WEBVTT

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[music]

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[background noises]

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-New York.

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To win acclaim
in this fiercely competitive city

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is the seal of approval
for most musicians,

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but few make it.

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One who has been accepted
into the charmed circle

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at the top is the Canadian pianist,
Glenn Gould.

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When Gould is preparing
for a recording session

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or a concert in New York,

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he heads first for Steinways
on 57th Street.

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[piano playing]

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-Down in the basement,

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a whole troop of famous concert grands
are kept ready

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for the great pianists of our time.

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[background conversation]

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-That\'s all right.

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That\'s what he\'s here for,
that\'s what he\'s here for.

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-I tried to hear for intonation.

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[laughter]

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-Here,
Gould hopes to find an instrument

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that will have exactly the tone
and action he wants.

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-It\'s got tremolo.

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That\'s what he wants.

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He\'ll fix it, don\'t worry.

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-Let us push on.

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-Don\'t want that stool?

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-Oh yes.

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Just scoot over your stool.

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That\'s good.

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He plays though just the same guy.

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-No,
everybody has to have his own.

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[piano playing]

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-No.

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-No?

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-No, no, no.

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-Reminds me,
do you want Mozart or [?]

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What?

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-Both. Both.

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Too heavy.

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-Here\'s the one.

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It\'s got to be that.

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No, I think this is it.

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[piano playing]

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-Gould was born
with a rare sensitivity to sound.

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Already at the age of three,

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it was discovered that
he had absolute pitch.

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When such gifts are matched
with musical intelligence

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and a fortunate physical endowment

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and capped with many years of hard labor,

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there may emerge
a musician of some stature.

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Such rare persons enter
a very special world

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with its own peculiar problems,
difficulties,

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rewards and professional pre-occupations.

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-What you really need is me out

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at questioning as an idea man.

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I mean, after all,

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the piano went out of fashion
as a family convenience

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at the turn of the century.

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What you got to think of now

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is a mid-twentieth century piano,

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something with all these extras
that you\'ve just described.

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-How many legs did you want on this,
six?

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-Garbage disposal building.

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-Well,
actually what I would like

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is a piano with a small 25
horsepower engine underneath it

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that it could move itself about.

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-That\'s an excellent idea.

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We just say, \"Go to Carnegie Hall.\"

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-Right.

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[laughter]

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-We\'ll eliminate
all this chunky monkey business.

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-[crosstalk] open the door.

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-Cut cottage cost down to
at least 245.55 PHP ($5) a throw.

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-Tell me something.

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You have upstairs the old Hoffman chair,
which I\'ve seen.

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-It\'s on the factory now.

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-[crosstalk]

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which looks completely vulnerable to me.

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I don\'t know anybody could sit on

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but apart from Hoffman and me,

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who else has had a special chair,
anybody?

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-Paderewski.

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-Paderewski?

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Adjustable or just

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-No, it was a special chair.

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It had a leather seat
and it had a high back as support.

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As a matter of fact,

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it has fringe with little balls
and little tassels around.

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-Huh.

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-Both the Paderewski chair
and the Hoffman chair

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are out in the factory.

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[crosstalk]

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-How much shall I bid for this?

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-Glenn I\'ll tell you,

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I think seriously that this chair

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-It should be in a shrine.

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should be willed to Steinway & Sons.

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-I tell you, would be a

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-I don\'t want to speak of wills.

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[laughs]

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[crosstalk]

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-I didn\'t mean to that.

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I meant that you should will it to

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not in your will,
in your last will and testament.

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We\'d be delighted to have it
in our magnificent collection

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of memorabilia.

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-This is going to be in the Morris

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collection of Steinway on it

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-Memorabilia of the greats.

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-This would be a Morris chair, I think.

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-The seats of the Immortals [laughs]

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-Is this a Morris chair?

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-Hey, we can do that.

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That would be marvelous.

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We\'d get them all lined up

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and take a beautiful photograph sometime

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and we will have it entitled,

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\"The Seats of the Immortals\"

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Glenn Gould,
Josef Hoffman, Ignacy Paderewski.

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I think that would be terrific.

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[laughter]

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-When Gould is not on tour or recording,

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he spends most of his time
at his retreat.

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A cottage on the shore of Lake Simcoe,

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90 miles north of Toronto.

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[singing]

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-Here, he works on the piano
he favors above all others

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for practicing.

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A 70-year-old Chickering

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with a resonant harpsichord-like quality

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recalling the instruments
of the time of Bach.

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[piano playing]

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-In one respect,
Gould\'s life is very simple.

