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| Glenn Gould Candid Portrait Available at Icon Collectibles | |
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In 1980, Columbia Masterworks released the"Glenn Gould Silver Jubilee Album," a monumental double-albumcelebrating the artist's quarter century of the recording for thelabel. In June of that year, Don Hunstein sat with Gould for his firstphoto shoot with Gould in more than a decade. Here Hunstein capturesGould, notorious for his eccentric posture and oddly graceful physicalmovements while performing, literally defying gravity as he leansprecariously backwards in a director's chair, his body ready to springinto thin air as he pushes up on the ball of his right foot, one shoemysteriously absent. ICON-Collectibles, a unique website powered by SONY BMG which offers music fans from all over the world an opportunity to bid on extraordinary music memorabilia including museum quality fine art photographs of your favorite artists, is happy to make available six limited edition professionally printed photographs from the historic SONY BMG photo archives. Each print is individually created using premium fiber-based paper and includes a Certificate of Authenticity. 
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| The Glenn Gould Trilogy - A Life | |
 “The Glenn Gould Trilogy “, a unique radio play 'composed' by Michael Stegemann, provides on 3 CD's a unique insight into the life, music and thoughts of Glenn Gould, the brilliant pianist who would have turned 75 on 25th September 2007. Berlin/London, July 2007: The Canadian musician Glenn Gould (25th September 1932 – 4th October 1982 in Toronto, Canada) was without any doubt one of the leading pianists of all time. Even today, the unconventional interpretations and eccentric personality of the "James Dean of the piano" continue to exude an unbroken fascination. In good time for Glenn's 75th birthday on 25th September and the 25th anniversary of his death on 4th October, Sony Classical will be releasing a special 3-CD box on 4th September 2007 to mark this double jubilee: "The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life" is a fascinating journey through the life, the music and the thoughts of Glenn Gould. Radio play, biography, talking book, music and original spoken commentaries are blended on the three CD's to create an enthralling portrait, as unusual and gripping as the charismatic and eccentric artist himself. "The Glenn Gould Trilogy" was designed by Gould biographer Michael Stegemann, with Gould's own Solitude Trilogy serving as the source of inspiration. For Gould was not only a brilliant musician, he was also a visionary radio and media pioneer: his idea of 'contrapunctal radio' and the Solitude Trilogy that he created, based on this idea, for CBC between 1967 and 1977 served as the basis for Stegemann's work. Gould's Solitude Trilogy consists of three revolutionary radio plays, which Gould himself called 'docudramas', about life in northern Canada (The Idea of North, The Latecomers and The Quiet in the Land). Not dissimilar to a Baroque fugue, each of the three parts of the Solitude Trilogy is composed as a collage of overlapping texts (spoken by different narrators), sounds and noises that complement each other in terms of content. CD 1: The Idea of Music takes us up to Gould's first recording of Bachs Goldbergvariations for the CBC in 1954. CD 2: The Drop-Out describes his legendary record début with Bach's Goldberg Variations (1955) and follows the years when he gave regular recitals until the 'concert drop-out' in 1964, when he retired from the concert platform completely, while CD 3: The Quiet in the Studio is devoted to the years up to his death, years when Gould only communicated with his public through the media of records, radio and television. The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life was produced jointly by West German Radio (WDR/Cologne), Studio Akustische Kunst (editor: Markus Heuger) and SonyClassical/SonyBMG in studio sessions that stretched over several months. A English language version was made, and a separate German one for the German-speaking market. For the narrators of the English version, we were fortunate enough to engage the services of Tom Zahner and Leslie Malton among others. The Glenn Gould Trilogy is one of the few radio plays designed not only to yield stereo, but also surround sound, thus enabling the special character of this collage-like composition to be enjoyed to even more realistic effect. The CD's will therefore be released in the Hybrid Super Audio CD format, which, in combination with a Super Audio compatible CD player and equipment able to reproduce surround sound, enables the listener to enjoy a fascinating, multidimensional experience. But the CD's can also be played in stereo on any normal CD player. The Glenn Gould Trilogy takes us on a trip into the life and mind of a charismatic and shrewd eccentric who anticipated the potential, and also the limitations and dangers, of total media networking as scarcely any other musician of his time did. Glenn Gould was always in search of a perfect interpretation. A unique genius, enduringly controversial and ever eager to argue his point, he remains unsurpassed to this day. Available for purchase on Amazon and Sony Music Store |
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| The Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection Available Now | |
