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| Glenn Gould Candid Portrait Available at Icon Collectibles | |
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In 1980, Columbia Masterworks released the"Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album," a monumental double-albumcelebrating the artist's quarter century of the recording for thelabel. In June of that year, Don Hunstein sat with Gould for his firstphoto shoot with Gould in more than a decade. Here Hunstein capturesGould, notorious for his eccentric posture and oddly graceful physicalmovements while performing, literally defying gravity as he leansprecariously backwards in a director's chair, his body ready to springinto thin air as he pushes up on the ball of his right foot, one shoemysteriously absent. ICON-Collectibles, a unique website powered by SONY BMG which offers music fans from all over the world an opportunity to bid on extraordinary music memorabilia including museum quality fine art photographs of your favorite artists, is happy to make available six limited edition professionally printed photographs from the historic SONY BMG photo archives. Each print is individually created using premium fiber-based paper and includes a Certificate of Authenticity. 
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| The Glenn Gould Trilogy - A Life | |
 “The Glenn Gould Trilogy “, a unique radio play 'composed' by Michael Stegemann, provides on 3 CD's a unique insight into the life, music and thoughts of Glenn Gould, the brilliant pianist who would have turned 75 on 25th September 2007. Berlin/London, July 2007: The Canadian musician Glenn Gould (25th September 1932 – 4th October 1982 in Toronto, Canada) was without any doubt one of the leading pianists of all time. Even today, the unconventional interpretations and eccentric personality of the "James Dean of the piano" continue to exude an unbroken fascination. In good time for Glenn's 75th birthday on 25th September and the 25th anniversary of his death on 4th October, Sony Classical will be releasing a special 3-CD box on 4th September 2007 to mark this double jubilee: "The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life" is a fascinating journey through the life, the music and the thoughts of Glenn Gould. Radio play, biography, talking book, music and original spoken commentaries are blended on the three CD's to create an enthralling portrait, as unusual and gripping as the charismatic and eccentric artist himself. "The Glenn Gould Trilogy" was designed by Gould biographer Michael Stegemann, with Gould's own Solitude Trilogy serving as the source of inspiration. For Gould was not only a brilliant musician, he was also a visionary radio and media pioneer: his idea of 'contrapunctal radio' and the Solitude Trilogy that he created, based on this idea, for CBC between 1967 and 1977 served as the basis for Stegemann's work. Gould's Solitude Trilogy consists of three revolutionary radio plays, which Gould himself called 'docudramas', about life in northern Canada (The Idea of North, The Latecomers and The Quiet in the Land). Not dissimilar to a Baroque fugue, each of the three parts of the Solitude Trilogy is composed as a collage of overlapping texts (spoken by different narrators), sounds and noises that complement each other in terms of content. CD 1: The Idea of Music takes us up to Gould's first recording of Bachs Goldbergvariations for the CBC in 1954. CD 2: The Drop-Out describes his legendary record début with Bach's Goldberg Variations (1955) and follows the years when he gave regular recitals until the 'concert drop-out' in 1964, when he retired from the concert platform completely, while CD 3: The Quiet in the Studio is devoted to the years up to his death, years when Gould only communicated with his public through the media of records, radio and television. The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life was produced jointly by West German Radio (WDR/Cologne), Studio Akustische Kunst (editor: Markus Heuger) and SonyClassical/SonyBMG in studio sessions that stretched over several months. A English language version was made, and a separate German one for the German-speaking market. For the narrators of the English version, we were fortunate enough to engage the services of Tom Zahner and Leslie Malton among others. The Glenn Gould Trilogy is one of the few radio plays designed not only to yield stereo, but also surround sound, thus enabling the special character of this collage-like composition to be enjoyed to even more realistic effect. The CD's will therefore be released in the Hybrid Super Audio CD format, which, in combination with a Super Audio compatible CD player and equipment able to reproduce surround sound, enables the listener to enjoy a fascinating, multidimensional experience. But the CD's can also be played in stereo on any normal CD player. The Glenn Gould Trilogy takes us on a trip into the life and mind of a charismatic and shrewd eccentric who anticipated the potential, and also the limitations and dangers, of total media networking as scarcely any other musician of his time did. Glenn Gould was always in search of a perfect interpretation. A unique genius, enduringly controversial and ever eager to argue his point, he remains unsurpassed to this day. Available for purchase on Amazon and Sony Music Store |
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| The Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection Available Now | |
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Sony BMG Music, the home of Gould’s recording legacy from 1955 to the present, continues its pivotal role in presenting and promoting Glenn Gould around the world. In commemoration of the Year of Glenn Gould, the Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection has been released. The 80-disc limited edition box set includes 78 CDs encompassing all of the artists work, each uniquely packaged to resemble the original LP recordings. Also included are 2 bonus CDs complete with the last recorded interview with the artist and an audio essay by Glenn Gould on Johann Sebastian Bach and the fugue. Accompanying the set is a 250 booklet including a detailed essay by Glenn Gould specialist Michael Stegeman and detailed liner notes for each individual track. Complete with beautiful packaging, the Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection is an essential tribute to a legendary artist and thinker. Available now! Amazon Canada - click here Amazon United States - click here |
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| The Glenn Gould Complete Jacket Collection | |
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Sony Classical, the home of Gould's recording legacy from 1955 to the present, continues its pivotal role in presenting and promoting Glenn Gould around the world. This fall, the Sony Classical will be releasing The Glenn Gould Complete Jacket Collection, an 80-disc boxed set commemorating Gould’s recording legacy. It includes all the artist's Columbia LP recordings on 78 CDs, from Glenn Gould's legendary 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations to piano works by Richard Strauss released posthumously on 4 April 1984. The bonus CDs include the last interview that Glenn Gould gave to Tim Page in 1981 and an audio essay on Johann Sebastian Bach and the fugue that Gould recorded in 1972 for a bonus LP. The set includes a new, detailed essay by the German Gould specialist Michael Stegemann. In addition, Dr. Michael Stegemann has created a new 3 CD boxed set entitled, The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life which includes a radio play, biography, talking book, music and original spoken commentaries. Bruno Monsaingeon’s DVD, The Goldberg Variations will be re-released in the fall with additional DVD titles planned for 2008.
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BIO
Glenn Gould was born in Toronto in 1932, and enjoyed a privileged, sheltered upbringing in the quiet Beach neighborhood. His musical gifts became apparent in infancy, and though his parents never pushed him to become a star prodigy, he became a professional concert pianist at age fifteen, and soon gained a national reputation. By his early twenties, he was also earning recognition through radio and television broadcasts, recordings, writings, lectures and compositions.
Early on, Gould's musical proclivities, piano style and independence of mind marked him as a maverick. Favoring structurally intricate music, he disdained the early-Romantic and impressionistic works at the core of the standard piano repertoire, preferring Elizabethan, Baroque, Classical, late-Romantic and early-twentieth-century music; Bach and Schoenberg were central to his aesthetic and repertoire. He was an intellectual performer, with a special gift for clarifying counterpoint and structure, but his playing was also deeply expressive and rhythmically dynamic. He had the technique and tonal palette of a virtuoso, though he upset many pianistic conventions - avoiding the sustaining pedal, using détaché articulation, for example. Believing that the performer's role was properly creative, he offered original, deeply personal, sometimes shocking interpretations (extreme tempos, odd dynamics, finicky phrasing), particularly in canonical works by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.
Gould's American début, in 1955, and the release, a year later, of his first Columbia recording, of Bach's Goldberg Variations, launched his international concert career. He earned widespread acclaim despite his musical idiosyncrasies, while his flamboyant stage mannerisms, as well as his hypochondria and other personal eccentricities, fuelled colorful publicity that heightened his celebrity. But he hated performing – "At concerts I feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian" – and though in great demand, he rationed his appearances stingily (he gave fewer than forty concerts overseas). Finally, in 1964, he permanently retired from concert life.
