Glenn Gould: a wilfully idiotic genius?

It still sounds like nothing you've ever heard, however many times you listen to it: Glenn Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, made in 1955, has an energy, an intensity and a sheer joy that is as irresistible today as it was when astonished record-buyers first heard it nearly 60 years ago. It's no surprise that this record launched the myth of Gould as much as it signalled the start of his career, but no one could have predicted the effect this young Canadian pianist would have on music. Lauded the world over – his tour to Russia in 1957 is still remembered fondly by Vladimir Ashkenazy and by everyone else who packed out the concert halls to hear him – Gould none the less seemed to steadily retreat from public view. He gave his last concert in 1964, confining himself to the recording studio for the rest of his short life. One of his final recordings was a second, markedly slower and more deliberate version of the Goldbergs in 1981. His ideas on editing were decades ahead of their time: he dreamed of a true democracy of recordings, when listeners would be able to edit their own versions of tracks, as we can now all do at the click of a mouse. He was also an eccentric hypochondriac, whose obsessive personality traits (he wore an overcoat and gloves no matter the temperature, and insisted on playing on the same ancient, battered chair) were exacerbated in his final years by cocktails of antidepressants and anxiety-suppressing pills that were, ironically, more harmful to him than helpful. He died shortly after his 50th birthday, on 4 October 1982. Yet that was just the start of the Gould myth. The apparent weirdness of this reclusive genius has only added to the mystique as much as the iconoclasm of the recordings – his brilliant Bach, for sure, but also his wilfully idiotic Mozart and tortuous Beethoven. But underneath the eccentric control-freakery was a much more normal person than has often been portrayed. He was a loner, certainly, but Gould was also one of the funniest and most playful musicians there has ever been, he was an irrepressible and essential thinker on music, and his records and radio documentaries are fuelled by a ceaseless curiosity about the world and music's place in it. In what would have been his 80th year, we asked leading pianists what Gould means to them. As you'll discover, he's still a controversial figure.

Angela Hewitt

Glenn Gould was an unavoidable presence when I was growing up in Ottowa. He was already a sort of legend, although not the kind of myth he has become since his death. When I was four or five, his programmes would be on CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Company) on a Sunday night. I remember running into my parents' room and seeing this person with the piano up his nose! At that age, I couldn't understand what he was doing – and even at an older age, it was difficult.

We bought his recordings whenever a new LP came out. I remember his Brahms, his Strauss, and of course his Bach. We would listen to his Bach discs – my parents were musicians too – and my dad would say: "That's a ridiculous tempo. What's he playing it like that for?" (By and large, if it was a slow piece, he would play it too fast, and vice versa.) But there was always something to admire. He was a wonderful pianist, and the way he played Bach was a sensation at the time. It was totally fearless, there's a ferocity, a youthful exuberance and energy in his playing. But I have never imitated him. I never wanted to come out like a bad copy of Glenn Gould. I first played the Goldberg Variations when I was 16. I remember going to the library and listening to Gould's recording, the famous 1955 one. I only listened to it once, though, and I recorded the Well-Tempered Clavier without even listening to his version. The thing with Gould is that there are wonderful and horrible things. You wonder why he played Mozart the way he did, and in Beethoven … I saw a film of the cello sonatas with Leonard Rose, and there's not much visible contact between the two.

His memory and his ideas were extraordinary, but he was eccentric and incredibly neurotic as well. There's a lot of sadness in his life – that it ended so soon, that he was taking all those pills. I sometimes think the cult of Gould is a little exaggerated, so that we end up talking about the personality rather than how he played the piano.
* Angela Hewitt performs at the Southbank Centre on 2 October.

Stephen Hough

Although Gould seemed to be ahead of his time - a prophet even - when he saw people preferring to listen to music on recordings rather than in the concert hall, what he didn't see was that technology would make recorded music so available and anarchic. The LP record's hi-fidelity made it possible for him to live comfortably on the profits of his royalties. It would be impossible for him to do this in today's higher-fidelity, streaming, reproducing marketplace where questions are being raised about the ability to maintain copyright control on any level. Nevertheless he created a new way of thinking about recorded music where the LP became an art form in itself - not just a replica of a live performance. And that first recording of the Goldberg Variations, so alive and alert and fresh - accompanied by legends of soaking arms, thick gloves and creaky seats - ushered in a new era in public relations. But beyond all the fashion and myth, Glenn Gould was a transcendental pianist. Even if all he touched turned to Gould (few artists are as recognisable across so many different styles) he nevertheless played with a heated passion of communication - made all the more telling and poignant delivered as it was from a reclusive apartment in the cold suburbs of Toronto.
* Stephen Hough performs with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican on 12 October.

