Pill-popping pianist

What would Glenn Gould’s playing have sounded like if he hadn’t chomped his way through bucketloads of Valium? It’s not a question that is asked in Genius Within, a much-praised documentary about the tortured Canadian pianist that has just been released in Britain.

What would Glenn Gould’s playing have sounded like if he hadn’t chomped his way through bucketloads of Valium? It’s not a question that is asked in Genius Within, a much-praised documentary about the tortured Canadian pianist that has just been released in Britain. But perhaps it should have been. In the nine months before his death at the age of 50 in 1982, Gould consumed more than 2,000 pills of every variety. His self-medication is admittedly one of the most famous things about him, but unless you’ve tried some of the tranquillisers he took — and, as it happens, I have — it’s hard to grasp how profoundly they mess with your consciousness.