Glenn Gould - Selected Letters

Glenn Gould was an inveterate letter writer. Throughout his short life, he wrote letters to his parents, friends, colleagues, lawyers and mangers, specialists in various fields who contributed to his various projects, and fans.

 

In 1992, Oxford University Press published Glenn Gould – Selected Letters, a book that I treasure, and have read and reread, prompting me to write down these brief thoughts. 

In the National Library of Canada, the Gould collection includes 2030 letters written by the pianist, and 184 were chosen by the editors to be included in this volume. These letters shed light not only into Gould’s life – a life that is endlessly fascinating to his fans, even these many years after his death – but also his personality. 

 

The earliest letter (c1940) included in this volume is a Valentine poem Gould wrote for his mother, one that already demonstrates Gould’s early penchant for word play. 

 

Dear Mistress

Sometimes I’m as bad can be,

I run away quite often;

But when I give you my sad look

I know your heart will soften.

 

And so it begins…

 

The last letter in the book, and the last letter in the National Library’s collection, is one that he wrote to Teresa Ximenes of the Toronto Humane Society, granting permission for them to use one of his recordings in what I assume to be a promotional film. Gould was a great animal-lover, and the Toronto Humane Society was one of the major beneficiaries in his will. In his own words, “(A)nimal welfare is one of the great passions of my life, and if you’d asked to use my entire recorded output, in support of such a cause, I couldn’t possibly have refused.”

 

Many of the letters reveal Gould’s irrepressible sense of humour, another aspect of his personality that he carried to elaborate lengths, sometimes to the consternation of his friends and colleagues. In a letter to his lawyer, Stephen Posen, Gould humorously went on (and on) to question a discrepancy in one of Posen’s invoices, to the amount of $2.35, citing a fictional precedent of the case of “Lin vs. Lum” from the County Court, Bangkok (Judge Lae Chin-Ho presiding). In another, to his close friend John Roberts, Gould introduced himself as an unknown young harpsichordist, with a facetious proposal of a project for the C.B.C.’s “Celebrity Recitals” series, saying that a “recording is a pale and artificial memento of the concert experience”, which of course is the exact opposite of Gould’s view.

 

A couple of letters struck me as unintentionally funny. One is his reply to Virginia Katims, wife of Milton Katims, music director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, about her request for him to contribute to a recipe book she was compiling. Another is his response to the CBC for his favourite eating spots in Toronto. Gould was almost totally indifferent to food, and his diet consisted of scrambled eggs, arrowroot cookies, or some such unremarkable culinary delicacies. In Gould’s own words in his reply, that. “(A)s such time as the entire experience of nourishment-taking can be synthesized by a convenient table, I’ll be the very first to avoid all restaurants like the plague.”

 

His letters to producers and managers discussing repertoire choice, or details about his radio documentaries or other projects, reveal a highly organized mind, a far cry from the absentminded artist that he has been often portrayed as. 

 

Some of the recipients of Gould’s letters are very much in the “A list” of musicians – Leonard Bernstein, Leon Fleisher, Leonard Rose, Yehudi Menuhin, Leopold Stokowski, Lukas Foss and Rudolf Serkin; others include notable figures like Yousuf Karsh, Marshall McLuhan, Willi Reich, Madame Pablo Casals, John Cage, and Barbara Tuchman, among others. Then there are letters to managers, film, television and record producers, figures like Walter Homburger, Ronald Wilfred, Schuyler Chapin, Humphrey Burton, Goddard Lieberson, Paul Myers, and Andrew Kazdin. Whether Gould was writing to a world-famous celebrity or a young fan, he was always unfailingly courteous and kind. 

 

The most impressive, and sometimes moving letters, are the letters he took time to write to fans. From those writing to ask his opinion, or engage in a most serious discussion on his views of certain musical subject, to a little girl asking if Bach were his favourite composer, Gould would take the time to serious consider what was being asked of him, and answered accordingly. In fact, the recurrent tone of Gould’s letter is one of kindness and gentleness. The statement of conductor Erich Leinsdorf, who called Gould “perhaps one of the all-time greatest (and in my view perhaps also the kindest and gentlest) artists”, is certain borne out in these letters. 

 

In an interview on the CBC, Gould was asked to describe in one word what it was that attracted him to the music of Bach. His answer, “Compassion”. Indeed, compassion seems to have been the motto of Gould’s personal and artistic life, as he saw art as a moral force, an instrument of salvation. His favourite prayer was, “Lord, grant us the peace the world cannot give.” This can perhaps explain Gould’s seeming detachment from the world, to live life completely on his own terms, interacting with the outside world by means of technology. It is a tantalizing thought to consider what Gould would have done with the Internet, emails, and today’s cybertechnology.

 

In an age when great art and music are often used to further one’s “career” or to enhance one’s self-importance, Gould, even after all these years, still stands alone as an artist who went his own way, and struck out a path that remain an ideal for any musician or artist. It seems fitting to end with these thoughts from Yehudi Menuhin, “Perhaps one day when sufficient time has worked on sufficient love we may arrive at a truer appreciation of Glenn’s genius.”