Canada’s gift to the concert stage, pianist Glenn Gould, was a strange and eccentric man. He wore gloves and overcoats in any weather, he scorned audiences, he was involved in a strange relationship with the wife of his friend, Lukas Foss. He was still in his teens when he entered the classical music world like a stray rocket, but at the age of 32, he followed a triumphant world tour with a sudden end to his public performances. He was 50 when he died in 1982.
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould,” is a new documentary by Peter Raymont and Michele Hozer that opens here today. It’s an interesting look at an interesting man, well-made and -written. It’s success, of course, will be based on whether movie-goers are big enough fans of Gould to see it. His interviews and conversations are often extremely interesting.
Gould was a pioneer in terms of electronic alterations and enhancements to recordings, and one of the reasons he walked away from the concert hall was that he thought the music was better in a recording than in person.
Foss, also a musician and composer, and his wife, Cornelia, were great friends to Gould, and though the triumvirate remained friends, at one point she left her husband and went, with her two children, to live with Gould. A couple of years later, she moved back to her husband. All the Fosses tell interesting tales about Gould.
The filmmakers also discuss the notable concert when Gould played his own interpretation of Brahms’ 1st Piano Concerto after a long argument with Leonard Bernstein, the conductor, over the approach to the piece. Discussion of who owns the control of interpretation, the soloist or the conductor, makes for fascinating debate. Some lovely music, especially Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” provides additional highlights.
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, opens today at the Tivoli.
—Joe