Biography glenn goodread gould mind music

HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!
A personal favorite, and an absolute classic of its kind, though, as an example of musical essay-biographical-philosophical-dialectical treatise there simply aren't many of its kind.

Glenn Gould: Music and Mind attempts to dissect and identify its artist not by conventional external biographical events but by a fundamental, scrupulous, detailed and very deep analysis of its subject's art.

In doing so, it becomes more than an analysis of Gould--the unconventional Canadian pianist, writer, composer, radio producer, etc.--but a multifaceted rumination on musical aesthetics, what music is, the mechanics of how it can be played, the merits and demerits of live versus recorded music (an issue that preoccupied Gould his entire life), the nature and limitations of musical instruments in realizing the abstract ideals and impossible enigmas inherent in music, the perceptions of music listeners, the thought processes of m