Genius Within:
The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
Chris Knipp

The Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould was a musical genius whose recordings and other work will always be important. This new film about him is one of many, but it may be the most comprehensive, emotionally warm, and exciting of all the on-screen portraits.

Hozer and Raymont's documentary contains the fruits of several thoroughly researched recent biographies and new interviews and uses unseen as well as familiar archival footage to provide a joyous sense of Glenn Gould's glamour and personal appeal, especially as a young man.

A prodigy, born in 1932, Glenn graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with highest honors at 13 and began public performance at 14. In 1955, at the age of 23, he made a recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" for Columbia Records that made him instantly famous. The lean precision, the energy, the keen intelligence, the effortless fluency, the balance of the left and right hands, the rhythmic muscularity, the clear separation of thematic lines, were unmatched; the style, exceptionally well suited to the keyboard music of Bach, was instantly recognizable and was to remain so. A sample of his "Well-Tempered Clavier" has been sent into outer space to show other beings what us humans are capable of. Here on earth Sony has reissued all his recordings and they are much listened to.

Gould first became famous for his eccentricities, whose value for selling his records he himself came to understand. A Life Magazine article showed him bundled up in overcoat, gloves and scarf in warm weather and soaking his hands and arms in hot water before playing, and these practices, along with robust baritone vocalizing when he played, continued all his life, as did nocturnal habits, isolation, hypochondria and control-freak tendencies whenever he recorded or edited -- tendencies about which, however, he was always cheerful and good-natured. Making friends was never easy for Glenn, but many came to love him, and some of these are essential talking heads newly heard from in Genius Within. When he died, thousands came to his memorial in the Anglican cathedral and many wept when the strains of the Aria from the Goldberg (one lover laughingly calls it the "Gouldberg") Variations were heard.

For every period of his life, this documentary provides extra archival footage, more smoothly introduced than ever before. Family, childhood, school, musical training are well developed. A newly clarified point: his radically low seat at the piano (the eccentric sawed-off chair carried everywhere) and his staccato close-to-the-key touch were both techniques rigorously taught to all the students of Gould's main piano teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero; Gould simply mastered them more thoroughly than the other students and made them more completely his own. This film brings to life the several weeks of his early tour of Russia, where he made an immense impression, as Vladimir Ashkenazy comments.

There's material that's almost completely new: the exploration of Gould's love life.

A major dividing line comes in 1964 when, at 32, after only eleven years of big-time international concert touring, Glenn carried out a threat of some years and formally quit giving public concerts altogether to devote himself to recording. He was always shy and reclusive and he detested the cruel "blood sport" aspect of public performances. With time free from touring, he focused on recording, but also on his unique radio creations, beginning with "The Idea of North," and many TV performances and talks, and comedy turns where he showed his penchant for somewhat silly collegiate humor, as well as a love of the songs of Petula Clark, who, in an interview, wishes they'd gotten together.

The myth that Gould was a weird celibate recluse is shattered in this film's exploration of his straightforward heterosexual relationships with various women -- most notably with Cornelia Foss, wife of composer and pianist Lucas Foss, who left her husband and went to live in Toronto with her son and daughter to be with Gould for four and a half years. She only made public this relationship in 2007. Here she and the grown son and daughter speak freely about Gould's important role in their lives. He loved animals, but he also was great with children, Cornelia reveals. True, she admits her lover's eccentricities, including a disturbing paranoid tendency, grew greater than when they met and led, sadly for both them and for the children, to a breakup and gradual return to her husband, but this story shows Gould's dark, eccentric side is more a myth he himself encouraged than the reality. Before Cornelia there was a musical contemporary, fleetingly interviewed. After, there was an opera singer he worked with, Roxolana Roslak, who became his companion.

The focus on all this is essential in humanizing the famous eccentric, but there is a corresponding gap: his recordings other than of Bach are insufficiently described. He had a strong penchant for atonal modern music of Schoenberg, Berg, Krenek, et al., and he was a great lover of Richard Strauss. He issued plenty of recordings of Beethoven, Brahms, even Mozart, Haydn, and composers he ostensibly eschewed like Schumann and Chopin. Since recording was his refuge, a bit more detail about what he did there was in order (see Bruno Montsaingeon's films). Gould's limited output as a composer isn't fully covered either, though it comes in for mention early and his "So You Want to Write a Fugue" choral fugue is the closing credit music.

What is thoroughly explored is Glenn's involvement in sound engineering, with his intimate friend and collaborator the engineer Lorne Tulk the main spokesman about that, and Tulk's moving contribution makes up for a lot.

It's true, and not true, that Gould was a "James Dean" or "Michael Jackson" of classical music. It's true that his eccentricities (and charm too) explain why he has been so thoroughly documented and written about. But even if he played for the camera, his eccentricities were also real. And though they may explain some of his fame, his Bach speaks for itself and always will. Once you get past the eccentricities, what remains is greatness. Hopefully this film will lead to more appreciation of Gould's manifold gifts.

©2010 Chriss Knipp
CineScene