision of his playing. But cues and fancy ornaments which

must have

said

something that annoyed

my

there were

all

clarity

me

found inappropriate,

"bristling" at

not

if

my remarks. Glenn The

very much.

I

mentioned

this to

silly.

Schumann Glenn, who came

in turn said I

has since

(it

out with his

usual invective about the composer, that he was a mediocrity

only the most blatantly showy music, "romantic rubbish."

I

for Joe

year 1977 was the one

research for a biography of Robert

been published). "°

and

sorts of curli-

something uncomplimentary about the recording,

Stephens remembers Glenn started

I

now

who wrote

No

pianist in

mind would want to play Schumann's music today (wrong), and wife really was the better pianist of the two (right). "What you should Peter, is write a book about a really important musician," Glenn said

his right his

do, to

me. Was he thinking of himself?

He

played for us the entire tape of T\ie Idea of North, which he consid-

ered a masterpiece and the most important thing he had ever "composed." Again,

my

off to sleep in the

enthusiasm couldn't keep up with middle of the program.

It

his,

and

I

drifted

would have been helpful

if

Glenn had served us some refreshments, or even a glass of water, but that always was the furthest thing from his mind. At 3:00 a.m. he drove us back to our hotel. Joe Stephens, too, was disappointed and worried about this visit, which, as it turned out, was the last time either of us had any personal contact with Glenn. "He looked sick," says Stephens, "but he didn't say a word about that, which I thought was very unusual, considering the way he used to complain to us. And I thought it was so tragic to see this magnificent pianist totally immersed in doing things so far removed from

musical performance.' Glenn undoubtedly sensed our lack of devotion to his

new

causes, for he never again

communicated with

either of us

'

298

GLENN GOULD

/

except for his annual Christmas card, which always arrived I

late.

suspected that this sort of precipitous dropping of old friends

Though when he

they were no longer of any use to him was typical, Joe Stephens took more personally I recently asked him, "When did you become aware that this was the end of your relationship?" "After I got back to Baltimore," he said, "because I was back a week and there was no telephone call." "Up to that point he'd been calling you regularly?" felt it

"Regularly.

sometime I

him.

And

back, expecting to get a telephone call

was no telephone

call.

thought. This

I

then

of course you always got an answering service.

And

had called—'Please

I

may have done

I

I

came

And

message that then

I

waited for about one week or maybe ten days.

odd.'

think

And when

that week, there

that three times.

some reason

realized that for

my friendship, if you want What neither Stephens

to call

nor

I,

it

me

call

And

call

had been

my

I

very

is

called left

a

And back. And

back.

there was no call

beyond

totally

that,

No

back.'

I

I

comprehension,

severed.*'"'

nor anyone else close to him, under-

stood at the time was that Glenn was again experiencing a very disturbing

breakdown of control over had happened after the

The problem was similar to what when he became "paralyzed

his hands.

him eighteen years

to

earlier,

Steinway technician allegedly "struck" his shoulder. But

this

time there seemed to be no external cause. "Lack of coordination was noticed in second daily until the

week

of June [1977]," he noted in a diary kept almost

problem subsided a year

later.

He'd noted that

sign

"first

was manifest on upright piano, and it became worse while he was taping a work he had never played before, Alfredo Casella's Ricerof problem

care on the

"

name BACH.

Opening theme

of Casella

scale-like passages

was unbalanced

During next 2 weeks

.

.

.

to

to stick diary].

and .

problems increased, h was no longer possible

play even Bach chorale securely

from note

— notes appeared

were uneven and uncontrolled [reads the

note insecure

.

.

.

articulate chords without arpeggio

but the most minimal dynamic

—

Parts

among and

levels.

.

.

to

were unbalanced, progression

other

symptoms was

to control

inability to

even those chords

at

any

^^

Instead of appealing to doctors for help as he had after the Steinway incident, told his

made

Glenn

this

time kept the problem a secret from everyone.

producer Andrew Kazdin that

for

for a year

He

no new records could be

Columbia Masterworks because the Eaton Auditorium which

Approaching Middle Age was

their recording studio

was going

to

299

I

be demolished. (Kazdin

later

described this as a typical example of Glenn's capacity for "creative

Glenn's diary records that "a summer-long series of practice

lying.")"^

experiments began. These frequently involved sessions of

even

2, 3, or

more, hours. 'Constants' from repertoire were used: [Bach] Chromatic fantasia,

D

G

major Toccata,

major Toccata, E-flat Haydn [Sonatas] (2

of them) and, for special tests, stock passages such as opening solo (after

'Emperor' Concerto, 'Elektra' sequences, and, for confirmations,

tutti) in

scale-cadenza from Beethoven

G

major Concerto

(last

movement)."^"*

Although we have heard about Glenn's customary unwillingness

now

think about what his hands and fingers were doing, he

to

spent hours

analyzing their movements, while trying to

make adjustments which he

hoped would improve matters. Describing

this

invented his

own

process in his

he

diary,

terminology, evidently not wishing to consult textbooks

on anatomy or experts

in

biomechanics

who might

have been able to

help in such matters.

Formulas used:

(1)

Thumb

indents: these were tried in consort with finger indents

which were present throughout by-note sensation

method in all

.

.

.

and the

in

an unusual degree

result

for specific, brief passages with

.

.

harp-like note-

.

produced a reasonably effective minimal

register

change

other respects was unpleasant in feel and unworkable in

.

.

.

but,

method

.

.

.

reacting to overly tense area elsewhere. (2)

During mid-summer, much

and,

les

initially,

were subject

it

to indent pressure.

cent-like sensation

seem

effort

was directed

This seemed to

foster,

which was sometime solution

to foster inability to secure repetition in

(3) In late

summer, and

to alleviate unnatural

trol

hand-knuck-

etc.

for a very brief period (not

burden on indented

on occasion, cres-

(circa 1966)

trills,

days) experiments with elevated wrists were tried.

The experiment

to the

appeared that some progress was made when these

.

.

.

.

.

but did

.

more than

3 or 4

These were inaugurated

fingers,

thumb, and knuckles.

resulted only in a complete loss of control, especially con-

of thumb-passing etc.

(4)

On

exerted on

various occasions during summer, extreme pressure had been

thumb

indents for the purpose of regulating posture,

ing lower center of gravity

and formal position

made

in

to

keep body position

of body.

An

facilitat-

attempt was

such adjustment that thumb indents would

be constant and not subject to variable pressure. These proved unusually

300

GLENN GOULD

/

energy-consumptive and were impossible to pre-set prior to piano.

.

(5) In

tions

mid-September [1977] an attempt was made

to control all func-

from neck. This involved prohibiting movement of neck on an appendage

right axis

and making

dramatic:

immediate improvement

noticed ...

Alas, the

it

in

all

of co-ordination

levels

seemed analogous to breakthrough of

it

improvement proved

be

to

fleeting:

excessively restrictive and, in this respect,

when

a left-

to shoulder. Initial results

May

it

were

was

.^^

'67.

.

.

"neck-movement prohibiwas fatiguing and

tion (inability to look at stop-watch, for example)

sions

sitting at the

.

.

mind

called to

earlier occa-

neck-control had inhibited movement." By the end of Sep-

tember, Glenn was reporting "image problems," meaning that he found

himself "sitting farther back than was desirable.

note'

.

.

Wrist rotation or

.

frequent 'sticking trill control hazardous seemed excessive dynamic unevenness much in evidence. Continuing syndrome

'swivel'

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"

.

to search for a solution,

he suddenly

hit

on the idea of tightening the

what he called "The frown (or wrinkled brow) syndrome: This appeared to have (as has been noticed during times of crisis before) a salutary effect. It ... is hence capable of adding control to trills, etc. ... I can only conjecture that it relates to neck control and/or muscles of

thumb

his face,

elevation

mechanism. What

is

certain, however,

free (blank face) expression resulted in

playing

is

that

he

felt

it

that a wrinkle-

immediate lessening of control

(especially rhythmic-subdivided count control.)

one of the reasons Glenn engaged

is

in so

much

." .

.

This suggests that

movement while

facial

gave him better control of his hands.

He

contin-

ued doing "thumb control experiments," and found that a "do not commit yourself to keyboard" style, i.e., raising his hands and fingers, made it possible to generate "certain familiar, and comforting, sensations

much "a

.

.

The improvement lasted through most of September, and in October possessed of extraordinary^ naturalnew 'image' began to develop .

ness, ease,

and spontaneity.

about his body as

.

increased evenness, etc.""^

"

in a different way.

one overlap-control

unit, the

assumed, the shoulder and neck. cient mobility by the

of the keyboard. felt as

.

.

sides of the body.

During as .

.

.

.

"The answer appeared shoulder and body .

.

.

"

—

to

to

be

to

merge,

not, as previously

Thus, the forearm

body and upper arm

.

—

overlapping

.

Evidently Glenn was beginning to think

is

granted

suffi-

reach out to applicable areas

this process, shoulder-body-joins [sic] are

though upper arms were united with respective

Glenn went on

to describe this

newly integrated

"

Approaching Middle Age body image

in

enormous

emphasizing that

detail,

301

I

"it is

the ofposite of

the positions invohing the separation of the body from the

On

which

October

14,

"it's

back

to the

drawing board. The image of arm-body overlap did not wear well

neck grew increasingly sore and immobile of spontaneous reaction to the keyboard

all

for

were required."^'

specific, self-conscious-style finger controls

But soon there was another setback.

arm

.

.

.

.

.

.

still

this

.

.

.

the sensation of loss

manifested

itself in

downward sensation was dominant and when piano was approached, this made playing almost impossible.""^ In the course of all this dismay and experimentation, Glenn did manage to tape a video program, the fourth installment of CBC's Miisicamera: Music in Our Time, called "The Artist as Artisan 1930-1940," which was aired on December 14, 1977. It included the Casella Ricercare on the name BACH that seemed to have triggered Glenn's problem, as well as stilted trills, etc.

.

.

Note by

.

note,

works by Hindemith, Krenek, Prokofiev, and Webern. Viewing the tape reveals

some

of the trouble he

was having.

such a way that one cannot always see his to

be filmed that way. Looking

"Neck-body moved of elevation fingers

In the Ricercare he looks like

moving, plethorically hunched over the keyboard in

a sick bear, hardly

as a confusing unit;

(when not

fingers.

at the tapes himself,

have wanted Glenn observed that

thumb was indented

important to

in use);

He may

tell

to the point

about indents on other

from camera work. ... So where do we go from here?

Two new experiments were

tried.

One

consisted of a "fall-into-key-

board approach," the other "involved various attempts to achieve elevation

through upper-arm foreshortening." Although his

trills

seemed

now was bothered by what he called "enlarged veins on hands syndrome." In November that year, he noted "a restoration of control" after driving in his newlv acquired Chevrolet Monte Carlo: "It had a remarkable seat (a much less remarkable suspension, however, which made me sea-sick) a seat which gave much middle back support and improved, Glenn

—

which

also reclined in the familiar two-door fashion."

he found, was

stabilizing his back,

position (right leg over left)

and image

stability,

it

Another way of

do "much playing

in a cross-leg

and this not only brought back memories of

when such

concerts circa 1959

to

positions

also helped to

seemed

essential for control

emphasize the spontaneous image

of the keyboard and reinforced the ability of the back (as unit) to

forward-backward

When

he visited the Steinway Piano

November place

.

.

.

9,

he was

although

move

freely. ..."

I

gratified to

Company

in

New

York on

see that "great improvements had taken

avoided repertoire with high concentration of

trills.

302

/

GLENN GOULD

Gould rehearsing with

legs crossed over,

1

960. Photo-

graph by Lare Wardrop. Courtesy of Glenn Gould Estate.

.

.

.

There was no neck tension and the image was constant during a 45

minutes

And

to

one hour period of practicing. "^^

so the diary goes

from January at forty-five,

would choose

—

there's a

second book yet

But the question we must ask to devote so

much

is

The most obvious

to

come,

why Glenn,

effort to painstakingly crit-

and correcting the physical dimensions of

icizing, dissecting,

playing.

on and on

to July 1978.

reason, already mentioned,

is

his piano

his dissatisfac-

tion with certain taped performances,

such as the Casella piece. But

Glenn had long given up any pretense

being a concert pianist expected

to

do

at

his best in front of audiences. For years

he had been producing

for the electronic

media, where faulty playing can be

remedied through

splicing.

sudden outburst of loss of his mother,

I

pianistic perfectionism.

who

—ana was —

easily

think that there were deeper reasons for his

in his

One

surely

was the recent

conscious and unconscious

memory was

Approaching Middle Age

I

303

the incessant corrector of mistakes and prodder toward improved perfor-

mance.

Now

that she

within himself.

mother, he was

was gone, these

critical

functions were entirely

Disconnected from the balancing influence of

now

his

tackling the problems of his keyboard performance

with the same compulsive fury that he applied to everything else he ever touched: his conversations, his writings, his recordings, his radio

programs and television shows. (One

and recovery of

his piano

is

reminded

technique eighteen years

that the

breakdown

the "Steinway

earlier,

incident," followed the death of his other piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero.)

Another factor undoubtedly was middle age, normally

a time

when

people review their past, contemplate their diminishing future, and observe, often painfully, the physical decline of the body. erate hypertension

had flung Glenn

was taking prescribed drugs and his

hunger

for control hadn't

A mild

to

mod-

into the role of medical patient;

he

losing his attractive youthfulness. But

changed. By taking charge, independently,

of his keyboard difficulties, he could maintain an illusion of self-mastery. Interestingly, the diary

more them to

legibly

gives

he kept about these problems

and coherently than most of

is

penned much

his other writings.

Reading

one the definite impression that Glenn wanted these things

be looked

at seriously, possibly

even published, perhaps as a legacy

future pianists in trouble and therapists trying to help them.

for

25

THE LAST YEARS

T I

feel

he second book of Glenn's diary begins January 30, 1978, on an optimistic note:

now

that the proper system

tion best with

but "collapsed .

.

.

neck "

as part of

is

back

back-as-unit

line)

.

.

.

.

.

.

(though

definitely

it

does func-

no "collapsed" spine,

chest does bring you closer to piano and improves vision.

For the past 3 days, everything works.

.^ .

.

Considering his emphasis on the posture of his back,

it

is

surprising

that the diary says nothing whatsoever about his piano chair. Yet, as

obvious from the films and photographs these

last years,

made

the chair was no longer giving

is

him at the piano during him adequate support, for

of

the simple reason that the pad he had sat on in earlier years had gotten

worn out and was never replaced. This meant that Glenn was now sitting directly on the wooden H-frame, which could only have been uncomfortable if not painful, since his support had to come from a centrally placed board running the entire length of his crotch. The board was attached to the front and the back of the frame, leaving two large empty spaces on either side

where

his buttocks

were unsupported. Thus, the weight of

The Last Years

Hands of Gould Glenn Gould

body had

his I

to

I

305

in conducting gesture. CounesN of

Estate.

come down on

his

perineum and

genitals.

gather that Glenn wasn't consciously aware of

chair, built

about

it.

by

Nor was

the problem picked

up by

his doctors.

two of them. Dr. Percival and the urologist Philip

symptoms rectal

that

he thought were caused by

this.

He

treated this

and never complained

his father, almost as a sacred object

Glenn consulted 1978 about

Klotz, in

"prostatitis."

Both

men

did a

examination and the necessary laboratory studies to rule out an

enlargement, infection, or tumor of the prostate gland. "Glenn was very worried about his prostate," Dr. Klotz told me.

mean, he was unusual. He

"He was

ver\',

strange.

didn't volunteer information easily.

I

He was

I think he found the whole thing saw Dr. Klotz him twice to try to assure him that prostate was normal. Had he or Percival only watched Glenn playing

obviously uncomfortable at being here. a terrible pain or drag. his

""

the piano, the cause of his complaint might have a basic

requirement of performing

arts

become

obvious.

(It is

medicine today that patients be

observed while playing their instrument.)

"

306

/

GLENN GOULD

Gould's used-up chair, no padding

left

on

seat. Photo-

graph by Peter Ostwald.

Despite the diary report of sporadic symptoms in February and March

1978

—"The

wrist

had begun

to allow

shoulder-neck became very sore finger-tip nerve tingle

have

been

.

.

.

.

.

.

for

"attempt[ing] a recording in April." For the

the "likelihood" that

some

was severely

brief attack of labyrinthitis"

improvement

sufficient

an unacceptable rotation

vision

Glenn

first

When

.

.

.

some

.

.

.

.

—there seems to

to

contemplate

of his setbacks had "a psychological base."

had been involved with, presumably a love

.

.

time he was considering

night before one entry, he had previewed a tape

played in three days

restricted

made with

affair.

"Further,

The

a singer he I

had not

'conducting' had gone on in previous days.

there was significant improvement,

Glenn usually attributed

it

— The Last Years to

I

307

what he called the "hand-knuckle-bridge," a way of "imaging"

hand

as

one

should not be required to move

ideally,

and that

all

his

single, relaxed unit. "It related to the revelation that fingers,

—

only, so to speak, to

be there"

accommodated by body

other adjustments should be

adjust-

ments."^ Anticipating a return to the studio, Glenn's practice schedule relativelv

heaxT around

became

with up to three to four hours a day

this time,

devoted to repertoire he was hoping to record for Columbia Mastenvorks or

CBC

upcoming

Haydn

programs:

Sonatas,

Chromatic Fantasia, Beethoven Sonatas, But "the pendulum continue[d]

Bach

Partitas

and the

Strauss's Violin-Piano Sonata.

to swing,"

and

in April there

was

a

relapse:

wTist tightness problems, and, gradually, the separation of one note from

the next deteriorates into

There was

bumpy grouping and

also a general lack of

volume

only a very restricted, surface contact

Knuckle- Bridge were inconclusive. Suddenly, last

last night,

I

.

.

moment, and only I

in right

realized,

.

.

hand,

I

more than

The

fingers permitted

various e.xperiments with

Hand-

.

determined that

words) was the lack of coyistancy

was back and

.

a general lack of fluidity.

control.

in

had

in all

these problems (famous

shoulder elevation. For one brief it;

that gleaming, lustrous

ever, that that

sound

was the sound of con-

trol.-*

In June, to

Glenn ventured into the tele\asion studio for his contribution Tlie Music of Man, which would require demonstra-

Yehudi Menuhin's

ting a to the

new mixing technique

reading of the WTist" call

for

an etude, "Desir," by Scriabin. In addition

disagreement he was having with Yehudi over spontaneit}' versus

and

text,

Glenn experienced "extreme tension in the right he "was about to

loss of "d)Tiamic contrast control." In July,

Andrew Kazdin and

set

up July

[recording] sessions," but being

I went to apartment at 1:30 P.M. The results were horrendous. G major Toccata fugue, which had become a show-piece was lumpy, inaccurate, uncertain, unrhythmical and ditto ever\thing else that was played."' To judge from his diary, which stops after July 12, 1978, Glenn never again was completely satisfied with the quality of his piano placing. That would have been a plausible explanation for his growing desire to dis-

"reluctant to admit an extra-psychic principle at work, 1

tance himself from the keyboard, embarking on a orchestral conductor,

and devoting more time

to

new

career as an

reworking his radio pro-

308

Gould, a

/

GLENN GOULD

solitary figure

wandering

to

Caledon,

Ontario, 1980. Photograph by Don Hunstein,

CBS

Master-

works. Courtesy of Sony Classical.

grams. According to to integrate the a piece of

Lome

Tulk, one of Glenn's unfulfilled wishes was

audio tracks of these programs with films and pictures,

multimedia pioneering.^

Strauss documentary,

He

certainly

The Bourgeois Hero,

worked mightily on

in 1978,

which involved

of eight, including critics, biographers, composers, and conductors.

program

is

in

two

"acts,"

each close

to

look at his character, including

with

[his wife] Pauline."^

to his

The

an hour, and consists of

"scenes" about different aspects of Strauss's

life,

his

a cast

six

as well as "a rather hard

some speculations about the

There are scenes exploring

relationship

Strauss's attitudes

contemporaries, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and so forth, as

well as his activities in

Germany during

the Hitler period.

Another very time-consuming project that made no demands on

his

The Last Years

309

I

Some

piano technique was the film Glenn Gould's Toronto.

ailing

years

Glenn had met John McGreevy, a young Englishman then working at the CBC who wanted to make films about the world's great cities. McGree\7 showed Glenn his recently completed Peter Ustinov's Leningrad, and Glenn immediately jumped at the idea of making a film earlier

like that.

own odyssey to Toronto, his hometown, McGreevy explained to me. "We had a marvelous sympathy for the process, and the design. And he was coming into my world, therefore he was much more "It

could be his

willing to

and

"

accommodate my

particular needs.

wonderful idiosyncrasy,

his

and

to

was

I

after his sensibility,

do the unusual, as the entire

city

series was designed to be somewhat idiosyncratic. Glenn would be the only consideration for Toronto. But I dont know that he brought a special

language to filmmaking, because he didn't

McGreevy asked Glenn

make

to write a script of

"^

films himself.

roughly 4,500 words, to

which Glenn responded by producing a manuscript of 45,000 words, McGreevy, "You

telling "

'Well,

Glenn,

can't

touch a thing." McGreevy recalls saying,

thousand words,

forty-five

that's a

ten-hour

film.'

So we

spent one very long night hacking our way through it, and he took it all in very great spirit because he knew it had to be done." Nevertheless, there remained scenes which McGreevy had to eliminate from the final product. For example, he had "double-shot a scene where Glenn was driving down Yonge Street when suddenly one of his impersonations, "Ted Slutz," comes out of the crowd, starts to bang on the car, and has a "

good example of Glenn's using an impersonlatent aggression. According to McGreevy, the scene

huge argument with him, ation to project his

was "god-awful. So

a

to save

him from

we

himself,

left

it

on the cutting-

"^

room floor. Glenn Gould's Toronto turned out to be both entertaining and informative. Gaunt and heavily made up, he wanders about the city divulging historical tidbits

and

telling quaint stories

spacious, bustling Eaton Center with

open

elevators,

its

he expresses astonishment

has changed since he was a boy: the city prison, he

comments

lent of a jail sentence.

"

"It's

about himself. Visiting the

maze at

absurd!

of

chrome

how much I

staircases his

don't believe

that a "concert tour

is

and

hometown it!"

Passing

the musical equiva-

Driving an Eldorado Cadillac (provided by the

sponsors), he repeats one of his favorite mottos: "Behind every silver

And

Canadian National Exhibition (from the outside his mother had warned him never to enter such a crowded place), he reports a recurring dream: He is a passenger on an

lining

is

a cloud."