Gould harbored musical, temperamental and moral objections to concerts, and aired them publicly: "The purpose of art," he wrote, "is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." Even before he retired, he was not satisfied with being a concert pianist; he made radio and television programs, published writings on many musical and non-musical topics, continued to compose. After 1964, this work away from the piano only intensified. He liked to call himself "a Canadian writer, composer, and broadcaster who happens to play the piano in his spare time."
His retirement was also fuelled by his devotion to the electronic media. Gould was one of the first truly modern classical performers, for whom recording and broadcasting were not adjuncts to the concert hall but separate art forms that represented the future of music. He made scores of albums, steadily expanding his repertoire and developing a professional engineer's command of recording techniques. He also wrote prolifically about recording and the mass media, his ideas often harmonizing with those of his friend Marshall McLuhan.
Though he never became the significant composer that he longed to be, Gould channeled his creativity into other media. In 1967, he created his first "contrapuntal radio documentary," The Idea of North, an innovative tapestry of speaking voices, music and sound effects that drew on principles from documentary, drama, music and film. Over the next decade, he made six more such specimens of radio art, in addition to many other, more conventional, recitals and talk-and-play shows for radio and television. He also arranged music for two feature films.
Gould lived a quiet, solitary, spartan life, and guarded his privacy; his romantic relationships with women, for instance, were never made public. ("Isolation is the one sure way to human happiness.") He maintained a modest apartment and a small studio, and left Toronto only when work demanded it, or for an occasional rural holiday. He recorded in New York until 1970, when he began to record primarily at Eaton Auditorium in Toronto.
In the summer of 1982, having largely exhausted the piano literature that interested him, he made his first recording as a conductor, and he had ambitious plans for several years' worth of conducting projects; he planned then to give up performing, retire to the countryside, and devote himself to writing and composing. But shortly after his fiftieth birthday, Gould died suddenly of a stroke.
Since then, he has enjoyed a remarkable posthumous "life." His multifarious work has been widely disseminated. He has been the subject of an enormous and diverse literature in many languages. And he has inspired conferences, exhibitions, festivals, societies, radio and television programs, novels, plays, musical compositions, poems, visual art and a feature film (Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould).
Moreover, his ideas – like McLuhan's – still resonate strongly today in the world of digital technology, which was in its infancy when he died. His postmodernist advocacy of open borders between the roles of composer, performer and listener, for instance, anticipated digital technologies (like the Internet) that democratize and decentralize the institutions of culture. There is no question that Gould, more than any other classical musician, would have understood and admired digital technology – and would have had fun playing with it.
- Kevin Bazzana
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TIMELINE
1932
• (September 25) Born Glenn Herbert Gold [sic] at home at 32 Southwood Drive, in Toronto's Beach neighborhood. (The family changes its surname to "Gould" around 1939.) His father is Russell Herbert (Bert) Gould (1901–1996), a prosperous furrier; his mother was born Florence Emma Greig (1891–1975); both are modest, decent people, devout members of the United Church, and amateur musicians. The two extended families – of English and Scottish ancestry – are based in nearby Uxbridge, ON, and Gould's parents own a cottage on Lake Simcoe, north of Toronto.
1935
• Gould's prodigious musical gifts, including perfect pitch, become apparent, and when he is 4 his mother becomes his first piano teacher.
1938
• (June 5 and 6) First documented public performances, at church events in Uxbridge; on the latter occasion, he plays some pieces of his own composition. He will make many other modest public appearances as a child, in local churches and schools, even in his own home.
• (August 30) First appearance in a music competition, at the Canadian National Exhibition.
• (Fall) Begins his first year of schooling at home, with private tutors.
• (December 4) Performs in a public revue, "Today's Children," sponsored by a toy company; its broadcast on the local station CFRB marks his radio début.
• Around age 6, attends his first concert – a recital by the pianist Josef Hofmann – and later says that the event made a "staggering impression" on him.
1939
(• June 4) First documented performance as a conductor, leading a song service at a church service in Uxbridge.
• (Fall) Begins Grade 2 at Williamson Road Public School.
• At age 7, begins attending concerts of the Toronto Symphony.
1940
• (February) Takes his first examination at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, in Grade 3 piano. (He continues to take examinations through Grade 10, in 1944.) Later, begins studying theory at the conservatory with Leo Smith (until 1947). Through the next decade, he will win medals and other honors from the conservatory, and perform often at its public functions.
• Around this time, his love of animals is manifested in one handwritten edition of The Daily Woof – The Animals Paper.
1941
• (December 18) Earliest surviving composition: A Merry Thought, for piano.
1942
• Begins organ lessons at the conservatory with Frederick C. Silvester (until 1949), and later credits playing the organ with influencing his piano style and encouraging his love of Bach and contrapuntal music. Takes organ examinations through 1946, and occasionally plays the organ in church and school events through 1948.
1943
• (March 25) Composes Our Gifts, for boys and girls' voices with piano, dedicated "to the Junior Red Cross throughout Canada."
• (Fall) Begins studying piano at the conservatory with the Chilean–born Alberto Guerrero (1886–1959), his only professional piano teacher and a significant (though rarely acknowledged) influence on his musical proclivities, repertoire, and piano style.
1944
• (February) Wins several prizes in the inaugural Kiwanis Music Festival, and later performs in public concerts of prize winners.
1945
• (February) Wins several prizes in the second annual Kiwanis Music Festival, and later performs in public concerts of prize winners (including a March 10 concert broadcast on CFRB).
• (June 15) Passes, with the highest honors, his piano examination for the conservatory's Associate diploma, which indicates a professional level of achievement.
• (September) Begins Grade 9 at Malvern Collegiate Institute.
• (November 29) Plays the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, with Guerrero accompanying on a second piano, in a conservatory concert.
• (December 12) Professional début as a performer, on the organ, in a program with two other young performers and a choir at Eaton Auditorium (he earns $15).
• Around this time, Gould's older cousin, Jessie Greig, moves into the house while studying for a year at a Toronto teacher's college; she becomes a surrogate sister to him, and they develop a lifelong friendship.
1946
• (February) Wins several prizes in the third annual Kiwanis Music Festival, and his performance in the "Stars of the Festival" concert at Massey Hall (February 27) earns some of his earliest significant reviews. Around this time, news of his musical gifts begins to circulate in the local press – and, soon, outside Toronto.
• (May 8) Orchestral début: first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, with Ettore Mazzoleni conducting the Toronto Conservatory Symphony, in Massey Hall, as part of a conservatory concert.
• (June) Passes written theory examinations for the conservatory's Associate diploma.
• (October 2) Performs at the Art Gallery of Toronto as part of "Symphony Week."
• (October 28) Receives his Associate diploma, and performs at the conservatory's graduation exercises at the University of Toronto.
1947
• (January 14–15) Professional concerto début: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, with Bernard Heinze conducting the Toronto Symphony, in Massey Hall.
• (April 10) First full-length piano recital, at the conservatory, in a program of works by Haydn, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Mendelssohn.
• (April 18) Attends the Massey Hall recital of Vladimir Horowitz, who exerts some influence on his repertoire and piano style around this time.
• (October 20) Professional recital début as a pianist, in Eaton Auditorium, in a program of works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Couperin, Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn (he earns $250). He is now managed by Walter Homburger, who will represent him through 1968.
• (November 16) Recital at the Art Gallery of Toronto.
• (December 3) First professional concert outside Toronto: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, in Hamilton, with Ernest MacMillan conducting the Toronto Symphony.
• Around this time, the Gould family acquires one of the earliest tape recorders, and Gould begins eagerly to explore the new technology and document his playing.
1948
• Attends the Toronto début of the American pianist and Bach specialist Rosalyn Tureck (1914–2003), who exerts a major influence on his Bach playing.
• (November 4) Recital for the Heliconian Club, Toronto.
• (September 13) Composes Rondo in D Major, for piano.
• (ca. 1948 to early 1950) Composes a piano sonata (unfinished).