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He lives alone for the most part,
with his dog Banquo,

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in the country place
where he spent all his holidays

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as a child.

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Mrs. Doolittle, the neighbor,

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cleans up and cooks for him sometimes.

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The Doolittles remember him
as a rather solitary little boy,

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with strong opinions
and a hatred of cruelty,

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who is happiest in the hours

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when he was free to practice the piano.

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Gould needs the undistracting temple

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of rural life to concentrate completely
on his one love.

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It is a single-minded absorption,

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so great that the local storekeeper
likes to tell

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of finding crumpled banknotes
dropped absentmindedly

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and frozen in the snow.

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Automatically,
he put them aside for Glenn.

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For dinner,
Gould usually drives into Orillia,

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five miles away.

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The café proprietor,
Jin Sito is so proud of him,

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that his Wurlitzer often plays
Gould recordings of Bach

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and Krenek at full volume,

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to the astonishment of the tourists.

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Gould is not well-known locally
and most people are unaware

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that a young man living down the road,

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draws rave notices when he plays
in San Francisco or London.

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[piano playing]

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[humming]

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[piano playing]

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[birds chirping]

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-Gould\'s life seems ideal.

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Peace, calm,
time to study in idyllic surroundings,

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but his world is also an unnerving one.

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It takes courage of a high order
to play Beethoven

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before the super critical audience
of Berlin,

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or to present oneself
on the same platform

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as the great Russian pianists of today.

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-How do you feel about playing
on the concert platform

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and playing in the recording studio?

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-I much prefer the recording.

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I gather this is not
the standard reaction

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because most people find recording
is very trying.

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They feel uneasy
in the presence of something

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that is going to be permanent
and the microphone

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conveys this to them.

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I feel quite the opposite.

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The microphone is a great friend

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because I was brought up with it.

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When I was in my teens
and still at school,

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I didn\'t do any traveling at all.

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The only city
in which I really played

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was Toronto and perhaps
once or twice a year there.

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If I did any performing at all
it had to be on the radio

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or from 1952 on television
when we had it in Canada.

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I became so used to these media,

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to be alone in the studio
that nothing else mattered.

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In fact,

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I\'ve often wondered
if the justifiable complaints

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that I sometimes hear
about my platform manner

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isn\'t the result of the fact
that for many years

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formative years

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I could be completely uninhibited
and it didn\'t matter

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what I did
as long as the music got across.

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This was the only thing
that counted to me

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because I had no yardstick of measuring.

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I seldom went to concerts even then.

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I never do now.

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I had no yardstick really of measuring

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what other people did.

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What I did at that time was done
in order to make myself

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at ease and to get something
out of myself

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which otherwise might have remained in

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and had to come out on the microphone
to get across.

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I often wondered if this
didn\'t go back to those days.

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-Why don\'t you like going to concerts?

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-First of all,

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I think I\'m at all times
slightly uncomfortable

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in great crowds of people,
I always have been.

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Tend to become slightly claustrophobic
in a large hall.

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I don\'t feel at all that way on the stage
because there,

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there\'s plenty of room to breathe
but I tend to be that way

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when I participate in an audience.

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Less so in a cinema,

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because there everything is in the dark

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and it\'s a sort of secretive feeling.

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The relationship of one person
to another in a spectacle

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doesn\'t really exist.

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You\'re all sort of pretending
that you\'re by yourself.

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I always have this feeling in the cinema

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so I enjoyed going to movies.

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I also enjoyed going to the theater

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for much the same reasons,

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but to concerts for the dual reason
that the hall

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is generally brighter

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and also for the much more
important reason

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that I know too much about what goes on
in a person\'s mind

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who\'s actually having to do this.

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I feel exceedingly nervous
at somebody else\'s concert.

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Much more nervous
than I\'ve ever been any of my own.

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It can be the most capable person
in the world

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and I\'m still almost panic-stricken.

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[birds chirping]

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-How do you like all this
traveling you have to do?

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-When I\'m up here
and sitting in the country

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for anything over 10 days or two weeks

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and dealing with people
whose relationship to their work

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is somewhat more indifferent one
in one case

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and on the other hand
more regular one in the other.

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They know from one week to the next
what they will be doing,

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where they will be,
it will the same place.

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It will be a schedule
which is almost unvariable.

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When I\'m with people like this,

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I find myself envying them very much.

00:13:48.600 --> 00:13:49.660
In fact,

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at such times
I wonder how it is possible

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that the following week
I will be back into the schedule

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which seems,
at that moment almost intolerable for me.

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I wonder how I do it.

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When you get to that point,
when you leave here,

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I can only say that
I feel something like I did

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as a child when I

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It was labor day and the next day

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it meant going back to school.

