Words matter. These are the best Glenn Gould Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Chopin, Schubert, and Liszt had no idea of how to write for the piano.
I don’t think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano… The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off.
There’s a very curious and – and almost sadistic lust for blood that overcomes the concert listener, and there’s a waiting for it to happen: a waiting for the horn to fluff; a waiting for the strings to become ragged; a waiting for the conductor to forget the subdivide, you know? And it’s dreadful!
Behind every silver lining, there’s a cloud.
I could read music before I could read.
At concerts I felt demeaned, like a vaudevillian.
When I broke 20, I said to myself, ‘I will give concerts until I’m approximately 30.’ And I made it a year and a half late, but, nevertheless, that’s what I did. When I broke 30, I said, ‘I think I should be recording until I’m about 50.’
Until I was about 13, somehow I managed to assume that everyone reacted to everything just about as I did. I took it for granted that everyone shared my passion for overcast skies. It came as quite a shock when I discovered that there were actually people who preferred sunshine.
I cannot bear assaults of any kind, and it seems to me that the Beatles essentially were out to affront and to assault.
I find myself more genuinely drawn to the essence of Beethoven in Schnabel than I ever have been by anybody.
Fingers don’t have much to do with playing the piano. The idea that they do must be unlearned.
Beethoven’s reputation is based entirely on gossip. The middle Beethoven represents a supreme example of a composer on an ego trip.
I’m fascinated with what happens to the creative output when you isolate yourself from the approval and disapproval of the people around you.
I treat recorded tapes the way a film director treats his rushes.
I detest audiences. Not in their individual components but en masse… I think they are a force of evil.
By the time I was six, I made an important discovery that I get along much better with animals than humans.
I don’t much care for the sunlight or bright colours of any kind.
