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On January 11, 1955, at the age of 23, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made his New York concert debut performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The next day he was offered a recording contract with CBS Records, and six months later he recorded the Goldberg Variations. The 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations quickly garnered critical acclaim and launched his global career. To this day, Gould’s 1955 recording is the benchmark by which all other recordings are measured. It regularly appears on the classical chart in Canada and continues to find new audiences in Canada and abroad.
Howard Scott, the producer, later recalled the first session in an abandoned Presbyterian Chapel at 207 Thirtieth Street:
On that hot, humid June day in 1955, the first of many times he was to come to Columbia Records 30th Street Studio, he ambled in the door wearing a winter overcoat over his Harris tweed jacket and sweater, a Shetland wool scarf, and a cap pulled down over long straggly blond hair. He carried a folding bridge chair with the maple leaf of Canada on its back in one gloved hand and a small handbag, which contained a plethora of pill vials and the music of the Goldberg Variations, in the other.
A great deal has been written about the extraordinary recording – about its vitality and verve, about Gould’s fascinating refusal to play legato and reluctance to use the sustaining pedal, about its ‘swing’, to say nothing of his almost irreverent approach to one of the sacrosanct heroes of music history (an approach which inspired a number of critics to refer whimsically to the ‘Gouldberg Variations’). Equally important is the breathtaking virtuosity of the interpretation, its inwardness and depth, its ‘calculation’ and ‘ecstasy’ (two attributes to which Gould himself laid claim) and, finally, its impact on the international world of music: it was as though someone had suddenly opened a window in a room that had not been aired for a century or more, allowing a breath of fresh air to sweep away the cobwebs.
Awards: With a Canada Post stamp, a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, and a place in the Juno Awards Hall of Fame, Glenn Gould is clearly a Canadian icon.
Holdings: TBA
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