Pianist Glenn Gould’s Radical Neurodivergent Legacy
Glenn Gould, photo by Don Hunstein. Wikimedia Commons
Glenn Gould is one of the most famous classical musicians of the 20th century, and I also think one of the most misunderstood. Missing is a recognition of the deep connection between his mind and his music, a gap I believe can be closed through the neurodiversity paradigm.
The neurodiversity paradigm is the idea that people who are autistic, ADHD, or a range of other cognitive types are “neurodivergent,” part of the population’s natural diversity alongside different ethnicities or sexualities. This challenges the more established medical paradigm that views these variations as deficiencies from a “norm” to be diagnosed and cured. Such reframing allows neurodivergent behaviours, traits, and characteristics to be respected and valued, rather than seen as needing correction. It also provides a valuable lens to view the past and reconsider the legacy of those whose minds we might today call neurodivergent. It is from this angle that I’d like to consider Glenn Gould. Absent from the near-endless writing about him and the possible medical causes of his idiosyncratic behaviour is a neurodivergent perspective that values his particular mind and highlights how vital it was to his musical output.
But first, who was Glenn Gould? A pianist who lived from 1932-82, he began his career domestically with concerts across Canada, before breaking onto the international scene with a number of high-profile appearances in New York. A now infamous performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall with Leonard Bernstein conducting cemented his reputation as a controversial rising star, alongside a groundbreaking recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations released in 1955. He then began a series of international tours which he strongly disliked, describing public concerts as a “vaudeville” and deciding in 1964 to stop giving them entirely. The rest of his life was dedicated to creating studio recordings and programs for radio. His death only fueled his popularity. Kevin Bazzana begins his biography of Gould with a prelude recounting what he calls the “cottage industry” that grew around the pianist posthumously and continues to this day, comprised of record re-releases, biographical books and other media, and pilgrimages to important places in his life.
Being a leading pianist of his generation can only partially account for this overwhelming interest. Other world-class pianists, like Horowitz or Rubinstein, have sizable posthumous reputations, but nothing to match Gould’s. The obvious answer to this discrepancy is the accompanying fascination with his character. Atypical behaviours strongly indicative of a neurodivergent mind became mythologised, with Gould cast in the “eccentric mad genius” archetype. Central to this myth are things such as the decision to quit public concerts and record in “hermetic” isolation, the old creaky chair he always used at the piano, the propensity to sing and conduct alongside his playing, the ritual of washing his arms in hot water before performances.
Alongside public interest in his life and music, a rigorous academic discourse continues around Gould. Much of it stems from the medical paradigm, using anecdotal and archival evidence to analyse and diagnose what was “wrong” with Gould’s mind to prompt certain behaviours. These writings leave the impression of the pianist being reduced to a case study, a body on the metaphorical dissection table of clinical psychology. One has to wonder what is lost when Gould is viewed as a brilliant pianist plighted by a range of possible disorders and deficits. It implies that if only Gould didn’t have any psychological problems, he could have continued playing live concerts, used a standard piano stool, kept quiet during performances. This removes his agency over such decisions and behaviours, casting them instead as unfortunate side-effects of an innate deficiency. Those purveying this medical perspective, alongside the critics who disparaged Gould’s behaviour, want to have their cake and eat it. His performances are cherished, whilst the mind that produced them is considered as wrong, broken, and the behaviours facilitating them undesirable.
This is my central point: using the neurodiversity paradigm, we can see that Gould’s characteristics and behaviours were not barriers he had to overcome, or things impeding him and his music-making; they were vital to it. Gould was intent on realising his artistic vision and – unsurprisingly given his neurodivergent mind – achieving it took abandoning “normal” means, for those better suited to him. For example, Gould remarked in an interview that forcing himself not to vocalise made his playing worse. I think the significance of this is underappreciated. It shows that his behaviour cannot be separated from his musical output, as those who want one but not the other seek to do. Rather, by continuing to sing, Gould shows the resolve, the bravery, to prioritise better music making over moulding himself into a more societally acceptable image of pianism.
Going a step further, I think Gould’s neurodivergent personhood is part of what makes his legacy so valuable. My argument now becomes shaded by my own subjective experience of the world, perhaps as an act of resistance to his legacy being shaped by emotionally distant psychological scrutiny. Gould is a great inspiration to me as a fellow neurodivergent musician. Not only are his recordings indisputably enriching, but I also love watching him deeply immersed in his music, leaned forward, singing along, conducting himself, perched in his favourite chair. I see myself, home alone singing and dancing along to some Beethoven, or at the piano in the evening crashing out The Well-Tempered Clavier at quarter speed for the hell of it. When I read his interviews and written work, I find a precise, passionate, and logical voice that I often suppress in myself for fear of seeming nerdy or obsessive.
The most valuable part of Gould’s legacy to me are the very traits that the medical paradigm sees as wrong and undesirable. So much would be lost if those seeking to “normalise” Gould had succeeded, and the fact that he constantly fought for the right to make music on his own terms, and succeeded, is remarkable. We need to radically reconsider this amazing pianist and realise that his life is not the tragedy of a defective mind but the triumph of a neurodivergent one.
Notes
Kevin Bazzana’s biography is called Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. It is a great book for anyone wanting to learn more about Gould’s life.
Gould’s active legacy is most evident in the work of the Glenn Gould Foundation which runs an international prize, supports cultural projects in Canada, and documents all new media about the pianist.
Stephen Timothy Maloney’s article ‘Glenn Gould: Autistic Savant’ (published in the academic volume Sounding off: Theorising Disability in Music) is an example of a medical approach, cross-referencing Gould’s behaviour with the diagnostic criteria for Autistic Spectrum Disorder as outlined in the 4th edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is also interesting for collecting quotations from early reviewers that disparage Gould’s personal presentation on stage.