Glenn Gould

Glenn Herbert Gould (September 25, 1932–October 4, 1982) was a celebrated Canadian pianist, noted especially for his recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach. He gave up live performances in 1964, dedicating himself to the recording studio for the rest of his career.

Recordings

Gould's first record came in 1955. For it he chose the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was a piece with which he was to become closely associated, playing it in full or in part at many of his recitals. One of his very last recordings was also of the Goldbergs, one of the few pieces which Gould recorded twice in the studio. Both recorded versions are critically acclaimed. The two recordings are very different, the first highly energetic and often at frenetic tempi, the second slower and more introspective. In his second recording of the Goldberg Variations, Gould treats the Aria and 30 variations as one cohesive piece, a significant change from his earlier recording in which the variations are treated as a set of seperate miniatures.

Related Topics:
1955 - Goldberg Variations - Johann Sebastian Bach

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Gould recorded many of Bach's other keyboard works, including the complete Well-Tempered Clavier and the keyboard concertos. For his only record at the organ, he recorded around half of The Art of Fugue.

Related Topics:
Well-Tempered Clavier - Organ - The Art of Fugue

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Gould also recorded pieces by many prominent piano composers, though he was outspoken in his criticism of some of them, apparently not caring for Frederic Chopin, for example. In a radio interview, when asked if he didn't find himself wanting to play Chopin, he replied: "No, I don't. I play it in a weak moment — maybe once a year or twice a year for myself. But it doesn't convince me." He was fond of some of the lesser known byways of the repertoire, such as early keyboard music of Orlando Gibbons, and also made critically acclaimed recordings of little known piano music by Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss and Paul Hindemith. His recordings of the complete Arnold Schoenberg piano works are also highly regarded.

Related Topics:
Frederic Chopin - Orlando Gibbons - Jean Sibelius - Richard Strauss - Paul Hindemith - Arnold Schoenberg

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Incidentally, one of Gould's performances of Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1 from Book 2 of Well-Tempered Clavier was determined by a Carl Sagan-chaired committee at NASA to be one of the greatest achievements of mankind. A recording can be found on the Voyager Golden Record, a 30 cm (12-inch approx.) gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. The disk was placed on the spacecraft Voyager 1, which is now approaching interstellar space and is the most distant human-made object from Earth.

Related Topics:
Carl Sagan - Voyager Golden Record - Voyager 1 - Interstellar space

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