Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work

Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work
Author: Kevin Bazzana
Publisher: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; Oxford ; Toronto : Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1997-11-13
Genre: Music
ISBN:

This book is a detailed study of the recordings and approach to performance of the Canadian pianist, broadcaster, writer, and composer Glenn Gould (1932-82). While focusing primarily on his extraordinary recorded performances, Kevin Bazzana also situates Gould's work and thought within broader musical, cultural, and historical contexts. Drawing on a wide range of Gould recordings and related literature, the book is divided into two parts: the first exploring Gould's aesthetic premises, the second discussing characteristic features of his piano style. The book is illustrated with graphic musical examples and plates.

Wondrous Strange

Wondrous Strange
Author: Kevin Bazzana
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2010-02-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1551992876

The first major biography of Glenn Gould to stress the critical influence of the Canadian context on his life and art Glenn Gould was not, as has previously been suggested, an isolated and self-taught eccentric who burst out of nowhere onto the international musical scene in the mid-1950s. He was, says Kevin Bazzana in this fascinating new full-scale biography, very much a product of his time and place – and his entire life and diverse work reflect his Canadian heritage. Bazzana, editor of the international Glenn Gould magazine, throws fresh light on this and many other aspects of Gould’s celebrated life as a pianist, writer, broadcaster, and composer. He portrays Gould’s upbringing in Toronto’s neighbourhood of The Beach in the 1930s, revealing the area’s influence as a distinct social, religious, and cultural milieu. He looks at the impact of Canadian radio on the young musician, his relations with the “new music” crowd in Toronto, and the ways in which his career was furthered by the extraordinary growth of Canada’s cultural institutions in the 1950s. He examines Gould’s place within the CBC “culture” of the 1960s and ‘70s, and his distinctly Canadian sense of humour. Bazanna also reveals new information on Gould’s famous eccentricities, his sometimes bizarre stage manner, his highly selective repertoire, his control mania, his private and sexual life, his hypochondria, his romanticism, and his abrupt retirement from concert performance to communicate solely through electronic and print media. And finally, he takes a detailed look at the extraordinary phenomenon of the posthumous “life” that Gould and his work have enjoyed.

Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould
Author: Peter F. Ostwald
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 380
Release: 1998
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780393318470

In this acclaimed biography, the late Peter Ostwald--himself an accomplished violinist and longtime personal friend of Gould's--raises many questions about Gould and his music, and lays bare the energy and contradiction behind his brilliance. Photos. NPR feature.

Musical Elaborations

Musical Elaborations
Author: Edward W. Said
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 138
Release: 1991
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780231073196

Examines the performance of Western high-art music, the politicized theorizing of it, and the use of "melody, solitude, and affirmation" in it.

Glenn Gould at Work

Glenn Gould at Work
Author: Andrew Kazdin
Publisher: New York : Dutton
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1989
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Reinventing Bach

Reinventing Bach
Author: Paul Elie
Publisher: Union Books
Total Pages: 731
Release: 2013-04-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1908526416

Johann Sebastian Bach – celebrated pipe organist, court composer and master of sacred music – was also a technical pioneer. Working in Germany in the early eighteenth century, he invented new instruments and carried out experiments in tuning, the effects of which are still with us today. Two hundred years later, a number of extraordinary musicians have utilised the music of Bach to thrilling effect through the art of recording, furthering their own virtuosity and reinventing the composer for our time. In Reinventing Bach, Paul Elie brilliantly blends the stories of modern musicians with a polyphonic account of our most celebrated composer’ s life to create a spellbinding narrative of the changing place of music in our lives. We see the sainted organist Albert Schweitzer playing to a mobile recording unit set up at London’ s Church of All Hallows in order to spread Bach’ s organ works to the world beyond the churches, and Pablo Casals’ s Abbey Road recordings of Bach’ s cello suites transform the middle-class sitting room into a hotbed of existentialism; we watch Leopold Stokowski persuade Walt Disney to feature his own grand orchestrations of Bach in the animated classical-music movie Fantasia – which made Bach the sound of children’ s playtime and Hollywood grandeur alike – and we witness how Glenn Gould’ s Goldberg Variations made Bach the byword for postwar cool. Through the Beatles and Switched-on Bach and Gö del, Escher, Bach – through film, rock music, the Walkman, the CD and up to Yo-Yo Ma and the iPod – Elie shows us how dozens of gifted musicians searched, experimented and collaborated with one another in the service of a composer who emerged as the prototype of the spiritualised, technically savvy artist.