• Around this time, through Guerrero, Gould makes the momentous discovery of the music of Schoenberg, and soon becomes a devoted, lifelong champion of the music of Schoenberg and his school.
1949
• A few Toronto recitals this year: one at Hart House (University of Toronto), two at the Art Gallery of Toronto, and one at Metropolitan Auditorium.
• (February) Composes and performs a suite of four pieces as an overture to a Malvern production of Twelfth Night.
• (April 12) Composes Variations in G minor, for piano (unfinished).
• (October 9) First public performance of a piece of twentieth-century music: Prokofiev's Sonata No. 7, in a recital at the Art Gallery of Toronto.
1950
• A few Toronto concerts this year: the conservatory, Hart House (University of Toronto), the Y.W.C.A. auditorium, Massey Hall, and the Canadian National Exhibition. Around this time, Bach becomes a significant part of his repertoire – and his public championship of both Bach and twentieth-century music will intensify through the early 1950s.
• (Early) Composes 5 Short Piano Pieces.
• (February 12) In a recital at Hart House, offers perhaps the first characteristically "Gouldian" program: Bach's Italian Concerto, Beethoven's "Eroica" Variations, and Hindemith's Third Sonata.
• (September) Composes Sonata for Bassoon and Piano.
• (October 6) Composes two twelve-tone pieces for organ (unfinished).
• (October 15) Composes a twelve-tone string trio (unfinished).
• (November 26) First solo recital outside Toronto: University of Western Ontario, in London.
• (December 24) CBC radio début, sonatas by Mozart and Hindemith. Over the next 30 years, he will make dozens of appearances on CBC radio – studio performances as well as broadcasts of concerts, in wide-ranging solo, chamber, and concerto repertoire, often with his own spoken commentary.
1951
• (January 4) Organizes an ambitious "Recital of Contemporary Music" at the conservatory, comprising works composed 1936–50 by Hindemith, Krenek, Morawetz (the première of his Fantasy in D), and himself.
• (January–May) Concerts with the Toronto Symphony and in Hamilton and St. Catherines, ON; his March 6 appearance with the symphony is in uncharacteristic Romantic repertoire, Weber's Konzertstück in F Minor.
• (May) Composes Prelude, Cantilena and Gigue, for clarinet and bassoon.
• (Spring) Finishes Grade 13, though does not complete all the necessary requirements to graduate formally from high school.
• Shortly after Schoenberg's death in July, delivers a commemorative lecture about him at the conservatory.
• (September–November) Composes Two Pieces, for piano.
• (October 28–29, November 7) First tour of Western Canada – concerts in Vancouver and Calgary.
1952
• This year, ends piano lessons with Guerrero. For the next few years, he spends an increasing amount of time living at his family's cottage, practicing, thinking, reading, composing, and generally preparing himself for an adult career as a musician.
• (February 10) Recital at Hart House (University of Toronto).
• (March–May) Composes Three Fugues on One Subject (only No. 2 survives).
• (Spring) Forms a legally registered company, New Music Associates, with his childhood neighbor and friend Robert Fulford, to present concerts.
• (August 30) Recital at the Canadian National Exhibition.
(September 8) CBC television début: performs a movement of a Beethoven concerto as part of the first telecast ever transmitted in English Canada. Over the next 25 years, he will make many television appearances for both the English and French arms of the CBC (and occasionally for networks outside Canada), in a wide-ranging repertoire and in conventional recitals as well as more original thematic programs with his own commentary.
• (October 4) "Schoenberg Memorial Concert," organized by New Music Associates, at the conservatory.
• (November 6) Montreal début recital, in a program – Gibbons, Bach, late Beethoven, late Brahms, Berg – that establishes the basic pattern of his recital repertoire.
1953
• (February 16) Ottawa début (recital).
• Other concerts this year in Kingston, Peterborough, and Toronto.
• (April) Begins composing a string quartet.
• (July 31, August 4 and 14) Appears in a piano-trio concert and two solo recitals at the inaugural Stratford Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario.
• (November 3) First commercial recordings: Berg's Sonata and three Russian works with the violinist Albert Pratz (Hallmark RS3, with his own liner notes).
• (November 23) First concert in Eastern Canada: recital in Saint John, NB.
• (December 17) Lecture at the conservatory on Schoenberg's Piano Concerto – his first significant piece of writing to survive.
• (December 21) CBC radio: Canadian première of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, with Jean-Marie Beaudet conducting the CBC Symphony.
1954
• Around this time, discovers an 1895 Chickering baby-grand piano that a friend has been renting. He falls in love with the instrument, the action of which comes to represent an ideal for him. He takes over rental of the instrument and stores it at the family cottage (he purchases it outright in 1957); in the early 1960s, he moves it to his apartment in Toronto.
• Release of a Radio Canada International transcription disc (Programme 120): Bach's Partita No. 5 and Morawetz's Fantasy in D.
• (January 9) Concert organized by New Music Associates, at the conservatory, featuring works by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, and Gould's program essay, "A Consideration of Anton Webern."
• Other concerts this year in Montreal, Brantford, and Toronto.
• (June) CBC radio: first public performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations.
• (July 18) CBC television (Summer Festivals): performs Beethoven chamber music with the violinist Alexander Schneider and the cellist Zara Nelsova, in a broadcast from the Stratford Festival.
• (October 16) All-Bach concert organized by New Music Associates, at the conservatory, including his first concert performance of the Goldberg Variations.
• (November 15) Winnipeg début (recital).
• (December 14–15) Montreal Symphony début: Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, including the première his own cadenzas for the first and third movements.
• (December 16) Radio-Canada television (L'Heure du concert): first movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, including his own cadenza, with Paul Scherman conducting the CBC Symphony Orchestra – the earliest surviving footage of Gould in performance.
1955
• (January 2) American début recital, at the Phillips Gallery in Washington, DC, in a program of works by Sweelinck, Gibbons, Bach, Webern, Beethoven, and Berg.
• (January 11) New York début, at Town Hall, in the same program. The following morning, he is offered a contract to record for the Masterworks division of Columbia Records; he signs in the spring, and remains exclusive to the label for the rest of his life.
• Concerts this year in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Victoria, and Edmonton.
• (June 6–16) Makes his first Masterworks recording, at Columbia's 30th Street studio in New York: Bach's Goldberg Variations.
• (July 12 and 29) Appears at the Stratford Festival.
• (October 8) Finishes composing his String Quartet, his only major work.
• (October 19) CBC radio: appears in a tribute to the recently deceased Thomas Mann, and performs Beethoven's Op. 111 sonata.
1956
• (Early) Claims to be at work on an opera based on Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," but it is never finished, and no music for it survives.
• (January) First Columbia Masterworks album, of the Goldberg Variations, is released to almost universal critical and popular acclaim, launching his international career as a recording and concert artist. His liner notes on the back cover also marks his international début as a writer. (All albums below marked with an asterisk included his own liner notes.)
• (March 12) "Music World's Young Wonder," photo-essay by Gordon Parks in Life.
• (March 15) American concerto début, with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. From now on, his tours will include recital and concerto dates throughout the U.S. in addition to Canada.
• (March–May) Concerts in Windsor, Hamilton, and at a meeting of "The Bohemians" at the Harvard Club, in New York. The day after his triumphant recital in Massey Hall, on April 16, the mayor of Toronto presents him with an engraved wristwatch at City Hall "in recognition of his phenomenal achievements in the musical world as a concert pianist and composer."
• (April 13) CBC television (Graphic): interview.
• (April 25) CBC radio: interview with Eric McLean.
• (April 28) First major magazine profile: "The Genius Who Doesn't Want to Play," by Gladys Shenner, in Maclean's, with photographs by Paul Rockett.
• (May 21) Radio-Canada radio (Premières): first performance of his String Quartet, by the Montreal String Quartet.
• (July 7) "'I Don't Think I'm at All Eccentric,' Says Glenn Gould," by Jock Carroll, in Weekend Magazine [Toronto Telegram].
