1. Glenn GouldBach’s Goldberg Variations
I’ve been a Glenn Gould nut ever since I can remember. I grew up near Boston, and saw him perform at Symphony Hall in the 50s. I must have been eight or nine. I held my breath throughout his whole performance.
Bach’s music is so highly constructed and beautiful, and full of emotion just in itself, and Gould had this motorised perfection in his playing – he definitely spoke to an electronic sensibility in me. But he also, crucially, never got in the way of the music. There’d been a pianist known for performing Bach before him, Wanda Landowska, but there’d be more of her personality there, which wasn’t needed – I don’t want to be mean about her, but it just wasn’t the same. Gould taught me that music is not about you and your ego, but about channelling it, just letting it come through you.
