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Homage to Glenn Gould

The piano artistry and unique personality of Glenn Gould, one of the 20th century's most thought-provoking musicians, continues to fascinate. Some 16 years after his death, his popularity remains unusually high for a performer; if anything, interest in Gould's work has risen in recent years, with the release of several films, a steady stream of newspaper articles, and new distribution of his many recordings and documentaries.

What made Gould tick? We all know about his famous recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations that catapulted him to fame as a young man in his early twenties, and his equally abrupt retirement from live concerts less than ten years later, in 1964, to devote himself to the recording studio and his various projects with the CBC.

We know he was a recluse, preferring to maintain relationships by long telephone conversations in the middle of the night, and that he would wear gloves even in warm weather. He was a hermit, yet kept an apartment at the corner of Yonge Street, the busiest street of downtown metropolitan Toronto. He had a great sense of humor, and would play-act different characters, complete with accents, for fun.

Despite all his eccentricities, there was method in his madness. Somehow, with all his hang-ups, or perhaps because of them, he produced a legacy of music-making that has enchanted generations of music-lovers. His interpretations, while admittedly off-beat and quite intentionally a departure from standard performance traditions, are so compelling that listeners around the world have had no difficulty entering the Gouldian universe. Many Gould-lovers have recounted the similar experience of being literally transfixed upon hearing one of his recordings on the radio for the first time. He truly was one of a kind.

This concert gives a representation of Gould's favorite composers, revealing the immense range and contradictions of Gould's interests and musical tastes. Pianist Michael Arnowitt has done much research on Gould, including trips to the National Library of Canada in Ottawa and the CBC Archives in Toronto to view Gould's non-commercial recordings and papers. As a special feature, a sample of Gould's own compositions, just recently published, will be included on the program. In addition to performances of the music detailed below, Michael Arnowitt will offer spoken commentary on Glenn Gould.

Here are some of the pieces on the program:

• William Byrd & Orlando Gibbons - Glenn Gould claimed he was not joking when he said his favorite composer was Orlando Gibbons. Gibbons & Byrd composed extraordinary keyboard music for the virginal, a predecessor to the piano, around the year 1600.



• J.S. Bach - Glenn Gould was best known for the clarity and beauty of his Bach playing. Michael Arnowitt will perform selected Bach 2-Part Inventions and 3-Part Sinfonias, pairing compositions in the same key to create the effect of a prelude and fugue. Also included on the program are pieces from the Well-Tempered Clavier (a Gould recording of one of these works was specially selected to be on the Voyager probe sent by NASA to leave our solar system).



• Beethoven - Gould had a strange affinity for one of the curiosities of the literature, Liszt's solo piano transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies. On this program Michael Arnowitt will include Liszt's arrangement of the finale to Beethoven's revolutionary Symphony no. 3, the Eroica.



• Schoenberg - Glenn Gould revered the music of the twentieth-century New Viennese School twelve-tone composers Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. These composers' piano pieces are in miniature forms, and reveal a surprising delicacy and sensuality of sounds beneath the intellectual exterior.



• Richard Strauss - It is one of the contradictions of Gould's musical tastes that despite his dislike for the center of the standard Romantic piano repertory (Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff), he had a true affection for the music of the late German Romantics - Wagner and Strauss - who, unfortunately, composed virtually no piano music. Gould would play through their operas at the piano, complete with his trademark singing at the keyboard no doubt, in the privacy of his apartment late at night. In Gould's honor, Michael Arnowitt has transcribed for piano one of the most moving pieces of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen. Originally scored for 23 solo strings, this composition, known to be one of Gould's favorites, was written at the very end of World War II.



• Scriabin - This turn of the century Russian mystic composer was a real character and his idiosyncracies perhaps found a soulmate in Gould. Michael Arnowitt will perform what many consider Scriabin's finest piano sonata, his seventh (nicknamed the "White Mass.")