From Publishers Weekly
More than two decades after his death at the age of 50, Glenn Gould remains one of the most famous (and in some circles controversial) pianists of the 20th century. Bazzana, who previously wrote a musicological study of Gould's technique, broadens his focus to encompass the performer's brief life in an engaging biography that will captivate classical music lovers and casual listeners alike. Nimble analysis explores the influences of various composers on Gould's playing style while avoiding technical jargon. More importantly Bazzana portrays Gould as a vivid, engaging personality-no mean feat considering his subject withdrew from the concert stage in 1964 and spent the following 18 years addressing the public only through studio recordings and other electronic media. Bazzana confronts all the major clichés that have built up around Gould's history and then makes a persuasive argument against considering them as an indication of mental illness, suggesting that eccentricities like refusing to shake hands and sitting in a custom-designed piano chair were for the most part no more unusual than the habits adopted by any dedicated artist. He also provides ample evidence that the most widely spread stories obscure how resolutely normal Gould was (and, one repeatedly discovers, utterly and charmingly Canadian). For those who already love Gould's performances with all his extraneous noises, this biography provides welcome and equal insight into his life and music, while anyone new to the subject may not even want to wait until finishing the book to run out and buy their first CD. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Whenever pianists are discussed, Glenn Gould (1932-82) is sure to be mentioned. Blessed with a phenomenal memory, a logically organized mind, manual dexterity, and superb analytical capacity, Gould was able to clarify and interpret music in unconventional ways. He preferred contrapuntal to harmonic music, and his recordings of Bach hold a unique place in musical literature. Preferring to be in control of his life, he kept to himself much of the time. A hypochondriac full of neuroses and anxieties, he nonetheless conversed with friends and colleagues frequently, often in very humorous ways (his long phone calls are legendary). He gave up concert performance in 1964 to concentrate on recordings, media documentaries, writing, and compiling and composing film music. Bazzana, whose doctoral dissertation is on Gould's performance practices and interpretations, and who now edits GlennGould, the magazine of the Glenn Gould Foundation, treats the pianist clinically and analytically, by means of many anecdotes. His biography is a complete portrait of the artist and a thorough investigation of the psyche of an enigmatic renaissance man. For insight into this genuine genius, it can't be beat. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
?Kevin Bazzana, a leading authority on the art of Glenn Gould, has now undertaken to give us the biography we have been waiting for ? the life and times of a most unusual man, told with passion, intelligence, wit, and fair-mindedness.?
?Tim Page (Pulitzer Prize winner), Washington Post

?Well researched, well-written, intelligent and fair, Kevin Bazzana?s Wondrous Strange will be seen as the definitive mainstream biography of Glenn Gould.?
?Nicholas Spice, Publisher, London Review of Books


Book Description
When Mikhail Baryshnikov defected in Toronto in 1974, he admitted that he knew only three things about Canada: It had great hockey teams, a lot of wheatfields, and Glenn Gould. In Wondrous Strange, Kevin Bazzana vividly recaptures the life of Glenn Gould, one of the most celebrated pianists of our time. Drawing on twenty years of intensive research, including unrestricted access to Gould's private papers and interviews with scores of friends and colleagues, many of them never interviewed before, Bazzana sheds new light on such topics as Gould's family history, his secretive sexual life, and the mysterious problems that afflicted his hands in his later years. The author places Gould's distinctive traits--his eccentric interpretations, his garish onstage demeanor, his resistance to convention--against the backdrop of his religious, upper middle-class Canadian childhood, illuminating the influence of Gould's mother as well as the lasting impact of the only piano teacher Gould ever had. Bazzana offers a fresh appreciation of Gould's concert career--his high-profile but illness-plagued international tours, his adventurous work for Canadian music festivals, his musical and legal problems with Steinway & Sons. In 1964, Gould made the extraordinary decision to perform only for records, radio, television, and film, a turning point that the author examines with unprecedented thoroughness (discussing, for example, his far-seeing interest in new recording technology). Here, too, are Gould's interests away from the piano, from his ambitious but failed effort to be a composer to his innovative brand of "contrapuntal radio." Richly illustrated with rare photographs, Wondrous Strange is a superbly written account of one of the most memorable and accomplished musicians of our times.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to Toronto in 1974, he admitted that he knew only three things about Canada: It had great hockey teams, a lot of wheatfields, and Glenn Gould. In Wondrous Strange, Kevin Bazzana vividly recaptures the life of Glenn Gould, one of the most celebrated pianists of our time. Drawing on twenty years of intensive research, including unrestricted access to Gould's private papers and interviews with scores of friends and colleagues, many of them never interviewed before, Bazzana sheds new light on such topics as Gould's family history, his secretive sexual life, and the mysterious problems that afflicted his hands in his later years. The author places Gould's distinctive traits -- his eccentric interpretations, his garish onstage demeanor, his resistance to convention -- against the backdrop of his religious, upper middle-class Canadian childhood, illuminating the influence of Gould's mother as well as the lasting impact of the only piano teacher Gould ever had. Bazzana offers a fresh appreciation of Gould's concert career -- his high-profile but illness-plagued international tours, his adventurous work for Canadian music festivals, his musical and legal problems with Steinway & Sons. In 1964, Gould made the extraordinary decision to perform only for records, radio, television, and film, a turning point that the author examines with unprecedented thoroughness (discussing, for example, his far-seeing interest in new recording technology). Here, too, are Gould's interests away from the piano, from his ambitious but failed effort to be a composer to his innovative brand of "contrapuntal radio." Richly illustrated with rare photographs, Wondrous Strange is a superbly written account of one of the most memorable and accomplished musicians of our time.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

Opinion on the eccentric Canadian pianist Glenn Gould is polarized between idolatry and detestation. Bazzana’s portrait—the most balanced yet—ingeniously provides contexts for Gould’s behavior, situating his hermeticism in the dour Anglo world of mid-century Toronto. A keen deflater of myths, Bazzana shows that Gould, often assumed to be asexual or gay, had a number of quasi-girlfriends, though his need for solitude always came first. Similarly, although it’s true that he sued Steinway, alleging injury from an employee’s effusive greeting, among friends handshakes were common. Still, those for whom the eccentricities are half the fun will find endless delight in the meticulous accounts of Gould’s diet, hypochondria, and near-suicidal driving. “It’s true that I’ve driven through a number of red lights on occasion,” he once said, “but on the other hand, I’ve stopped at a lot of green ones but never gotten credit for it.”

Publishers Weekly

More than two decades after his death at the age of 50, Glenn Gould remains one of the most famous (and in some circles controversial) pianists of the 20th century. Bazzana, who previously wrote a musicological study of Gould's technique, broadens his focus to encompass the performer's brief life in an engaging biography that will captivate classical music lovers and casual listeners alike. Nimble analysis explores the influences of various composers on Gould's playing style while avoiding technical jargon. More importantly Bazzana portrays Gould as a vivid, engaging personality no mean feat considering his subject withdrew from the concert stage in 1964 and spent the following 18 years addressing the public only through studio recordings and other electronic media. Bazzana confronts all the major clich s that have built up around Gould's history and then makes a persuasive argument against considering them as an indication of mental illness, suggesting that eccentricities like refusing to shake hands and sitting in a custom-designed piano chair were for the most part no more unusual than the habits adopted by any dedicated artist. He also provides ample evidence that the most widely spread stories obscure how resolutely normal Gould was (and, one repeatedly discovers, utterly and charmingly Canadian). For those who already love Gould's performances with all his extraneous noises, this biography provides welcome and equal insight into his life and music, while anyone new to the subject may not even want to wait until finishing the book to run out and buy their first CD. (May) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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