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it was a completely horrible feeling.

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It was a feeling of being trapped
as much as one would be

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if one were suddenly consigned
to the nether world.

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Irrevocably it was a dreadful feeling.

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For many years,
I had a recurring dream,

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which I think has stopped now,

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but it came during my school years
and shortly after.

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This dream always involved variations
on the same theme

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which was a return to school.

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School in this case obviously meant
much more than that.

00:14:49.100 --> 00:14:51.140
It meant a return to a schedule

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which I couldn\'t completely control.

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It was a dreadful kind of thing.

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I remember
one very colorful variation on it,

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which I think I must have dreamt

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when I was perhaps 15 or 16.

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I dreamt that I got up one morning
up here at the lake

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and looked out my window.

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Instead of seeing grass, I saw rock.

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One would see a hundred miles
to the north up here,

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just endless rock a little bit curved,

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over heaving, but rock.

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On this rock,

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there were nothing
but dead leaves of some kind.

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That\'s what all there was to dream.

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Then I

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shortly after that woke up
with that feeling

00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:35.880
that one can never describe.

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Absolutely sad beyond all description.

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It was something
which I shall never forget.

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I had many variations
on the same image at that time.

00:15:45.820 --> 00:15:47.300
To this day,

00:15:47.300 --> 00:15:48.700
this is approximately the way I feel

00:15:48.700 --> 00:15:51.940
when I have to return to a life
which I don\'t really enjoy.

00:15:51.940 --> 00:15:54.080
Now then when one gets into it,

00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:56.940
another kind of thing takes hold.

00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:57.800
If it didn\'t,

00:15:57.800 --> 00:15:59.260
I think it would become so unbearable

00:15:59.260 --> 00:16:02.040
that one simply could not continue,
at least I couldn\'t.

00:16:02.040 --> 00:16:06.420
If you are playing a concert every second

00:16:06.420 --> 00:16:11.560
or third night for a month,
this seems in a way,

00:16:11.560 --> 00:16:16.980
a reasonably normal way
to live at that time.

00:16:16.980 --> 00:16:18.160
It\'s only when one gets away from it,

00:16:18.160 --> 00:16:27.620
then one realizes what a crazy
artificial existence it is.

00:16:27.620 --> 00:16:30.040
-When musicians get together these days

00:16:30.040 --> 00:16:33.220
the shop talk often leads to argument.

00:16:33.220 --> 00:16:35.700
Gould is a distinguished exponent

00:16:35.700 --> 00:16:38.420
of the works
of the modern atonal composers

00:16:38.420 --> 00:16:40.420
but unlike Franz Kraemer,

00:16:40.420 --> 00:16:43.640
he has some reservations
about the musical direction

00:16:43.640 --> 00:16:48.580
begun by such revolutionary composers
as Webern.

00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:54.200
-I was studying with Webern
one season in a class

00:16:54.200 --> 00:16:55.560
with other people.

00:16:55.560 --> 00:17:01.500
He was very shy a person,
as his music is rather shy.

00:17:01.500 --> 00:17:03.480
-Is this shy music?

00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:28.760
[piano playing]

00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:31.720
[crosstalk]

00:17:31.720 --> 00:17:34.720
-It\'s bare.

00:17:34.720 --> 00:17:37.920
I still call it rather small

00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:39.920
-It\'s reticent music in a way.

00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:40.560
-and reticent.

00:17:40.560 --> 00:17:42.780
He was very reticent.

00:17:42.780 --> 00:17:44.460
There\'s no doubt about that.

00:17:44.460 --> 00:17:45.640
-This is shy music.

00:17:45.640 --> 00:18:29.600
[piano playing]

00:18:29.600 --> 00:18:34.180
-What do you think would happen
if you kidnap a child today,

00:18:34.180 --> 00:18:38.100
let say 18 months old child.

00:18:38.100 --> 00:18:38.860
-In a gruesome way?

00:18:38.860 --> 00:18:40.660
-No, not in a gruesome way

00:18:40.660 --> 00:18:43.240
and took it to a mountain retreat

00:18:43.240 --> 00:18:45.520
where no music could be brought to it,

00:18:45.520 --> 00:18:47.140
except the music
that you would play to it

00:18:47.140 --> 00:18:48.940
and leave in its presence.

00:18:48.940 --> 00:18:51.260
This child would be brought up
knowing nothing

00:18:51.260 --> 00:18:52.960
but pure 12-tone music.

