Glenn Gould practising Beethoven’s Concerto No.3

Gould could go days, even weeks without playing or practising the piano and he claimed that the “best playing I do is when I haven’t touched the instrument for a month“. According to Kevin Bazzana (Gould biographer) he practised less than most virtuosos during his concert years, and after he retired from the concert stage he needed an even smaller amount of time at the piano. From the mid-seventies, he was practising, when at all, as little as half an hour a day, usually about one hour, never more than two. From Gould’s private recordings collection here he is going through Beethoven’s Concerto No.3 in C minor (first and last movements). He plays the piano part AND some of the orchestra accompaniment, plus -of course- the typical humming, loud and clear. The exact date of the session is not known but an educated guess would place it in the mid-fifties, more than likely 1956, the year he resumed playing it in concert. The piano sounds very much like his beloved Chickering, located in his cottage, near Lake Simcoe (Ontario).