Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian classical pianist. He was among the most famous and celebrated pianists of the 20th century, renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and a capacity to articulate the contrapuntal texture of Bach's music.
Gould c. 1980
Gould with his teacher, Alberto Guerrero, at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, in 1945. Guerrero demonstrated his technical idea that Gould should "pull down" at the keys instead of striking them from above.
Gould in February 1946 with his dog and his parakeet, Mozart
Replica of Gould's piano chair
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed in a relatively tonal, late-Romantic idiom. Later, and independently of his influential contemporary Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed a much more dissonant musical language that had transcended usual tonality but was not atonal, which accorded with his personal brand of metaphysics. Scriabin found significant appeal in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk as well as synesthesia, and associated colours with the various harmonic tones of his scale, while his colour-coded circle of fifths was also inspired by theosophy. He is often considered the main Russian Symbolist composer and a major representative of the Russian Silver Age.
Alexander Scriabin
A young Alexander Scriabin (late 1870s)
Zverev's students in the late 1880s. Scriabin, with military attire, is second from the left. Rachmaninoff is the fourth from the right.
Scriabin (sitting on the left of the table) as a guest at Wladimir Metzl's home in Berlin, 1910