—

after looking at the

310

GLENN GOULD

/

about to crash. The stewardess

airplane that

is

are disabled.

She begs him

to

remonstrance that he

is

his

come

tells

him

that both pilots

and take

to the cockpit

over.

completely unqualified to do

Despite

Glenn

so,

guides the plane to safety."^

moment when Glenn

There's also a facetious to

words at

goes to the Toronto Zoo

He mouths

conduct a herd of elephants "singing" a Mahler song.

him

and do some trumpeting. His father had often

quizzically

a child,

liked to

when he

repeat the story of Glenn's singing to the cows in the country

was

the

bad German with a nasal tone. The animals look

in excruciatingly

but having to repeat this as an adult and with elephants

apparently induced a state of panic in Glenn. As John

McGreevy

recalls

it:

"We'd planned o'clock in the

scene

to shoot this

my phone

morning

morning and

at six in the

rang.

disturbing me, but there he was having just contracted first

diagnosed as 'sub-clinical

polio.' That's

the

to alert

why, and

shocked. on, and

me,

and

to start calling

didn't call the crew.

we

final

said

definitive

he didn't show, that

in case

may want

I

I

what he

was, and he'd

it

since '58. There are supposed to be six symptoms.

but he didn't have the

five,

wanted

it

of the symp-

all

experienced in 1958 and what was then

toms, bar one, of what he

never had

at three

was Glenn, hoping he wasn't

It

We

my

I

He had

symptom, but he

crew. Well, of course

showed

I

was

He showed up and went

up.

did an absolutely fabulous scene.

just

understood the reason

was pre-concert nerves,

It

exaggerated in the most baroque way."^'

The time had come

on Glenn Gould Plays Bach, Gould and Bruno Monsaingeon

for filming to begin

the series of television programs that

had been working on, writing, perfecting since their three years before.

It

was

Films in France and the

ments were made. The

to

be a collaborative

CBC,

in

whose Studio 7 the

to complete,

not at his best. Peter Mak, the

CBC

room and

in the control

didn't

have

much

wouldn't admit recording.

it.

What

I

felt

He made many

me was

—

that

to the control

he took

saying anything at having."'^

all

in

one of

I

"I

thought he

mistakes, but

room

his shoes off,

up on the control table there was a hole began talking right away about plans for next feet

install-

and Glenn was obviously

he was having problems.

remember him coming

struck

two

first

production assistant, told me:

dexterity in his fingers. I

between Clasart

"Question of Instrument," required an entire

first,

week (November 19-26, 1979) was

collaboration

last

effort

after

propped

his socks

one his

—and

day's recordings without

about today's session and the problems he was

The Last Years The program

begins with Glenn playing the opening fugue from Bach's

Art of the Fugue.

The tempo

slow and

is

no great technical demands, and others by Bach.

stately. It is a

performance

his

He had

Despite entire

its

fugue that makes

spotless, beautiful,

often included selections from

programs, and in 1962 he had recorded the

Church

is

Fugue was the work Glenn cherished above

very moving. Art of the

of All Saint's

311

I

first

it

all

in his concert

nine fugues on the organ

Kingsway, Ontario.

in

monumental

proportions, an aura of withdrawal pervades the

work [wrote Glenn]. Bach was,

in fact,

withdrawing from the prag-

matic concerns of music making into an idealized world of uncompro-

One

mised invention.

facet of this withdrawal

modal concept of modulation.

The harmonic

is

essays and often, in

the return to an almost

is

.

.

employed

style

pantly chromatic,

.

in

The Art of

the Fugiie,

though ram-

actually less contemporary than that of his early fugal its

nomadic meandering about the tonal map,

it

pro-

claims a spiritual descent from the ambivalent chromaticism of Cipriano

de Rore or

Don

Carlo Gesualdo.'^

Since Bach does not indicate a preferred instrument for the Art of the

and unfinished composition,

Fugue, his

last

for Glenn's

impassioned debate with Monsaingeon about whether Bach's

it

provides an ideal opening

music should be played on the piano, an instrument that did not the composer's time.

Glenn

asserts that

Bach was

exist in

less interested in the

He demonstrates this by placing own transcription for the keyboard of his Violin Concerto in E And he cites Bach's Italian Concerto as an example of a work in

texture than the structure of his music.

Bach's Major.

which the composer indicates dynamic contrasts that cannot be successfully carried out on the t}npe of keyboard instruments, harpsichords and clavichords, then available. Glenn's final

piano can get you a harpsichord ever can. trasts

lot "'"*

word on the subject

is

that "the

closer to Bach's conceptual notions than the In fact,

it

is

possible to achieve d^oiamic con-

on both harpsichords and clavichords, the

sensitivity to the actual increase

and decrease of

latter

showing

a greater

sonority.

Next, Glenn (obviously uncomfortable and sweating heavily through

—

makeup) proposes playing the Bach work he likes least in fact he it" the Chromatic Fantasia in D Minor. He says it reminds him of the sound track of a Hitchcock movie. As we know from his diar)'^, he had been working on this piece for several years. The performance is very unusual, with great liberties taken in tempo and phrasing. his

says he "hates

—

312

GLENN GOULD

/

in places, with jarring stops and starts, which I assume combined product of his dislike for the work plus the technical difficulties he was having at the keyboard. Peter Mak told me, "We ran overtime in filming the Chromatic Fantasia as well as the Partita no. 4 It

sounds choppy

are the

which came afterwards. He had problems with that too."'^ A vexing predicament for Glenn that year (1979) was his father's romance with Vera Dobson, a widow and longtime friend of the family. Glenn found it utterly unacceptable that his father, despite advanced age and an obvious need

19,

1980

companionship, should remarry and thus

for

besmirch the memory of

his beloved mother.

—which Glenn did not attend—

father and son. John Roberts

man

best

at

the ceremony.

permanent rift between remembers Glenn agonizing over many

had

drafts of the formal letter that

One

The wedding on January

to

led to a

be sent excusing himself from being

draft read:

Dear Father I've

had an opportunity

wedding and

to give quite

some thought

to the

matter of your

man. I'm

specifically to the invitation to serve as your best

sure that under the circumstances, you (and Mrs. Dobson) would prefer to arrange for a private service

—one

in

which any such conventional cere-

monial gesture would be inappropriate;

in

your kindness in extending the invitation,

Needless

on

to say,

my good Most

I

wish you

much

any case, while I

regret that

happiness, and

I

I

appreciate

I

must

decline.

would ask you

to pass

wishes to Mrs. Dobson.

sincerely,'^

In 1980, Columbia Records issued The Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album, consisting of works he had taped many years earlier that had never been released, and his newly recorded A Glenn Gould Fantas}'. Included among the older things were the Strauss Ophelia Lieder, opus 67, recorded with Elisabeth

Schwarzkopf

in

1966; three Scarlatti sona-

Emanuel Bach's "Wiirtemberg" Sonata no. and the Beethoven/Liszt Sixth Symphony transcription

tas;

Carl Philipp

ment)

—

all

recorded in 1968, plus a reissue of his

1

A

Minor;

(first

move-

in

own So You Want

to

Write a Fugue?, recorded in 1963.

A

Glenn Gould Fantasy added

to these

works was none other than the

Columbia had resisted them in 1966. Now, given

parody of Horowitz's return to the stage, which taping since Glenn had the green light at

last,

first

suggested

he proceeded

it

to

to

engage

in the fantasy

with an

incredible outpouring of creative madness. As usual, there were multiple

The Last Years figures speaking about Glenn's

would take the place of

live

313

I

prophecy

that, in the future, recordings

performances. But the voices are predomi-

nantly Glenn's impersonations of Karlheinz Klopweisser, Sir Nigel Twitt-

Thornwaite, and other

Hungarian

critic

tions of the 6/4

young

CBC

alter egos, joined this

named Marta

Chord

in

time by a

new

character, a

Hortavanyi, author of Fascistic Implica-

Richard Strauss. She was played bv the attractive

employee Margaret Pacsu, who had recentlv befriended

Glenn and agreed

to help

him produce

his Fantasy.

It

was recorded

in

three nights at the Inn on the Park, Glenn's studio.

Before the taping began his

hands

in

in

June, Miss Pacsu observed Glenn washing

water hot enough to leave them

preparing for a concert.

"I

suppose that

is

scarlet, as

She found the work exhausting: "The pace was

was

ver\'

though he were

mildly neurotic, reallv

"

he admitted.

horrendous, and he

hard to work with [from] the technical point of view, because

he knew eventhing, he could hear ever\thing that he wanted edit, ever)' single

twent}'-fi\e

and

experience."''

sentence. There thirty-five

and

\\

eren

t

forty-fi\'e.

.

.

.

ever\^

four or five versions, there were

But

it

was

a ver\' satisfactory

Highlight of the Fantas}' was Glenn's impersonation of

Horowitz's fictional "return" to the concert stage aboard an

Goitld recording Bach, with horn-rimmed glasses. Courtesy of Sony

oil rig in

Classical

the

"

314

He

Arctic Sea.

and

GLENN GOULD

/

begins his program with a bit of von Weber's Konzertstilck,

as an encore plays his sensational transcription of Ravel's

An announcer board and he

Glenn

is

is

La

Valse.

us that Glenn's piano chair has been washed over-

tells

performing on his knees. The "audience" disappears and

applauded by the clapping and barking of

a single seal.

A much

more serious effort, perhaps the most serious film that Glenn ever made, was An Art of the Fugue, the second installment of Bruno Monsaingeon's project Glenn Gould Plays Bach, produced November 20—25, 1980. As in his previous video about Bach and musical instruments, Glenn wears a blue

shirt

unbuttoned

at

He

the sleeves.

needs a

shave and uses heavy horn-rimmed glasses (prescribed as reading glasses

by Dr. D'Arcy MacDonald,

Glenn wearing

more comfortable vigor.

He

March

in

1976).

It

is

our

first

glimpse of

glasses in public. Generally speaking, the artist

seems

and speaks with greater animation and

in this film

begins by playing an early fugue of Bach and commenting that

not until the composer was in his forties did he reach his peak in being able to integrate contrapuntal material. There follows, with ing, a prolix discussion of the structure of

which Glenn

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book

II,

goes on to play in

its

To judge from

on the

no longer hampered by any

film,

he

is

the articulation

and

starts or

entirety.

much

sing-

Bach's Fugue no. 9 from The calls "a

this

masterpiece" and

and other performances

significant

hand problems:

smooth, the tone appealing; there are no sudden stops

is

weak

trills.

At one point, Monsaingeon challenges him but

is

disarmed by Glenn's

unexpected and teasing response:

Monsaingeon: You know, Glenn,

in all

our discussion you've not once men-

tioned the word "prelude.

Gould: The word "prelude," you

me

times would you like

Monsaingeon: Well, about just as Gould: Well,

I

say.

Well,

mention

it's

a splendid

The Well -Tempered

times as the word "fugue

you,

I

word.

How many

it?

you're talking about

if

many

tell

to

personally think that a

Clavier,

lot

of fugues in

The Well-

Tempered Clavier are better off without their preludes, and vice

Glenn defends view doesn't

fit

and Fugue No.

his

its

19,

how

"?

versa.

maverick position by playing a prelude that

'^

in his

fugue, and another that does, for instance, Prelude

from Book

2.

After a digression into his distaste for

certain Beethoven compositions (specifically the second

"Emperor" Concerto

—"such junk"

theme of the

says Glenn), he performs three fugues

— The Last Years

I

315

from the hrt of the Fugue, including the final one (Contrapunctus XV), which was left unfinished because Bach presumably collapsed while writing it and died shortly afterwards. Glenn's moving performance of this

fugue

is

a fitting closure to the film.

During the year 1980, Glenn made repeated demands on Dr. Percival, who in addition to his usual hearty reassurances responded by writing prescriptions to ease the anxious pianist: Fiorinal (a combination of the

barbiturate butalbitol, aspirin, and caffeine) for the treatment of tension

headaches; the antibiotic Septra for \arious infections, colds, and fevers;

and the

tranquilizers Librax

and \alium

for Glenn's chronic

and acute

anxiet}'.

Early in 1981, a new complication popped up. Glenn's McCarthy discovered him to have an elevated blood uric

can be

a sign of gout, resulting

joints that

orthopedist Dr. acid level. This

from deposits of uric acid

cr^'stals in

the

produce swelling and pain. Could that have been a cause of

McCarthy didn't when I interviewed him in 1994, nor does the term "gout" appear Glenn's own copious notes about his health. Nevertheless, on March 3, 1981, Dr. McCarthy prescribed twent>'

Glenn's complaints about his hands and fingers? Dale think so in

tablets of

may

Phenylbutazone (100 mgm), an anti-inflammatory drug that amount of pain, swelling, and

help gout patients by reducing the

redness in the joints. But this drug

is

tricky

because

it

can interfere with

the formation of blood cells in the bone marrow, resulting in anemia and

We don't know how long Glenn remained November he was put on a less hazardous anti-gout drug, Allopurinal (100 mgm). In December, he received an additional drug for hypertension. Hydrochlorothiazide (50 mgm), which the loss of white blood cells.

on Phenylbutazone, but in

stimulates the excretion of urine.

Glenn expressed considerable dissatisfaction with what his doctors were doing and raised many questions about changes in his medication, as

can be seen

in the notes

he made before one appointment with

Dr.

Logan.

SvTnptoms: Hand:

now becoming

than for uric acid) and,

if so,

serious. Is Allopurinal a counter (other

should

it

be increased proportionately

otherwise, should another counter be added? Or,

if

large .Aldomet dos-

age continues, should another Blood Pressure drug be found? Foot?

Hand

asleep

Tliroat

—Neck

316

[muscular pain]

Myalgia

GLENN GOULD

/

as

etc.

background greatly increased

spasms, stiffness in past week. Does it

jerks,

Could

regulate gland problem.

it

have any relation to Aldomet increase. Does

it

tie to

cough and throat

clearing induced by Aldomet? Labyrinthitis

Blood pressure energy. Does

Eye

—

sty-like sensation

lead a

it

life

of

its

own? Or does

it

intersect?

developed coincident with Aldomet increase N.S.

but annoying, and coupled with glare-like sensation

Antidote to 3 drops (Gantrisin

etc.)

Pressure Point describe; does

pose a serious problem, or

high blood pressure? (1) If

.

.

it

Uric Acid problem continues,

Aldomet per

situation

[day]

intolerable,

is

Aldactone

for Hydrochlorothiazide? (2) If 2

is it left

over of

.

Diazide an acceptable substitute

is

better

and

can control hypertension and not make hand

Otherwise what can be substituted

ok.

for

Aldomet?'*^

It's

to

truly

remarkable that under these circumstances, Glenn was able

proceed with his biggest project in 1981, the taping and re-recording

which had long been planned

of Bach's Goldberg Variations,

as the third

installment of Bruno IVlonsaingeon's Glenn Gould Plays Bach series.

Although Glenn

rarely re-recorded anything that

he had made

reconsidered in the case of the Goldbergs, which were their

earlier,

1955 version and were widely considered one of his greatest

umphs. He

felt

compelled

to

do

this for several reasons.

he

selling well in

still

tri-

The technology

of recording had improved enormously over the intervening years. "Some-

body had the nerve

to invent

something called Stereo," he

IVIonsaingeon in the film. "Then a few years later

someone

relates to

else

had the

audacity to invent a process called Dolby which invalidated the quality of

sound

in

which

Another reason

[the earlier Goldberg recording] for a

remake of the Goldbergs was

with certain interpretive details of the with the

critic

Tim

Page,

recording had been too

little bit like

on which they are of forty-eight

fast. "It

thirty very interesting

pieces going their

was

first

felt

""^

his dissatisfaction

recording. In an interview

Glenn joked about Variation

nocturne by Chopin or Bizet, and he first

was done.

1

5

resembling a

generally that the tempi in the

was very

nice, but

it

was perhaps

a

but somewhat independent-minded

own way and all making a comment on the ground bass all formed. What he was looking for at the mature age "

"a

way

of

making some

sort of

almost mathematical

"

The Last Years

317

I

correspondence between the theme and the subsequent variations so

would be some sort of temporal relationship."^' To take advantage of all the latest developments in technology, including the recent introduction of "digital" sound from Japan, it was decided that there

New York, where Glenn also wanted a new instrument to play on, perhaps a Bechstein. Bob Silverman had suggested he try out the Yamaha pianos available at Ostrowsky Piano Company just behind Carnegie Hall. A brand-new Yamaha concert grand stood in the window there, and in order to provide privacy for Glenn while playing on it, Mrs. Ostrowsky hung sheets across the window. He to

a

make

Sony

the

new

digitizer

recording at the Columbia studios in

was available on

a part-time basis.

didn't like that particular piano, but just before leaving spotted a dusty,

used Yamaha

in the

immediately bought his

back of the it

liked that

one so

much

that he

Columbia studio for recording. Bob Silverman told me that Glenn

Goldberg Variations

bought the new one

He

store.

and ordered

in the

shipped

it

window

to the

as well, pacing for both instruments

by check.'^

The recording was done midnight, in April and ously filmed by

May

in six different sessions,

from 4:00

p.m. until

1981, the entire production being simultane-

Monsaingeon and

Glenn was very fussy as usual variation, some of which he editing on his own equipment.

his crew.

and demanded numerous retakes of each insisted

on bringing back

to

Toronto for

But because of his unfamiliarity with

was

realized

ducer

Sam

— and what

digital editing, the final

a superb realization

it is

product

—by the Columbia

pro-

Andrew Kazdin, Glenn's producer for fifteen years, involved. The two men had had an unpleasant parting,

Carter.

was no longer

with Glenn in such turmoil about letting Kazdin go that John Roberts suggested. doesn't regrets,

"I

mean

think that

it's

one

maybe good

is

mentally

go and talk to a psychiatrist.

to

Kazdin was so deeply hurt

ill."^^

no emotion, no thank you's

"

—

—"No It

that he attributed the rupture of

More likely Kazway of ridding himself of people he felt were no longer of any use to him. Around this time Glenn even considered letting go of Columbia and any other recording company in their relationship to Glenn's "personal dislike" of him.^"*

din had fallen victim to Glenn's habitual

order to go into business for himself.

The new Goldberg greatly successful,

recording, and the tape

and the debate

still

made

performance, that of 1955 or the one of 1981.

because both recordings are superb.

If

of the recording, were

goes on as to which It's

is

the "better

a fruitless debate

you want youthful abandon, spon-

318

GLENN GOULD

/

—

Gould surrounded by pictures of 1955 Goldberg Variations Don Hunstein, CBS Masterworks. Courtesy of Sony Classical.

sessions. Photograph

by

taneity,

liness,

and

a

miraculous technique,

listen to the first. If

you prefer

state-

mathematical precision, the reflective wisdom of middle age, and

the clarity of digital sound, listen to the second. In the opening and closing "Aria" of the 198

twice as

much

as in the

1

recording,

played at a more leisurely tempo.

Only by watching

are often jittery

A

see, for

assume aged. The tape

tremor that visibly

—

I

is

a

The fluency and smoothness

been restored; the

finger action have obviously sluggish.

Glenn takes much more time, about

1955 version, and some of the variations are also

closely does

trills

effect.

reveals his puffiness, pallor, "

of his

and not

one notice that Glenn's hands

example, in Variation 17

medication side

look at the "out-takes,

are precise

—showing

And

a

mild

of course he has

and stooped posture.

those segments that were not included in

The Last Years

I

319

the final version, reveals the

enormous labor of

Glenn

perfectionist,

recording.

is

the

true

love that

went

into this

throwing out numerous

retakes to eliminate slight defects, imperceptible to the ordinan,' listener.

At one point he

is

heard to say "shit because of dissatisfaction with his

own performance. But

"

despite the ravages of disease, his placing radiates

the enthusiasm and joy of creativity.

26

FATAL STROKE

A

One

of Glenn's biggest projects in 1982, the last year of his

was making the musical sound track based on Timothy Findley's novel.

the music himself, as

we saw

earlier,

for a movie.

He had been

life,

The Wars,

invited to write

but decided instead to assemble a

hymns that he remembered from his childhood. When Findley met him early that year in a screening room to talk about the film, he was shocked by Glenn's collage of works by his favorite composers, as well as

physical appearance:

He's sick

—

he's really

so alarming.

And

someone who's been looked

like that

At the

last

—

ill.

He

looked

ill,

because the color of his skin was

his hair looked dead,

it

ill

in a very

looked

like

h

had that awful look of

really

major way, so that their hair

dead

dies.

And

it

hair.'

session of working on the sound track with other musicians,

the cellist Conrad Bloemendal also noticed Glenn's deterioration, com-

menting:

"It

was very scary how unwell and almost ghostlike he looked.

He was much more very well. He was a

stooped, and he was bit

wandering with

much

thinner.

his eyes,

He

couldn't see

and he was stumbling,

A Fatal Stroke

Gould

I

321

in his final struggle. Photograph by

Don

Hunstein.

Courtesy of Sony Classical.

twice, in the studio.

It

was

just like

he was going

to

fall.

I

was wondering

what was going on with him.' ~ But

in spite of his

obvious handicaps, Glenn persisted in yet another

energ\'-consuming project. to conducting,

He had

decided

an old ambition held

in

pain and other unpleasant sensations he

wielding the baton

to

devote himself seriously

abeyance by the crippling back used

to

when he was younger and more

the career of a pianist.

Now, with

experience after

intent on pursuing

his fiftieth birthday

approaching

in

September, Glenn occasionally talked as though he might be ready to give

up the piano

altogether. Yet

Masterworks and went

to

New

he undertook a new project with

CBS

York in February 1982 to record the

Brahms Ballades, opus 10, and again during June and July to record the Brahms Rhapsodies, opus 79. In preparing for his new career as conductor of a symphony orchestra, Glenn made lists of works that he wanted to perform, including all of

322

GLENN GOULD

/

Beethoven's Overtures as well as his Gwsse Fuge and Second and Eighth

symphonies. Other works on his agenda were by Mendelssohn, his Overtures

and Third and Fourth symphonies; Brahms, the Third Symphony,

Alto Rhapsody, Violin Concerto, and "Tragic Overture;" and Richard Strauss, the Metavtorphosen. Getting to sitions

know

was no problem because Glenn could

the scores of these compoeasily

memorize them. But

he lacked the experience of leading an orchestra and would drive secretly to the city of

Hamilton, forty miles from Toronto, where he hired

mem-

bers of the Hamilton Philharmonic to practice with. Although he was

shy and tense at

first,

the experience he had gained over the years in

conducting his own playing as well as that of small ensembles soon transferred itself into the broader gestures

and most of the players seemed

The only

needed

to enjoy

an orchestra,

for leading

working with him.

thing they ever put on tape, in April 1982, was two move-

ments of Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 2

in B-flat Major,

opus

19.

