GG: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius

[Matthew Hunt <MNSH@compuserve.com>]

A few weeks ago I said I would post my review of this book by Peter
Ostwald. I only got a C for it, but you may find it of interest. I reviewed
it from the point of view of a family doctor recommending it to colleagues
for its health psychology aspects.


Glenn Gould - The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius
Peter F Ostwald
W.W. Norton & Co 1997   pp 368


The brilliance of the extraordinary pianist is reflected and clearly
analysed by the musical psychiatrist in this fascinating psycho-biography. 
It deserves a place in our practice library as it tells the enthralling
story of one man?s health beliefs and their effect on his career.  Glenn
Gould (1932-82) was born to musical parents in Canada, shot almost
unwillingly to fame and died a living legend.  Possibly having Asperger?s
Syndrome, a form of autism, he found close relationships difficult and
never married, suffered severe hypochondriasis and neurosis, and abandoned
playing public concerts at the age of 31 in favour of recording and
writing.  His biographer met him when they were both in their twenties and
maintained a lay friendship for twenty years.  The book will interest
doctors who enjoy music and illuminate the difficulties of doctoring a
reclusive genius.  The author drew on this experience to found the Health
Programme for Performing Artists at the University of California.

A vivid description of the concert at which they first met plunges the
reader straight into an encounter with Gould remarkable and ecstatic in the
Bach F Minor Concerto but taking antibiotics for a cold and barbiturates
for anxiety in his intolerably overheated dressing room.  Ostwald?s concern
over their use is allayed by Gould?s assertion that they are perfectly
harmless, and in a letter revealing his multiple personalities and sense of
humour, from Gould?s Clinic for Psycho-Pseumatic Therapy, the pianist
advises a colleague that ?Luminal can be taken often but Nebutol should not
be made a habit of.?    Later we hear how pills in unlabelled containers or
crammed into pockets were Gould?s constant companions and occasional
embarrassments at US border crossings.

Ostwald?s research into Gould?s childhood is clear and reveals an Oedipal
situation where the child prodigy has his mother as sole teacher to the age
of ten, learns to please her, and is overprotected and imbued with a morbid
fear of germs and a distaste for conflict, tension and expression of
sexuality.  An early hatred of sunlight and bright colours is interesting,
making the black and white piano keys a safe haven.  Stage-fright developed
early for fear of people looking at him, and fear that he would catch a
chill from them, and he developed a love affair with the microphone and the
solitude and womb-like (his own words) security of the studio where he
could excel in his music-making.  Ostwald shows us how Gould?s move into
recording has enhanced posterity?s enjoyment of him.

Gould briefly entered psychoanalysis in 1955 shortly before his name-making
recording of the Goldberg Variations  when anxiety symptoms after concerts
forced him to Toronto Casualty Department.  The symptoms sound like
irritable bowel syndrome and globus hystericus, common complaints in
general practice.  Although medical records are unavailable, Ostwald gives
a convincing reconstruction of how Gould would have given any doctor a hard
time and demanded the quick fix that came from drugs.  He had a recurring
nightmare, and a mysterious illness on his 1958 European tour that Ostwald
analyses with insight.

Ostwald describes how he introduced Gould to a fellow musical Psychiatrist
in 1960 who maintained contact through long and late telephone calls.  He
also shows how the artist developed repetitive strain injury of the left
arm but attributed it to a friendly slap on the back from a Steinway piano
tuner; the long course of this illness included 117 home visits from a
masseur.  The emotional overlay of this illness led the cancellation of
many concerts.

After the break with the stage, Gould was happier and able to express
himself in writing, philosophising, impersonating, and recording.  Ostwald
uses some of his dialogues to show how Gould?s make-believe characters
allowed him to step outside himself to express inner doubts and conflicts .
He also takes us into the tape-splicing world of the recording studio and
the accompanying humming that was his hallmark, but at this point the book
is weaker than the earlier biography by Payzant  published during Gould?s
lifetime and approved by him.  Payzant however, lacks the interesting
medical detail of Ostwald.

By 1976, the year after his mother?s death from a stroke, Gould was
diagnosed hypertensive and started on aldomet and propranolol.  He would
consult more than one doctor at once without telling any of them, and
Ostwald describes drug interactions and side-effects, and Gould?s own
efforts to correct his body posture.  No doctors considered that the
worn-out adjusting chair built by his father might also by responsible for
backache.  The book ends by describing Gould?s death shortly after his
fiftieth birthday.  He had a premonition of this and his friends noticed a
decline.  Although the final cause was a stroke, the initial event was
cavernous sinus thrombosis probably secondary to a sinus infection or cold.
 Was his fear of a cold right all along?


Review by Matthew Hunt, a GP in Swindon, England.