Glenn Gould vs. Glenn Gould. A musical theatrical performance – performed on the CFX

Glenn Gould is a legend. Everyone wants to hear him play. When just 25 years old, he announced that when he reached 30 he would no longer be giving concerts. And in fact he went on to take this unprecedented step. He left his admirers an enormous collection of recordings. 2012 is the year of his 80th birthday; at the same time it is just 30 years since he died.  

Glenn Gould vs. Glenn Gould
The aim of this performance is something that Glenn Gould himself would have loathed – to make the general public better acquainted with this hermit, this crazy solitary person, to lure him out of his self-imposed isolation and ‘turn him over’ to the public. How atrocious!
He was a tortured soul, because what the world wanted of him was not something he wished for himself. He never intended to become a legend, a pop star or ‘the James Dean of classical music,’ as some called him. He did not want to be touched, did not want an audience in the hall, did not want to shake hands with anybody at any time.
Glenn Gould wanted to live out his own introverted existence. He loved the uninhabited empty spaces of Canada. For him, the north was not just a silent, challenging region – it was an attitude of mind.
In the garrison mentality of the Toronto of his childhood, a British city in a British province, way out there in the British Empire, he became ‘the last Puritan.’
But the noisy music business constantly pulled him in the opposite direction: concerts, press conferences, competitions, marketing for money and for gold. The public pursued him, always with the same demands. The studio became his barrier, behind which he hoped to protect his vulnerability. This was where he researched and experienced his music – making use of the technical potential available at the time. He gave his love only to music and to his struggle to reach purity and perfection.   
Glenn Gould lived out the classic dilemma between closeness and distance. And he followed his inclinations without any kind of compromise. The autistic attitude he presented to the outside world was partly a disguise: in everything, he sought the same things – security, love, a homeland, beauty.
So the performance Glenn Gould vs. Glenn Gould represents the almost futile task of placing this passionate hermit, this talented, crazy lover of music into the limelight for a few moments. It aims to create understanding of his personality and offer an insight into his highly complex and rebellious life.