James Dean of classical music

Studio 360

is what Tim Page the music critic called Glenn Gould. Privately they were close friends. When Gould had finished his legendary 1981 re-recording of the Goldberg variations he asked Tim Page, who was then a host of a music show at WNYC, to do an interview with him. Only, Gould would script it all! Casting his friend Tim Page in the role of music critic Tim Page and himself in the role as Glenn Gould and a fictitious actor “Sir John”.

The whole thing is so bizarre and interesting that we decided to post the entire interview here:

This might also be the last interview Glenn Gould did, he died of a stroke 6 weeks after the recording.

glenn-gouldTimPageMaggieSmith

Are you with The World?

The story you just read is available to read for free because thousands of listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Every day, the reporters and producers at The World are hard at work bringing you human-centered news from across the globe. But we can’t do it without you: We need your support to ensure we can continue this work for another year.

When you make a gift of $10 or more a month, we’ll invite you to a virtual behind-the-scenes tour of our newsroom to thank you for being with The World.