Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

:03:20

My mother tells me
that by five years old...

:03:23

l had decided definitively
to become a concert pianist.

:03:28

l think she had decided
sometime earlier.

:03:32

The story goes
that while l was in the womb...

:03:35

she played the piano continuously
to give me a head start...

:03:39

and evidently it paid off.

:03:43

My mother was my first teacher
and l've never doubted her methods.

:03:47

After all
she introduced me to Bach.

:03:50

Oh good. Try another.

:03:55

By the age of ten l had the first book
of The Well-Tempered Clavier...

:04:00

pretty much under my belt.

:04:02

Good. Oh that's good.

:04:05

Very good.
Let's try one up at this end here.

:04:09

My childhood was full of music
even at our cottage on Lake Simcoe.

:04:14

Those days seem particularly idyllic
to me at least in retrospect.

:04:17

- Go ahead.
- They were compared to my school days.

:04:41

Eight-seven times twenty-three is--

:04:44

At an early age l could read music
and memorize it on the spot.

:04:48

ln fact l could read music
before l could read words.

:04:53

l remember l used to play a game
with my mother...

:04:55

where l would identify the chords she
played from the other side of the house.