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Sony BMG Music, the home of Gould’s recording legacy from 1955 to the present, continues its pivotal role in presenting and promoting Glenn Gould around the world. In commemoration of the Year of Glenn Gould, the Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection has been released. The 80-disc limited edition box set includes 78 CDs encompassing all of the artists work, each uniquely packaged to resemble the original LP recordings. Also included are 2 bonus CDs complete with the last recorded interview with the artist and an audio essay by Glenn Gould on Johann Sebastian Bach and the fugue. Accompanying the set is a 250 booklet including a detailed essay by Glenn Gould specialist Michael Stegeman and detailed liner notes for each individual track. Complete with beautiful packaging, the Complete Glenn Gould Original Jacket Collection is an essential tribute to a legendary artist and thinker. Available now! Amazon Canada - click here Amazon United States - click here |
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| The Glenn Gould Complete Jacket Collection | |
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Sony Classical, the home of Gould’s recording legacy from 1955 to the present, continues its pivotal role in presenting and promoting Glenn Gould around the world. This fall, the Sony Classical will be releasing The Glenn Gould Complete Jacket Collection, an 80-disc boxed set commemorating Gould’s recording legacy. It includes all the artist's Columbia LP recordings on 78 CDs, from Glenn Gould's legendary 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations to piano works by Richard Strauss released posthumously on 4 April 1984. The bonus CDs include the last interview that Glenn Gould gave to Tim Page in 1981 and an audio essay on Johann Sebastian Bach and the fugue that Gould recorded in 1972 for a bonus LP. The set includes a new, detailed essay by the German Gould specialist Michael Stegemann. In addition, Dr. Michael Stegemann has created a new 3 CD boxed set entitled, The Glenn Gould Trilogy – A Life which includes a radio play, biography, talking book, music and original spoken commentaries. Bruno Monsaingeon’s DVD, The Goldberg Variations will be re-released in the fall with additional DVD titles planned for 2008. |
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| Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius | |
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Extraordinary musician takes centre stage in new major exhibition |
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BIO
Glenn Gould was born in Toronto on 25 September 1932 into a musical family: Edvard Grieg was a first cousin of his mother's grandfather, his father was an amateur violinist, and his mother played piano and organ. Gould's mother was his only teacher until he was ten. When he was three years old, it became evident that he possessed exceptional musical aptitude, including absolute pitch and even the ability to read staff notation. At five, he began to compose, and played his own little compositions for family and friends. At the age of six Gould was taken to his first live musical performance which was Josef Hofmann's last appearance in Toronto. It created a lasting and important impression upon the boy.
Robert Fulford, a distinguished Canadian author, met Gould when they were both nine and the two families were next-door neighbours. He wrote: "Even as a child Glenn was isolated because he was working like hell to be a great man. He had a tremendous feeling and loving affection for music. . . It was an utter, complete feeling. He knew who he was and where he was going."
At the age of ten, Gould began lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Alberto Guerrero was his piano teacher; he studied organ with Frederick C. Silvester and theory with Leo Smith. Gould competed in 1944, at the age of 12, in the annual Kiwanis Music Festival and won the piano trophy. It was to be the only competition Gould would enter, for he later came to be strongly opposed to the idea of young musicians competing with each other and indeed to competition of any sort. In 1945 he passed the associateship examination as a solo performer at the Royal Conservatory, signifying a professional level of attainment. In 1946, at the age of 14, he passed the music theory examinations and was awarded a diploma with highest honors. Gould continued piano lessons with Alberto Guerrero until 1952.
Of significant influence upon the teenage Gould were: Artur Schnabel (Gould: "The piano was a means to an end for him, and the end was to approach Beethoven"), Rosalyn Tureck's recordings of Bach ("upright, with a sense of repose and positiveness") and Leopold Stokowski, about whom Gould would later write and produce Stokowski: A Portrait for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
Gould's first public performance was in 1945 on the organ, a concert which was reviewed under the headline "Boy, age 12, Shows Genius As Organist."
In 1946 he made his debut as soloist with orchestra at a Royal Conservatory concert performing Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. Regarding this occasion, Gould wrote that it required little preparation because he had owned Schnabel's recording for over two years and knew every nuance. The following year Gould played the same concerto with the Toronto Symphony and a reviewer wrote: "he sat at the piano a child among professors, and he talked with them as one with authority." His first public recital was in 1947 and included Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt: "genius as profound as their own was at the keyboard" remarked one reviewer. Gould gave his first network radio recital for the CBC in 1950, beginning his long relationship with broadcasting and recording.
On the evening of 11 January 1955, Gould made his debut in New York ("Debutown" as he called it) and the next day signed a recording contract with Columbia Masterworks (CBS). Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations took place at the CBS studios in June 1955. The record won instant acclaim, became a best seller, and launched Gould's career as a fully mature international artist.
