The iconic Glenn Gould.
The Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould is, perhaps, the country’s most accomplished artist and one of its most fascinating eccentric.
Secretive, paranoiac, brilliant, Gould has long had an enigmatic public perception. But less so now.
Michael Clarkson’s article in the Toronto Star entitled The secret life of Glenn Gould is a must read for all Gould fans, and to have listened to him play is to be a fan.
When Glenn Gould died young 25 years ago, friends were stunned to find a love letter in his cluttered Toronto apartment, among the empty pill pots and records
The Glenn Gould article was interesting, to be sure – although the love affair was mentioned (though not comprehensively) in Otto Friedrich’s authorized biography of GG. It was annoying that Clarkson’s article states (in the New York Times Syndicate version, which I read in the Denver Post) that Gould, a Canadian, “had become the first American to play in the Soviet Union since World War II”).
By: Peter Friend on 28 September, 2007
at 7:37 pm
Surely that had to be Van Cliburn?
By: Tony Carson on 28 September, 2007
at 11:20 pm
No, Gould the Canadian performed in Moscow and Leningrad before Van Cliburn, so at the very least he was the first North American classical musician to peform in post-Stalin Soviet Republic.
But the first North American (any genre) to perform in the USSR after WWII, wasn’t that Paul Robeson?
By: Sam on 6 October, 2007
at 11:41 am