• (July 9) Organizes a mixed program of mostly twentieth-century music at the Stratford Festival, including the concert première of his String Quartet.
• (September) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Sonatas Opp. 109–111.*
• (Fall) First published article, "The Dodecacophonist's Dilemma," in the inaugural issue of the Canadian Music Journal. He will contribute to other major Canadian periodicals over the years, including Saturday Night, The Canadian, the Varsity Graduate, the Canada Music Book, and several Toronto newspapers, on a wide variety of topics.
• (Fall) String Quartet published by am-ca (later Barger and Barclay) in Great Neck, NY. Around the same time, Radio Canada International releases a transcription disc of the piece (Programme 142), with the Montreal String Quartet.
• (October–December) Concerts in Mount Lebanon, PA, Watertown, CT, Toronto, Montreal, Delaware, OH, New York (Metropolitan Museum), Dallas, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, Spokane, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and St. Louis.
1957
• Release this year of his third and last Radio Canada International transcription disc (Programme 140): Brahms's Piano Quintet, with the Montreal String Quartet.
• (January 26–27) New York Philharmonic début, in Carnegie Hall, with Leonard Bernstein conducting, in Beethoven's Concerto No. 2.
• (January–March) Concerts in Burlington, VT, Quebec City, Brockville, ON, San Francisco, Pasadena, and Victoria.
• (March 28 and 30) Cleveland Orchestra début, with George Szell conducting, in Beethoven's Concerto No. 2.
• (February 20) CBC television (Chrysler Festival): performs part of Bach's Partita No. 5 and conducts the contralto Maureen Forrester in "Urlicht" from Mahler's Symphony No. 2.
• Two-week tour of the Soviet Union, where he is the first North American pianist to appear since the death of Stalin: three scheduled concerts in Moscow (May 7, 8, and 11), three in Leningrad (May 14, 16, and 18), and unscheduled lecture-recitals on the music of the Second Viennese School at the conservatories in both cities (May 12 and 19).
• (May 24–26) Berlin Philharmonic début, with Herbert von Karajan conducting, in Beethoven's Concerto No. 3.
• (early June) CBC radio: interview with Ted Viets, in Vienna.
• (June 7) Recital at the Vienna Festival.
• (June 23) CBC television (Newsmag): "Return of a Prodigy," interview conducted at the family cottage on Lake Simcoe.
• (August–December) Concerts in Montreal, Toronto, Washington, Syracuse, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, New York, and Miami.
• (September 26) CBC radio: conducts the CBC Vancouver Orchestra in Mozart's Symphony No. 1 and Schubert's Symphony No. 4.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven, Concerto No. 2, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Columbia Symphony.*
• (December) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Partitas Nos. 5 and 6, and Fugues 9 and 14 from Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier.
• (ca. 1957–59) Composes a sonata for clarinet and piano (unfinished).
1958
• (January–May) Concerts in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Buffalo, Kingston, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Vancouver, Tacoma, New York, Boston, Montreal, Lexington, Ottawa, Ann Arbor, and Toronto.
• (July) Columbia Masterworks album: Haydn, Sonata No. 59; Mozart, Sonata K. 330 and Fantasia and Fugue K. 394.
• (July 15) CBC radio (Assignment): interview with Hugh Thomson.
• (July 23, 27, and 30) Appears at the inaugural Vancouver International Festival.
• (August 10–October 9) Tour of Western Europe: Salzburg, Brussels, West Berlin, Sweden (one concert, four radio recitals), and Wiesbaden.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Concerto No. 5, and Beethoven, Concerto No. 1, with Vladimir Golschmann conducting the Columbia Symphony.*
• (Mid-October to mid-November) Illness forces him to cancel several performances and hole up at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg.
• (November 15–December 17) Tour resumes: Florence, Turin, Rome, and (despite further illness) Israel, where he gives 11 concerts in 18 days.
• (December 1957 through April 1958) Concerts in Detroit, Minneapolis, Houston, Pasadena, San Francisco, St. Louis, Edmonton, Calgary, New York, Salt Lake City, Buffalo, Washington, Oberlin, Boston, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Birmingham, Knoxville, and Columbia.
1959
• This year, Gould finally moves out of his parents' house, at first into the Windsor Arms Hotel.
• (January) Columbia Masterworks album: Berg, Sonata; Krenek, Sonata No. 3; and Schoenberg, 3 Piano Pieces, Op. 11.*
• (February) Receives the Harriet Cohen Bach medal (London).
• (March 28) "'I'm a child of nature' – Glenn Gould," interview with Dennis Braithwaite, Toronto Daily Star.
• (May 16–June 1) Recital in West Berlin and a cycle of the concertos at a Beethoven festival in London, with Josef Krips conducting the London Symphony (cancels the last concert – the "Emperor" – owing to illness).
• (Summer) Filming, at Lake Simcoe and in New York, of two documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada: Glenn Gould: Off the Record and Glenn Gould: On the Record (released 1960).
• (August 17–31) Returns to Western Europe, though again hampered by illness: tapes two recitals for the BBC in London, and gives concerts at festivals in Salzburg and Lucerne; the latter (Bach's D-minor concerto, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra) is his last public performance outside North America.
• (October–December) Concerts in Winnipeg, Ann Arbor, London, ON, Berkeley, Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta, Rock Hill, SC, Cincinnati, Bloomington, Cleveland, Oklahoma City, and Syracuse.
• (ca. October 25) KPFA radio (Berkeley): interview with Alan Rich.
• (November 26–28) Performs two concertos (Schoenberg, Bach) with the Cleveland Orchestra, contributes a long program essay on Schoenberg, delivers a lecture to the orchestra's women's committee, and offers the American début of his String Quartet – impressing everyone with the range of his talents.
• (December) Briefly leases a mansion, Donchery, outside Toronto.
• (December 4) CBC radio (Project 60): "At Home with Glenn Gould," interview with Vincent Tovell.
• (December 8) While visiting the offices of the Steinway & Sons piano firm in New York, Gould is greeted by a piano turner William Hupfer, and later claims that Hupfer injured his left shoulder. Problems with his left shoulder, arm, hand, and fingers persist – so he claims – and result in many medical tests and treatments; he cancels some concerts and recording sessions in 1960 (including a European tour in February), though is back to his regular schedule by fall. On December 6, 1960, he sues Steinway for $300,000. The case is settled out of court on November 9, 1961, with Gould demanding only about $9,000 for medical and legal expenses.
• (ca. 1959–64) Composes a song cycle for mezzo-soprano based on the Holy Sonnets of John Donne (unfinished).
1960
• Spends the first half of the year living at the Algiers Apartments, on Avenue Road, then moves into a penthouse (No. 902) at Park Lane Apartments, 100 St. Clair Avenue West – his home for the rest of his life. This same year, he incorporates a private company to represent his artistic ventures, Glenn Gould Limited, with initial capital of $40,000. By this time, his concert fees are among the highest in the business, and he has become an astute player of the stock market.
• (January) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Concerto No. 3, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Columbia Symphony.
• (January 31) American television début (CBS, Ford Presents), as part of the program "The Creative Performer," performing the first movement of Bach's D-minor concerto, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.
• (March–April) Concerts in Baltimore, Toledo, Cleveland, Victoria, Washington, Rochester, and Montreal.
• (May 14) "Apollonian," profile by Joseph Roddy, in The New Yorker.
• (June) Discovers a Steinway grand piano designated "CD 318," and finds it ideal for his purposes. Steinway gives it over to his exclusive use, and most of his recordings from 1960–81 are made on it. Over the years, he modifies its action and tone to suit his particular style and repertoire.
• (July) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Partitas Nos. 1 and 2, and Italian Concerto.
• (July 24, August 7) Appears in all-Bach and all-Beethoven concerts as an artist-in-residence at the Stratford Festival.
• (July 27, July 29, August 2) Appears at the Vancouver International Festival; the third concert is an all-Schoenberg lecture-recital.
