Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould - Hardcover

Bazzana, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300103743 ISBN 13: 9780300103748

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2004

Synopsis

In this absorbing and entertaining biography, Kevin Bazzana distils twenty years' research on Glenn Gould's celebrated life as a pianist, writer, broadcaster, and composer. Looking beyond the legend of the self-taught and emotionally damaged recluse who burst onto the international musical scene in the mid-1950s but was dead at fifty, he presents a balanced portrait of a complex figure who, while uniquely gifted and genuinely eccentric, was also the product of his upbringing and surroundings. Bazzana explores the lasting effects on Gould of his sheltered middle-class Toronto upbringing, his unusual musical education, his brief but colourful concert career and his relations with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Columbia Records and Steinway and Sons. Drawing on candid recollections by Gould's friends and colleagues as well as newly available private papers, he provides fresh insights into Gould's famous eccentricities, his sometimes bizarre stage manner, his highly selective repertoire, his control mania, his private and sexual life, his hypochondria, and his abrupt retirement from concert performance to communicate solely through recorded performance and print.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

The first major biography of Glenn Gould to stress the critical influence of the Canadian context on his life and art

Glenn Gould was not, as has previously been suggested, an isolated and self-taught eccentric who burst out of nowhere onto the international musical scene in the mid-1950s. He was, says Kevin Bazzana in this fascinating new full-scale biography, very much a product of his time and place ? and his entire life and diverse work reflect his Canadian heritage.

Bazzana, editor of the international Glenn Gould magazine, throws fresh light on this and many other aspects of Gould?s celebrated life as a pianist, writer, broadcaster, and composer. He portrays Gould?s upbringing in Toronto?s neighbourhood of The Beach in the 1930s, revealing the area?s influence as a distinct social, religious, and cultural milieu. He looks at the impact of Canadian radio on the young musician, his relations with the ?new music? crowd in Toronto, and the ways in which his career was furthered by the extraordinary growth of Canada?s cultural institutions in the 1950s. He examines Gould?s place within the CBC ?culture? of the 1960s and ?70s, and his distinctly Canadian sense of humour.

Bazanna also reveals new information on Gould?s famous eccentricities, his sometimes bizarre stage manner, his highly selective repertoire, his control mania, his private and sexual life, his hypochondria, his romanticism, and his abrupt retirement from concert performance to communicate solely through electronic and print media. And finally, he takes a detailed look at the extraordinary phenomenon of the posthumous ?life? that Gould and his work have enjoyed.

From the Back Cover

“Kevin Bazzana, a leading authority on the art of Glenn Gould, has now undertaken to give us the biography we have been waiting for – the life and times of a most unusual man, told with passion, intelligence, wit, and fair-mindedness.”
–Tim Page (Pulitzer Prize winner), Washington Post

“Well researched, well-written, intelligent and fair, Kevin Bazzana’s Wondrous Strange will be seen as the definitive mainstream biography of Glenn Gould.”
–Nicholas Spice, Publisher, London Review of Books

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300103743
• ISBN 13: 9780300103748
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 536