Glenn had already recorded this concerto as a soloist, once with Leonard Bernstein in 1957 and again during live performances in Moscow and Stockholm, in 1957 and 1958. But all of these were monaural recordings, and since his other four Beethoven concerto recordings were available in stereophonic sound, he had long hoped to re-record the Second Concerto in stereo as well. In 1978, when Herbert von Karajan was in New York, Glenn had proposed recording the solo part in Toronto and then sending the tapes to Karajan, voices. But Karajan, as

a

scheme. Early

Marriner,

we

in 1982,

who was

who was supposed

to

add the orchestral

have seen, refused to collaborate on such

Glenn phoned the

British

conductor Neville

guest conducting in the States, to see whether he

might be willing to make such recordings with him, but their discussion also

came

to nothing. Finally

he

hit

on the idea of being both

conductor, but not in the traditional the keyboard.

What he wanted was

another pianist,

later to

To

to

and

conduct from the podium while

would then be added

find the necessary collaborator,

soloist

of leading the orchestra from

be dubbed out, played the

interpretation of the piano part

York,

way

Glenn

solo.

Glenn's

own

to the tape.

called Martin

Canin

in

New

and he recommended the young pianist John Klibonoff. Klibonoff

agreed, at a price, to

come

to

Hamilton and be Glenn's phantom

soloist,

but he was not overly impressed with Glenn's ability to lead the orchestra

and found

it

difficult to play the

second movement

at the excessively

slow tempo that Glenn required. Nonetheless, they taped the

movements In July

first

two

of the concerto before this project was dropped.

1982, Glenn recorded Wagner's Siegfried Idyll with fifteen

— A Fatal Stroke

323

I

handpicked symphony and freelance musicians from Toronto.^ The

was Timothy Maloney, now director of the Music Division National Library of Canada, who writes:

netist

We knew we was

were taking part

something

in

dedication to the task at hand,

it

we

got tired

and found

it

he helped lighten things up a

...

name for The Academy

a

little

the ensemble and

best

of St.

.

.

satisfying.

late into the

more

.

.

.

Gould

evening both

difficult to

concentrate

with his wonderfully dry wit.

lot

joked about a .

and commitment and

was musically very

was very open and warm with us and we went nights; as

and because there

special,

a high level of musicianship, of concentration

Lawrence

clari-

at the

We

Gould came up with two of the

in the

Market

.

.

.

The Ashes

of

Toronto."*

Glenn worked them

relentlessly to

produce an elegant, slow-paced

performance that emphasized the contrapuntal structure of Wagner's composition, a one-movement serenade incorporating various themes

from the opera

Siegfried, written in

Glenn had chosen

group of instruments,

a small

with a

A

tell

how he would have managed

The musicians had

in his career as

would have been major be held

in

Thus we

know how

when far

he

an orchestral conductor. Surely there

obstacles. For

one thing,

means

we would have

of the electronic

media

—

all

of his rehearsals had

gotten to

Symphony conductors have

to

know

radio, recordings,

Another negative factor would have been

stress,

never

will

extreme privacy, behind locked doors. Glenn's intolerance

audiences meant that

criticism.

Mendelssohn's

already been selected and hired

his fatal stroke.

might have gone

only by

for

Cave" Overture, which would have required a much bigger

Glenn suffered

sion.

we cannot

Cosima. Because

version, employing only

second recording session had been planned,

orchestra.

for

his wife

full-size orchestra.

"Fingal's

to

honor of

chamber music

to record the

his

his

conducting

perhaps

extreme

televi-

sensitivity to

put up with a great deal of social

grumbling from the players, dissension from boards of directors,

hassles about programming, and of course the inevitable griping from the press.

To be a successful conductor requires diplomacy, a willingness to and robust health. I doubt that Glenn Gould with his

face the public

—

many

psychological and physical handicaps would have gotten nearly as

far as

some

of the other outstanding pianists of our time

—Andre

Previn,

Daniel Barenboim, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Christoph Eschenbach

who have become

successful conductors.

324

The month

last

GLENN GOULD

/

Minor, opus

5,

was

it

in

lists

of

Sonata

(the in

B

by Richard Strauss.

marked

no mood

was

September 1982

as a soloist playing the early Piano

September 25 was Glenn's because

New York in

recording Gould made, in

of his stroke),

birthday,

fiftieth

a half century of

life

He knew he was

for celebrating.

event

significant

a

and accomplishments. But he

symptoms and complaints had grown

in

poor health. His

new and He visited

longer, with a

embarrassing one, "urination while asleep," recently added.

and they kept him well supplied with anti-hyper-

his doctors frequently,

and anti-anxiety medication. In addiGlenn would send Ray Roberts out to buy non-prescription drugs: Milk of Magnesia tablets for constipation, Cepacol throat lozenges for

tensive, anti-headache, anti-gout, tion,

C

soreness and coughing, vitamin

tablets,

hydrogen peroxide, and an

aspirin-caffeine-codeine preparation called "Frosst 222."^ Both Glenn's

and

father for

his friends at the

him, but Glenn

made

it

CBC

had wanted

to arrange birthday parties

he preferred

clear that

stepmother baked cookies and bought a sweater

for

to

be alone. His new

him, and despite his

insistence that he had a cold and wasn't feeling well, she and his father

drove over to the Inn on the Park to

visit

him. Glenn was well enough to

go outside to the car with them.

That afternoon, a Saturday, he observed

his birthday in his

knew would be

way, by phoning a few friends he

laudatory article about to appear in the

New

newly released Goldberg Variations recording. read the entire article to him. recalls Tulk,

something

"and he also told me,

for you.

But you have

now,' the reason being that he

week

to

Silverman to

tell

him

back the next day peppy,

"

had a

pick up the 'surprise.'

"^

says Silverman,

"more

called

him

Lome

Tulk and

great pleasure,"

have a surprise for you.

come up and

cold.

Glenn

He

said

I

get

it,

should

I

have

but not right

come by

next

also got in touch with Robert

New

York Times piece, and called him "He sounded extremely cheerful and

to read the

to discuss

'I

to

private

York Times, reviewing his

He

obviously gave

"It

own

able to appreciate a

it.

'up'

than any time that

I

can remember."^

Others remember a more pessimistic tone. Glenn told some of friends that he did not expect to live

much

longer after turning

his

fifty.

him as unusually "serious" that entire week before "He seemed to think that everything was slipping away from

Jessie Greig recalls his birthday. his control."

told her

He appeared

"obsessed" with ideas about his funeral and

he was afraid that nobody would attend

about anything

like that before.

berry Finn and

come

to his

own

He

said

it.

he wanted

funeral."^

"We'd never talked to

be

like

Huckle-

John Roberts, then working

— "

A Fatal Stroke

325

I

Ottawa, remembers Glenn saying that his

in

work was finished These depressed remarks the optimism Glenn had expressed shortly

enough of Glenn Gould.

"the world has had

stand in stark contrast to

life's

"^

Bruno Monsaingeon and John

before his death while talking with

McGreevy about new films he planned to make with them. Glenn had made a will two years before providing a life $50,000

in a trust

fund

and bequeathing

for his father,

interest of

his entire estate

(approximately $750,000 at the time of his death) to the Salvation

Humane

and the Toronto welfare.

farm

One

was

of his lifelong interests

for old cows, horses, dogs,

gone with

an organization dedicated

Society,

his father or with

to

have a

Army

animal

to

sort of retirement

and other animals. Several times he had

John Roberts

buy on

to look for land to

Manitoulin Island, the largest freshwater island in the world, about three

hundred miles north of Toronto. Ray Roberts live

—

there himself

wife to

move

all lost, stray,

a kind of "ideal existence,

there too.

and he wanted

make

to

come

it

the afternoon of Monday,

true.

"Now why would you

September 27, two days after Glenn's call from Ray Roberts, who

say that?

"

to explain that after

noticed a loss of sensation in his

sound

"Well, that doesn't

Ray Roberts,

.

said, 'Well, really,

down

very

much,

I

don't

come out here and

him

I

can't

come out

to the hospital, to the

to see if

it's

know what

something

An hour

between

five

two

or

and

later,

six in

I

said

ambulance

'Now

look, for

right

away and

It

of him,

was

Why not

in the

take

serious.' 'Oh,' replied Ray, 'he doesn't

come

him

"

to

come

his

speech

is

is

him

to the hospital.'

""

"

from Ray, something

not very

goodness sakes, you be sensible, you get

to

over until later call

'You know, there

bad headache and

want

out and look after him.'

he received another phone

the afternoon:

seriously wrong, he's got a

and

"

office full of patients, so

moment.

he would not be able

Dr. Percival reiterated that

later to say,

make

to

look after him.'

at this

remembers

Dr. Percival

"

emergency room, and have them examine

go to the hospital, he just wants you to

on.

from Glenn. Ray

calls

left leg.

like

middle of the afternoon and Dr. Percival had an

he

stroke.

for nearly a

awakening that afternoon, Glenn had

not feeling too good, and

is

but he wants you to

had a

who

he phoned back about an hour

". .

he's

asked the doctor,

decade had gotten hundreds of alarming phone

Glenn

my

where

"'°

Glenn Gould. He thinks

told him, "I'm speaking for

telling

and

John Percival received a

fiftieth birthday, Dr.

went on

me

his vision of a place

and sick animals would be welcome. But he never thought

he had enough money

On

The 'Puppy Farm' was

recalls Glenn's yearning to

clear,'

call

the

326

Ray to

says that while

minimize

essary.

germs.

its

GLENN GOULD

/

Glenn was

consequences by

certain he had

had

he wanted

a stroke,

was unnec-

insisting that hospitalization

may have been his lifelong dread of hospitals as a repository of He was also afraid of the publicity that might ensue. He wanted

It

the doctor just to come over to his studio at the Inn on the Park and treat him there. Ray made other phone calls but soon became convinced there was no alternative to hospitalization. "Then came the question of how to get him there. The last thing in the world Glenn wanted was an ambulance. So we had to get him down to his Lincoln in a [wheeljchair. I put him in the car and drove him to the Toronto General Hospital."'^ Examined at 8:44 p.m. in the emergency room, Glenn was found to

have muscular weakness over the left side of his body, including his face, and some inequality of the deep tendon reflexes. There was no diminution in his responsiveness to sensory stimulation, touch, pain, or change

He was

in position.

drowsy, but had no difficulty speaking. His blood

pressure was 124/90 and the pulse rate 104 per minute.

A

preliminary

diagnosis of cerebro-vascular-accident (stroke) with left-sided paralysis

was made.

It

was suspected

that the cause

might be a blood

of the arteries supplying the right side of his brain, to the

that

neurology department for further observation. There

one

it

was noted

had been seen at the Toronto General Hospital once before,

Glenn

in 1976,

clot in

and he was admitted

complaining of lightheadedness, and found to have an elevated

blood pressure, which since then had been managed by Dr. Logan. The neurology staff concurred with the diagnosis of a right frontal brain infarction

due

to a

blood clot causing paralysis of the

left side

of the

was no evidence of a hemorrhage, but a CAT scan of the brain was recommended. It showed enlarged ventricles but no signs of body. There

acute bleeding.

The

next day, Tuesday, September 28, Glenn was slightly worse.

complained of a frontal headache and kept holding the head with his hand. The left side of his body continued

and there was some vision.

He

right side of his to

be paralyzed,

on that side as well as a defect in and had a brief visit with Jessie and a

loss of sensation

But he remained

alert,

longer one with his father,

who found him

occasionally making conductorlike

asleep most of the time but

movements with

his right arm. Later

Glenn was more alert and asked Ray Roberts about the latest stock market results and some income tax matters he wanted cleared up. A television set was brought into Glenn's room, and he talked about wanting to tape a man on one of the channels. There were other signs of incoherence and disorientation. He told a nurse he was in a that evening

A Fatal Stroke

I

111

recording studio. At 10:00 p.m. he asked Ray to

call Jessie,

and they

played Twenty Questions over the phone. Glenn's speech remained

artic-

ulate but confused.

The

much

following morning, Wednesday, September 29, he was clearly

worse, more lethargic, more incoherent, barely able to

move

or

answer questions, having trouble swallowing, and complaining of fierce headache. The doctors suspected that swelling was developing in the right side of his brain

ordered.

It

showed

markedly from

and exerting pressure. Another

right to left,

right-sided swelling.

vessels supplying the brain.

its

day

who

scan was

had shifted

confirming the clinical impression of massive

A blood-flow

study revealed that there was no blood

passing through the right internal carotid

ogN' that

CAT

that the midline structures of the brain

arter};

Glenn was seen by

one of the major blood

a consultant in hematol-

prescribed Persantine (dipyridamole), a drug that inhib-

the adhesion of blood platelets, thus reducing the chance of further

blood clot formation. Chest X-rays showed that fluid was collecting the chest cavity. started

To

try to lessen the swelling of his brain,

on Dexamethasone, injected by

vein; this

is

in

Glenn was

a synthetic adreno-

hormone which has potent anti-inflammatory effects. He also received injections of Mannitol, another way to decrease intracranial cortical

pressure, but the effects of these treatments were minimal. That evening

he was diagnosed

to

be comatose and was moved

to the intensive care

unit.

On

Thursday, September 30, a breathing tube was inserted to admin-

oxygen and help with respiration. Nursing care was stepped up to

ister

manage the

patient's basic needs.

and complications were beginning

He was

by now

totally

to set in, a rise of

unconscious,

temperature and

a

lessening of urinary output, which were treated by administering liquids

by vein, and starting him on Lasix (furosemide), a powerful diuretic.

An

electroencephalogram to measure brain waves showed that there was

some

it was markedly diminished. Other damage to the medulla oblongata (the brain's central controlling mechanism of bodily functions). His father was told that there were signs of incipient brain death and that the prognosis was very grave. This shattering news he shared with the others holding vigil, including John Roberts, who had come to Toronto from Ottawa and was standing

still

brain activity present, but

tests revealed

by.

A were

chest X-ray done the following day, Friday, showed that both lungs infiltrated

with fluid at the base. Another electroencephalogram

revealed massive loss of brain function on the right side and also

some

328

/

GLENN GOULD

disturbance of function on the

the clinical signs indicated a

left side. All

worsening of Glenn's dire neurological condition; he could no longer breathe spontaneously

no improvement

had

were

On

virtually nil.

irreversible

and that

Sunday, October

220/125 and he developed

risen to

the respirator. There was

on Saturday. One of the doctors concluded that

damage was by now

the brain vival

when disconnected from

at all

his

chances

for sur-

Glenn's blood pressure

3,

a nosebleed,

both probably

in

enormous amount of pressure building up inside his head. There was no longer any hope of recovery, and it was suggested that lifesupport systems be withdrawn because the patient was in essence "brainreaction to the

dead." His father agreed, but did not wish this to take place on October 3,

was

as that

after

his wife Vera's birthday.

Glenn had entered the

heart stopped beating at

An

1

hospital,

filling

he was taken off

life

4, a

week

support. His

1:00 a.m. and he was pronounced dead.

autopsy was done two hours

blood clot

So on Monday, October

later.

revealed that there was a

It

the right cavernous sinus, a large vein that runs within

the bones of the face above the nose and drains blood from the brain.

Lying within this venous sinus the brain.

The

about ten days birthday,

old,

is

the carotid artery, supplying blood to

cavernous sinus was estimated to have been

clot in the

which would have coincided with the time of Glenn's feeling sick and thought he had a cold. Although

when he was

no fungi or bacteria could be demonstrated inside the cavernous sinus (Glenn had been given antibiotics while that an infectious process

that

the most

is

clotted blood

The right

in the hospital),

most probably had led

common

was observed

in the left

cavernous sinus also contained

was not

impairment

clot,

since

Some

cavernous sinus as well.

a

blood

as old or well organized as the

What

could have caused

it?

insufficient to

one

The

in the

surrounding cavernous

A minor degree artery,

of arteriosclerosis

but the pathologist

clot in the carotid artery

and

clot in his carotid artery

account for the kind of blood

concluded that the

which was the immedi-

clot,

to the right side of Glenn's brain

discovered in the walls of the carotid

He

was suspected

cause of cavernous sinus thrombosis.

the resulting paralysis, coma, and death.

was

it

blood

pathologist found that the internal carotid artery lying within the

ate cause of circulatory

sinus.

to the

clot that

most

was

felt this

had developed.

likely

was an exten-

sion of the older cavernous sinus thrombosis.

The postmortem examination

also confirmed the clinical findings of

massive brain damage. The right side of the brain was swollen and larger than the

left,

there were areas of bleeding and destruction of brain tissue,

and some of the

vital

brain structures had herniated

downward

into the

A Fatal Stroke

329

I

spinal cord canal through the connective tissues that support

and confine

showed some enlargement of the left side of the heart consistent with chronic hypertension, and a mildly fatty liver (due, I would assume, to dietar)' insufficiency). But no physical abnor-

The autopsy

the brain.

were found

malities

also

in the kidneys, prostate, bones, joints,

muscles, or

other parts of the body that Glenn so often had complained about.

News Glenn

of the catastrophe had been suppressed until two days before

and the

died,

first

announcement

that he

had been admitted

to

the Toronto General Hospital because of a "severe stroke" included a falsely optimistic note to the effect that if

it

was

there would be any "residual problems."'

hopeful telephone

^^

still

too early to determine

This precipitated a flood of

and telegrams, including ours from San

calls, letters,

Francisco:

10/02/82-14:27

DEAR GLENN. TERRIBLY SORRY TO HE.AR .ABOUT YOUR ILLNESS. WE THINK OF YOU AND SEND YOU OUR WARMEST WISHES FOR A PROMPT AND COMPLETE

AND ALL OTHER VARIATIONS ON THAT THEME. YOUR GOLDBERGS

RECOVERY,

ARE SUPERB. ALL OUR LOVE. LISE

AND PETER OSTWALD

Three days tragic story:

to his father,

your loss a

few

—

I

later,

on Tuesday, October

"Glenn Gould, Pianist

is

I

my letter of condolence

shared by millions

who admire and

love Glenn's work,

consider myself to be one of those so fortunate his friendship.

greatest musicians of as exciting as Liszt's.

all .

.

.

.

.

.

time, a

mind

be immortal.'"'

will

mother, in the

keen as Mozart's and

home where many body was

we

lives

is

a

pianism

of Glenn's friends

laid to rest ne.xt to his

Pleasant Cemetery. His grave

two-tone granite stone on which this outline

as

their respects, his

Mount

and by

—whose

You have given the world one of the

He

After a short stay in a funeral

and co-workers paid

first

1982, the world got the whole

wrote that

were graced by

Within

5,

Is Dead."'"' In

is

marked by

a small

engraved the outline of a piano.

see his name, years of birth and death, and the

three measures of the "/^xia" from Bach's Goldberg Variations.

designed, with the help of an

A formal

memorial

ser\'ice

artist,

by

his lawyer

was organized

for

It

was

Stephen Posen.

October

1

5, at

the beau-

330

GLENN GOULD

/

T%

"Here after

I

stood, in

our

"With

initial

January 199S, where

this final picture

oring the

life

my friend

is

buried, nearly four decades

meeting" (Peter Ostu'ald). Photograph by

of a commemorative plaque,

and achievements of Glenn Gould"

I

Peter Ostwald.

end

my

pilgrimage hon-

(Peter Ostwald). Photograph by

Peter Ostwald.

t^'

>

GLENN GOULD

2S SEPTEMBER 1932 - 4 OCTOBER 1982 CELEBRATED PIANIST GLENN GOULD WAS BORN IN TORONTO AND LIVED HERE AT 32 SOUTHWOOD DRIVE THROUGHOUT HIS CHILDHOOD. HIS VISIONARY APPROACH TO MUSICAL INTERPRETATION BROUGHT HIM INTERNATIONAL STATURE. A CHILD PRODIGY. HE GAVE HIS FIRST PUBLIC CONCERT ON THE ORGAN AT EATON AUDITORIUM 12 DECEMBER 1945. HE MADE HIS DEBUT AS A SOLOIST WITH THE TORONTO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AT ACE 14. WORLDWIDE RECOGNITION FOLLOWED HIS BRILLIANT RENDITION OF J.S. BACKS GOLDBERG VARIATIONS, RECORDED IN JUNE 1955. FROM THAT YEAR THROUGH 1964, HE TOURED EXTENSIVELY IN MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD INCLUDING NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, THE SOVIET UNION AND ISRAEL. DISSATISFIED WITH THE CONCERT MEDIUM, HE ABANDONED LIVE PERFORMANCES IN 1964. HE CONTINUED TO RECORD A WIDE RANGE OF MUSIC. TO WRITE ARTICLES FOR PERIODICALS AND TO UNDERTAKE INNOVATIVE RADIO AND TELEVISION PROJECTS. HE DIED IN 1982 AND IS BURIED fN MOUNT PLEASANT CEMETERY.

^lONTO

^x.-m *^ M.

\-

HISTORICAL BOARD,

W"

*r^Kj4

A Fatal Stroke

tiful

Gothic

St. Paul's

Anglican Church

I

331

in Toronto.

It

overflowed with

Glenn's friends, family, co-workers, and admirers. John Roberts gave a

superb eulog); describing Glenn as "having carried the burden of genius

different ... a truly

he was a man modern man and

concerned with the

human

all

his

life.

He

realized

and most moral person

The high

I

about him was

apart. Everything a

remarkable innovator.

condition, and, in his

have ever encountered.

own

.

.

.

very

way, the purest

"'^

point of the musical program, which included works by

Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, was Maureen Forrester's magnificent rendition of the aria

"Erbarme Dich" from Bach's

the most unforgettable

moment came

Glenn's recently recorded "Aria

"

at the

^i.

Matheiv Passion. But

end of the

creetly played through loudspeakers installed in the

Tovell

and

have the

his

last

CBC

service,

when

from the Goldberg Variations was

technicians. This not only gave

dis-

church by Vincent

Glenn

a

chance

to

humming with the Aria, but also own funeral. Thus, as Bach's ethereal

word, as he was heard

fulfilled his fantasy of

attending his

music ended, the frightening specter of death and the dissolution vanished from Glenn's consciousness.

terror of inevitable

EPILOGUE AND

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A the

few words may be

which

believe

is

in order

the

first

about the evolution of

this

book,

to explore in detail the psychological

and psychiatric dimensions of Glenn Gould's

wake

much

I

of considerable interest in a musical genius

public attention during his lifetime and has

comes

in

who captured

so

life.