Steven Osborne

I can't think of the Goldberg Variations without Gould. I find what he does so utterly compelling that I've never really thought to learn the piece myself: I think about the Goldbergs, and just imagine him playing, and there's no point in playing it like him again. Initially, it was his second recording of it, the one he made in 1981, that I heard. The contrapuntal detail he finds in every bar is amazing; no one has equalled the way he plays the aria. But even more extraordinary is the line he creates that connects the whole piece. I'm not sure I have heard anything where every single note is placed so carefully, is so carefully thought about. For some people, it's too controlled, but I don't find that. And yet I prefer his 1955 recording of the piece. I can't think of a single artist who made such a profound change in their approach to a piece throughout their whole career. In the later record, he sometimes goes at half the speed of the earlier one. And what makes the earlier record so wonderful is its spontaneity – it's really happening in the moment, and it just makes me smile. It's a combination of the incredible technical control he has, but it's also that he is expressing something so incredibly powerful. It's a sucker punch.
* Steven Osborne performs at the Turner Sims Concert Hall, Southampton, on 6 October.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

I am fascinated by the strength of Gould's personality, his intelligence, his cleverness, and the way he was able to realise his own world so completely through his playing. I have a great admiration as a pianist for how he did that. He could be very interesting and funny, and his writings are always quality entertainment. He was an eccentric, certainly, but the way he absorbed the music he played, the way he realised the polyphony of, say, Bach, makes him an interesting phenomenon and ensures his place in the pantheon of Bach players.

But I am somehow frustrated and irritated by the result in his recordings. Frustrated because he seems to be living in an exclusively Glenn Gould world. The question is how he communicates his emotions through the sound of the instrument. There is a problem with his motoric, automatic approach to tempo, and there is a problem with his sound. It's not that it's not a beautiful sound, it's rather that there is no flexibility in the way he phrases the melodies and harmonies of what he's playing. And the irritation? That comes from the mannerisms and the affectations of his playing. What you are aiming for, as a listener, is to forget about the performer, to listen just to the music, but in Gould's playing, there is too much that disturbs to forget about him.There are many clever commercial reasons for the cult of Gould that existed during his lifetime and still does now. I'm not a fan nor a member of that club, but I'm more frustrated by the fact that for many people he is the Bach interpreter. There are many other people who are really remarkable in this music, and Gould is certainly not a person who plays Bach's music in a way that is without question-marks.

Francesco Piemontesi

Gould's sound, his perspectives, the way he experimented with recording techniques, are often in my thoughts. I'm grateful he left so much interesting material for us to listen to, to read and to amuse ourselves with. His humour is really unique – take a look at his alter egos, the German musicologist Dr Klopweisser, the English conductor Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite and the hostile critic Theodore Slutz.

But the most important aspect of the work Gould did was his love affair with the recording process. He thought of technology as a creative experience within classical music. There is a wonderful video where you see him playing around (with the help of different microphones) with different sound perspectives within a Scriabin prélude.

The sound landscapes he creates through this process remind me of a good régisseur who shows you the same scene from different angles and thereby creates contrasting psychological perspectives. (I'm thinking, for instance, of the opening scene of David Lynch's Blue Velvet.) From what I understand of Gould, he dismissed the almost religious atmosphere of the concert hall and was keen to establish a more equal relationship between artist and listener. He even encouraged the listener to "manipulate" the sound of recordings to create the ideal conditions for a particular piece of music. In an article published in the 60s he wrote: "There is nothing to prevent a dedicated connoisseur from acting as his own tape-editor, and exercising such interpretative predilections as will permit him to create his own ideal performance."

This process, in which he certainly was a pioneer, led to very inspiring results: you can hear, for instance, how he creates a sound landscape in his late recording of La Valse by Ravel, almost as if he was playing with different microphone perspectives as he did in the Scriabin. Only, the Ravel recording was done without the aforementioned mic trick - it was his playing doing all of this.

I find his courage to take a very distinctive path with his interpretations fascinating. And often with wonderful results - particularly in his recordings of 20th-century music. But with all the due respect for the quality of his playing and the poignance of his ideas, I never was a fan of his Bach. As far as I can see, he often regards Bach as abstract material, isolating the music from its historical perspective. But the works were written in a particular period of time, in a limited geographical part of Europe, in a well-defined Protestant view of the world. I have difficulty, too, listening to his readings of Mozart: he deliberately chooses to cross every line in terms of form, structure, harmony and musical language. The price for singularity is too high for my own taste.

Gould's ideas of sound and interpretation flourish best without going out of context in 20th-century music - Prokofiev, Ravel, but also rarely performed works by Krenek and Strauss. Most composers from this time allow you more freedom to apply your own ideas.
* Francesco Piemontese performs as part of Southbank Centre's International Piano Series on 7 November and at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 1 December.