00:18:52.960 --> 00:18:55.300
In the sense of Schoenberg and Webern

00:18:55.300 --> 00:18:59.140
discriminately in the sense
of their adherence today

00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:00.740
but very carefully selected.

00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:02.620
Pure 12-tone music.

00:19:02.620 --> 00:19:06.920
Do you think that by the time
this child was six or seven

00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:11.180
when a child\'s folk song image
is at strongest.

00:19:11.180 --> 00:19:14.360
[sings]

00:19:14.360 --> 00:19:15.980
You think
that they would then be singing?

00:19:15.980 --> 00:19:19.180
[sings]

00:19:19.180 --> 00:19:21.180
-No I don\'t think they would.

00:19:21.180 --> 00:19:22.400
-You think that their interest in music

00:19:22.400 --> 00:19:23.660
would be stifled completely?

00:19:23.660 --> 00:19:26.340
-No, I don\'t think so either.

00:19:26.340 --> 00:19:27.040
I think they would,

00:19:27.040 --> 00:19:29.380
probably by that time have developed

00:19:29.380 --> 00:19:31.520
their own way of thinking about melodies

00:19:31.520 --> 00:19:32.680
and they would have melodies.

00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:33.340
[crosstalk]

00:19:33.340 --> 00:19:34.560
-They would just be sticking

00:19:34.560 --> 00:19:35.800
out their tongues at their kidnappers.

00:19:35.800 --> 00:19:37.140
-That too.

00:19:37.140 --> 00:19:39.260
What I wanted to ask you is,

00:19:39.260 --> 00:19:43.660
you after all have done some composing.

00:19:43.660 --> 00:19:48.120
Nowhere in that composing
have you tried to develop

00:19:48.120 --> 00:19:50.300
any new sounds or anything like that?

00:19:50.300 --> 00:19:56.520
-This is why I speak, A,
pessimistically, and B,

00:19:56.520 --> 00:20:00.740
with some sense of trying to to find

00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:05.180
if everybody agrees
with the fashionable majority

00:20:05.180 --> 00:20:10.100
who believe that the role of tonality

00:20:10.100 --> 00:20:12.880
is gone forever from us because,
in my own music,

00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:16.960
I write in a style that could have
conceivably been handled

00:20:16.960 --> 00:20:19.160
by any composer of 70 years ago

00:20:19.160 --> 00:20:21.860
or certainly 50 years ago.

00:20:21.860 --> 00:20:25.420
It\'s not a question of just doing it

00:20:25.420 --> 00:20:27.280
courageously and unashamedly.

00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:29.400
I do it because I can feel for myself

00:20:29.400 --> 00:20:31.400
no other way which I want to, right?

00:20:31.400 --> 00:20:35.780
I don\'t feel particularly happy
about this

00:20:35.780 --> 00:20:40.400
because I wonder
if there\'s any particular justification

00:20:40.400 --> 00:20:41.520
for doing.

00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:42.060
On the other hand,

00:20:42.060 --> 00:20:43.460
I can\'t see any particular reason

00:20:43.460 --> 00:20:48.000
why one shouldn\'t say something
that has been said before

00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:49.820
speaking idiomatically only because one,

00:20:49.820 --> 00:20:50.600
after all, doesn\'t [crosstalk]

00:20:50.600 --> 00:20:52.880
-There\'s nothing wrong with that.

00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:56.680
The question is only that
it\'s a little surprising to me

00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:00.380
that while you\'re doing it
and you\'re perfectly all right

00:21:00.380 --> 00:21:02.700
doing it, and it\'s a good discipline,

00:21:02.700 --> 00:21:04.700
but it\'s a bit like being in school

00:21:04.700 --> 00:21:08.480
and being told to modulate
like Schumann for four weeks,

00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:10.960
and then Franz for four weeks

00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:13.540
and then maybe Wagner for four weeks.

00:21:13.540 --> 00:21:17.880
There must be somewhere
you want to go if you are

00:21:17.880 --> 00:21:18.520
[crosstalk]

00:21:18.520 --> 00:21:19.620
-That\'s the point I don\'t know.

00:21:19.620 --> 00:21:21.200
That\'s the point,
I really don\'t know.

00:21:21.200 --> 00:21:21.940
For that reason,

00:21:21.940 --> 00:21:25.400
every individual work is a great effort

00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:27.920
because I have to convince myself
that while I\'m doing it,

00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:29.060
there is no place I want to go,

00:21:29.060 --> 00:21:31.820
that I\'m quite content with this
and I\'m not really.

00:21:31.820 --> 00:21:34.360
It leaves the question completely open

00:21:34.360 --> 00:21:36.040
and unhappy and unsatisfied.