It

become almost

a

mythical figure since his death.

Within

a year of that death,

John McGreevy produced a magnificent

commemorative volume, Glenn Gould: By Himself and His Friends, pointing out that "Glenn was by nature an ecstatic. His search for ecstasy took on the dimensions of

The book has

a

moral cause, revealing something of the

a foreword by Herbert

infinite."'

von Karajan stating that "For the

next generation [Gould] will be regarded as an outstanding musician

who

combined the musical impact of his playing technique with impeccable taste. He created a style which led to the future."" Other dimensions of his creativity are commented on by Richard Kostelanetz, Yehudi Menubin,

Robert Fulford, and a roster of friends and colleagues, as well as by

Glenn

himself.

tory, as befits a

More

The book memorial

critical is the

is

a rich collection of essays, primarily lauda-

tribute.

biography by Otto Friedrich,

who was

contacted

Epilogue and Acknowledgments

I

1984 by Stephen Posen, the executor of Glenn's

in

personally, myself included. His book,

and Variations, was published in 1989.

and given

estate,

many people who had

access to his private papers. Friedrich interviewed

known Glenn

333

Glenn Gould:

only about about Glenns accomplishments but also about his eccentricities.^

I

A

Life

gave copious information not

It

wasn't entirely satisfied with the

way

dled the medical aspects of Glenns problems, so

many

Friedrich had han-

wrote a review of the

I

book for the professional journal Medical Prohlems of Performing Artists, pointing out that "Gould will always remain an important symbol for the treacherous health problems that can beset persons of specialness and

charisma, and the challenge of treating them.

""*

That re\dew was spotted by Cornelius Hofmann, editor of the Bulletin of the International Glenn Goidd Society in Groningen, Holland,

asked whether he could publish

it.^

I

who

agreed and was subsequently

Glenn Gould Festival 1992 in Holland (the tenth anniversary of his death), a commemorative festival was also held in Toronto for which I had been interviewed by Ken Winters for a CBC broadcast. At the Holland meeting I presented a lecture on 'The Tragedy of Premature Death Among Geniuses, What Does It Mean? Can It Be invited to attend the

Prevented?

were

"

at that

violinist

Many

and Gould scholars from around the world

pianists

meeting, and

I

had

a

chance

to

meet,

and filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon from

musicologist Kevin Bazzana, Junichi Miyazawa,

who was working on

who wanted

my

to reprint

whom

among

others, the

Paris; the

Canadian

a Ph.D. about Gould;

"Personal Reminiscences"

had participated once before

in

Japan ;^ Robert Silverman, with

in

an international conference; and John Roberts, founding president of

I

Glenn Gould Foundation in Toronto. was Roberts who urged me most strongly to expand my "Reminiscences into a book that might deal with some of the more personal issues of Glenn's life which had not found a place in the Glenn Gould literature. Having recently completed a book about the mentally ill dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, I welcomed the idea but was hesitant to pursue it because I had been encouraging a Canadian colleague, Helen Mesthe

It

"

aros, in publishing a psychoanalytic study of

Glenn Gould. After lengthy

discussions with Helen and our mutual friend that to

to

my approach would

Bob Silverman,

I

realized

be substantially different from hers and decided

go ahead with the work. To acknowledge the many people who have aided my research, I want begin with my wife, Lise Deschamps Ostwald, who knew Glenn and

has been incredibly supportive, especialh during the

last

year

when

I

334

became

so

/

EPILOGUE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ill

that

really

I

would not have been able

to

proceed without

her assistance. Lise reviewed each chapter before and during the revision

assumed major and Symposium presented by San Francisco Performances and the Health Program for Performing Artists, held at the Dolby Facilities in San Francisco on and made many valuable suggestions. She Glenn Gould Film

stage

responsibility for organizing the

November

18,

also

Festival

1995, an event that brought together

My

members

of the

friend

and colleague

Frank A. Johnson helped greatly with the symposium

in addition to

medical profession and

artistic

reviewing and commenting on It

community.

my

would have been impossible

writing.

to write this

book without the coopera-

tion of Glenn's father, the late Russell Herbert Gould. Furthermore,

I

could not have proceeded without approval and encouragement from

Stephen Posen, attorney of the Gould Estate, who

many

doors for me, facilitating

sary research.

support.

who me.

I

my work and

allowing

diligently

me

to

my gratitude to John Roberts for his constant must acknowledge and thank the many other people share their thoughts and memories of Glenn with

also extend

And now

I

also agreed to

Morris Charendoff, A. A. Epstein, Grant Gould,

First the doctors:

(Glenn's uncle), Stanley Greben, (and his wife Marylin), Morris

Oscar Kaufman, Philip Parkin, John and Herbert

opened

do the neces-

Percival,

Herman,

D'Arcy MacDonald, Dale McCarthy Alan

Klotz,

Joseph Stephens, Marvin Stock, A. H. Thompson,

Vear.

Next, the musicians: pianist William Aide,

cellist

Conrad Bloemendal,

pianist Carlo Bussotti, pianist Martin Canin, soprano Ellen Faull, pianist

Leon

Fleisher, violinist

Mark

Gottlieb, pianist William Corbett Jones,

harpsichordist Greta Kraus, pianist

Anton

Kuerti, violinist Robert

Mann,

Yehudi Menuhin, composer Oskar Morawetz, conductor Roger Norrington, pianist Michael Oelbaum, musicologist Harvey Olnick,

violinist

and

pianist James Tocco. Glenn in his work: his manager Walter Homburger; the filmmaker John McGreevy; his CBC producers Franz Kraemer and Vincent Tovell; his friend and electronic

pianist

Andras

Next, those

wizard

Schiff, cellist

who were

Lome Tulk;

Helen

Stross,

closely associated with

the production assistant Peter

Mak; and the publisher

Robert Silverman. His childhood friend, Robert Fulford. Patrick van, his accountant. Last but not his

patience and generosity

assisting

me

me

least,

in giving

I

want

me

in all sorts of practical ways,

to

J.

Sulli-

thank Ray Roberts

his views

for

about Glenn and

and Jessie Greig

for allowing

to speak with her over the telephone about her cousin. To Timothy

Maloney and

his fine staff at the National Library of

Canada

in

Ottawa,

Epilogue and Acknowledgments

I

am

/

335

deeply grateful for access to the Glenn Gould Archives and help

with the copying and transfer of documents, and especially to Cheryl Gillard for her graciousness in responding to so also

I

want

to express

me

generously gave

my

my

many

queries.

appreciation to academic colleagues

who

support and advice during the writing of this book:

wise counselor and friend Leon Epstein; Craig Van Dyke, chairman

of the

Department of Psychiatry

the University' of California;

at

my

Samuel Spivack; to Frank Wilson and Bernard Gordon for their unfailing optimism and support; and a group of fellow doctors, writers (especially John MacGregor), and teachers called the Psychobiography Study Group, which meets once a month to review and discuss the work we are all doing. To the wonderful "F-holes," nickname for my chamber music partners and friends, for years of beautiful music, Paul Hersh, Ted Rex, Stephen Levintow, Bob Bloch, Bob Kadarauch and Jonathan Khuner. I am grateful also to my grammar school oncologist for twelve years,

friend. Jack Taylor,

who

provided years of

literar\-

thanks also to Rosalie Siegel for agreeing to be agent,

and

enlightenment.

my

Many

marvelously helpful

Edwin Barber, \ice chairman of W. W. Norton & Company, work in editing the manuscript. cannot close this book without pa\ang tribute to Glenn Gould, to

for his superlative I

who

really

got

all this

started by sharing so

much

with

me

—

his playing, his

conversations, his telephone calls, his humor, his charm, his originality,

and

his problems. Glenn's absolutely

table influence

on the world, and

I

unique genius has had an unforget-

look forward to other books that will

provide insight into the ecstasy and tragedy of his career.

San Francisco, March

12,

1996

—

NOTES TO SOURCES

Introduction

1.

Geoffrey Payzant, Glenn Gould,: Music and Mind. Toronto; Van Nostrand Rein-

hold, 1978, p. 2.

xi.

Peter Ostwald,

Schumann:

Tlie Inner Voices of a

Musical Genius. Boston: North-

eastern University Press, 1985. 3.

R.T

Sataloff,

A.G. Brandfonbrener, and R.N. Lederman,

forming Arts Medicine. 4.

The

specialists

New York;

Raven

Press,

New York,

eds.. Textbook of Per-

1991.

UCSF

Health Program for Performing Artists consists of the following medical and consultants: Nicholas M. Barbaro, M.D., Neurosurgery; Barry C. Baron,

M.D., Otolaryngology; Alexandra Botwin, Ph.D., Clinical Psycholog\'; Nancy N.

MPH,

Ph.D., Physical Medicine; Ephraim

Fishman, M.D., Psychiatry; Peter choanalysis; Bernard gery;

1.

F.

Byl,

Engleman, M.D., Rheumatology; Paul

M.D., Psychiatry; Gary

S.

Gelber, M.D., Psy-

Gordon, M.D., Dermatology; Leonard Gordon, M.D., Hand Sur-

Edward Green, D.D.S.,

Daniel

Forster,

P.

Dentistry; Madeleine

F.

Grumbach, M.D.,

Psychiatry;

Hartman, M.D., Otolaryngology; Dorothy Hejna, L.C.S.W., Psychiatric Social

Work; Frank A. Johnson, M.D., Psychiatry; Richard Lieberman, M.D., Psychiatry; Robert M.D., Surgery; Leonore Mesches, M.A., Psychotherapy; Peter F. Ostwald, M.D., Psychiatry; Herbert W. Peterson, M.D., Psychiatry; Susan Raeburn, Ph.D., Chnical Psychology; Raphael B. Reider, M.D., Internal Medicine; Michael F. Saviano, M.D., E. Markison,

Otolaryngology;

Max

Scheck, M.D., Orthopedics; Frank R. Wilson, M.D., Neurology

338

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

Research/Education Director; Susan Zegans, M.S.W., Psychotherapy; and Nina Beckwith, Administrator.

Chapter

The Concert

1,

For a scholarly discussion of this neglected topic of visual aspects in musical com-

1.

munication, see Richard Leppert, The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the Histor)' of the Body. Berkeley,

CA: University of California

Chapter I.Glenn Gould,

letter to

Little

Night Music

Thomas Mcintosh,

Selected Letters, edited by John

University Press; 1992,

A

2,

P.

L.

Januar) 21, 1957, in Glenn Goidd.

Roberts and Ghyslaine Guertin. Toronto: Oxford

p. 5.

Chapter

3,

Infancy

1.

Glenn Gold,

2.

Stephen Posen, e.xecutor of the Glenn Gould

June

17,

Press, 1993.

birth certificate. Office of the Registrar General, Ontario,

1994, and communication with Lise

Deschamps Ostwald,

3.

Interview with Grant Gould, M.D., October 16, 1994.

4.

Obituary of

5.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

6.

Letter from H. A.

Thomas G. Gould, Uxhridge Macdonald Greig,

Canada.

estate, interview with the author,

July 1996.

Tirnes-Jonmal, September 17, 1953.

April 29, 1972, in "Keepers" box,

Glenn Gould

Collection, National Library' of Canada. See also "Grieg and his Scottish Ancestry," published by Hinrichsen Edition, London. J.

Russel Greig,

who claimed

a family

Glenn Gould's copy of

this

document, written by

connection to Edvard Grieg, was given to him by

his cousin Jessie Greig.

Notes

7.

in

for

an obituary of Florence Greig Gould, written

in

1975 by Glenn Gould,

"Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Collection, National Library of Canada. 8.

Interview with Mr. and Mrs. (Vera) Gould, June 17, 1994.

9.

See Donald

J.

Shetler,

MMB

MO:

in

Music

St.

Louis,

"The Inquiry into Prenatal Musical Experience,"

and Child Development, edited by Frank

R.

Wilson and Franz

J.

Roehmann.

Music, 1990, pp. 44-62. Another scientist exploring the origins of musical

development

is

Professor Marianne Hassler, at Tubingen University.

gests that certain endocrine events during

circulating testosterone in mothers, can right cerebral

hemisphere

pregnancy

enhance the

in their babies.

As

in particular

Her research

sug-

increased levels of

proliferation of brain cells of the

a result, they are

more

likely to

become show

left-handed, to be especially skillful in musical as well as in spatial endeavors, to signs, to

both physically and psychologically, of androgyny, and to be unusually susceptible

immune

diseases. See

and Musical Capacities,"

Marianne Hassler, "Gonadal Hormones, Brain Development, in

Music, Speech and the Developing Brain, edited by C.

Faienza. Milan: Guerini e Associati, 1994, pp. 138-156. 10. 1

1.

12.

Interview with Mr. and Mrs. (Vera) Gould, June 17, 1994. Interview with Grant Gould, M.D., October 16, 1994.

See Martin Greenberg,

V.

Vuorenkoski, T. Partanen, and

J.

Lind, "Behavior and

.

Notes

Cry Patterns Annales

in the First

Sources

to

Two Hours

of Life in Early and Later

Pciediatriae Fenniae, vol. 13 (1967), pp.

13. Peter

339

I

Clamped Newborns,"

64-70.

Ostwald, "Humming: Sign and Symbol," Joiir^o/ nf Aiiditon Research,

vol. 3

11961), pp. 224-232. 14.

Macdonald Critchley and

rology of Music. 15. Russell

R. A.

Henson, Music and

Brain: Studies in the

tlie

Neu-

London: Heinemann, 1977. Herbert Gould, interxiew

in

"Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part

1),

CBC

Tele\asion, 1985. 16. Peter

American, 17.

Ostwald and Philip Pelzman, "The

vol.

230

(

)

Cr\' of the

Human

Infant," Scientific

pp. 83-90.

Christopher Gillberg and Mar\' Coleman, TJie Biology of the Autistic Syndromes

(2nd edition). Clinics Publications;

in

Developmental Medicine No. 126. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific

New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1992. See

p.

50 about Wittgenstein

and Bartok. 18.

See Oliver Sacks,

An

Anthropologist on Mars: Sei'en Paradoxical Tales. Nev\ York:

Knopf, 1995.

Chapter "Glenn Gould:

A

4,

Child Prodigy

CBC

1.

Jessie Greig, in

2.

Russell Herbert Gould, cited in Otto Friedrich, Glenn Gould:

New York: Random 3.

House, 1989,

Portrait" (Part 1),

Television, 1985.

A Life and

Variations.

p. 15.

See Rosemar\' Shuter-Dyden and C. Gabriel, The Psychology of Musical

Abilities

(2nd edition). London: Methuen, 1981. 4. Jessie

Greig, in "Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part

1

),

CBC

5.

Russell Herbert Gould, in ibid.

6.

Grant Gould, M.D., intemew with the author, October

Television, 1985.

16, 1994.

7. Ibid.

8.

Russell Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

9.

Andrew

Kazdin, Glenn Goidd at Work: Creative Lying.

New

York: E.

P.

Dutton,

1989, pp. 76-77. 10. Russell

Herbert Gould,

in

"Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

CBC

Tele\ision,

1985. 1 1

See "Keepers"

12. Russell

bo.x,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada, Ottawa.

Herbert Gould,

in

"Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

CBC

Television,

1985. 13. Russell

Herbert Gould, cited

in Friedrich,

A

Glenn Gould,

14.

Glenn Gould,

15.

John Roberts, inteniew with the author, June

16. Russell

in

"Glenn Gould:

Herbert Gould, inter\iew

Portrait" (Part I),

p. 16.

CBC

Television, 1985.

17, 1994.

vsith the author,

June

17, 1994.

17. Ibid. 18.

Grant Gould, M.D., inter\iew with the author. October

19.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June

16, 1994.

18, 1994.

20. John Roberts, interview with the author, June 17, 1994. 21.

Glenn Gould, childhood writing

cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

22. Russell Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994. 23. Ibid.

p. 26.

340

24. See printed

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

program

in

"Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of

Canada.

Andrew

25.

Kazdin, Glenn Gould at Work, p. 84.

Chapter

5,

A

Childhood Friend

Robert Fulford, Best Seat in the House: Memoirs of a Lucky Man. Toronto: Collins,

1.

p. 36.

1988,

"Glenn Gould;

A

CBC

2.

Robert Fulford,

3.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

in

Portrait" (Part

1),

Television, 1985.

4. Ibid. 5. Ibid.

6.

John Roberts, interview with the author, June

7.

John McGreevy's

8. Fulford,

17, 1994.

Glenn Gould's Toronto, released

film

in 1979.

Best Seat in the House, p. 37.

9. Ibid., p. 39.

10. 1

1.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June

18, 1994.

Grant Gould, M.D., interview with the author, October

16, 1994.

12.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

13.

Glenn Gould, notes

for

an obituary of Florence Greig Gould,

in

"Keepers" box,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. 14.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

15. Ibid. 16. Pierre Berton, interview

Gould,

with Glenn Gould in 1959, cited in Friedrich, Glenn

p. 84.

17. Russell

Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

18.

Robert Fulford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

19.

Robert Fulford, in "Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

20. Robert Fulford, interview with the author,

CBC

Television, 1985.

18, 1994.

June

21. Fulford, Best Seat in the House, p. 38.

June 18, 1994. Glenn Gould's Toronto, released

22. Robert Fulford, interview with the author,

23.

Glenn Gould,

in

John McGreevy's

film

in 1979.

24. Russell Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

Chapter

6,

I.Glenn Gould, music

New

test,

Teachers and Further Success

item #59 in "Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Archives,

National Library of Canada. 2.

Glenn Gould,

in

"Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

CBC

Television, 1985.

3. Ibid.

Glenn Gould,

4.

John Beckwith, cited

5.

Russell Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

6.

William Aide, "Fact and Freudian Fable," The Idler (Summer 1993),

7.

William Aide, interview with the author, June

8.

William Aide, "Fact and Freudian Fable," Tlie Idler (Summer 1993),

9. Ibid., p. 60.

10. Ibid., pp.

59-60.

in Friedrich,

1

p. 31,

5,

p.

60.

1994. p. 59.

NotestoSources 1.

1

12.

Russell Herbert Gould, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

Robert Fuiford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

13. Russell 14.

Herbert Gould, cited

16. Toronto

19.

December

Glenn Gould, "Advice

New York:

New York:

Macmillan, 1967,

p. 31.

13, 1945.

to a Graduation," in Tlie

Glenn Gould Reader, edited by

Vintage Books, 1990, pp. 6-7.

Schumann:

20. See Ostwald,

21.

17, 1944.

Richard Kostelanetz, Master Minds.

Page.

p. 49.

18, 1994.

programs, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Globe and Mail, February

18. Toronto Telegram,

Tim

Glenn Gould,

in Friedrich,

Greta Kraus, interview with the author, June

15. Early concert

17.

341

I

Glenn Gould, "Advice,"

Tlie Inner Voices of a

Musical Genius,

p. 36.

p. 7.

22. Ibid., p. 7.

Glenn Gould,

23. Myrtle Guerrero, cited in Friedrich, 24.

Glenn Gould,

25.

High

Fidelity

Music and Mind,

p. 31.

cited in ibid., p. 31.

Magazine,

29-32, cited by Payzant, Glenn Gould:

vol. 20, no. 6, pp.

p. 9.

26. Ibid.

27. Toronto Glohe

and Mail,

28. Toronto Telegram,

May

9,

May

10, 1946.

1946.

Glenn Gould, pp. 34-35. June

29. Cited in Friedrich,

30. Robert Fuiford, interview with the author, 31. Toronto

Glohe and Mail, January

32. Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

18, 1994.

15, 1947.

p. 35.

Chapter

Gaining a Manager

7,

1.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June 13, 1994.

2.

Letter from Russell Herbert

Gould Archives,

Gould

to

George Smale, October

File 1979-20, National Library of

11,

1947, Glenn

Canada.

3.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June 13, 1994.

4.

Toronto Telegram, October 21, 1947.

5.

Toronto Glohe and Mail, October 21, 1947.

6.

Toronto Daily

7.

Glenn Gould, "Concert Dropout," interview with John McClure, 1968. Glenn Gould, school essay, in File 1979-20, Glenn Gould Archives, National

8.

Star,

October 21, 1947.

Library of Canada. 9. Jessie

1

Greig, in "Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

CBC

Television, 1985.

Robert Fuiford, interview with the author, June 18, 1994.

10.

Fuiford, Best Seat in the House, pp. 41-42.

1.

12.

Robert Fuiford, interview with the author, June

13.

Glenn Gould, "My Pet Antipathy,"

in

File

18, 1994.

1979-20, 23,

132,

Glenn Gould

Archives, National Library of Canada. 14. 15. Paris,

Glenn Gould, cited The book by Rene

and

16.

in

1949

in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

p. 39.

Leibowitz, Schoenherg and His School, appeared in 1946 in

in translation in the

United States.

Oskar Morawetz, interview with the author, June 21, 1994.

342

Cited

17.

in Friedrich,

18. Jessie Greig, in

Glenn Gould,

19.

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

Glenn Gould,

"Glen Gould:

in

A

"Glenn Gould:

Chapter

"My Love

8,

p. 159.

Portrait" (Part 1),

A

CBC Television, 1985. CBC Television, 1985.

Portrait" (Part 1),

Affair with the

Microphone" 1974-75),

I.Glenn Gould, "Music and Technology," Piano Quarterly (Winter reprinted in

The Glenn Goitld Reader, edited by Tim Page,

p.

354.

2.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, November 10, 1994.

3.

Glenn Gould, see

"iVIusic

and Technology,"

in

The Glenn Gould

Reader, pp.

353-

354. 4. Ibid., p.

354.

5.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June 13, 1994.

6.

Arthur Rubinstein,

7.

Glenn Gould,

CBC

My

New

Early Years,

York: Knopf, 1973.

Radio broadcast April 30, 1967, cited

Glenn Gould,

in Payzant,

p. 36.

Letter from Russell Herbert

8.

Gould

Herbert Webber, Februar>' 25, 1948, Glenn

to

Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. 9. Russell Herbert Gould, in "Glenn Gould:

A

Portrait" (Part

CBC

1),

Television,

1985. 10.

Oskar Morawetz, interviews with the author, June 12 and

11.

Bruno Monsaingeon, "Glenn Gould, Composer," Record Booklet, Sony

18, 1994.

CD SK

47184, 1992. 12.

Sony SK 47184.

Chapter

9, Self-Isolation

in Payzant, Gle)in

1.

Robert Fulford, cited

2.