• (October–December) Concerts in New Haven, Detroit, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Akron, and Minneapolis. (A major tour of Australia planned for this fall is cancelled.)
• (December 6–7) Canadian concert première of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, with Walter Susskind conducting the Toronto Symphony.
• (November) Columbia Masterworks album: Gould's String Quartet, with the Symphonia String Quartet.*
• (November 26) First published book review, and first article published in the U.S.: "Bodky on Bach," in Saturday Review. He will contribute articles and reviews to other major American periodicals over the next 20 years, including The New Republic, Saturday Review, The New York Times, and Look, on a wide variety of topics.
• (ca. 1960–64) Composes an opera, to his own libretto, with a central character loosely based on Richard Strauss (unfinished, and very little music survives).
1961
• (January–May) Concerts in Denver, St. Louis (cycle of Beethoven's concertos), Houston, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Montreal, Los Angeles, and Cleveland.
• (February 6) CBC television (Festival 61): The Subject is Beethoven – first thematic special for television in which he appears as both performer and commentator.
• (June) Columbia Masterworks album: Brahms, 10 intermezzi.
• (July 16 and 23, August 13) Appears in all-Brahms, all-Strauss, and all-Bach concerts at the Stratford Festival, as one of three co-directors of music (with the violinist Oscar Shumsky and the cellist Leonard Rose).
• (August 7, 9, and 17): Appears at the Vancouver International Festival, in a lecture-recital before an audience of children, an all-Bach concert, and a performance of Brahms's D-minor concerto with Zubin Mehta conducting.
• (October–November) Concerts in White Plains, NY, Madison, Boston, Cincinnati, and Minneapolis.
• (November) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Concerto No. 4, with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.
• (ca. late 1961 to 1964) Composes a concert aria for soprano and orchestra, A Letter from Stalingrad, based on letters supposedly written by German soldiers during the 1943 siege of Stalingrad and first published in the fall of 1961 (unfinished).
1962
• This year, meets Cornelia Foss, a painter and the wife of Lukas Foss, a composer and pianist Gould greatly admires. He befriends the couple, but by 1964 his friendship with Cornelia has evolved into the most important romance of his life.
• (January) Interview with Bernard Asbell, in Horizon.
• (January–April) Concerts in Baltimore, Oakland, Berkeley, Winnipeg, Portland, OR, Cleveland, New York, Toledo, Columbus, Chicago, Lexington, South Bend.
• (January 14) CBC television (Sunday Concert): Music in the U.S.S.R., with Gould as performer and commentator.
• (February) "Let's Ban Applause!" – the first of more than 15 articles and reviews he will publish in High Fidelity/Musical America over the next 14 years.
• (March 13) CBC television: 10 Minutes with Glenn Gould, interview with Vincent Tovell.
• (April 5, 6, and 8) Performs Brahms's D-minor concerto with the New York Philharmonic. His performance, and the conductor Leonard Bernstein's pre-concert speech alluding to their differences over interpretation, provoke criticism in the press.
• (April 8) CBC television (Sunday Concert): Glenn Gould on Bach, with Gould as performer and commentator.
• (May) Columbia Masterworks album: Strauss, Enoch Arden, with Claude Rains, speaker.*
• (June) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Art of Fugue, Vol. 1 (Contrapunctus 1–9), on the organ. (Gould never records Vol. 2.)
• (July) Columbia Masterworks album: Mozart's Concerto K. 491, with Walter Susskind conducting, and Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, with Robert Craft conducting, both with the CBC Symphony.*
• (July 8 and 29, August 5 and 10) Again as one of the co-directors of the Stratford Festival, appears in all-Bach, all-Hindemith, and all-Mendelssohn concerts, and serves as performer and commentator in a bizarre, controversial "Panorama of Music of the '20s"; also organizes and writes program notes for a concert on July 13, "The Schoenberg Heritage."
• (August 8) CBC radio (CBC Wednesday Night): Arnold Schoenberg: The Man Who Changed Music – Gould's first radio documentary.
• (October 9–10) Performs the Brahms D-minor concerto in Baltimore, this time explaining his interpretation in a program essay, "N'Aimez-vous pas Brahms?"
• (October 15) CBC television (Festival): Richard Strauss: A Personal View, with Gould as performer and commentator.
• (October–November) Concerts in Atlanta, Detroit, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Louiseville. Around this time, he stops flying and agrees to travel only by car or train.
• (December 1) "The Odd, Restless Way of Glenn Gould," interview with Betty Lee, in The Globe Magazine.
1963
• (February–April) Concerts in San Francisco, Denver, and Rochester.
• (March) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Nos. 1–8.
• (March 4) CBC television (Festival): The Anatomy of the Fugue, with Gould as performer and commentator. As a "finale" for this program, composes So You Want to Write a Fugue?, a short, humorous piece for four voices and string quartet (published by Schirmer in 1964).
• (April 22) Delivers one of the inaugural Corbett Music Lectures at the University of Cincinnati: "Arnold Schoenberg: A Perspective." The text is published as a short monograph by the university's press in 1964 – the only book by Gould published in his lifetime.
• (May 22) Delivers a lecture at a Kiwanis Club meeting in Toronto: "Music in the U.S.S.R."
• (July 2, 9, and 16) Delivers, on short notice, the inaugural MacMillan Lectures at the University of Toronto: "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process" "A Perspective on Arnold Schoenberg"; and "Music in the U.S.S.R."
• (July 7 and 28) Again as one of the co-directors of the Stratford Festival, appears in all-Bach and all-Russian concerts; also organizes and writes program notes for a July 21 concert of music by Schoenberg and Strauss.
• (July 18) Delivers "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process" again, at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON.
• (October 26) Recital in Detroit.
• (November) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Partitas Nos. 3 and 4, and Toccata in E Minor.
• (November) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, 6 Partitas (re-releases).*
1964
• (March 29) Recital in Chicago.
• (January) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Nos. 9–16.
• (January 31, March 3) Delivers a two-part lecture, "The History of the Piano Sonata," at Hunter College, New York (repeated February 2, March 8 at the Gardner Museum, Boston).
• (April) "The Zany Genius of Glenn Gould," profile by Alfred Bester, in Holiday.
• (April) "The Music of Proteus: Being Some Notes on the Subjective Character of Fugal Form," in HiFi/Stereo Review, accompanied by an inserted recording of So You Want to Write a Fugue?.
• (April 10) Last public concert: recital at Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles. He has a litany of musical, temperamental, and moral objections to the concert hall, which he airs publicly in interviews, articles, and broadcasts for the rest of his life.
• (Spring) Composes a humorous madrigal for four voices with piano, for a testimonial dinner in New York honoring the Columbia Records executive Goddard Lieberson; makes a private recording of the piece on July 3.
• (June 1) Receives an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto, and delivers the convocation address, "An Argument for Music in the Electronic Age" (published in December in the Varsity Graduate).
• (June 3) CBC television (Festival): Concerti for Four Wednesdays, Program No. 1, "Anthology of Variation," with Gould as performer and commentator.
• (August) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Two- and Three-Part Inventions.*
• (October 9) Delivers one of the Corbett Music Lectures at the University of Cincinnati: "The Music of Russia."
• (November 11) Last public lecture: an address to the graduating class of the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, at Convocation Hall, University of Toronto (published in the Christmas issue of the conservatory's Bulletin).
• (November 27) Recorded Interview with Pat Moore, for the Russian Section of the CBC's International Service (broadcast in Moscow early in 1965).
1965
• Gould's friend John P. L. Roberts becomes supervisor of music for the English Service of the CBC, and encourages Gould to do more – and more adventurous – work for radio. He also sets Gould up with a makeshift office at the CBC building. Around this same time, begins renting studio space at Film House, evidence that he is increasingly taking hands-on control of his recording and broadcasting projects.