00:21:36.040 --> 00:21:37.600
-Well,
you have a great fisher before you.

00:21:37.600 --> 00:21:44.660
[laughter]

00:21:44.660 --> 00:21:49.700
-In 1959,
Gould celebrated his 27th birthday.

00:21:49.700 --> 00:21:53.920
His ambition is to make enough money
by the time he is 35

00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:56.260
to retire from the concert stage

00:21:56.260 --> 00:21:59.120
and devote himself to composing.

00:21:59.120 --> 00:22:00.180
Meanwhile,

00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:02.180
he\'s considered one of the world\'s
greatest

00:22:02.180 --> 00:22:03.880
exponents of Bach.

00:22:03.880 --> 00:27:30.900
[piano playing]

00:27:30.900 --> 00:27:33.860
-How about trying the other one there?

00:27:33.860 --> 00:27:35.640
This one here,
can I take the stool?

00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:37.180
-Yes,
let me see what this looks like.

00:27:37.180 --> 00:27:38.600
-This is one that you played

00:27:38.600 --> 00:27:41.360
in the philharmonic this past season
and it\'s

00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:42.740
of course it\'s familiar to you.

00:27:42.740 --> 00:27:45.600
-But this is for Beethoven.

00:27:45.600 --> 00:27:47.340
-This is for Bach, isn\'t that correct?

00:27:47.340 --> 00:27:49.000
That you\'re going to record Bach?

00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:49.720
-Yes.

00:27:49.720 --> 00:27:51.900
-This selection

00:27:51.900 --> 00:27:54.480
-Here\'s one that you had set on
for quite a while.

00:27:54.480 --> 00:27:57.540
-Gould\'s struggle for perfection extends

00:27:57.540 --> 00:28:00.100
to the choice of instruments he plays.

00:28:00.100 --> 00:28:03.080
Only when he has found the one
that is right for him,

00:28:03.080 --> 00:28:05.360
can he face a concert or recording.

00:28:05.360 --> 00:28:09.600
[piano playing]

00:28:09.600 --> 00:28:11.120
-No, I want to stick with this one,
Fritz.

00:28:11.120 --> 00:28:11.800
I think.

00:28:11.800 --> 00:28:12.660
-All right.

00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:14.300
-This is much the best
of what I have seen.

00:28:14.300 --> 00:28:14.940
-Try this one.

00:28:14.940 --> 00:28:17.080
You had that one once before but I

00:28:17.080 --> 00:28:18.540
-Yes, but not for Bach, Morris.

00:28:18.540 --> 00:28:21.420
This really needs that agility
that this has got going on.

00:28:21.420 --> 00:28:23.600
-After all,
you\'re the artist, you\'re playing

00:28:23.600 --> 00:28:24.700
[piano playing]

00:28:24.700 --> 00:28:27.340
-This is a wonderfully
clean kind of sound,

00:28:27.340 --> 00:28:28.920
and I like this very much.

00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:30.700
-The cleanness and the incisiveness

00:28:30.700 --> 00:28:32.020
I think is very important

00:28:32.020 --> 00:28:34.020
for a grand in this particular case.

00:28:34.020 --> 00:28:38.400
[piano playing]

00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:39.140
-Yes.

00:28:39.140 --> 00:28:40.020
All right, this is fine.

00:28:40.020 --> 00:28:40.380
Good.

00:28:40.380 --> 00:28:41.260
-Can I stay and practice a bit?

00:28:41.260 --> 00:28:43.340
-Surely.

00:28:43.340 --> 00:28:44.340
You can have the whole afternoon
if you want to.

00:28:44.340 --> 00:28:45.020
-Wonderful. Wonderful.

00:28:45.020 --> 00:28:45.780
-Okay.

00:28:45.780 --> 00:28:48.100
-If there\'s anything on your mind
please call me upstairs

00:28:48.100 --> 00:28:49.400
-Yes.
I\'ll be up to see you later.

00:28:49.400 --> 00:28:49.860
-All right.

00:28:49.860 --> 00:28:51.520
-I\'ll be around here, waiting

00:28:51.520 --> 00:28:53.800
-Goodbye, Mr. Smurfles.

00:28:53.800 --> 00:28:54.980
-Goodbye, Mr. Gould.

00:28:54.980 --> 00:28:55.300
-Goodbye, Fritz.

00:28:55.300 --> 00:28:56.180
-Goodbye, Mr. Gould.

00:28:56.180 --> 00:28:57.120
-Bye

00:28:57.120 --> 00:28:57.840
-Bye.

00:28:57.840 --> 00:29:30.840
[piano playing]