Fulford, Best Seat in the House, p. 46.

Gould,

p. 5.

3. Ibid.

New

4.

16,

IVIusic Associates

Program on Schoenberg, Berg, Webern,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library

File 1979-20, 44,

of Canada.

5. Ibid.

Fulford, Best Seat in the House, p. 46.

6.

7. Ibid., p.

47.

Jonathan Cott, Conversations

8.

Brown, 1984, 9.

See restricted medical

file,

10. Fulford, Best Seat in the 1

1.

u'ith

Glenn Gould, Boston and Toronto:

Little,

p. 63.

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library

of Canada.

House, pp. 44-45.

We've already heard Walter Homburger using

this expression. Later

it

was Glenn's

friend Robert Silverman. 12.

William Aide, interview with the author, June

13.

Glenn Gould,

May

15, 1994.

cited in "Profiles: Apollonian" by Joseph Roddy,

14, 1960, p. 57. 13, 1994.

14.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June

15.

Zara Nelsova, interview with the author, July 12, 1995.

The

New

Yorker

.

Notes

16. 1

7.

Alexander Schneider, cited This

GG

18. File

was

sloT)'

163,

told to

me

Sources

to

in Friedrich,

343

I

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

19.

Zara Nelsova, interview with author, July 12, 1995.

20.

Harvey Olnick, interview with the author, June

21. Ezra Schabas 22.

Glenn Gould,

p. 42.

by both Zara Nelsova and Oskar Morawetz.

and Stuart

17, 1994.

November

Nail, Tlie Musical Courier,

cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

Chapter 10, Triumph

in the States

1.

Zara Nelsova, inter\'iew with the author, July 12, 1995.

2.

Paul

3.

Harvey Olnick, inter\iew with the author, June

4.

Martin Canin, interview with the author, November

5.

Har\'ey Olnick, interview with the author, June 17, 1994.

6.

John

7.

Payzant, Glenn Goidd, p. 14.

8.

Alexander Schneider and David Oppenheim, cited

9.

Da\id Oppenheim, cited

Hume,

Tlie

Washington

Post,

January

1955.

3,

Briggs, Tlie Musical Courier, Februar\'

15, 1954.

42.

p.

1,

17, 1994.

1994.

7,

1955, p. 86.

in Friedrich,

Glenn Goidd,

p.

44.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June

11.

Ralph Kirkpatrick, Preface

1938, p. 12.

14.

13, 1994.

New

Goldberg Variations,

Liner notes to recording of the Goldberg Variations. Columbia

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould, record

ML 15.

to Bach's

York: Schirmers,

\ii.

13. Friedrich,

bia

in ibid., p. 46.

10.

MS

7096.

p. 52.

liner to his first recording of the

Goldberg Variations, Colum-

5060.

Glenn Gould,

cited by Friedrich,

Chapter

1 1

,

First

1.

The study was Geoffey

2.

Glenn Gould, "A Biography

Glenn Gould,

p. 55.

Contact uHth Psychiatry

Glenn Gould: Music and Mind.

Pav-zant's

of

Glenn Gould," Piano Quarterly Tim Page, pp. 447-448.

(Fall

1978).

reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould Reader, edited by

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

3.

Restricted medical

4.

Jock Carroll, Glenn Gould: Some Portraits of the

files,

Artist as

a Young Man. Toronto:

Stoddard, 1995. 5.

Herbert Vear, D.C., inteniew with the author, June

6.

Gould recorded the date

in his

personal papers,

7,

now

1995. in the

National Library of

Canada. 7.

Jock Carroll, Glenn Goidd.

p. 14.

8. Ibid., p. 24.

9.

Morris Herman, M.D., interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

10. Stanley 1

1

Greben, M.D., interview with the author, June

Alan Parkin,

Ivtic Institute,

A

1987.

15, 1994.

History of Psychoanalysis in Canada. Toronto: Toronto Psychoana-

.

344

/

NOTES TO SOURCES

Alan Parkin, M.D., interview with the author, June

12.

14, 1994.

13. Ibid. 14. Stanley

Greben, M.D., interview with the author, June

15, 1994.

15. Ibid.

Glenn Gould, p. 25. Glenn Gould, "Gould's String Quartet, Op. 1," liner notes from Columbia 6178, 1969, reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 227-228. 18. Jock Carroll, Glenn Goidd, p. 16. 16. Carroll, 17.

19. Ibid., pp. 9, 10,

MS

17,25.

20. Ibid., p. 21.

21.

Glenn Gould, "Reprinted from

Insight, Digest of the

nary Interviews," for Columbia

MS

North Dakota Psychiatric

Symphony on

Association," in his liner notes "Beethoven's Fifth

the Piano: Four Imagi-

7095, 1968. Reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader,

pp. 59-60. 22. Jessie Greig, telephone conversations with the author, June

14,

15,

and

16,

1994.

Chapter 1.

"Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout." Conversation with John McClure, bonus record 7095, 1968, reissued in 1984 in The Glenn Gould Legacy,

included with Columbia Vol.

MC

1.

2.

in

Demands

12, Conflicting

Glenn Gould,

"Let's

Ban Applause!" Musical America (February 1962), reprinted

The Glenn Gould Reader, edited by Tim Page, p. 247. 3. "Glenn Gould Off the Record; Glenn Gould On the Record," National Film Board

of Canada, 1960. 4.

Franz Kraemer, interview with the author, June

5.

John Roberts, interview with the author, June

14, 1994.

17, 1994.

6. Ibid. 7.

Press citations in Friedrich, Glenn Gould, pp. 58-60.

8.

Glenn Gould, interview with Bernard Glenn Gould, "I Don't Think I'm

9.

Asbell, cited in ibid., pp. 59-60. at

All

Eccentric,"

The Telegram Weekend

(Toronto), July 7, 1956. Interview by Jock Carroll. 10. Press citations in Friedrich, 1 1

Glenn Gould,

p. 59.

Prescription filed in the Restricted Section,

Glenn Gould Archives, National

Library of Canada. 12.

The Glenn Gould

13. Ellen Faull, 14.

Collection,

"Prologue," Sony Classical

I.

SLV 48

401.

telephone interview with the author, March 11, 1996.

See Stratford concert programs

in the

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of

Canada. 15.

Glenn Gould,

16.

Glenn Gould,

spondence

File,

cited in Friedrich, letter to

Glenn Go^dd,

p.

274.

Vladimir Golschmann, March 20, 1958, in Early Corre-

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Glenn Gould, p. 69.

17. Press reviews cited in Friedrich, 18. in

Glenn Gould,

The Glenn Gould 19.

"Let's

Ban Applause!" Musical America (February 1962), reprinted

Reader, p. 246.

See Bob Fulford's depiction of Florence Gould

in

chapter

5 of this

book.

Notes

345

I

Glenn Gould, "Beethoven's Last Three Piano Sonatas," liner notes from Columbia in Vae Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 54-55.

20.

ML

Sources

to

5130, 1956, reprinted

21. Ibid., p. 57.

Chapter

13,

Telephone Calls

New York:

See Humphrey Burton, Leonard Bernstein.

1.

Doubleday, 1994.

Glenn Gould, letter to Leonard Bernstein, February- 7, 1957, dence File, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library' of Canada. 3. Leonard Bernstein, cited in Friedrich, Glenn Gould, p. 70. 2.

This story was

4.

heard

from others.

it

first

me

told to

It isn't

clear

by Anton Kuerti (interview June

whether Lenny's remark was made

group of guests within his hearing.

to a

such blatantly erotic comments

Glenn Gould,

6.

Leonard Bernstein, cited

7.

Liner notes from Columbia

Time

9.

was not

Glenn Gould,

cited in Friedrich,

I

have

Glenn

for Bernstein to

or

make

p.

234.

ML

521

1,

reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gotdd Reader, p. 62.

pp. 61-62. reporter, cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Goidd,

Glenn Gould,

letter to

p. 61.

14, Traveling Overseas

1. Glenn Gould, letter to Mrs. Ford, undated, Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Herbert C. Moffitt,

in Early

Jr.,

File,

Glenn

in Early

Corre-

Correspondence

M.D., April

16,

1957

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Glenn Gould, letter to Susan Hamel, April 17, 1957, in Early Correspondence

spondence 3.

File,

unusual

1994) but

directly to

in ibid., p. 71.

Chapter

2.

at all

17,

Correspon-

in public.

5.

8. Ibid.,

It

in Early

File,

Glenn Gould Archives, National

Canada.

Librar\' of

4.

Walter Homburger, inter\'iew with the author, June 13, 1994.

5.

John Roberts, interview with the author, June 17, 1994. Glenn Gould, telegram to Mr. and Mrs. Gould, May 8, 1957,

6.

dence 7.

in Early

Correspon-

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Glenn Gould, letter to Yousuf Karsh, July 8, 1958, in Glenn Gould: Selected File,

Letters,

p. 13.

Note from an admirer,

8.

in "Keepers" box,

item #92, Glenn Gould Archives, National

Library of Canada.

Glenn Gould,

9.

letter to

Yousuf Karsh, July

8,

1958,

in

Glenn Goidd: Selected

Letters,

p. 14.

Glenn Gould, postcard to "Banquo Gould," undated, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. 1. Glenn Gould, cited in Friedrich, Glenn Goidd, p. 65.

10. File, 1

12.

Correspondence

"Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout." Conversation with John McClure, bonus

record included with Columbia 13.

in Early

Glenn Gould,

reprinted in

"Let's

MS

7095, 1968.

Ban Applause!"

in

Musical America (Februarv'

1962),

The Glenn Goiild Reader, pp. 245-250. Schiff, interview with the author.

May

1994.

14.

Andras

15.

"Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould About Glenn Gould," High

5,

Fidelity (Feb-

346

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

ruary 1974), reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, 16.

Gary Graffman, cited

17.

H. H. Stuckenschmidt, cited

18.

Glenn Gould,

Selected Letters, p.

in Friedrich,

319.

p.

Glenn Gould,

p. 66.

in ibid., p. 66.

letter to his parents

from Vienna, June,

3,

1957, in Glenn Gould:

7.

19. Ibid.

20. Walter 21.

Homburger, cited by Friedrich, Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould,

p. 67.

from Vienna, June

3,

1957, in Glenn Gould:

parents from Vienna, June

3,

1957, in Glenn Gould:

letter to his parents

Selected Letters, pp. 8-10. 22.

Glenn Gould,

letter to his

Selected Letters, pp. 8-10.

Chapter 1.

Glenn Gould,

1

5,

Strange Illnesses Book

"Art of the Fugue," Introduction to

pered Clavier, published by

Amsco Music Company,

1

of Bach's

The Well-Tem-

1972; reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould

Reader, p. 21. 2.

Now

3.

Stegemann's liner notes, The Glenn Gotdd Edition, Sony

available as part of

McLean, Montreal

The Glenn Goidd Edition, Sony August 21, 1957.

4.

Eric

5.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June

6.

Letter from Walter

ada

in

Star,

SMK 52684. SMK 52684.

13, 1994.

Homburger to the Director of the Aluminum Company of CanMontreal, August 31, 1956, Glenn Gould Archives, vol. 31, National Library of

Canada. 7.

Letter from Walter

19, 1956, 8.

Homburger

Glenn Gould Archives,

to Specialty

vol. 31,

Manufacturing Company, September

National Library of Canada.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June

9. Critics

13, 1994.

of the Bujfalo Evening Neivs, the Neiv York Herald Tribune, and a Montreal

paper, cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould, pp. 75—76.

10.

James Tocco, interview with the author, March

11.

Glenn Gould, interview with Bernard

Gotdd,

p. 77.

12.

Anton

13.

Item #67

14.

Glenn Gould,

15.

Glenn Gould, "A Season on the Road," notes

Kuerti, interview with the author, in

3,

June

1994.

1962, cited in Friedrich, Glenn

Asbell,

17, 1994.

"Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Archives, National Libraiy of Canada. cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Goidd,

p. 77.

in

manuscript

in the

Glenn Gould

Archives, National Library of Canada. 16.

Item #85,

in

"Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

17. Author's letter to

18.

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould, 19.

Glenn Gould, October

1,

1958, personal

file.

letter to

Walter Homburger, October

2,

letter to

Walter Homburger, October

18, 1958, cited in ibid., pp.

1958, cited in Friedrich,

p. 78.

Glenn Gould,

78-79. 20. Walter 21.

Homburger, interview with the author, June

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Goidd,

p. 79.

letter to

13, 1994.

Walter Homburger, October 18, 1958, cited

in Friedrich,

Notes

Glenn Gould,

22.

23. Item

#85

24. Walter 16, 27,

26.

Walter Homburger, October 24, 1958, cited

Glenn Gould, October

letter to

in ibid., p. 79.

Homburger,

28, 1958, File 1979-20, 33,

of Canada.

Glenn Gould, October 22, 1958,

letter to

File 1979-20, 33,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Glenn Gould,

letter to Bernstein, cited in Friedrich,

"Grandma"

Glenn Gould, October

to

Glenn Gould,

p. 80.

23, 1958, File 1979-20, 33, 16,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Glenn Gould, October

28. Letter from Sylvia Kind to 21,

347

"

Homburger,

27. Letter from

20,

I

"Keepers box, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

in

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library

25. Walter 16, 18,

letter to

Sources

to

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library 29.

Glenn Gould

31. Walter 16, 27,

Glenn Gould,

Homburger,

Walter Homburger,

1.

28, 1958, File 1979-20, 33,

Search of a

16, In

letter to

Home

Glenn Gould, October

28, 1958, File 1979-20, 33,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Glenn Gould,

2.

Glenn Gould, October

letter to

collection.

p. 80.

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Chapter

16, 27,

October 29, 1958, personal

letter to the author,

30. Cited in Friedrich,

23, 1958, File 1979-20,33, 16,

of Canada.

letter to

Kamm,

Richard

January 30, 1959, File 1979-20, 31,8,

3,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Glenn Gould,

3. 7,

letter to

Malka Rabinowitz,

Februar>' 23, 1959, File 1979-20, 31,8,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. Letter to

4.

Glenn Gould, undated,

in

"Keepers" box, Glenn Gould Archives, National

Library of Canada.

Walter Homburger,

5.

letter to

Glenn Gould, October

31, 1958, File 33-16-33

Glenn

Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

Glenn Gould,

6.

dence

File,

letter to

C.

W

December

Fitzgerald,

27, 1956, Early Correspon-

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

7.

Glenn Gould,

8.

Author's letter to

Glenn Gould, February

9.

Author's letter to

Glenn Gould, January

letter to the author,

10. Author's letter to

January 20, 1959, personal collection. 23, 1959, personal collection.

19, 1959, personal collection.

Glenn Gould, February

2,

Glenn Gould, February

23, 1959, personal collection.

March

13, 1959, personal collection.

1959, personal collection.

11. Ibid. 12. Author's letter to 13.

Glenn Gould,

letter to the author,

14. Author's letter to

Glenn Gould, January

19, 1959, personal collection.

15.

John Roberts, intenaew with the author, June

16.

Winston

17.

John Roberts, interview with the author, June

18.

Glenn Gould,

Fitzgerald, cited in Friedrich,

letter to the author,

19. Author's letter to

20.

John Roberts,

p. 86.

17, 1994.

undated, personal collection.

Glenn Gould, December

letter to the author,

17, 1994.

Glenn Gould,

31, 1959, personal collection.

November

21, 1995.

348

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

Chapter

1

7,

Dr. Joseph Stephens

May

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author.

1.

30, 1993.

2. Ibid.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, July 25, 1994.

3.

4. Ibid. 5.

Robert Silverman, interview with the author, November 20, 1995.

6.

Morris Herman, M.D., interview with the athor, June 14, 1994.

7.

Morris D. Charendoff, M.D.,

8.

Hunter

J.

H.

drome," Austr«/kj, 9.

Fry, "Physical

New

letter to the author,

Signs in the

Zealand Journal of Surgery,

Report from a Physiotherapy Clinic

at

30, 1995. in

Overuse

(Injury) Syn-

56 (1986), pp. 47—49.

vol.

Morris D. Charendoff, M.D., letter to the author.

10.

May

Hand and Wrist

May

244 Bloor

30, 1995.

Street, restricted

medical

files,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. 1

1.

12.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, July 25, 1994. Herbert Vear, M.D., interview with the author, June

13. Prescription

from

I.

Stein,

7,

1995.

M.D., undated, restricted medical

files,

Glenn Gould

Archives, National Library of Canada. 14.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, July 25, 1994.

15.

The Glenn Gould

Colllection,

Sonatas and Dialogues, Sony Classical

II.

SLV 48

401. 16.

See Peter Ostwald, "Johannes Brahms: Solitary

Altruist," in

Brahms and His 23-

World, edited by Walter Frisch. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 35.

20,

17.

Glenn Gould,

letter to the author,

February 17, 1961, personal

file.

18.

Glenn Gould,

drafts of a letter to

Eugene Ormandy, undated,

File 1979-20, 23,

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada. 19. Ibid.

20.

Eugene Ormandy,

21. Joseph Stephens,

letter to

Glenn Could,

cited in Friedrich,

22. Joseph Stephens, letter to Stanley Greben, 23. Stanley Greben,

Chapter

1

M.D., personal

M.D., interview with the author, June

8,

The

Pitfalls

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould,

Franz Kraemer, interview with the author, June 14, 1994.

3.

Glenn Gould, "Gould's String Quartet, Op.

cited in Payzant,

6178, 1960, reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader,

Harvey Olnick, cited

5.

Glenn Gould, "Gould's String Quartet, Op.

in Friedrich,

file.

p. 60.

1,"

p.

The Glenn Gould

liner notes

from Columbia

MS

from Columbia

MS

234.

Glenn Gould,

4.

6. Ibid., p.

96.

of Composing and Performing

1.

in

p.

15, 1994.

2.

6178, 1960, reprinted

Glenn Gould,

M.D., interview with the author, July 25, 1994.

p. 163.

1,"

liner notes

Reader, p. 228.

229.

A

New York:

7.

Maynard Solomon, Mozart:

8.

Payzant,

9.

Glenn Gould, "Gould's String Quartet, Op.

Glenn Gould,

Life.

HarperCollins, 1995,

p. 115.

p. 7.

6178, 1960, reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader,

1,"

p.

liner notes

229.

from Columbia

MS

.

Sources

I

David Diamond, February 23, 1959,

File

Notes

to

349

10. Ibid., p. 234. 11. Letter to

1979-20, 31,8,

5,

Glenn Gould

Archives, National Library of Canada. 12.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Otto Joachim (undated),

in

Glenn Gould: Selected

Letters,

p. 2.

13.

Mark

14.

Notes

Gottlieb, interview with the author, April 14, 1994. for

an opera. File 1979-20, 23, 165, item

Glenn Gould Archives,

II,

National Library of Canada. 15.

Glenn Gould,

letter to the author,

June 29, 1962,

in

Glenn Gould: Selected

Letters,

pp. 64-65.

September

16.

Glenn Gould,

17.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, July 25, 1994.

letter to the author,

14, 1962, personal

18. Alfred Frankenstein,

San Francisco Chronicle, February

8,

19. Alfred Frankenstein,

San Francisco Chronicle, February

17, 1962.

20.

Glenn Gould, "N'Aimez-Vous Pas Brahms?", written

in

file.

1962.

1962, reprinted in The

Glenn Goidd Reader, pp. 70-7 1 21. Ibid., p. 72.

22. Leonard Bernstein, cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gotdd,

p. 103.

23. Burton, Leonard Bernstein, p. 328.

24.

Leonard Bernstein, comments

Brahms's Piano Concerto in 25.

D

audience before the performance of

the

to

Minor on September

Leonard Bernstein, "The Truth About

a

4,

1962.

Legend," in Glenn Gould: Variations,

edited by John McGreevy. Toronto, Ontario: Doubleday, 1983, p. 19. 26.

Anton

27.

Newspaper

28.

Glenn Gould,

Kuerti, interview with the author, citations

June

17, 1994.

from Friedrich, Glenn Gould, pp. 105-106. 1979-20, 23, 165, item 10, Glenn Gould Archives, National

in File

Library of Canada.

Chapter 19, Retirement front the Stage 1.

Glenn Gould, undated note from the Beverly

gram. File 1979-20,

vol. 23,

165, item

Hills Hotel, probably draft for a tele-

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of

5,

Canada. 2.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Humphrey

Burton, April 17, 1962, in Glenn Gould: Selected

Letters, p. 55. 3.

Lucius Beebe, Mansions on

Rails:

The Folklore of the Private Railway Car Berkeley:

Howell North, 1959. 4.

Glenn Gould,

letter to the

author and his wife,

May

24, 1963, personal collec-

tion. 5.

Glenn Gould, Arnold Schoenherg:

A

Perspective. Cincinnati: University of Cincin-

nati Press, 1964. 6.

Glenn Gould, "So You Want

Review (April 1964), reprinted

in

Write a Fugue,"

Deschamps Ostwald

7.

Letter from Lise

8.

Glenn Gould, "So You Want

237.

to

first

The Glenn Gould Reader,

to

to

p.

published in HiFi/Stereo 234.

Stephen Posen, July 25, 1996.

Write a Fugue," HiFi/Stereo Review (April 1964),

p.

.

350

9. Ibid., p.

10.

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

239.

Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording,"

first

published

High

in

Fidelity (April

1966), reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, p. 331. 1 1

See the scholarly work of Ronald Kidd on "Concert" and Howard Mayer Brown

and James W. McKinnon on "Performing

Practice," in

The Neiv Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980. 616-625, and 12.

vol. 14, pp.

Vol. 4, pp.

370-393.

Glenn Gould, "The Prospects

The Glenn Goidd Reader, pp. 331-

of Recording,"

353. 13. Ibid., p. 336. 14. Ibid., p. 337. 15.

Walter Homburger, interview with the author, June 13, 1994.

16.

"Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout." Conversation with John McClure, bonus

record included with Columbia

MS

7095, 1968.

17.

Item #74 in "Keepers' box, Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

18.

John Roberts, intervieiw with the author, November

19.

Vincent Tovell, interview with the author, June

17, 1995.

18, 1994.

20. Ibid. 21. Ibid.

22.

Glenn Gould, "Advice

to a

Graduation," in Tlie Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 3—7.

23. Ibid.

24. Joseph

Stephens,

M.D.,

interview

with

the

author,

November

10,

1994.

Recordings released in 1967 and 1968 by Columbia Masterworks. 25. Robert Silverman, interview with the author, 26.

Glenn Gould,

in

November

Dialogue on the Prospect of Recording,

20, 1995.