• (January 10) CBC radio (CBC Sunday Night): Dialogues on the Prospects of Recordings, documentary. A revised version of the text, published as "The Prospects of Recording" in High Fidelity (April 1966), is his magnum opus on the subject of recording.
• (March, August, and December) Contributes three articles to High Fidelity/Musical America under the pseudonym "Herbert von Hochmeister."
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Sonatas Op. 10/Nos. 1–3.
• (June) Travels by train from Winnipeg to Churchill, MB, inspired by his lifelong love of the Canadian North. (A desire to mine that experience creatively will yield, in 1967, his first experiment in a new kind of radio art.)
• (June 10–11) Makes his first recordings (Schoenberg songs) under producer Andrew Kazdin, with whom he will work for almost 15 years.
• (December) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Nos. 17–24.
1966
• (March 15 and 22, April 5 and 19) CBC-BBC television series: Conversations with Glenn Gould (on Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, and Schoenberg), with Humphrey Burton.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor"), with Leopold Stokowski conducting the American Symphony.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Schoenberg: The Complete Music for Solo Piano.*
• (May 18) CBC television (Festival): Duo, with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, including conversations between the two.
• (June) Columbia Masterworks album: Schoenberg: Complete Songs for Voice and Piano, Vol. 1, with Donald Gramm, bass-baritone, Ellen Faull, soprano, and Helen Vanni, mezzo-soprano.
• (November 9) CBC television (Intertel): "The Culture Explosion," interview with Alex Trebek.
• (November 13, through April 30, 1967) CBC radio: The Art of Glenn Gould, 24-part weekly series mostly devoted to his discography. The first installment, "On Records and Recordings," is one of his seminal statements on the subject, and the April 2 program includes his public début as a humorist: "Conference at Port Chilkoot," a spoof of a music critics' gathering.
• (November 23) CBC radio (Ideas): "The Psychology of Improvisation," documentary.
1967
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Sonatas Opp. 13 (Pathétique) and 14/Nos. 1 and 2.
• (July 1) Receives the federal government's Canadian Confederation Medal.
• (August) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Concertos, Vol. 1 (Nos. 3, 5 and 7) with Vladimir Golschmann conducting the Columbia Symphony.
• (November) Columbia Masterworks album: Canadian Music in the 20th Century (Morawetz, Fantasy in D; Anhalt, Fantasia; and Hétu, Variations pour piano).* (A fourth recording – Pentland, Shadows/Ombres – is released posthumously, 1992.)
• (November) "The Glenn Gould Variations," profile by Richard Kostelanetz, in Esquire.
• (November) "The Search for Petula Clark," in High Fidelity/Musical America. The text becomes the basis for an innovative CBC radio documentary (December 11, The Best of Ideas).
• (November 15) CBC television (Centennial Performance): Bach, Concerto No. 7, and Strauss, Burleske, with Vladimir Golschmann conducting the Toronto Symphony – Gould's first color telecast.
• (December) Columbia Masterworks album: Schoenberg, Phantasy for Violin and Piano, with Israel Baker.
• (December) Columbia Masterworks album: Schoenberg, Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, with John Horton, narrator, and the Juilliard String Quartet.
• (December 28) CBC radio (Ideas): The Idea of North, Gould's first "contrapuntal radio documentary," and the first installment in his "Solitude Trilogy." (Released as a CBC Learning Systems LP, 1971.)
1968
• Around this time, Cornelia Foss, whom Gould wants to marry, moves to Toronto with her two children to be with him; she eventually takes her own house near his apartment, and their relationship comes as close to domestic as any in his life.
• (February 4 to March 17) CBC television (The World of Music): serves as host and commentator for 6 programs.
• (February 5–6) Records Beethoven's Sonata Op. 78 (released posthumously, 1993).
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven-Liszt, Symphony No. 5.*
• (April) Columbia Masterworks bonus album: Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout, recorded interview with John McClure.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Mozart, Sonatas, Vol. 1: K. 279–283.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Nos. 1–8.
• (April 1) Severs his business relationship with Walter Homburger, and becomes a client of Ronald Wilford at Columbia Artists Management Incorporated (cami), in New York.
• (April 28) NET (U.S. public television) broadcast (PBL): How Mozart Became a Bad Composer, with Gould as performer and commentator.
• (May 20) CBC radio (Ideas): Anti Alea: A Study in Objections, documentary.
• (November 10) CBC radio: discusses the Moog Synthesizer and other topics on Sunday Supplement, a news and public-affairs show. (Moog segment released as a CBC Learning Systems cassette, 1972.)
1969
• A soundtrack of Gould playing Bach is used in Spheres, an animated film directed by René Jodoin and Norman McLaren, for the National Film Board of Canada.
• (January) Columbia Record Club album: Beethoven, Sonatas Opp. 13 (Pathétique), 27/No. 2 ("Moonlight"), and 57 ("Appassionata"). (Re-released as a regular Masterworks album, 1970.)
• (January) Columbia Masterworks album: Prokofiev, Sonata No. 7, and Scriabin, Sonata No. 3.*
• (May) Columbia Masterworks album: Mozart, Sonatas, Vol. 2: K. 284, 309, and 311.
• (May 8) CBC television (Telescope): Variations on Glenn Gould, portrait with interview segments.
• (May 18–October 5) CBC radio: The Art of Glenn Gould, 21-part weekly series mostly devoted to Gould's discography, with commentary on topics including concerts versus recording, various composers, the psychology of concertos, the animated films of Norman McLaren, fugue, music criticism, and the Moog Synthesizer, along with some humorous skits.
• (August) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, Concertos, Vol. 2 (Nos. 2 and 4), with Vladimir Golschmann conducting the Columbia Symphony.
• (September 9) Receives the Canada Council's Molson Prize.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Schumann, Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, with the Juilliard String Quartet.
• (November 12) CBC radio (Ideas): The Latecomers, "contrapuntal radio documentary," the second installment in his "Solitude Trilogy." (Released as a CBC Learning Systems LP, 1971.)
1970
• (February 18) CBC-NET television (The World of Music): The Well-Tempered Listener, with Gould as performer (on piano, harpsichord, and organ) and in conversation with Curtis W. Davis.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Nos. 9–16.
• (May) Self-interview about Beethoven published in the souvenir program of the Guelph Spring Festival, in Ontario; several reprints, including The Globe Magazine (June 6) and The Piano Quarterly (Fall 1972).
• (July 16–17) Eight-track recording of Scriabin's Sonata No. 5, which he intendeds to mix in such a way that the audio perspective changes to reflect the structure of the music – an innovative technique he dubs "acoustic orchestration" or "acoustic choreography." (This was to have been part of a complete cycle of Scriabin sonatas – a project he abandons.) The post-production work is never done, and when the recording is released posthumously, in 1986, it is in a single, unvarying audio perspective only.
• (July 23) CBC radio (CBC Thursday Night): Performs Chopin's Sonata No. 3 (his only adult performance of Chopin) and short pieces by Mendelssohn, and airs a short documentary on musical trends in the 1960s.
• (August 5) CBC-NET: television version of The Idea of North, produced and directed by Judith Pearlman.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Variations WoO 80 and Opp. 34 and 35 ("Eroica").
• (December 9) CBC television (Beethoven Bi-Centennial Concert): Glenn Gould Plays Beethoven, including the "Emperor" Concerto, with Karel Ancerl conducting the Toronto Symphony – a performance Gould taped on a few hours' notice after the cancellation of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli.
1971
• (January 10) First recording session in Eaton Auditorium, Toronto, where Gould will make most of his recordings for the rest of his life. Around this time, he also hires a personal assistant, Ray Roberts.
• (February 2) CBC radio (CBC Tuesday Night): Stokowski: A Portrait for Radio, "contrapuntal radio documentary."
• (March 9) Interview with Artur Rubinstein, in Look.
• (ca. April) CBC radio: performs Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata.
• (April 18) Records Bach's Aria variata alla maniera italiana in A Minor (released posthumously, 1997).
• (May) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Nos. 17–24.