In 1957 Gould toured Europe for the first time, beginning with two weeks in the Soviet Union. He thus became the first Canadian (and the first North American) to perform in the Soviet Union, and he did so - in the midst of the Cold War - to eagerly enthusiastic audiences and critics. Also during his European tour, Gould performed Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan, and the two artists thereafter remained loyal admirers of each other's work.
;In 1960 Gould made his first appearance on American television with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. He was by then a well-known figure on Canadian television and was present regularly on the airwaves in his home country during the 1960s and 1970s.
Gould's concert career continued to grow during the early 1960s until, without any fanfare, he made his last public appearance as a pianist on 10 April 1964 in a Los Angeles recital.
This early retirement from public performance was prompted in part by a realization that the strenuous life of a touring musician was preventing him from realizing his many other interests. In fact, Gould did not think of himself primarily as a pianist; he was equally committed to writing, broadcasting, composing, conducting, and experimenting with technology. Gould also admitted that he had developed an intense dislike for performing (Gould: "at live concerts I feel demeaned, like a vaudevillian") and felt that he could better serve music in a recording studio than in the concert hall.
Gould has sometimes been called a hermit and a recluse. He was not. He chose for himself a solitary existence which kept interaction at a safe distance, showing himself primarily through his recordings, broadcasts, and writings, providing self-protection but at the same time allowing a great deal of self-revelation. As he once said. he had "opted out creatively".
Glenn Gould's philosophy and the core of his identity were most clearly revealed in his broadcast/recording The Idea of North. To him, the North represented solitude, independence, reasonableness, courage, elusiveness, spirituality, strength of character, adherence to laws, moral rectitude, and peace. He was uncomfortable with the Mediterranean temperament that manifests itself in bright colors, displays of passion, and personal display.
In 1981 Gould departed from his custom of not re-recording a work and, 26 years after his first recording of the Goldberg Variations, went into the same New York studio for his second recording of the work with which he had become so closely identified.
Gould viewed the two interpretations as substantially different because he came to see the Variations not as separate and distinct exercises but as belonging to a larger whole, with one rhythmic pulse, harmony, and ideology underlying the entire work and forming a definite unity of composition. Always acutely aware of the possibilities technology offers, Gould was also motivated in his decision to re-record the Goldberg Variations by the vast changes in recording technology during the previous 25 years.
few months before his death, Glenn Gould formed a chamber orchestra in Toronto consisting of some members of The Toronto Symphony with himself as conductor. He was particularly proud of their recording together of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, a work that had long been special to him and which he transcribed for piano and recorded.
Through a remarkable degree of self-awareness and self-knowledge, Glenn Gould knew what he wanted to accomplish and how he wanted to live his life - and in both he succeeded completely. What some have considered strange was in fact, only different. Even though he chose to be a spectator rather than a participant inthe affairs of the world, he never ceased to have a child-like, wide-eyed interest in all that was going on around him.
Glenn Gould gathered a large and loyal group of friends with whom he remained in contact over the telephone and whom he received in Toronto with eager enthusiasm. These friends describe him as gentle, kind, funny, charming, warm and loyal. Glenn Gould was a character to be sure, but one who never strayed from his pursuit of the ideal, and one who cared deeply. He was a solitary man, but he touched and uplifted the lives of many.
Glenn Gould died in Toronto on 4 October 1982, after having suffered a stroke.
US DISCOGRAPHY
Buy | Bach: Italian Concerto; Partitas Nos. 1 & 2 [Great Performances]
Release Date: May 01, 2007 Track listing for CD Longplay (700814) |
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Buy | Bach: Two and Three Part Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772-801 [Great Performances]
Release Date: June 06, 2006 Track listing for CD Longplay (678766) |
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 Buy | The 1955 Goldberg Variations - Birth Of A Legend
Release Date: November 15, 2005 Track listing for CD Longplay (674651) |
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Buy | Bach: Two and Three Part Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772-801 [Expanded Edition]
Release Date: February 24, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (090401) |
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Buy | Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (1981 Recording) [Expanded Edition]
Release Date: February 24, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (093070) |
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Buy | Bach: Keyboard Concertos 1, 4 & 5 [Expanded Edition]
Release Date: February 24, 2004 Track listing for CD Longplay (093089) |
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Buy | ...And Serenity
Release Date: October 07, 2003 Track listing for CD Longplay (090538) |
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Buy | Bach: Preludes, Fugues and Fughettas - Expanded Edition
Release Date: September 30, 2003 Track listing for CD Longplay (093016) |
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Buy | Bach: Goldberg Variations (1955 Version) - Expanded Edition
Release Date: September 30, 2003 Track listing for CD Longplay (090387) |
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Buy | Bach: English Suites, BWV 809 - 811, Volume 2 (Glenn Gould Anniversary Edition)
Release Date: September 03, 2002 Track listing for CD Longplay (087766) |
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