Glenn Gould was famous for two things; his unequalled performances of Bach on the piano, and also for his extreme eccentricity. He died at aged 50 in the year we came to the US, in 1982. He sustained a back injury in his home town of Toronto when he was a child, and his father made a special chair for him that allowed him to sit very low down at the keyboard. His technique was to pull down on the keys rather than press down on them. This 3-minute video shows him in his early life practicing his beloved Bach. His constant humming while he played was the bane of sound engineers when he was in the recording booth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ His famous chair is on view at the Toronto Museum.
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