To folks engaged with the pop side of music – and pretty much everything counts as the pop side in contrast to classical music – the name Glenn Gould doesn’t mean all that much. If the name does spark a sense of remembrance, it’s pretty likely that there’s less music and more personality on tap than anything. While Gould’s public persona stuck a weird chord with the international community – wearing a scarf and gloves during the summer’s bound to do that – the sporadic public performing career he mounted, made Gould an indispensable figure.

Amassing a huge concert following, during his early twenties, the Canadian born pianist inked a deal with Columbia and recorded his interpretation of the Goldberg Variations, something of a weird, mythical clutch of Bach compositions. There’s a history there all its own, but Gould added to it with his first recording, again visiting the works just months before his death during the early eighties. Hearing – in either version – Gould go at a work that’s a few hundred years old, but doing so in a rather unique way might not hold the same sort of sway today as it did back in the fifties. But again. Who listens to piano music, much less classical stuff today – apart from librarians and academic types.

Regardless of that, PBS went and aired Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould late last year. The feature revealed what most aficionados already knew: Gould was a weird dude. Apart from his manner of dress and the fact that he ostensibly ceased public performance at the height of demand, Gould was an extraordinarily reclusive guy, only allowing a few women to penetrate the veil of individuality he cultivated over the few decades in the spotlight.

Most interesting, though, was his relationship with Lukas Foss’ wife, who for a time went and lived with Gould, taking her children with her to Toronto. The two composers already knew each other and appreciated the work each had done. So, it’s difficult to tell whether or not Gould took an interest in the woman because of a genuine affection or if there was some weird sort of mainstreaming going on in his head. Either way, the estranged couple eventually reunited, leaving Gould , obviously, distraught.

Pretty much every aspect of the guy’s life seems like a bizarre extension of late nineteenth century French art folks. There were even drugs – here, though, it was all prescription.