Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Weird Canada

Amazing true tales about one of Canada’s most important—and eccentric—composers.

• His recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 1955, when Gould was just 23, continues to be the best-selling solo-instrumental classical album ever made.

• The Toronto native had many eccentricities related to his playing. Although he played with great precision, Gould’s home was often a mess. He couldn’t leave for a recording or performance unless he was wearing the perfect shirt.

• He insisted that there were certain shirts that facilitate playing the piano because of the position of cuffs and feel of the fabric. He would often go through a dozen shirts before finding the right one and leaving his room for the day.

• Anytime he played, he brought a special rug and a chair that his father built for him. Called his “pygmy chair,” the seat put Gould just 36 centimeters (14 inches) off the floor, which is exceedingly low. The position kept his face very close to the keys. Fans claimed that the peculiar position created by his pygmy chair gave his touch a purity compared to the shoulder-heavy approaches of most pianists. He refused to ever have his chair reupholstered. In time, the cushion wore away and he was left to sit on a narrow beam that ran from the front to the back of the seat.

• Before he would play, he would often limber up his hands by soaking them in the sink. He would begin with lukewarm water and gradually raise the temperature to almost scalding.

• Gould liked things hot in general. In the sweltering summer heat, he would wear heavy overcoats, a wool beret, and mittens.

• Whether performing for a live audience or at a recording session, Gould maintained a curious humming and grunting as he played. His mother had taught him to sing the notes as he performed—a habit that he could never quite shake.

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• Recording engineers struggled to mask his vocal outbursts, and Gould at one point offered to wear a gas mask to muffle his noises.

• At times, he would wave a free hand in the air as if conducting himself.

• His face was also highly expressive, contorting as he got swept up in the emotion of the music.

• He hated to be touched and he hated shaking hands. This aversion for handshaking may have come from being a germaphobe. He wouldn’t even visit his dying mother in the hospital because of his fear of germs.

• By 1964, at age 32, Gould was disenchanted with playing live. He called concerts “a blood sport,” and he made the decision never to perform in a live concert again. This decision was not entirely a surprise; he had said that he hated being watched and the sound of clapping—plus, he didn’t really like humans. He would only play for recordings, radio, television, and film.

• In the 1979 documentary Cities: Glenn Gould’s Toronto, Gould said, “By the time I was six, I made an important discovery that I get along much better with animals than humans.”

• He had a succession of canine companions, whom he loved dearly. He even sent his dog Banquo a postcard from the Soviet Union when he played a famous concert there in 1957.

• At his family’s family cottage on Lake Simcoe in southern Ontario, the young Gould befriended a wayward skunk and he serenaded cows with his unique vocal renditions of Gustav Mahler compositions.

• Gould would not play the music of certain classical composers. He considered many of the works by Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Debussy to be “empty theatrical gestures.”

• “I’m a Streisand freak, make no bones about it,” Gould said in an interview with Rolling Stone. He wanted to record a classical album with Streisand, but it never came to be.

• He was critical of the Beatles, calling their music “a happy, cocky, belligerently resourceless brand of harmonic primitivism.” He also said, “If what you want is an extended exercise in how to mangle three chords, then obviously the Beatles are for you.”

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• Who did he think was the greatest composer of all time? An obscure, 17th-century Englishman named Orlando Gibbons.

• He had a small but devoted group of friends, whom he would call at all hours of the night. One of his closest confidants was his cousin Jessie Grieg. He spoke to her daily. She eventually had to enforce a policy of no calls after 11 p.m.

• He loved to travel by car, boat, or train but had a horrible fear of flying.

• Just about every morning that he was in his Toronto apartment, he would go to Fran’s, a 24-hour diner a block away and order the same dish:scrambled eggs.

• Despite all his quirks, Gould did find love. He had a passionate five-year affair with the wife of the composer Lukas Foss. In a letter, Gould said he loved Cornelia Foss “more than anything in the world and every minute I can spend with her is pure heaven.” He even asked her to marry him, but she turned him down. At the height of their affair, Cornelia left her husband and moved to Toronto with her two children to be with Gould.

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SPOOKY CANADIAN PLACES

• Bone Town (Alberta)

• Gore Bay (Ontario)

• Coffin Cove (Newfoundland and Labrador)

• Burnt Arm (Newfoundland and Labrador)

• Skull Creek (Saskatchewan)

• Hatchet Cove (Newfoundland and Labrador)

• Bloodvein River (Manitoba)

• Poison Creek (British Columbia)

• Destruction Bay (Yukon)

• Goblin (Newfoundland and Labrador)

Semisoft and pungent, Oka cheese is made in the small Quebec village of Oka.