Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould

When the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made his New York debut in 1955 at the age of 22 he seemed to have come from nowhere. A mercurial musician who cut a handsome and charismatic figure, he quickly became a media celebrity, successfully wooing an international audience with his flawless technique and idiosyncratic interpretations of the classical greats.

With this fame came a fascination with his personal quirks; his insistent humming as he played, his specially made low piano chair which always travelled with him, and his ever-present woolly gloves to protect his hands. But after he quit concert playing at the age of 31 and began a successful, if reclusive, career as a recording artist and radio producer, these peculiarities seemed to slowly overwhelm his personality.

The Genius Within tells the story of this wonderful, tragic life through archive footage and exhaustive interviews, and provides an absorbing introduction to both Gould and the often strange world of classical connoisseurship. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]