• (Spring–Summer) "Radio as Music, Glenn Gould in conversation with John Jessop," in the Canada Music Book.
• (September) Approached to supervise a Bach-based soundtrack for George Roy Hill's film of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five. He accepts, and, beginning in December, puts himself at the disposal of Universal Studios for 10 weeks. The film is released in March 1972, and later a soundtrack album is released by Columbia.
• (September 27) Radio recital for the European Broadcasting Union, a program of works in variations form, with commentary.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: works by Byrd and Gibbons.*
• (ca. October 20) After being shipped back to Toronto from Cleveland, where Gould had planned (but cancelled) sessions to record concertos by Beethoven and Grieg with the Cleveland Orchestra, his beloved piano CD 318 is dropped and badly damaged. It is repaired, and adjusted many more times through the 1970s, but in his view it is never quite right again.
1972
• Contributes an introduction to an edition of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (New York: Amsco Music Publishing Company).
• (January) Completes Glenn Gould über Johann Sebastian Bach, a promotional recording for CBS Schallplatten, in Germany, in which he reads a text in German.
• (April) Columbia Masterworks album: Mozart, Sonatas, Vol. 3: K. 310, 330, 332, and 333.
• (May) Columbia Masterworks album: Schoenberg: Complete Songs for Voice and Piano, Vol. 2, with Donald Gramm, bass-baritone, Helen Vanni, mezzo-soprano, and Cornelis Opthof, baritone.
• (August 26) CBC radio (The Scene): reviews Slaughterhouse-Five, about which he ended up having mixed feelings.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Handel, Suites Nos. 1–4, including his own arrangement of the Prelude of No. 1. He made this recording, in March, on the harpsichord because his piano, CD 318, was then being repaired.
• (October 7) CBC radio (The Scene): humorous documentary on competitive sports, in which he appears as several fictitious characters.
1973
• Around this time, Gould's relationship with Cornelia Foss ends, and she moves back to her husband.
• (February 14) Purchases CD 318 outright.
• (March) Columbia Masterworks album: Grieg, Sonata in E Minor; Bizet, Premier Nocturne and Variations chromatiques.*
• (August) Serves as producer for a recording by the pianist Antonin Kubalik, of music by Korngold (released as Genesis GS 1055).*
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Bach, French Suites, Nos. 1–4.
• (October) Columbia Masterworks album: Beethoven, Sonatas Op. 31/Nos. 1, 2 ("Tempest"), and 3.
• (October) CBS Masterworks album: Hindemith, Sonatas, Nos. 1–3.* (His liner notes win a Grammy Award the following year.)
• (October) CBS Masterworks album: Wagner, Prelude to Die Meistersinger, "Dawn" and "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" from Götterdämmerung, and Siegfried-Idyll, all in Gould's own transcriptions.*
• (November) CBS Masterworks album: Mozart, Sonatas, Vol. 4: K. 331, 545, and 533/494, and Fantasia K. 397.
1974
• (January–February) Over a six-week period, shoots Glenn Gould, a series of four films by Bruno Monsaingeon for the ORTF (French television) series Chemins de la musique. The films – "La Retraite," "L'Alchimiste," "Glenn Gould 1974," and "6e Partita de J-S Bach" – air on November 30 and December 7, 14, and 21.
• (January 15) CBC radio (CBC Tuesday Night): Casals: A Portrait for Radio, "contrapuntal radio documentary."
• (February) "Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould," in High Fidelity/Musical America.
• (February) Tapes three humorous television commercials promoting the radio series CBC Tuesday Night, appearing in costume as fictitious characters: Sir British conductor Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite, the German avant-garde composer Dr. Karlheinz Klopweisser, and the American actor Myron Chianti.
• (February 20) CBC television (Musicamera): "The Age of Ecstasy: 1900–1910," with Gould as performer and commentator, the first installment in his series Music in Our Time.
• (Spring) First article for The Piano Quarterly: "Take One: Data Bank on the Upward Scuttling Mahler" (reprint of a review published November 10, 1973, in The Globe and Mail). He will contribute a dozen new and reprinted articles and reviews to the magazine over the next 6 years.
• (June) CBS Masterworks album: Bach, French Suites Nos. 5 and 6, and French Overture.
• (August) CBS Masterworks album: Bach, 3 Viola da Gamba Sonatas, with Leonard Rose, cello.
• (September 11–November 13) CBC radio (Music of Today): ten-part weekly series on Schoenberg.
• (November 19) CBC radio (CBC Tuesday Night): Schoenberg: The First Hundred Years – A Documentary Fantasy, "contrapuntal radio documentary."
1975
• (February 5) CBC television (Musicamera): "The Flight from Order: 1910–1920," with Gould as performer and commentator, the second installment in his series Music in Our Time.
• (April) CBS Masterworks album: Beethoven, Bagatelles, Opp. 33 and 126.
• (July) CBS Masterworks album: Mozart, Sonatas, Vol. 5: K. 457, 570, and 576, and Fantasia K. 475.
• (July 26) Death of Gould's mother, from a stroke.
• (August) "An Experiment in Listening: The Grass is Always Greener in the Outtakes," in High Fidelity/Musical America, the results of a private experiment demonstrating the musical integrity of recordings.
• (August 29) Private video production: Radio as Music, created for the International Exhibition of Music for Broadcasting, Toronto.
• (November 26) CBC television (Musicamera): "New Faces, Old Forms: 1920–1930," with Gould as performer and commentator, the third installment in his series Music in Our Time; includes his own transcription of Ravel's La Valse.
• (December) Completes a documentary on Ernst Krenek for the BBC radio series Music Weekly, but because of a disagreement about the soundtrack it never airs.
1976
• CBS Masterworks albums this year: Hindemith: The Complete Sonatas for Brass and Piano, with the Philadelphia Brass Ensemble; and Bach, 6 Violin Sonatas, with Jaime Laredo.
• (April 29) Receives the Diplôme d'honneur from the Canadian Conference of the Arts.
• (May) Reviews the Streisand album Classical Barbra in his last piece for High Fidelity/Musical America.
• (July) Receives the National Award in Music form the University of Alberta.
• (September) Begins renting a studio at the Inn on the Park, a posh Four Seasons hotel in the Toronto suburb of Don Mills.
1977
• CBS Masterworks albums this year: Sibelius, 3 Sonatines and Kyllikki (mixed using "acoustic orchestration");* and Bach, 6 English Suites.
• (March 25) CBC radio (Ideas): The Quiet in the Land, "contrapuntal radio documentary," the third installment in his "Solitude Trilogy."
• (Spring) Begins experiencing what he considers to be serious and potentially crippling problems with his hands.
• (August 22–26) CBC radio: serves as host and commentator for Arts National.
• (December 14) CBC television (Musicamera): "The Artist as Artisan: 1930–1940," with Gould as performer and commentator, the fourth installment in his series Music in Our Time. (It is the final installment, though seven episodes were originally planned.)
• (Mid-September through July 12, 1978) Keeps a detailed written record of his hand problems and efforts to overcome them through physical experiments at the keyboard, though the cause, nature, and seriousness of these problems is never clear.
1978
• CBS Masterworks album this year: Hindemith, Das Marienleben, original 1923 version, with Roxolana Roslak, soprano.* (Wins a Juno Award the following year.)
• (Spring) Publication of Geoffrey Payzant's Glenn Gould, Music and Mind (Toronto: Van Nostrand Reinhold). Gould cheekily reviews the book himself, in the May 27 issue of The Globe and Mail.
• (May) "Glenn Gould at 45," profile by Norman Snider, in Toronto Life.
• (May 7) CBC radio (From the Masters): scripted interview with Andrew Marshall.
• (May 14) "Stokowski in Six Scenes" published in the New York Times Magazine, which had commissioned the article and is angered to learn that Gould has permitted it to be published in advance in The Piano Quarterly.
• (June) Tapes a conversation about recording with Yehudi Menuhin, for Part 8 ("Sound or Unsound") of the CBC-PBS television series The Music of Man, first broadcast in the fall of 1979.