CBC

Radio, January 10,

CBC

Radio, January 10,

1965. 27. Paul Myers, in Dialogue on the Prospect of Recording.

1965. 28. John

Hammond,

in

Dialogue on the Prospect

CBC

of Recording,

Radio, January

10, 1965.

29.

Leon

Fleisher, in Dialogue

on the Prospect

oj Recording,

CBC

Radio, January 10,

1965. 30.

Diana Gould Menuhin,

in

Dialogue on the Prospect of Recording,

CBC

Radio,

January 10, 1965. 31. Schuyler Chapin, in Dialogue on the Prospect of Recording,

CBC

Radio, Januar)'

CBC

Radio, Januan,'

10, 1965.

32. Marshall

McLuhan,

in

Dialogue on the Prospect of Recording,

10, 1965.

33. Eric Till, cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

p.

208.

December

34.

John Roberts, personal communication

35.

Yehudi Menuhin, interview with the author, March

36.

The Glenn Goidd Collection,

II.

to author,

23, 1995.

15, 1995.

"Sonatas and Dialogues," Sony Classical

401. 37. Ibid. 38.

John Roberts, interview with the author, November

19, 1995.

39.

Yehudi Menuhin, interview with the author, March

15, 1995.

March

15, 1995.

40. Yehudi

Menuhin, interview with the

author,

SLV 48

"

Notes

41.

Glenn Gould,

Letters, pp.

letter to

Sources

to

351

I

Diana Menuhin, April 25, 1966,

in Glettu

Gould: Selected

87-88.

Menuhin and

42. Yehudi

Curtis

W.

Music of Man. Toronto: IVlethuen,

Da\is, Tlie

1979, pp. 293-294.

Menuhin,

43. Yehudi 44. in TJie

inter\ie\\

with the author. March 15, 1995.

Glenn Gould, "Yehudi Menuhin," Musical America (December 1966), reprinted Glemi Could Reader, pp. 296-300.

Chapter 20, The Solitude Trilogy 1.

Glenn Gould,

in

2.

Glenn Gould,

cited in Friedrich,

3.

Glenn Gould, "The Idea of North: An Introduction"

an interview (1964) cited

Glenn Gould,

in Pa\7;ant,

Glenn Gould,

p.

p. 56.

204. in Tlie

Glenn Gould Reader,

p.

391. 392.

4. Ibid., p. 5.

MA: Harvard

Charles Rosen, Tlie Romantic Generation. Cambridge,

University

Press, 1995, p. 5. 6.

"Radio as Music: Glenn Gould

in

Conversation with John Jessup," The Canadian

Broadcasting Book, 1971, reprinted in The Glenn Goidd Reader, 7.

Glenn Gould, "The Idea of North:

p.

.An Introduction" in Tlie

379.

Glenn Gould Reader

p.

393. 8.

Glenn Gould,

"In

Search for Petuia Clark," High

Fidelit)'

(November 1967),

reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould Reader p. 300.

305.

9. Ibid., p.

10.

Lome

Tulk, interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

11. Citations

Gould, 12.

from the Ottawa Citizen and the Montreal Star

in Friedrich,

Glenn

p. 189.

Glenn Gould, "The Latecomers: An Introduction,"

in

The Glenn Goidd Reader,

pp. 394-395. 13. Ibid., p. 395. 14.

Reader

Glenn Gould. "Rubinstein." Look, March P-

15. Janet Somerville, cited in Friedrich, 16.

9,

1971, reprinted in Tlie Glenn Could

288.

Lome

Glenn Goidd,

p. 187.

Tulk. interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

17. Ibid. 18.

Radio as Music,

first

released by the

CBC

in

1975 as a

T\''

documentary', later as

a film. 19.

Glenn Gould,

20.

Glenn Gould, "Rubinstein," Look, March

Reader 21.

p.

cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould, 9,

p.

195.

1971, reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould

288.

Glenn Gould's Solitude

Trilogy. Tliree

Sound Documentaries,

EKin Shantz,

Januar\' 20, 1973. in

CBC

Records,

PSCD

2003-3. 22.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Glenn Gould: Collected

Letters, p. 194.

23. Citations from Friedrich, 24. Janet Somer\ille,

booklet of

CBC

Records,

Glenn Gould, pp. 198-199.

"The Gould Radio Documentaries: Some Birth-Memories,

PSCD

2003-3.

.

352

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

25. Richard Kostelanetz, cited in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

114.

p.

26. A. A., Epstein, M.D., interview with the author, June 13, 1994. 27.

Glenn Gould,

Leon

letter to

Fleisher,

November

1966, in Glenn Gould:

14,

Selected Letters, pp. 97-98. 28. Joseph Stephens,

MS

record included with

M.D., interview with the author, November 20, 1995.

Concert Dropout." Conversation with John McClure, bonus

29. "Glenn Gould:

7095, 1968.

Chapter 2 1 1.

,

Changing Views of Composers

"Glenn Gould; Concert Dropout," Conversation with John McClure, bonus record

included with

MS

7095, 1968.

Glenn Gould,

2.

letter to

John Hague, November

5,

1966, Glenn Gould; Selected

letters, p. 89. 3.

Humphrey

4.

Glenn Gould,

Burton, interview with the author, October 23, 1995. letter to

John McClure, June

Letters, pp.

92-94.

5.

M2X

35912.

6.

Glenn Gould, "Stokowski

Summer 7.

in Six Scenes,"

11, 1966, in

Glenn Gould: Selected

Piano Quarterly (Winter 1977 through

1978), reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 268, 269.

Gould, "Stokowski

in Six

Scenes," reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 270-

271. 8.

Karel Ancerl, citation in Friedrich, Glenn Gould, p. 214.

9.

Glenn Gould, "Streisand

The Glenn Gould 10.

as Schwarzkopf,"

High

Fidelity

(May

1976), reprinted in

Reader, p. 308.

"Of Mozart and Related Matters; Glenn Gould

in

Conversation with Bruno Mon-

saingeon," Piano Quarterly (Fall 1976), reprinted in The Glenn Goidd Reader, 1 1

Glenn Gould, unfinished

poser," File 1979-20, 23, 6, 12.

an essay

titled

He

"Why Mozart

is

The Glenn Gould

recorded this concerto twice,

CBC

p. 33.

Bad Com-

in

Conversation with Bruno

Mon-

Reader, p. 34. first in

Stockholm

1958 with the Swedish

in

Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Ludwig Jochum, then 1961 with the

a

Glenn Gould Archives, National Library of Canada.

"Of Mozart and Related Matters; Glenn Gould

saingeon," reprinted in 13.

draft for

Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter

in

Toronto in

Susskind.

H.Jonathan Cott, Conversations with Glenn Gotdd. Boston;

Little,

Brown, 1984,

p.

56. 15.

"Glenn Gould

in

Conversation with Tim Page," Piano Qiuirterly

reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, 16.

Glenn Gould, "An Argument

reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, 17. Ibid., pp. 18.

for p.

84-85.

Glenn Gould, Arnold Schoenberg

cinnati Press, 1964, reprinted in 19.

p.

20. Ibid., pp. 85-87.

21. Ibid., p. 88.

1981),

Richard Strauss," High Fidelity (March 1962), 90.

—A

Perspective, Cincinnati; University of Cin-

The Glenn Gould

Reader, p. 122.

Gould, "An Argument for Richard Strauss," reprinted

p. 85.

(Fall

458.

in

The Glenn Gould Reader,

Notes

to

Sources

353

I

22. Ibid., p. 91. 23.

"Glenn Gould

in

Conversation with Tim Page," reprinted

in T\ie

CAenn Gould

Reader, p. 453. 24.

Glenn Gould

CBC

in recital,

Thursday

night, July 23, 1970.

Mann, interview with the author, 1994. "The Art of Glenn Gould/Take Thirteen," CBC Radio broadcast August

25. Robert

26.

12, 1969.

example Gould's "N'aimez-vous pas Brahms?", The Glenn Gould Reader,

27. See for p. 70.

28.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

John Culshaw, June 22, 1968,

in

Glenn Gould: Selected

Letters, p. 106.

29.

Glenn Gould

Wawa,

talking about

"Glenn Gould.

in

A

Portrait" (Part 2),

CBC

Television, 1985. 30.

Glenn Gould,

Letters, pp.

Ronald Wilford, June

letter to

31. John Roberts, interview with the author,

Glenn Goidd

32. Kazdin, 33.

Glenn Gould,

Gould Reader, 34.

8,

1971, in Glenn Gould: Selected

148-149.

November

Work: Creative Lying,

at

liner notes for

Columbia

M

19, 1995.

p. 128.

32040, 1973, reprinted

in

The Glenn

p. 80.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Glenn Gould,

letter

Carl

Little,

June

1971, in Glenn Gould: Selected Letters,

5,

p. 141.

35.

to

Jane Friedman, October 23,

1971, in Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 163. 36.

Glenn Gould,

Gould Reader, pp.

liner notes for

37. Cott, Conversations with 38.

Columbia

M

32040, 1973, reprinted

in

The Glenn

78, 79.

Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould, pp. 65-66. August

letter to Albert Prefontaine,

12,

1971, in Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 151

Chapter 22, Impersonator, Philosopher, and Technician 1.

Cott, Conversations with

2. Ibid., pp. 3.

Glenn Gould, pp. 41—42.

86-87.

Glenn Gould,

Columbia

liner notes to

Gould Reader, pp. 57—61. 4. Glenn Gould, staging instructions for

The Glenn Goidd

'

in liner

notes

and Wit," Sony Classical SLV 48 416.

Sony Classical SLV 48

404OO

5.

Glenn Goidd Collection,

6.

Glenn Gould, "Glenn Gould Interviews Himself About Beethoven," Piano Quar-

terly (Fall 7. ary'

7095, 1969, reprinted in The Glenn

for "Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite,

Collection, XI, "Ecstasy

"End

MS

of Concerts,

'

1972), reprinted in The Glenn Gould Reader, p. 44.

"Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould About Glenn Gould," High

1974), reprinted in 8. Friedrich,

9.

III,

The Glenn Gotdd Reader,

Glenn Gould,

p.

Fidelity (Febru-

319.

p. 121.

Jean Le Moyne, Convergences, trans. Philip Stratford. Toronto: Ryerson Press,

1966, pp. 248-249. 10. in

Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording," High

The Glenn Gould Reader, 11.

Glenn Gould,

Selected Letters, p. 90.

p.

letter to

Fidelity (April 1966), reprinted

345.

Goddard Lieberson, May

14,

1966, in Glenn Gould:

354

12.

Glenn Gould,

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

letter to

Goddard Lieberson, May

14.

1966, in Glenu Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 90, note 4. 13.

CBC

Sunday Night/Dialogues on the Prospects Glenn Gould at Work. p. 99.

of Recordings, Januan,' 10, 1965.

14. Kazdin,

Glenn Gould,

15. Payzant,

16.

Glenn Gould,

p. 51.

letter to

Helen Whitney September

3,

1971, in Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 155. 17. Ibid., p. 157. 18.

"The Art of Glenn Gould/Take

19.

CBC

telecast,

Glenn Gould, 20.

9,"

CBC

broadcast July 15, 1969.

"The Age of Ecstasy," February 20, 1974,

also cited in Payzant,

p. 56.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Helen Whitney September

3,

1971, in Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 156. 21. Payzant,

Glenn Gould,

22.

Glenn Gould,

23.

Glenn Gould,

p. 40.

cited in Payzant, in

January 10, 1965, typescript page 24. Payzant,

25. Kazdin, 26.

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould,

p. 37.

"Dialogues on the Prospects of Recordings,"

CBC

broadcast,

3.

p. 42. p. 19.

letter to

John Roberts, September

18,

1971, in Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 160. 27. Kazdin, 28.

Andrew

29. Kazdin,

Glenn Goidd

at

Work,

p. 19.

Kazdin, quoted in Friedrich, Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould

at

Work,

p.

134.

p. 4.

30. Ibid., p. 20. 31.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

Andrew

Kazdin,

November

21, 1970, in

Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 127. 32.

Andrew

Kazdin, quoted in Friedrich, Glenn Gould,

p.

134.

33. Ibid., p. 136. 34.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

John Roberts, September

18,

1971, in Glen)i Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 161. 35. Kazdin,

Glenn Gould

at

Work,

p.

96-97.

36. Ibid., p. 42.

Chapter 23, 1.

New

Faces,

New

Challenges

Ray Roberts, interview with the author, February 26, 1995.

tions, unless

Ail

subsequent quota-

otherwise noted, are from that conversation.

2.

Robert Silverman, interview with the author, November 20, 1995.

3.

Glenn Gould, "Robertsiana,"

File 1979-20, 23, 98,

Glenn Gould Archives, National

Library of Canada. 4.

John Roberts, interview with the author, November

5.

Kazdin, Glenn Gould at Work, p. 53.

6.

Conrad Bloemendal, interview with the

7.

Lome

8.

Glenn Gould, "Das Kind der Rosemarie,"

19, 1995.

author, June 17, 1994.

Tulk, interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

Archives, National Library of Canada.

File

1979-20, 23, 65, Glenn Gould

.

Notes

9.

Greta Kraus, interview with the author, June

10. Patrick 1

Sources

to

1

J.

I

355

18, 1994.

Sullivan, telephone interview with the author, February 27, 1995.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, November

12.

Kazdin, Glenn Gould at Work, p. 57.

13.

Glenn Gould,

draft for a letter to "Dell," undated, in

10, 1994.

Glenn Gould: Collected

242-243.

Letters, pp.

14.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, November 10, 1994.

15.

Glenn Gould, "Rubinstein," Look, March

9,

1971, reprinted in The Glenn Gould

Reader, p. 282. 16.

Glenn Gould, "Memories of Maude Harbour,

(Summer

Rubinstein," Piano Quarterly

or Variations on a

Theme

of Arthur

1980), reprinted in Tlie Glenn Goidd Reader, pp.

290-295. 17.

Quotations of statements by George Roy Hill and Glenn Gould,

Glenn Gould, pp. 261-262. 18. Glenn Gould, letter Collected Letters, 19.

George Roy

to

Hill,

September 27, 1971,

in

in

Friedrich,

Glenn Gould:

162.

p.

Quotations of statements by Glenn Gould and film

critics, in Friedrich,

Glenn

Gould, pp. 263-266.

m

20. Richard Nielsen, cited 21.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

266-268.

ibid., pp.

Rev William Glenesk, May

22, 1982, in

Glenn Gould:

Collected Letters, pp. 246—247. 22. Richard Nielsen, cited in Friedrich, 23.

Glenn Gould,

Collected Letters,

p.

letter to

Glenn Gould, pp. 268-270.

Rev William Glenesk, May

22, 1982, in

Glenn Gould:

247.

24. Quotations from filmmakers

and Jessie Greig

in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould, pp. 268-

271. 25. Robert Silverman, interview with the author, 26.

record included with Columbia 27.

November

20, 1995.

"Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout." Conversation with John McClure, bonus

John Roberts,

in

MS

7173, 1968.

"Glenn Gould:

28. Cott, Conversations with

A

Portrait" (Part 1),

Glenn Goidd,

CBC

Television. 1985.

p. 31.

29. Gould, "Stokowski in Six Scenes," reprinted in

The Glenn Gould Reader, pp. 258-

282. 30. Robert Silverman, interview with the author,

November

20, 1995.

31. Ibid. 32. Letter

from John Roberts

to Lise

Deschamps Ostwald, September November 20, 1995.

30, 1996.

33. Robert Silverman, interview with the author, 34. Letter

from Joe Stephens

Bruno Monsaingeon cited

36.

Glenn Gould,

letter to

to Lise

Deschamps Ostwald, June

20, 1996.

Glenn Gould, pp. 226-227. Bruno Monsaingeon, November 12, 1972, in Glenn Gould:

35.

in Friedrich,

Collected Letters, p. 181. 37.

pas du

Bruno Monsaingeon, Glenn Goidd: Le Dernier toitt

Piiritain;

un Excentrique; and Glenn Goidd: Contrepoint a

la

Glenn Gould:

1984, and 1985. 38.

Bruno Monsaingeon,

cited in Friedrich,

]e ne suis

Ligne. Paris: Fayard, 1983,

Glenn Gould, pp. 228-229.

356

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

Chapter 24, Approaching Middle Age 1.

John

2.

Now in

3.

John

4.

Glenn Gould,

Percival,

M.D., interview with the author, June

16, 1994.

the Restricted Archives, National Library of Canada.

Percival,

M.D., interview with the author, June letter to

16, 1994.

Ronald Wilford, December 21, 1971,

in

Glenn Gould:

Selected Letters, p. 172. 5.

Glenn Gould,

Gould: Selected 6. Jessie

Brown and

letter to Drs. S.

J.

G.

Hill,

August 31, 1972,

Glenn Gould,

Greig, cited in Friedrich,

p.

Joseph Stephens, M.D., interview with the author, November

8.

Ray Roberts, interview with the author, February 25, 1995.

9.

Lome

10, 1994.

Tulk, interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

10. Jessie Greig, in 1.

Glenn

243.

7.

1

in

Letters, p. 179.

A

"Glenn Gould:

Jessie Greig, cited in Friedrich,

M.D., interview with the author, June

12.

John

13.

Glenn Gould, Restricted Archives,

Percival,

CBC

Portrait" (Part 2),

Television, 1985.

Glenn Gould, pp. 170-171. File

16, 1994.

1979-20, 22, 137,

p. 4,

National Library

of Canada. 14.

John Roberts, interview with the author, November

15.

Glenn Gould, Restricted Archives,

File

19, 1995.

1979-20, 22,

1

10, p. 6, National Library

of Canada.

Dale McCarthy M.D., interview with the author, June 16, 1994. Ray Roberts, interview with the author, February 25, 1995. 18. Glenn Gould, Restricted Archives, File 1979-20, 23, 162, p. 1, National Library of Canada. 16. 17.

19.

John Roberts,

20. See Ostwald,

in

"Glenn Gould:

a Portrait" (Part 2),

Schumann: The Inner

21. Joseph Stephens, M.D., inten'iew with the author, 22.

Glenn Gould Diary (Book

1),

File

CBC

Television, 1985.

Voices of a Musical Genius.

November

10, 1994.

1979-20, 21, 77, pp. 1-3, National Library of

Canada. 23. Kazdin, 24.

Glenn Gould

at

Work, pp. 151-153.

Glenn Gould Diary (Book

1),

File

1979-20, 21, 77,

p. 4,

National Library of

Canada. 25. Ibid., pp. 4-10. 26. Ibid., pp. 10-24. 27. Ibid., pp. 33-37. 28. Ibid., pp. 44-48. 29. Ibid., pp. 49-62.

Chapter 25, The Last Years 1.

Glenn Gould Diary (Book

2), File

1979-20, 20,

4, pp.

1-2, National Library of

Canada. 2. Philip Klotz, 3.

M.D., interview with the author, June

Glenn Gould Diary (Book

Canada. 4. Ibid., pp.

27-29.

2), File

1979-20, 20,

16, 1994.

4, pp.

1

1-18, National Library of

Notes

5. Ibid.,

to

Sources

357

I

pp. 54-63.

6.

Lome

7.

Glenn Gould,

Tulk, interview with the author, June 16, 1994.

Robert Sunter. Januan, 30, 1979, in Glenn Gould. Selected

letter to

Letters, p. 238. 8.

John McGree\y, interview with the author, June

9.

John McGreevy, cited

10. 1.

1

John McGreevy's

13, 1994.

Glemi Goidd,

p.

Mak, interview

\\ith the author,

ClaxHer,

Amsco Music Company

1979.

in

13, 1994.

February 25, 1995.

Glenn Gould, "Art of the Fugue," Introduction

Tempered

223.

Glenn Gould's Toronto, released

film

John McGreevy, interview with the author, June

12. Peter 13.

in Friedrich,

Book

to

I

of Bach's

The Well-

1972, reprinted in Tlie Glenn Gould Reader,

pp. 16-17. 14.

Glenn Gould, "The Question

of Instrument, Vol. '

XIX

of

The Glenn Gould Collec-

Sony Classical SLV 48 425.

tion,

Mak, interview with the

15. Peter

Glenn Gould, draft Letters, pp. 240-241. 16.

author, February' 25, 1995.

Herbert Gould,

for a letter to Russell

17.

Margaret Pacsu, cited

18.

Glenn Gould, 'An

in Friedrich,

Glenn Gould,

XV

of the Fugue," Vol.

.^rt

in

Glenn Gould: Selected

257.

p.

of Tlie Glenn

Gould

Collection,

Sony 19. 3,

Glenn Gould, medical

notes. Restricted Archives, File 1979—20, 23, 162, pp.

2-

National Library' of Canada. 20.

Glenn Gould, "The Goldberg Variations,

"

The Glenn Goidd

Vol. XIII of

Collection,

Sony Classical SLV 48 424. 21. Ibid. 22. Robert Silverman, interview with the author, 23.

November

John Roberts, interview with the author, November

24. Kazdin,

Glenn Gould

at

Work, pp. 162-163.

Chapter 26,

A

1.

Timothy

2.

Conrad Bloemendal, interview with the

3.

Sony Classical

4.

Timothy Maloney, cited

Findlev, cited in Friedrich,

SMK

Fatal Stroke

Glenn Gould, author,

in

James

Strecker,

17, 1994.

Pianist," Bidletin of the International

March-October 1991.

List of medications in the Restricted

5.

267.

"Glenn Gould. Man, Musician, and

"

Society,

p.

June

52 650.

Legacy "Nine Canadians Talk About the Legendary

Glenn Gould

20, 1995.

19, 1995.

Glenn Gould .^chives. National

Library' of

Canada. 6.

Lome

7.

Robert Silverman, interview with the author, November 20, 1995.

8. Jessie

Tulk, interview with the author, June 16. 1994.

Greig, in Thirty-Tivo Short Films About

Glenn Goidd,

a film

Rhombus Media. 9.

John Roberts, interview with the author, June

10. 1

1.

12.

Raymond John

Percival,

Raymond

17, 1994.

Roberts, interview with the author, February 26, 1995.

M.D., interview with the author, June

16, 1994.

Roberts, interview with the author, February 26. 1995.

produced by

358

NOTES TO SOURCES

/

13.

San Francisco Chronicle, October

14.

Neiv York Times, front-page headline, October

1982.

John Roberts, memorial serxace tribute

Glenn Gould Archives,

File

5,

1982.

Herbert Gould, October

15. Author's letter to Russell 16.

2,

to

5,

1982, personal

Glenn Gould, October

file.

