The Glenn Gould Reader

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

Glenn Gould was not only one of the most supremely gifted pianists of our time, he was as well a critic of music, a philosopher, and a writer of no mean talent. His work in these less familiar roles is as arresting as was his musical artistry. Just as he delighted to shock and astound the public with his antics and eccentricities as a performer, he stuns the reader with an onslaught of totally unexpected opinions. Beethoven, says Gould, “was the one composer whose reputation is based entirely on gossip”; Mozart “died too late rather than too soon”; and Richard Strauss was “quite simply... the greatest musical figure who has lived in this century.” Gould loved to talk and hated, he said, to perform. He wanted applause for concert artists abolished, and he loathed musical competitions for their detrimental effects upon the participants. No one will agree with all of Gould’s views, and indeed many of them are carefully calculated to infuriate; but they certainly provide yet another perspective from which to contemplate one of the towering musical figures of our era.