The Secret Life of Glenn Gould

The Secret Life of Glenn Gould
Author: Michael Clarkson
Publisher: ECW Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2010-12-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1554906814

Through the memories of his women and confidantes, this biography provides a fresh portrait of virtuoso pianist Glenn Gould, detailing his many motivations, dreams, quirks, and fears. Filled with personal stories from the people who were intimately involved with the man, this account shows how Gould, the worlds greatest pianist in the 1950s and 1960s, was richly inspired by, and bared his soul at the keyboard to, the numerous women who stirred his hard-to-fetch emotions. Long considered to be an asexual, lonely, and egocentric figure, this exposeby examining the details about Goulds many love affairs and how they affected his life, music, and filmmakingpresents a unique perspective on one of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century.

A Glenn Gould Catalog

A Glenn Gould Catalog
Author: Nancy Canning
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1992-09-21
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0313274126

Despite his premature death in 1982, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould remains extraordinarily influential in contemporary music. Known especially for his interpretations of Bach and a wide range of classical, romantic, and twentieth-century composers, Gould was also an accomplished composer and conductor, as well as provocative lecturer, writer, and critic. His music remains vital on recordings, and his published writings, and taped radio documentaries and television specials are available for archival research. Canning's A Glenn Gould Catalog provides a detailed roadmap to his career as performer, conductor, composer, host, guest, narrator, writer, and producer. The volume's main catalog, organized by composer, documents Gould's commercial discography and Canadian public radio and television recordings with detailed information, including: recording dates and location, release or broadcast date, commercial catalog and internal matrix numbers, album or broadcast name, producer(s), and various notes. The Musical Repertoire and Recording Chronicle sections provide access to the recordings by composition and opus number and by recording data respectively. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Archives section lists Gould's radio and television programs by date, and other chronologies are included for his Sony Catalog, Other Commercial Releases, and Unreleased Recordings. A bibliography of Gould's published writings and a bibliographical note on writings about Gould complete the volume. Carefully documented, cross-referenced, and indexed, the Glenn Gould Catalog constitutes an autobiographical outline of Gould's career through his works. It is an important resource for research and a valuable adjunct to published biographies and critical studies. The compiler's lively introductory material is augmented by photographs and interview commentary from Gould's colleagues.

Glenn Gould Reader

Glenn Gould Reader
Author: Tim Page
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1990-09-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0679731350

As a pianist, Glenn Gould was both a showman and a high priest, an artist whose devotion to music was so great that he eschewed the distractions of live performance. That same combination of flamboyance and aesthetic rigor may be found in this collection of Gould’s writings, which covers composers from Bach to Terry Riley, performers from Arthur Rubinstein to Petula Clark, and yields unfettered and often heretical opinions on music competitions, the limitations of live audiences, and the relationship between technology and art. Witty, emphatic, and finely honed, The Glenn Gould Reader presents its author in all his guises as an impassioned artist, an omnivorous listener, and an astute and deeply knowledgeable critic. The Glenn Gould Reader abounds with the literary voice of one of the most extraordinary musical talents of our time. Whether Gould’s subject is Boulez, Stokowski, Streisand, or his own highly individual thoughts on the performance and creation of music, the reader will be caught up in his intensity, intelligence, passion and devotion. For those who never knew him, this book will be a particular treasure as a companion to his recordings and as the delicious discovery of a new friend.