I’m not really one for biographies normally, but had a fine old time whizzing through one on Canadian Glenn Gould last week. His name kept cropping up on Piano forums, where people gushed about his ideosyncratic performances. I only recently found out he died in 1982 at the age of 50. He had a myriad of oddball habits (daily arm bathing, sitting less than a foot off the ground when playing – on a tiny broken and lucky chair that his dad made, severe hypochondria, insisting his rooms be heated to 27C, refusing to cease singing along with his playing – even during recordings) and some staggering talents (prodigy at 10, turned professional at 15, considered the most brilliant player of Bach’s keyboard works that has lived). Some of the most interesting parts for me included learning of his delusions about being a funny, interesting guy and his often embarrasing overconfidence in areas of little expertise. 
Glenn Gould – a bizarre individual, but what a player. Kevin Bazzana has written a very balanced work on Gould, but I get the sense that he really relished busting some myths and telling everyone how terribly untalented, flawed and annoying Gould could be, especially when it came to composing, and his utter disregard for anything but himself and his own interests. When describing Gould’s upbringing, there was a strong sense of his cosseted and privileged, Methodist childhood in suburban Toronto, and so it seemed a little strange to hear that he was reportedly fascinated with “the north” – meaning northern Ontario, a place he found haunting in its emptiness and raw beauty. Bazzani lists features of Gould’s personality that align with his northern-ness, include his crisp piercing playing style and his puritanical, frigidity about matters sexual. He wrote some ground breaking experimental radio plays that the author feels are underrated compared to some of the more sensational aspects of his personality. In the end, he died suddenly due to some blot clots on the brain, and in many ways the impression I got was that by then he was so over-prescribed on medications (700 pills a month) and paralysed with anxieties that it must have been a sort of sweet relief. I listened to his 1955 Goldberg Variations again a few days ago, and it’s just an incredible (if overly fast) performance. I think he went out at the right time.