Try a Desert Island and You’ll Never Be Lonely

Photo: courtesy of the estate of Jock Carroll

One of the greatest institutions in broadcast history is the BBC’s legendary program, “Desert Island Discs.” Each week since 1942 at the height of another global crisis, celebrated people have come on the air to talk about their lives and the eight records they would insist on keeping with them if they were stranded on a desert island.

Now, strange as it may seem, isolation (whether on an island or to flatten a pandemic), can feel a lot less isolating when you have the company of your favourite music, performers, and the centuries of history, experience, and happy memories they gather together.

In the case of Glenn Gould, he seems to have had very good company indeed. Below is a partial list of the notables who would have brought Glenn with them to their own desert island – everybody from pop singers to painters, actors to architects.

Gould himself was never invited onto the show as a guest. In fact, in a 1970 High Fidelity article, Gould expresses his chagrin at being passed over by the CBC as a guest on a program called “Hermit’s Choice,” which he describes as a “straight steal” from the BBC.

Gould grouses, “Through some dreadful oversight of casting, and despite a peerless reputation as the country’s most experienced hermit, I was never invited to contribute to the series.”

To remedy this unbecoming slight, Gould offered his own list, guaranteed to warm the heart and enliven the spirits of the most desolate castaway. Gould’s selections:

Hymns and anthems of Orlando Gibbons, as performed by the Deller Consort

Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, Cond.

And (possibly) Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4, Arthur Schnabel, Piano, Chicago Syphony, Frederick Stock, Cond.

So Glenn Gould’s rule for social distancing: bring record, and you’ll always be in the best of company.

Here are some of the amazing people, over the last five decades, who would have brought Glenn Gould to their own personal desert island:

Petula Clark (Goldberg Variations)

Jonathan Miller (Goldberg Variations)

Writer Ann Enright (Brahms Intermezzo)

Composer Gavin Bryars (Idea of North)

Margaret Atwood (Goldberg Variations)

Pianist Joanna MacGregor (Goldberg Variations, Var. 25)
She also describes Glenn Gould as “the man I would most have loved to take to dinner.”

Conductor Vladimir Jurowski (Goldberg Variations, Var. 29):

Director and writer Anthony Minghella (who chose two discs: Goldberg Variations and Bach Cello Sonata)
Gould has been “a hero to me all my adult life,” said Minghella. “I think I have every recording that Glenn Gould ever made. His life was extraordinary, his playing was extraordinary, and he in a sense made me listen to Bach in a particular way; he makes you re-hear it, I think. So much so that I had an idea to make a story in which people met up to play duets, and that was the tiny germ of an idea that became Truly, Madly, Deeply.”

Director and Artist Steve McQueen (Goldberg Variations Aria)

Percussionist Evelyn Glennie (Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier)

Cleric and celebrated hostage Terry Waite (Bach: French Suite No. 5)
In captivity, Waite occupied his own metaphorical desert island: “in captivity you have to somehow discover your own way of surviving – discover your own individuality in a new way. And I like Glenn Gould because he was a marvellous individualist. He had the courage to make his own interpretations and he wasn’t afraid.”

Donald Sutherland (Goldberg Variations)
Sutherland: “[this selection is] for Chris Plummer. Chris is a wonderful jazz pianist, and whenever I hear Glenn Gould, I think of Chris and I think of Canada . . . It’s Toronto, it’s cold wind, it’s everything . . . the first CD I ever bought in my life was that Compact Disc [the Goldberg Variations].”

Stephen Fry (Bach: Partita No. 1):
Fry: “for many years he (Bach) never really did it for me – I could see that the intricate patterns were very, very clever, but he never spoke to my soul if you like. BUT, especially thanks to one incredible figure, the eccentric and marvellous Canadian pianist, I have come to value all of the keyboard works, so I’d like to hear Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Partita No. 1, the Gigue.”

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann (Goldberg Variations)

Writer: Edna O’Brien (Goldberg Variations)

Writer Peter Mayle (author of A Year in Provence) (Goldberg Variations):

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti (Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, Prelude & Fugue in B-Flat Major)

Alan Alda (Bach: English Suite No. 5, Prelude)

Joan Baez (Goldberg Variations)
Baez: “I was introduced to it when I was 16 or 17 . . . and I just entered some kind of trance when he played . . . he must have been in another state to not even care or notice that he was humming along with this magnificent playing.”

David Hockney (Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, arr. F. Liszt)

Playwright Howard Brenton (Bach: WTC, Fugue in C Minor)
Brenton: “this is fire and ice.”

Actress Zoe Wannamaker (Bach: Partita No. 1)
Wannamaker: “Glenn Gould. I just love this genius . . . I mean he was a genius . . . this is somebody embodying the music.”

Architect Daniel Liebeskind (Goldberg Variations, Aria)
Liebeskind: “my favourite pianist . . . the intensity of Bach’s music and the intensity of Glenn Gould’s performance merge into something that is really transcendental . . .  I’ve already listened to it about a million times and I haven’t been bored so I’m sure I could listen another 80 million times to it.”

Psychiatrist Anthony Storr (Bach, Goldberg Variations)

Children’s writer, David Almond (Goldberg Variations)
Almond: “which we played when our daughter was being born.”

Tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson (Goldberg Variations)
Johnson: “he sings in a way I think I would sing if I could play, enhancing the bass line sometimes, and humming happily to himself . . . a man happy in his work.”

Princess Grace of Monaco (Sonata for Cello & Piano No. 1 in G Major)

Do you have a favourite Glenn Gould disc you’d take with you to the proverbial desert island? Feel free to share your pick with us.