• (August–September) Shooting of Glenn Gould's Toronto (part of the series Cities), directed by John McGreevy; Gould writes the narration and appears on-camera as tour guide. The program has its première on the CBC on September 27, 1979, and receives two actra Awards in 1980.
1979
• CBS Masterworks albums this year: Mozart, complete sonatas (re-releases);* and Bach, Toccatas, Vol. 1.
• (April 2 and 9) CBC radio (Mostly Music): The Bourgeois Hero, "contrapuntal radio documentary" about Richard Strauss, in two parts.
• (April 23) Resumes recording after a two-year hiatus, his mysterious hand problems apparently no longer an issue.
• (June 11, to April 5, 1980) Records various short works by Bach for two proposed albums – one of fantasies and fugues, one of works in the Italian style – neither of which is finished (released posthumously, 1997).
• (October 10, 1979) Last recording session under producer Andrew Kazdin.
• (November) Filming of The Question of Instrument, directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, the first installment in the CBC-Clasart television series Glenn Gould Plays Bach.
1980
• CBS Masterworks albums this year: Bach, Toccatas, Vol. 2; The Little Bach Book (re-releases); Bach, Preludes, Fughettas, and Fugues (which wins Canadian Music Council's Grand prix du disque the following year); and Beethoven, Sonatas Opp. 2/Nos. 1–3 and 28 ("Pastoral"). Also released this year: The Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album, a two-record set comprising previously unreleased recordings made 1963–72, mostly for abandoned projects (3 Scarlatti sonatas, a C. P. E. Bach sonata, 2 Scriabin pieces, the first movement of the Beethoven-Liszt Pastoral Symphony, Strauss's Ophelia-Lieder with the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Gould's So You Want to Write a Fugue?); also includes a new, humorous self-interview, A Glenn Gould Fantasy.
• Scripted interview with Elyse Mach, published in her book Great Pianists Speak for Themselves (New York: Dodd, Mead).
• (January 11) First recording session in Eaton Auditorium as his own producer.
• (January 19) Remarriage of his father to Vera Dobson (1909–1999). Gould declines to be his best man and does not attend the ceremony; he is disturbed by the union, which strains his relationships with his father and some other family members.
• (March 16) "A Rare Meeting with the Bobby Fischer of Music," interview with Andrew Stephen, in the Sunday Times Magazine (London).
• (May 20–August 21) Keeps a fairly regular diary for the only time in his life.
• (August) Interview with James Aikin, in Contemporary Keyboard.
• (October) Makes his first digital recordings, in New York – late sonatas by Haydn.
• (October 23) CBC radio (Mostly Music): scripted interview with Barclay McMillan.
• (November) Filming of An Art of the Fugue, directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, the second installment in the CBC-Clasart television series Glenn Gould Plays Bach.
• (November 26–December 2) "Glenn Gould: Bach's Bad Boy," interview with Tim Page, in the Soho News.
1981
• (January–February) Interview with Ulla Colgrass, in Music Magazine.
• (February) Records on a Yamaha piano for the first time, in sonatas by Haydn, and continues to use the Yamaha in the rest of his digital recordings in New York.
• (April–May) Filming of The Goldberg Variations, directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, the third installment in the television series Glenn Gould Plays Bach, now produced by Clasart alone. (It is the final installment, though five episodes were originally planned.)
• (April 12) Receives the Canadian Music Council Award for "outstanding service in Canadian musical life."
• (June) "' … the inner movement of music …'," interview with Martin Mayer (in German), in Fono Forum.
• (August 29–30) Last recording sessions in Eaton Auditorium: Bach, Italian Concerto (released posthumously, 1998).
• (Fall) Interview with Tim Page, in The Piano Quarterly.
• (November 30) Profile by Joseph Roddy, in People (reprinted in Reader's Digest, May 1982).
• (December) "The Decided Views of Glenn Gould," interview with Dale Harris, in Keynote Magazine (reprinted the same month in Performance Magazine).
• (December) "Glenn Gould: Music for Piano and a Different Drummer," profile by Laurence Shames, in Esquire, accompanied by the last known photographs of Gould.
• (December 25) CBC radio (Booktime): Gould reads from Natsume Soseki's novel The Three-Cornered World – his last broadcast for the CBC.
1982
• CBS Masterworks albums this year: Haydn: The Last Six Sonatas; Bach, Goldberg Variations (which wins posthumous Grammy and Juno Awards the following year).
• (February 8–10, June 30, July 1) Records Brahms's Ballades and Rhapsodies (released posthumously, 1983, and wins a Juno Award the following year).
• (ca. spring) Scripted interview with David Dubal, published posthumously in The Piano Quarterly (Fall 1984) and in Dubal's Reflections from the Keyboard: The World of the Concert Pianist (New York, 1984).
• (Spring) Supervises the recording of his own soundtrack for a film version of Timothy Findley's novel The Wars, a Canadian-German co-production directed by Robin Phillips. The film is released in the fall, shortly after Gould's death.
• (July 26) "What the Recording Process Means to Me," script for an in-house CBS Masterworks video project (published posthumously, 1983).
• (July 27–29) Begins a new career as a conductor by recording the chamber-orchestra version of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, with a pick-up ensemble of Toronto-area musicians (released posthumously, 1990).
• (August 2–3) Records Beethoven's Sonata Op. 27/No. 1 (with the Op. 26 sonata (recorded 1979), released posthumously, 1983, and wins a Grammy Award the following year).
• (August 22) Privately tapes a scripted promotional interview about his new recording of the Goldberg Variations, with Tim Page (released posthumously, 1984).
• (September 1–3) Last recording sessions as a pianist, in New York: Strauss's Piano Sonata, Op. 5 (with the Five Piano Pieces, Op. 3 (recorded 1979), released posthumously, 1984).
• (September 8) Last recording session: retakes for Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. He has already made plans for further conducting projects, starting with overtures by Mendelssohn and Beethoven this fall.
• (September 27) Just days after his fiftieth birthday and the release of his new recording of the Goldberg Variations, suffers a massive stroke and is taken to hospital, where his condition deteriorates over the next few days.
• (October 4) Taken off life-support and pronounced dead at 11:00 a.m.
• After a private funeral, Gould is buried next to his mother at Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. On October 15, a public memorial service is held in St. Paul's Cathedral. He wills the bulk of his estate to the Salvation Army and the Toronto Humane Society. In the fall of 1983, his personal effects are acquired by the National Library of Canada (today the Library and Archives Canada), in Ottawa; some of these effects are now held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, in neighboring Gatineau, Quebec. Within a year of his death, his recordings are being re-released, his writings are being collected, he is being written about extensively … It is the beginning of an extraordinary posthumous "life" that has not abated – indeed, has only intensified – in the years since.
Prepared by Kevin Bazzana
CONTACT
Licensing Music From SonyBMG
New York office:
550 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212-833-7100 (phone)
212-833-7416 (fax)
licensingNY@sonybmg.com
Los Angeles office:
2100 Colorado Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90404
310-449-2555 (phone)
310-449-2570 (fax)
licensingLA@sonybmg.com
All other Licensing Requests and Information:
Faye Perkins
Glenn Gould Estate
info@glenngould.com
LINKS
Glenn Gould Foundation:
www.glenngould.ca
Glenn Gould Germany
www.sonyclassical.de/glenngould/home.html
The Glenn Gould Archive - Library and Archives Canada
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/index-e.html
CBC Archives
archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/topics/320/
Glenn Gould: The Sound of Genius Exhibition at Canadian Museum of Civilization
www.civilization.ca/cmc/gould/gould01e.html
Sarabande: The Glenn Gould Project
www.glenngould.co.uk/mainpage.html
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Gould
F Minor - A Mailing List Devoted to the Discussion of Glenn Gould
www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mwatts/glenn/fminor.html
Glenn Gould Links
glenngould.org/
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