15, 1982, in the

1979-20, 44, 40, National Library of Canada.

Epilogue and Acknowledgments 1.

City,

John McGreevy,

ed.,

Glenn Gould: By Himself and His

NY: Doubleday, 1983,

Friends, Toronto

and Garden

p. 12.

2. Ibid., p. 9. 3. Friedrich, 4.

Glenn Goidd:

A

Life

Peter Ostwald, "Glenn Gould;

and

Variations.

Some

Personal Reminiscences," Medical Problems

of Performing Artists (September 1989), p. 139. 5.

Peter Ostwald,

Gould

Society'

6. "Ishi toshite

pp. 25-33.

"Some Personal Reminiscences,"

(Holland; 1991),

tomo

vol. 8, pp.

Bulletin of the International

Glenn

23-29.

toshite," translated

by Marie Ogura, in Wiive,

vol. 37,

May

1993,

INDEX

Abel, David, 30. 31

"Ad\ice to a Graduation" (Gould), 221-22 Aide, William, 71-72, 104 Allan, B. M., 124

Allen, Mildred,

283

Alma Trio, 30 Also Spmch Zarathustra

97, 177

Fantasia and (Nietzsche), 103

American S\Tnphony, 246 Ancerl, Karel, 247, 255 A}id the Bridge

Is

Chromatic Fantasia in D Minor, 311-12 Concerto in D Minor, 143, 151, 154, 164, 165, 176,215 Concerto in F Minor, 18-20, 21, 30, 93-94,

Fugue

in

185, 194,280,316,

Love (Werfel), 178

Applebaum, Louis, 177 "Argument for Richard Strauss, An" (Gould), 251-52 Arnold Schoenberg: Vie Man VV7io Chunged Music. 206-8 Arrau, Claudio. 71, 104,266

Gould's opinions on, 74. 86. 100, 11819, 154, 159-60, 217, 244, 245, 269,

316-17 155,283

Art of Glenn Gould. Ue. 220, 260 Art of the Fugue. An. 314-15

Italian Concerto, 132,

Ashkenazv, Vladimir. 168. 323

Partita no. 4,

Asperger Disease, 42

Partita no. 5,

1

Partita no. 6.

285

Art of

tlie

1

16

Fugue, 311. 314-15

Brandenburg Concertos, 136, 208, 279

317-18

Goldberg Variations (Gould's second recording), 119, 316-19. 324, 331

Inventions,

Bach. Johann Sebastian. 43. 141

Minor, 75, 76

Goldberg Variations (Gould's performances), 100, 101, 108, 121, 151, 180

Arriaga, Juan, 18

Anna Magdtdetui Notebook.

C

Goldberg Variations (Gould's first recording). 17-18,72. 101, 113. 114-19, 120. 121.

311

Musical Offering, 234

Partitas.

312 11.

1

12

188

Preludes and Fugues. 69 Six Violin and Harpsichord Sonatas.

Sonata for Violin and Piano in

297

C Minor. 30. 226

1

,

360

/

Symphony

Bach {continued) Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, 28 Violin Concerto in E Major, i

G

Bennett, Denton

Minor, 28

121

B.,

Alban,6 1,87, 152, 178 Gould's opinions on, 201, 256

Berg,

Bachauer, CJina, 188

Bach Medal for Pianists, 174-75 "Back to Bach" movement, 86

Piano Sonata, 111, 151

Bergman, Ingmar, 280

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 185 Banquo (Goulds dog), 101, 153, 179 Barnes, John, 282

Berlin Philharmonic, 155

Bernstein, Felicia, 145 Bernstein, Leonard, 48, 143-45, 169, 205,

210-13,253,277, 322 Memoirs of a Lucky Man

Bartok, Bela, 42

Best Seat in the House:

19

1

F Major, 194

Bennett, Arthur, 64, 121

Well-Tempered ClaiHer, 159-60, 187,314

Baudelaire, Charles,

no. 9 ("Choral"), 138, 147

Variations in

1

Violin Sonata in

INDEX

(Fulford), 57-58, 85

Bauermeister, Mary, 262

Beckwith, John, 71

Beverly Hills Hotel, 214

Beethoven, Ludwigvan:

Bizet, Georges,

deafness

of,

255

Premier Nocturne, 256

77

Variations Chromatiques,

"Eroica" Variations, 194 Fantasia for Piano, Chorus, and Orchestra,

Blinder,

Bloemendal, Conrad, 275, 320-21

146-47 "Ghost" Trio, 106-8

Boulez, Pierre, 251

Gould's opinions on, 140, 143, 146-47, 210,

Brahms, Johannes:

"Grosse Fuge," 140, 176

254-55, 259-60

Liszt's transcriptions for,

Ballade in

Overlure lo King Stephen, 146, 147 Piano Concerto no.

in

1

Boult, Adrian, 261

Bourgeois Hero, The, 251, 308

244,245,252,262-63, 314

C

G

Major, 75

Ballades, 321

Major, 84, 132,

Gould's opinions on, 210-13, 251 Intermezzi, 145,

177 Piano Concerto no. 2

in B-flat

Major, 145,

148, 154,256, 322

Piano Concerto no. 3

in

C

193-94

Piano Concerto no.

Quintet

for

1

D Minor,

in

Piano and Strings

in

193,210-13 F Minor,

160-61, 193,279

Minor, 155, 162,

Rhapsodies, 321

166, 174

Piano Concerto no. 4

in

G

Symphony

Major, 75-76,

207

no. 2,

78-79, 80, 81. 121, 133, 134, 151, 185,

Brando, Marlon. 103, 261

208

Briggs, John,

Piano Sonata no.

5 in E-flat

Bruckner, Anton, 126, 176, 201, 251

Brunner, Dr., 164

F Major, 75 17 in D Minor ("Tempest"),

Piano Sonata no. 6

in

194,208

Piano Sonata no. 23

Burton, Humphrey, 193, 214, 245 Busoni, Ferruccio, Butler,

in

248 Piano Sonata no. 29 in

113-14

Brown, Corrick, 194

Major ("Emperor"), 176, 196, 246-47, 314 Piano Sonata no. 3 in C Major, 80 Piano Concerto no.

141,

256

Naoum, 30

F Minor ("Appassio-

1

56

Roma, 100

Byrd, William, 256, 257

nata"), 247,

klavier"),

B-flat

(

"Hammer-

Piano Sonata no. 30

in

E

Major, 109, 111,

138-41, 208-9, 216 Piano Sonata no. 31

in A-flat

Piano Sonata no. 32

in

C

Major, 138-41

Minor,

Sonata

for

Piano and Violin

in

Sonata

for

Piano and Violin

in

C G

138^1

226-27

91,94, 106. 125, 132, 137, 161, 178, 179, 200, 204, 208, 219-21, 226, 229, 232, 235, 237, 241, 247, 274, 282, 289,

Minor, 31 Major, 3

259 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Gould's collaboration with, 64, 87, 90Callas, Maria, 258,

140

1

290, 307, 324 Canadian National Exhibition, 59, 309

Canin, Martin,

String Quartet no. 13, 176

263 259-60 6 ("Pastorale"), 254-55

18, 21

,

I

12, 166, 167, 169,

Cantelli, Guido, 21 5

264

String Quartet no. 15, 170,

Carlos, Waiter,

Symphony Symphony

no. 5, 254,

Carroll, Jock, 121, 125,

no.

Carter. Elliott: Sonata. 169

127-28

322

1

Index

Carter,

361

Emmanuel

Sam, 317

Caruso, Enrico. 61-62, 66 Casals, Pablo, 178, 206, 240,

Presb>terian Church, 48

Epstein, A. A., 242

290

Casavant Freres, 76

Fath,

Casella, Alfredo: Ricercare on the

CBC

I

name BACH,

298.301, 302 Tuesday Night. 260

174

Iris,

136-37 The Anatomy of Fugue, 216 Findley Timothy 280, 320 Faull, Ellen,

Festival:

Chapin, Schuyler, 225

"finger-tapping," 71-72, 104

Charendoff, Morris D., 189-90, 193

Fiscella. Robert.

Chemins de Children

11

la

Musique, Les, 283—85

or Ricluird Strauss Writes an

Ofera

(Gould), 204-5

Ford. Mrs., 149

Chopin, Frederic, 43, 48, 74, 87, 166 Gould s opinions on, 94

Impromptu

in

Forrester,

B Minor, 253 Cincinnati. University of, 216 Ciaremont Quartet. 204 Clark. Petula, 236 Cleveland Orchestra, 148, 255 Clibum, Van, 162. 178, 197, 205 Columbia Records, 17, 112, 114-19, 125,

Maureen, 100-101, 137, 331 48

Foss, Lukas,

F-sharp Major, 75. 80, 83

Piano Sonata no. 3

296

Winston, 173, 180, 193 Fleisher, Leon, 223, 224, 242-43 Fitzgerald.

Frank, Claude,

1 1

Frankenstein, Alfred, 208-9

in

Friedman, Jane, 256 Friedrich, Otto, 180, 238, 285,

Fuchs, Joe, Fuchs,

1

332-33

12

Lillian,

1

12

Fulford, Robert, 36, 52-53, 73, 76, 80, 103

131,

132, 138, 157, 193-94, 223. 242, 246,

Gould's friendship with, 57-66, 85, 89,

98-

99, 100-101

249, 253-54, 267, 268, 270. 287. 288.

Gibbons, Orlando, 111, 112. 256-57

298-99, 307, 317, 321

Columbia Symphony Orchestra, 177 Committee of the Harriet Cohen International Music Awards, 174-75 Concert for Four Wednesdays, 221 i

Conservatory Orchestra, 79, 94 "contrapuntal radio," 232—43, 290

Conversations with Casals

(Ma

Corredor), 178

Conversations with Glenn Gould, 245

Copland, Aaron, 208 Cott, Jonathan, 257, 258

Curran Theater,

1

79

Curtis Institute of Music, 48

Debussy. Claude. 71 String Quartet, 176

Anthems, 257 Gilliatt,

Penelope. 279-80

Glenn Gould: A 332-33

Life

and

Variations (Friedrich),

Glenn Gould: By Himself and His Frietids (McGreevy). 332 Glenn Gould at Work (Kazdin). 270 Glenn Gould Fantasy, A, 246, 312-14

Glenn Gould Festival (1992), 333 Glenn Gould Off the Record; Glenn Gould on the Record, 131-32 Glenn Gould Plays Bach. 310-12, 314. 316 Glenn Gould Sih'er Jubilee, The, 312 Glenn Goulds Toronto, 309—10 Gold. Thomas G. (grandfather). 36, 51-52

Dees. Cornelius, 191, 286

Goldberg, Johann Gottlieb.

Detroit Free Press, 133

Gold Standard Furs. 35. 36. 51-52. 56 Golschmann. Vladimir. 137, 177

Detroit News, 135

Detroit

Symphony

Orchestra, 133-34

Dialogue on the Prospects of Recording, 223-25 Diamond. David, 203

16

Goodman, W., 198 Gottlieb. Mark.

Gould. Flora

204

Emma

Greig (mother). 35, 36-39

deathof, 290-92, 302-3, 312

Dobson, Vera, 312, 328 "Dr. Karlheinz Heinkel,"

1

259-60

Gould's relationship with, 39-45, 48, 49-50,

65-66, 73, 75, 83,

Doyle. Arthur M., 124

52, 55, 56, 59-62,

Dudley

85, 88, 91, 97, 102, 127, 129, 132, 173,

Ray,

72

Dupuis, Albert: Concerto Movement, 75, 76

179, 248-49, 258-59, 281,

309

Gould, Glenn Herbert:

Eaton Auditorium, 76, 83, 84, 249, 270, 271, 275, 298-99, 309 Elgar,

Edward: Violin Concerto, 229

Elsie (housemaid),

39

adolescence affluent

of.

65-66

background

of.

58

aggression suppressed by. 49. 55-56, 66, 78,

128,238-40,277,281,309

362

/

Gould, Glenn Herbert (continued) airplane travel feared by, 150, 215-16, 272,

309-10 280, 289, 325 165, 168-69, 258-59, 263,

audience response

180,211,212,221,245,266 meeting with,

first

11,

17-34, 132-

194-96, 206-8, 214-16, 296-98 author's medical letter

for,

182-84

328-29

169,

of,

in Berlin.

92-93 of,

body cast worn

332-33

120,

298,315 documentary films on, 116, 131-32, 137, 141, 309-12

by,

191, 193 of, 17,

110, 114, 150, 194,

195,203,231,267

58, 65, 81-83, 88, 90, 97,

1

10-19,

190,265,291,321

125, 144, 156,

as celebrity, 117-18, 119, 132, 180, 188,

198,273

161-62,209,304-5,

117, 133, 148,

306, 314

63-64, 238, 265 42, 43-66, 265

as child prodigy,

of,

43-56, 58, 62, 67-68, 79-

248-49

of,

Christianity of, 60, 66

competition as viewed

by, 50,

210, 213,

222-23, 265, 266, 267 in competitions, 75-76, 80, 162, 265 composers as viewed by, 95, 200 concert schedule

130, 131, 134-35, 165,

of,

214-15,242-43 137-38, 144, 176,

239, 260, 305, 306, 307, 321-23 of,

202-3 of,

149, 151-53, 156-57,

166-70, 177, 178, 182, 194-95 counterpoint studied

162-

name

of,

35-36, 55,

1

16

father figures of, 132 fees of,

92 impersonated

by,

103,

128-29,239,258-62, 309,313 fiftieth birthday of, 324-25, 328 finances

106, 109, 119, 165, 170, 265,

of,

fingers protected by,

46-47, 127, 174

friendships

of,

57, 58-59, 66, 84-85, 103,

132, 137, 187, 188, 199, 270, 275, 282,

287, 297-98

fugue studied by 87, 96, 163-64. 209, 216-

17,234,253,282,285, 314

German accent adopted

by, 130, 136,

correspondence

122, 149-58, 161,

73

on fishing expedition, 50-51, 61 French spoken by, 283-84

121, 123, 125, 166, 191

conservatism

86,87,98,219,265 European tours

266, 272-73, 275, 277, 326

chiropractors visited by, 23-24, 63-64, 102,

conducting

287 editing by 207, 212, 239-40. 254, 268-70, 274, 279, 317 education of, 49, 57-58, 62, 67, 69, 76, 84-

fictional characters

childhood accident

80, 228,

282 early performances of, 47-48, 62, 74-76,

family

chair used by, 18, 24, 31, 70-74, 102, 104,

of,

driving by, 101. 128, 157, 186. 209. 272,

128. 133-34. 172, 180. 182, 229. 285.

25, 64, 95, 97,

196-97,214,217,247,256

childhood

27, 31, 51, 52-53. 80, 93,

179,289 Donchery estate leased by 180, 181, 193 dreams of, 48^9, 127. 129, 258, 292, 309101, 153,

150, 158, 164

cancellations by, 164-70, 171, 182-84, 190,

of,

owned by

eccentricity of, 102-3, 109, 112, 121, 122,

Canadian background

career

121-23, 125, 135, 149-50, 164, 167, 182-84, 188-93, 242, 286-87, 292-95,

eating disorder of, 122, 125, 127-28, 133,

39

birth of, 35,

274-75, 287

78-79, 80, 83-84, 88, 93-97

155-56, 157, 165

biographies

324-25

163, 290-92,

10

Avenue Road apartment of, 181, 184 back problems of, 63-64, 189, 275 Bahamas trip of, 121-22, 125, 127-28 bicycle of,

of,

298-307

doctors consulted by 14, 32-33, 42, 102,

dogs

author's friendship with, 142-48, 174-84,

169,286,326-29

80

diaries of,

105-

33

autopsy

of,

287

83, 91, 102,

to, 19,

109, 118, 130-31, 132-34, 154, 163,

author's

of, 11,

debut

diet of,

anxiety of, 110, 114, 121, 130, 132, 149-50,

174,

death

depression

31-32, 51-55, 56,

as animal rights activist,

6,

INDEX

68, 163-64, 193,

by,

200-201,216-17,233,252 criticism avoided by, 187, 188, as cultural ambassador,

1

50

296-98, 323

103, 155, 239,

by,

262,310 glasses worn by, 313, 314 as "ham," 91, 103,282 handwriting

of,

58, 85

harmony studied

by,

68,

harpsichords as viewed

216

by,

186-87, 270,

279,311 hayfever

of,

1

58

high blood pressure

of,

169, 292-95, 303

1

Index 221-22 121,325-29

monologues

honoran,- degrees of, hospitalizations of,

hotel

rooms of, 127-28, 184,209,214

hypochondria

363

I

133, 163, 169, 179.

187.225.296-97

as musical genius. 34. 39.

291.331

63-64.92. 102, 109, 113-14, 122-23.

musical studies

132. 134-35. 164-70. 171. 180. 188.

musicological analysis

198,243,285,291.310,

192, 193,

326

narcissism

of.

nervousness

262—63

imaginar\' dialogues of,

improvisations

by,

independence infancy of, 39

of,

influence

19,

1

of.

67-80. 104 by.

139^0.

110. 127. 133-35,

nenous

58-59, 121. 133

neurological problems

154-55. 266-67, 285

"inner model" of. 76-79, 102, 107.

Inn on the Park studio

tics of, 21, 192,

of,

New York debut

118-19

184, 270, 271,

in

59,65.291

1384l. 159-60.

161. 163-64,

187-88, 210-13, 246-48, 254. 268,

269,316-19,322 232-34. 238. 239-

by,

290

as organist. 68-69. 76. 83.

206

overdressing by 21, 24, 102, 106, 116, 12223, 157, 163,

198,209,273,287

personality of, 32, 40, 55-56, 102-3. 124, 128, 129, 142, 238-39. 262,

243

277

263—68

personal philosophy

of,

physical appearance

of, 19,

24, 59, 145,

282-83,295-96,318,320-21

as introvert. 144-45. 174, 198

171-73

physical contact avoided by. 189, 191

Jewish ancestry attributed of,

1

to,

35-36, 275

68-69

as pianist, 17-20, 66, 68,

70-79, 88, 101-2,

104, 108-9, 111, 119, 132, 144, 155,

98, 101, 109, 131-32. 172. 187. 215.

178, 188, 191, 219, 222-23, 242-43, 266-67, 270, 290, 291, 296-97 piano concerto as viewed by, 265-66

217.229.290

pianos elevated by 18, 24. 133. 147. 148.

Lake Simcoe cottage 58, 60. 63,

of,

25-26, 27, 50—51,

68-69. 71, 72, 90, 92-93,

language as interest

of,

66, 126

174 piano studied by 43-50. 58. 70-74. 76. 77-

lawsuit of. 190-91. 192

80.92.98. 103-4

by 151-53,216, 221-22 by 140, 146, 177, 256. 259 affairs of. 276-78. 306

lecturing

pianos used by 21. 30, 63. 88, 132, 171,

liner notes

love

265

perfect pitch of, 44—45, 68

interviews given by. 104. 120. 133-34. 225.

iddney problems

230—36

Territories.

123.297

interpretation by. 78. 79. 94-95, 97, 106-8,

in Israel.

Northern

60

of.

as opinionated. 14, 32, 61-62, 65, 87, 94,

235-36, 237

inteniews conducted

125-26

as nonconformist. 58. 61.

as only child, 39, 238,

28. 33. 116. 136. 147

40. 264-65.

189-

237, 238, 272-73.

of,

insomnia

136.

168. 169-70.

of,

274 "normal" upbringing

intensity of,

150,294,310 228

of (1955), 111-14

nighttime schedule

272.285.297, 313, 324, 326 insecurity of. 111. 113-14 intellect of. 22,

277

93

influences on, 48, 74, 87, 103-4, 109. 188

of,

99-100, 218

142. 144.

21, 31-32, 34. 102-3. 109.

of.

87-88, 188, 208, 279

—12

of,

40-50. 67-68, 76,

85, 88, 126, 132, 219. 243. 248-49.

21. 22-23, 32-33, 42, 59,

of.

22-23, 25-29, 31. 32. 65.

of.

143. 144.

manipuiativeness

172, 173-74, 178, 179, 256, 270,

30, 31. 32, 58-59.

of. 14,

125. 132, 147, 228, 239-40, 272, 285,

303 masking tone used by 76-78, 102, 109 media coverage of, 117-18, 119. 122. 148.

151.214 168. 181. 191. 238-39, 272, 287,

292-

96, 315, 318, 324

memor>-

of,

for.

274.

by,

295,298-307

by 72, 106-8, 298-307 viewed

155. 157-58. 163.

by. 121.

psychosomatic illnesses

of. 14.

128-29 120. 121-23,

158.242,286-87 for,

120-29, 133, 142, 181-

84, 187, 192, 197-99

324, 329-3

30, 45. 64, 66. 68. 94, 106-7.

mineral water drunk of,

practicing

24, 31. 43, 70-74.

of, 18,

83, 104, 192,

psychotherapy

psychotic episode

of,

181-84, 185, 262

radio as interest of. 64-65. 66. 90. 101. 131.

108. 208, 283, 322

modesty

playing position

psychiatrists as

medications taken by 14, 62, 102, 121, 123.

memorial senice

317

22, 105,

174-75, 198

1

16-17

139.

219-21

radio programs of. 90-91. 92. 93. 96. 97,

1

364

/

INDEX

Gould, Glenn Herbert (contimied)

104, 105-6, 111, 133-34, 141, 162-63,

103, 106. 178, 205. 206-8, 223-25.

180

230-43, 251, 264-65, 266, 282, 289-

307-8

90,

reading

record collection

of,

160, 162, 248.

79, 87, 101, 139, 179,

188,274

technique

101, 108, 113-21, 130, 131, 136-il,

70-74, 83,

of,

technological interests

telepathy as interest

telephone

306, 307, 316-19,324, 331 131, 139, 217-19, 223-25, 229,

1

18,

264-

reputation

of, 58,

residences

164,242,247

179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 193

of,

reviews

of, 32,

130,

79, 80, 83, 102, 108, 111,

of, 76,

208-9,212, 324

Avenue apartment 198,270,286,296 Salzburg, 163-65

St. Clair

recitals of,

of,

183, 184,

tempi used by 31, 101-2, 112, 138^1, 159, 161, 188, 194, 197, 210-13, 246, 247,

248,250,254,255,311,316, 318 Toronto as hometown

sense of

85, 104,

55, 203,

of,

humor

transcriptions

91,

1

14,

208

133-34

243

259-62 238-39 sexuality of. 60-61,66, 145, 151, 276, 277-78

245-

by

127,

30. 45, 48, 68, 107,

144^5,

255

85-86, 112-13,

147, 150, 180, 193. 201

needed by 25-27, 66, 68-69, 9293, 98, 102, 184, 203, 230-31, 232, 235, 243, 267, 287, 308 Southwood Drive home of, 38, 49, 52, 58,

1

39,

268-70

stage fright of, 62-63, 66, 80, 83, 91-92,

voice

of.

