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Page THE HERALD Saturday June 17 IMS Glenn Gould is an enigmatic musical figure By ALEX B ARRIS No more brilliant fascinating or enigmatic Canadian musical figure than Glenn Gould has ap peared on the horizon this century His genius as a pianist is un challenged His eccentricities both on the concert stage and off helped make him even more of a celebrity than his music alone could have done His sudden death in at the age of SO shocked much of the world His snort life had been so full of contradictions his actions so well if not accurately publicized his decision to give up playing in public at the age of 32 so mystify ing that all sorts of legends about him surfaced were widely cir culated and inevitably distorted Attempting to write a biography about such a complex figure is a brave and massive undertaking Glenn Gould A Life and Varia tions by Otto Lester and Orpen Ltd pages illustrated 95 is a heroic at- to put Goulds life and achievements into some sort of perspective a senior editor for Time Magazine and author of City Of Nets an excellent portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s was selected by the Glenn Gould estate to write his authorized biography but makes it clear that he had a free hand and a minimum of interference from sensitive survivors who might have preferred to touch up some of the less complimentary aspects of Goulds life Friedrichs book is neither a whitewash nor an expose but a careful sober and honest attempt to sum up a man who by his very nature almost defies definition Although he had been a child pro digy and was recognized as a superior artist in Canada by the time be was in his early 20s Goulds international reputation really was launched in the mid- 1950s when Columbia Records released internationally Goulds recording of Bachs Goldberg Variations Critics everywhere raved over the pianists skill and imagination and his intensity Paul Hume of the Washington Post wrote We know of no pianist like him at any age STRANGE But while audiences and critics hailed Goulds playing they were equally willing to denounce his concert stage manner Gould simp ly would not behave like a proper concert artist He slouch ed he bent over the keyboard he wrapped one leg around the other he flailed his arms around in seem ingly spastic motional responses to the very music he was involved in The stories grew and spread he wore gloves with the fingers cut out of them when he played he was forever cold he wore mufflers and overcoats in the warmest weather he was a hypochondriac he was well strange Columbia Records was not the least bit reticent about exploiting the bizarre personality of its new recording star Gould may have been strange but the more people talked about him the better known he became and the more records and concert tickets he sold Even his battles were grist for the publicity mills One of these was his disagreement with Leonard Bernstein in 1962 about how to play a Brahms concerto which became so serious an issue that Bernstein felt compelled to warn the audience in advance of the unorthodox performance it was about to witness which surely offended Gould But Gould himself seemed un disturbed by his everincreasing reputation for eccentricity My policy he told an interviewer for The New Yorker has long been to cut the cloth to fit the corner newsstand In 1959 Gould appeared at a press conference in London un shaven wearing a kneelength jacket heavy overcoat and two pairs of gloves What makes you think Im eccentric he asked the assembled reporters And then rather suddenly he decided in that he would do no more public concerts In fact there had been ample advance warning of this As early as he said I am not very fond of the concert business am not endeared to the footlights at all And it is a devastating road if you cant endure travelling And even before that he was on record as saying Im more convinced than ever that Id rather be a composer I dont particularly care to play before the public I love playing for myself PREDETERMINED Goulds public career however was not over only the concert stage aspect of It For the remaining 18 years of his life he devoted himself to studios recor ding studios radio studios even film and television studios He became absorbed with the technology of tape recording with the possibilities that lay there to splice bits and pieces of different performances into one superior one He taped and broadcast impromptu interviews in which every word of every question and answer was predetermlned scripted He was as far as the public was concerned a recluse He had a net work of friends with whom he would converse endlessly by phone often In the middle of the night but he shunned public ap pearances of any kind Gould was plagued by an assort ment of ailments As Friedrich out Just as paranoics do have real enemies hypochon driacs do have real illnesses Gould had high blood pressure cir culaUon trouble tingling nerves in his arms and legs an innerear problem shortness of breath a chronic sore throat and so on In trying to untangle the various mysteries of Goulds life biographer even ex plores what scant evidence there is about private life even his sex ual life but comes up more or less empty In 1978 Geoffrey Payzant wrote a book called Glenn Gould Music and Mind In it he predicted that the author of a conventional biography of Gould would fall A book on his life and time would be brief and boring he added Typically Gould himself reviewed book and dismissed it as rather boriRg and by no means as brief as It should be But biography of Gould is neither brief nor boring If it inevitably leaves some questions unanswered it still makes an honest and readable attempt to review and assess the life and work of this remarkable musician Alex Barrio a Torontoarea writer Is the author off books on film and television Fashions For The Young At Heart MAIN ST SGEORGETOWN Across from Knox Church 8732851 Great Leap Chinas Great Leap Forward 1958- tried to force the pace of 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