Glenn Gould is read about 1,061 times a day, in 47 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He quit the stage at 31 and never looked back. Glenn Gould treated the piano like an argument he intended to win - technically flawless, contemptuous of Romanticism, fanatical about Bach. His 1955 Goldberg Variations recording made him famous; his decision to abandon live performance made him a riddle.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 7
Gould with his teacher, Alberto Guerrero, at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, in 1945. Guerrero demonstrated his technical idea that Gould should "pull down" at the keys instead of striking them from above.![Gould in February 1946 with his dog, Nicky, and his parakeet, Mozart[25][26]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Glenn_Gould_as_a_child.jpg/330px-Glenn_Gould_as_a_child.jpg)
Gould in February 1946 with his dog, Nicky, and his parakeet, Mozart[25][26]
Replica of Gould's piano chair
Gould's grave marker, with incipit of Bach's Goldberg Variations
Park bench sculpture of Gould located outside the Canadian Broadcasting Centre
Gould's star on Canada's Walk of FameIn their own words 4
, I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations.
The mental imagery involved with pianistic tactilia is not related to the striking of individual keys but rather to the rites of passage between notes.
Never be clever for the sake of being clever / For the sake of showing off.
Listen
SpotifyAlbums 24
GWGlenn Gould Plays Schoenberg, Berg, WebernGRGlenn Gould Edition: Berg, Krenek, Webern, Debussy & RavelGIGlenn Gould Plays Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & IIGMGlenn Gould meets Yehudi MenuhinGMGlenn Gould Plays Contemporary MusicAwards
About this person
Born Glenn Gold in Toronto on 25 September 1932, he changed the spelling and became the rarest kind of pianist: one who said no. He rejected Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninoff - most of the Romantic canon - and built his career around Bach, Beethoven, and moderns like Schoenberg and Hindemith. He championed Orlando Gibbons above all others. By 1964 he'd stopped giving concerts entirely, retreating into the studio and the broadcasting booth, where he produced scripted television programs and three musique concrète radio documentaries about Canada's isolated places. He wrote prolifically on music theory, hummed audibly while he played, and sent a recording of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C major into space aboard Voyager. He died in Toronto on 4 October 1982, nine days after turning fifty.
In common with Glenn
Roman KroitorAlso in Glenn Gould: Off the Record (1959)
Itzhak PerlmanBoth received Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
Patti LuPoneBoth received Grammy Award for Best Classical Album
Denny DohertyBoth received Canadian Music Hall of Fame
Oscar PetersonBoth received Canadian Music Hall of Fame
Lorin MaazelBoth received Grammy Award for Best Classical AlbumFame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.