76-78, 102

68

66.

1 1

325

wTitings of, 37-38, 84, 85-86, 88, 99-100,

128-29, 140, 166, 201, 217, 229, 249,

Gould, Glenn Herbert, works film scores,

of:

279-81, 320-21

incidental music, 87

operatic works, 66, 127, 200.

204-5

Piano Pieces. 95-96 piano suite. 87-88 plays,

88

recordings

of,

96,

204

Sonata for Bassoon and Piano, 95, 96 Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, 203—4

So You Want

to

Write a Fugue. 209, 216-17.

String Quartet, 32, 125, 126, 176, 200-204,

205, 253, 282

Tod uiid Verklarung, 66

154, 174

manner

of,

253, 285

79-80, 179

stage

10-14, 133-34

"Kind der Rosemarie, Das," 276

solitude

"splicing plan" of,

1

203 191, 194,

188-93, 196, 298. 303

social life of, 49, 57, 66,

17-24, 27,

Gould's views on, 32. 132, 144, 176, 202,

46,

sight-reading

of,

"vacuum cleaner epiphany" in Vienna, 156-58

303

sensitivity of.

of,

by 136, 201-2, 254, 287, 290,

251, 255, 259, 262-64, 274, 281-82,

102, 123, 128-29, 148, 209, 239,

shoulder injury

68-69,

314

will of,

22, 45, 58, 66, 80, 84,

of,

of, 30, 38,

309-10

121,

Washington. D.C. debut of (1955),

120, 125, 135-36, 149-50, 204,

self-image

91, 103, 106, 125,

202, 209

17-24, 33-34,

179-80,206,215 Scottish ancestry of, 25, 36-37 sedatives taken by 28-29, 32-33, of,

of,

vocalizing of, 19, 45, 102, 165, 176, 200,

173, 174,

self-confidence

programs

U.S. tours

119

San Francisco

178-79, 181

324, 327

113-14, 133, 139, 155-56, 161, 162,

royalties of,

of,

by 143-48, 149, 177, 180,

220, 221, 225-29, 245, 255, 265-66,

141,213,214-15, 216, 219, 221, 230, 242-43, 244, 284

retirement

calls

283

301

79-80, 97, 105-6, 111,

135, 154, 156,

29, 64—65, 66,

129, 145, 193, 205-6, 212, 216, 219,

11, 299,

1

of,

274, 275, 277, 281, 282, 283, 291, 298,

television

275-76, 292

repertoire of, 83-84, 94,

112, 113-14,

1,

181-82. 187. 194. 201, 259, 267, 269, 29, 89,

65,267-70,316, 317 record sales of, 1 19, 219 religious feelings of,

1

1

89-91, 229, 264-65. 280, 287

274, 275, 279-81, 287-88, 297-99,

by,

288

155-56, 186-88, 298-307, 309

204, 205, 212, 242, 245-57, 267-70,

recording techniques studied

101-2, 144, 155, 159,

tape recorders used by 89. 90. 101. 179

17-18, 72, 74, 91, 94-95,

by, 13.

144, 154-65, 168, 177, 185, 187, 194,

in

by 323, 325-29

style of, 19, 30, 78,

87, 177, 178

by,

recordings

stroke suffered

of, 18, 19,

20, 79, 80, 102,

Gould, Grandma, 169

1

Index Gould, Grant A. (uncle). 36, 39, 40, 45, 51-

I

365

James, Mary, 106, 175 Jenkins, Syhia, 30

52, 55, 61

Gould, Russell Herbert "Bert

"

35-36.

(father).

38-41

35

jexrish Neu's.

Joachim. Otto, 204

Goulds death and. 326. 328, 329

Jones. William Corbett, 29-30, 31

Gould's relationship with. 45, 46-47, 48, 49, 50, 56, 58, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 71.

73-

Jorda, Enrique, 18, 20. 21, 22, 174

253-54

Juilliard String Quartet,

74, 75, 83, 92, 93, 104. 109, 129, 133,

173, 179, 238, 292, 305, 310, 312, 324.

325

Kahn, Albert. 240 Kander. Gerhard, 82

Graffman^Gary, 111. 113, 155

Kapell. William,

197-99 Greig, H. A. Macdonald. 36-37

Karajan. Herbert von. 155, 157, 165, 176,205,

Greig, Jessie (cousin). 84-85, 88, 129, 281,

"Karlheinz Klopweisser." 103, 262, 313

Greben. Stanley

E..

255.259.322,332

290, 291-92. 324, 327 Greig. John C. H. (grandfather),

Karsh, Yousuf.

36

269-70. 271, 275, 278, 287, 298-99,

307,317

Grieg. Ed\ard. 25. 36. 37

Piano Sonata

in

A

51

1

Kazdin. Andrew. 47, 55-56, 247, 265, 268,

Greig. Man,' Catherine Flett (grandmother). 36

Piano Concerto in

112.215

Minor. 255. 270

Kennedy, Jacqueline, 216

E Minor, 256

Kind. Syhia. 169

207 Quartet. 206

Gnller. Sidney.

Kirkpatrick. Ralph. 115. 116

Griiler

Kiwanis Music Festival. 75, 76

Gross. Maurice, 106

Klemperer, Otto, 145

Guameri Quartet, 279

Klibonoff, John, 322

Guerrero, Alberto, 61, 95

Gould

as student of,

Klotz, Philip,

70-74, 76, 78-79, 83,

87, 88, 103-4, 105. 116. 179. 249. 303

305

Kogan, Matilda. 30. 31 Kolisch Quartet. 107

KoUitsch. Wolfgang. 170

Hamilton Philharmonic. 322

Kraemer. Franz. 131-32. 200-201

Ham\ex (Shakespeare). 227-28. 282 Hammond. John. 224 Haydn. Franz Josef; Sonata in A-flat Major. 75 Heinze. Bernard. 80 Herbert. Frank, 99 "Herbert von Hochmeister, 259 Herman, Morris. 122-23. 189. 242, 286 High Fidelity. 259,281 Hill. George Roy, 279 Hindemith. Paul: Matthias the Painter, 87

Kraus, Greta, 74,

"

Piano Sonata no. 3 in

B-flat. 91.

History of Sexual Customs,

A

94

(Levvinsohn). 177

Hofmann, Cornelius. 333 Hofmann, Josef. 48-19 Homburger. Walter,

1

10-11,

115. 119, 132, 150, 151, 153, 157,

161-

Club, 83-84

Lang, Paul Henni', 212 Laredo, Jaime, 287, 288, 297

The (Santayana), 177 237-40 Leibowitz. Rene. 87 Le Moyne, Jean, 264

Last Ptmtan,

Latecomers, Tl^e,

Lenczner, Michael. 164

Ban Applause! (Gould), 154 "

Leventritt. Rosie, 111-13,

114

117,278 Dinu, 114-15

Liberace, Lipatti,

Liszt, Franz, 19, 48,

107

Valse Oubliee,

of,

254—55, 259-60

62

266.277,290.312. 313

Logan, Alexander G.. 292, 293, 294, 295, 315,

Paul.

326 London SvTnphony Orchestra, 176 Look, 279

1

1

Hupfer. William. 189, 192

Haxley Aldous, 140, 263

Lucerne Idea of North, The, 232-36, 241, 285, Israel

212

Landowska. Wanda. 108. 115. 188

piano transcriptions

Horowitz, Vladimir, 82, 88, 189, 222-23, 246,

Hume.

176

Kuerti. Anton. 163-64.

"Let's

81-

62, 163. 167-73. 180, 182, 219, 242

Home Music

Krips. Josef.

Leningrad Philharmonic. 154

as Gould's manager, 33,

83, 88, 91, 92, 97, 103, 104-6,

276

Krenek. Ernst, 94. 96. 152. 290

Philharmonic Orchestra, 172

297

Festival,

Lutrell. Dr..

176

192

Lympany. Moura. 217

1

366

/

INDEX

McCarthy, Dale, 295, 315 McClure, John, 131, 244

Moscow

MacDonald, D'Arcy, 314 McGreevy, John, 66, 309, 310, 325, 332 McLean, Eric, 161

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 45, 62, 67-68.

McLuhan,

State Conservatory,

Mozart (Gould's pet

Marshall, 219, 223, 225, 233, 264-

248-50 Piano Concerto no. 24

Piano Sonata no. 6

in

McRae, Colin

Piano Sonata no. 7

in

102

Mahler, Gustav:

Piano Sonata no. 16 facile"),

no. 2 ("Resurrection"),

137

312 Maloney, Timothy, 323 Malvern Collegiate Institute, 76, 84-86, 87, Malvern Drama Club, 87

Minor, 166

D Major, 250 C Major, 250 in C Major "Sonata (

in B-flat Major,

250

Piano Sonatas, 249-50

Sonatas for Four Hands, 74, 143, 249 9f

Symphony

no.

40

G

in

Minor, 249

Mailer, Mariin, 166

music:

Mann, Robert, 253-54 Mann, Thomas, 140

atonal, 61, 126, 151,

authenticity

Marceau, Marcel, 106 Marchese, Catherine, 96 Peter,

C

250

Piano Sonata no. 17

Peter, 310,

Manitoulin Island, 54, 325

Mark,

in

Piano Sonata no. 3 in B-flat Major, 91

Gould's opinions on, 257

Symphony

249

107, 141

MacMillan, Ernest, 70, 84, 92, 100-101, 135 Ma Corredor, J., 178

Mak,

5

Gould's opinions on, 22, 66, 76-77, 78.

65

A.,

1

bird), 53,

in,

256

139

Baroque, 86, 87, 115, 116, 224, 249 contemporary, 61,71, 86-87, 94, 98, 151-

23

53

Marliave, Joseph de, 140

Gould's opinions on, 61-62, 65. 66. 86-87

Marriner, Neville, 322

pop. 236-37

Marshall, Lois, 206

on

"Marta Hortavanyi," 313

recorded, 64. 217-19, 223-25, 229, 316, 317

Mary Tyler Moore Show, Massey Hall, 97 Master Musician

series,

Tl^e,

274

radio.

64

Renaissance, 86, 257

Romantic, 86, 201-3, 252-54 206, 229

Musical America, 229

Master MmicianPt'ehudi Menuhin, 229

Musical Courier, 108

Maybegg, Gerwald, 164 Mazzoleni, Ettore, 79 Mehta, Zubin, 193

Musicamera: Music

Meiningen Orchestra, 107 Mendelssohn, Felix: "Fingal's

in

Our

Time, 290, 301

Music of Man, Tlie, 228-29, 307 Music of Today/Schoenberg Series, 289-90 Myers, Paul, 223-24

"My

Cave" Overture, 323

Plans for the School Year" (Gould), 84

"Myron Chianti," 103, 261-62

Gould's opinions on, 252-53

Sonata no.

76

6,

Naoumoff, Emile, 95, 96 National Film Board of Canada, 131

Songs Without Words, 253 Trio no.

1

in

D

Minor,

1

37

Mennonites, 240-42

Neel, Boyd, 165

Menuhin, Diana Gould, 223, 224-25, 228 Menuhin, Yehudi, 28, 192, 206, 226-29, 307 Metropolitan United Church, 76 Michelangc-li, Arturo Benedetti, 247 Miller, Larry,

C,

Jr.,

33,

Prize,

Newfoundland. 237-40 New Music Associates. 98-101

149-50

Moll, Albert E., 121, 123-25, 129

Molson

Nelsova, Zara. 28. 106-8, 110-11

Neveu, Ginette, 215

New Yorker, 104 New York Philharmonic.

88

Mitropoulos, Dimitri, 164 Moffitt, Herbert

National Library of Canada, 121, 184

264

Monsaingeon. Bruno, 283-85, 310, 311, 314, 316, 325,333

143.

144,210,211,

279

New

York Times, 324 Nick (Gould's dog), 52, Nielsen, Carl, 256 Nielsen. Richard. 280

53, 80, 101

Montreal String Quartet, 160, 161, 204 Moore, Howard, 238

Nietzsche. Friedrich. 103

Morawetz, Oskar, 87, 94-95, 140, 200 Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, 151

Oakland Symphony, 208 Offergeld. Robert.

224

7

1

Index

Olnick. Harv-ey. 108, 109, 111-13. 114.201 opera, 61. 66, 127, 200, 204-5, 234-35.

251-

367

I

Rosen. Charles, 234 Rubinstein, Arthur, 19, 92, 238, 240, 266.

278-79

52

Oppenheim. Da\id, 112, 114-15 Ormandy. Emma, 196 Ormandy Eugene, 191, 196-97 Ostrowsky Piano Company, 3 1 Ostwald, Eugene, 97 Oshvald, Kathe, 97 Ostwald, Lise Deschamps, 1 1-12. 194-96, 208, 209, 214, 215, 216, 329, 333-34

Sacks. Oliver. 42

Salzburg Music Festival. 162, 163

Samuel, Gerhard. 208

San Francisco Svmphonv. 217

Santa Rosa Sjinphony, 194 Santayana, George, Satie, Eric,

Prt

Wo Casah: A Portrait for Radio.

1

78, 240,

290

Pacsu. Margaret, 313

316

267

A.,

Schneider. Alexander. 106-8. 109. 114-15

286-87. 290. 292. 294. 305,

documentaries on, 206-8, 290

315,325

Fantasy for

medicine, 14, 190, 305

251,289-90

Ode

309

Peter Ustiuoxs Leningrad,

Egon. 156. 194 Robin, 281

Posen, Stephen, 35, 265, 329. 333 Prizek. Mario,

253 Hundred Years, 290 Schoenberg Memorial Concert. 99 Schonberg. Harold, 212 Schubert, Franz: Duo for \'iolin and Piano. Schumann. Clara, 14, 107, 297 Schumann, Robert, 48, 77, 166 Gould's opinions on, 14, 297 Piano Quartet in E-flat Major. 253-54 to Napoleoti, 137,

Schoenberg, the

Piano Qmirterh 281,282

290

Prokofiev. Sergei: Piano Sonata no. 7 in B-flat

Major. 88. 153.222

"Prospects of Recording, The" (Gould), 217-19

and Piano, 227-28

X'iolin

Gould's opinions on, 99, 140, 201. 216. 245.

"Personal Reminiscences" (Ostwald), 333

Phillips.

Maxim, 1 10 154-55

Schoenberg, Arnold, 61, 87, 152, 178, 223

Pearson. Lester B.. 261

Petri,

66

Schnabel. Artur, 19, 79

Pa\^ant. Geoffrey 13. 120, 265,

arts

1

Schiff, Andreas,

Parkin. Alan, 124

performing

76

Sawallisch, Wolfgang,

Schapiro,

Paray Paul. 133

John

1

236

Schabas, Ezra, 108

Page. Tim. 249-50. 252.

Percival.

21-22. 174. 194.

18,

First

3

Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth, 247 "Question of Instrument,

Schweitzer, Albert, 229

Quiet

Scriabin, Alexander:

in the

Lami.

310 240—12

Tlie.

"Desir etude, "

Rachmaninoff. Sergei. Piano Concerto no.

"Season on the Road, A" (Gould), 166

83 48

19. 3,

Serkin, Rudolf. 108,

Radio as Music, 239 Rask\'.

"S.

290. 314

Recital of Contemporar\' Music.

Richardson.

J.

236-37

Shumsky

Oscar. 21. 136. 137

Shuter. Rosemary; 45 135, 136

Richard Strauss Festival, 206

77

Richter, Jean Paul,

Roberts. Christina, 132 Roberts, John

Tlie,

M.D.," 128-29, 260

Shostakovich, Dmitri, 153

96

175

C.

F Lemming,

Shakespeare. William. 87. 227-28, 282

Ravel, Maurice. 71

Reller. Austin.

266

Search for Pet ula Clark,

Frank. 35

Vh/se, La,

307

Piano Sonata no. 3 in F-sharp Minor. 222

Rabinowitz. Malka. 172

P L,

49, 59, 132, 133, 151, 163,

Sibelius, Jean:

S\Tnphony No.

5.

234

Siebenkas (Richter). 77 Silverman, Andrea, 282 Silverman, Ingrid, 283 Silverman. Robert. 281-83. 317. 324. 333

C,

68. 75

179. 180, 181, 184, 219-20, 255-56,

Silvester. Frederick

264, 269, 275, 276, 277, 281, 282, 293,

Simoneau. Leopold. 137 "Sir Humphrex- Price-Davies." 260

295. 317. 324-25, 327, 331, 333 Roberts. Ra\Tnond ("Ray"). 271-76. 278, 282,

291, 293. 295. 324. 325-26, 326, 327

"Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite," 261. Slater.

David Dick, 38

Ronutntic Generation, Jlie (Rosen). 234

Shiughterhouse-Five,

Rose. Leonard, 21, 136, 137

Smith, Leo, 68

279-80

313

1

368

Solitude Trilogy, 230-43,

/

Tocco, James, 162-63

267

242 Soseki, Natsume, 275-76 So You Want to Write a Fugue (Gould), 209, Somerville, Janet, 238,

216-17,253,285

22

Gould as student 80,87

Humane

Toronto

150

Toronto Star,

Stegemann, Michael, 161

1

67, 68, 70-74, 76, 78,

at,

Society, 56,

325

5

Toronto Symphony Orchestra, 70, 80. 81, 84,

196.242, 243

Stein, Irwin, 191,

of, 221 Toronto Conservatory of Music, 49, 67, 221-

Toronto, University

Solomon, Maynard, 203

Stalin, Joseph,

INDEX

135

Steinberg, William, 97

Steinway pianos, 132, 173-74, 178, 180, 18893, 196, 256, 270, 298, 301-2, 303 Stephens, Joseph, 128, 185-88, 191-92, 19495, 197-98, 199, 208, 214, 222, 243,

266, 270, 276, 277, 278, 283, 291, 296,

Tovell, Vincent,

220-21,331

Tragedy of Premature Death Among Geniuses, What Does It Mean? Can It Be Prevented?, The" (Ostwald), 333 Tuik, Lome, 235-39, 271, 276, 284, 291, 308,

297-98

324

Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 103, 251, 262

Tureck, Rosalyn, 101, 115, 188

Stokes, Aldwyn, 124

Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 87

Stokowski, Leopold, 28, 156-57, 206, 240, Valen, Fartein, 255

246^7, 261 "Stokowski

Piano Sonata no.

Scenes" (Gould), 282

in Six

Vancouver Music

256 Stratford Music Festival, 21, 28, 106-8, 132, 136-37 Stout, Alan,

Strauss, Pauline,

1

10,

2,

256

Festival, 193,

Vear, Herbert, 191

234-35

Verdi, Giuseppe; Fahtaff,

308

Strauss, Richard, 126,

von Bulow, Hans, 107

209

Burleske, 18, 20, 21, 22, 33, 163-64,

208

von Kaiserling, Count,

1

16

Vonnegut, Kurt, 279

Capriccio, 136, 202, 209, 252

209

Elektra, 136,

Gould's opinions on, 22, 206, 245, 250-52,

Wagner. Richard, 126, 205 Gould's opinions on, 86, 87

257, 308 Heldenleben, Ein, 251

Meistersinger, Die, 157,

Metamorphosen, 202, 252

Siegfried Idyll,

B Minor, 251, 324 piano transcriptions for. 201-2 Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat, Stratford program on. 36-37 Piano Sonata

in

1

36

1

Stravinsky, Igor:

du

Soldat,

L',

1

06

176

Helen, 175, 176 Stuckenschmidt, H. H., 155-56 Stross,

Sullivan, Patrick, 106,

Watts, Malcolm, 180, 183

Webern, Anton, 61, 87, 152 Gould's opinions on, 99-100, 201

Saxophone Quartet, 99-100

Alma Mahler. 178 Whitney Joyce, 79-80 "Why Mozart is a Bad Composer" (Gould),

Werfel,

Petrushka Suite, 20 Stross, Fred, 175,

217

322-23

Tristan and Isolde, 61, 203 Wanstead United Church, 62, 75 Wars, Vie. 280-81, 292, 320-21

Ophelia Songs, 283

Hisfoire

245

Vancouver Symphony, 97

277

249

Widman,

Mrs.,

289

Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon, 111, 221

Wilford, Ronald, 242, 254, 278. 287

Su'itched-on Bach, 264

Williamson Road Public School. 49, 57-58

Symphonia Quartet, 204

Winchester, Miss. 67

Szeli,

George, 148

Tchaikovsky Competition, 150, 162. 197

Windsor Arms Hotel, 179 Winnipeg Symphony, 64. 1 32 Wittgenstein. Ludwig, 42

"Ted Slutz," 260, 309 Terminal Man,

Tlie,

280

Yamaha

pianos, 174

Thibaud, Jacques, 215 Three-Cornered World, The (Soseki), 275-76

Zen Buddhism, 275

Time. 148

"Zoltan Mostanyi," 260

MUSIC /BIOGRAPHY

"[A] superb psychological study ... a poignant personal memoir."

Peter

F.

Ostwald

The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould was a

whose 1955 recording

—

and a musical gef

child prodigy

of Bach's ''Goldberg Variations" catapulted

hir

world fame. He was also plagued by lifelong depression, was terrified of p| ing before live audiences,

and consumed prescription drugs by the handful,

died at fifty of a massive stroke. In this

acclaimed biography, the

Ostwald— an

late psychiatrist Peter

plished violinist and longtime personal friend of Gould's tions about Gould and his music. vice versa?

Do those with genius

Was

his genius

— raises

acc^

many

qi

sponsored by eccentricil

sacrifice themselves for a higher ideal

whl

remaining personally unfulfilled? Ostwald lays bare the energy and contradf tion behind Gould's brilliance.

"Learning more of the man, absorbing Peter Ostwald's picture and analysis, has| sharpened

my

made me more

ears and

acutely receptive.

.

.

.

CAn] important anc —Oliver Sac

illuminating biography."

''Peter Ostwald's talent to look inside the souls

and

his personal

this great

and fascinating

artist."

— Maestro Peter

F.

and minds of outstanding artists

knowledge of Glenn Gould have given us an exciting book about

Kurt Masur, conductor.

New York

Ostwald published several biographies of performing

artists, including

Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius and Vaslav into IVIadness.

He died

in

Philharmonic

Nijinsl