Glenn Herbert Gould (; né Gold; 25 September 19324 October 1982) was a Canadian classical pianist. He was among the most famous and celebrated pianists of the 20th century, renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and a capacity to articulate the contrapuntal texture of Bach's music.

Gould rejected most of the Romantic piano literature by Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others, in favour of Bach and Beethoven mainly, along with some late-Romantic and modernist composers. Gould also recorded works by Mozart, Haydn, Scriabin, and Brahms; pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, William Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons; and 20th-century composers including Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss.

Gould was also a writer and broadcaster, and dabbled in composing and conducting. He produced television programmes about classical music, in which he would speak and perform, or interact with an interviewer in a scripted manner. He made three musique concrète radio documentaries, collectively the Solitude Trilogy, about isolated areas of Canada. He was a prolific contributor to music journals, in which he discussed music theory. Gould was known for his eccentricities, ranging from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and behaviour. He disliked public performance, and stopped giving concerts at age 31 to concentrate on studio recording and media.

Life

Early life

Glenn Gould was born at home in Toronto, on 25 September 1932, the only child of Russell Herbert Gold (1901–1996) and Florence Emma Gold (née Greig; 1891–1975), Presbyterians of Scottish, English, and Norwegian ancestry.  The family's surname was informally changed to Gould around 1939 to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of pre-war Toronto. Gould had no Jewish ancestry, though he sometimes joked about the subject, such as "When people ask me if I'm Jewish, I always tell them that I was Jewish during the war." His childhood home has been named a historic site.

His interest in music and his talent as a pianist were evident very early. Both parents were musical; his mother, especially, encouraged his musical development from infancy. Hoping he would become a successful musician, she exposed him to music during her pregnancy. She taught him the piano and as a baby, he reportedly hummed instead of crying, and wiggled his fingers as if playing a keyboard instrument, leading his doctor to predict that he would "be either a physician or a pianist". He learned to read music before he could read words, and it was observed that he had perfect pitch at age three. When presented with a piano, the young Gould was reported to strike single notes and listen to their long decay, a practice his father Bert noted was different from typical children. Gould's interest in the piano was concomitant with an interest in composition. He played his pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings—including, in 1938, a performance at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould family home) of one of his compositions.

Gould first heard a live musical performance by a celebrated soloist at age six. This profoundly affected him. He later described the experience:
It was Hofmann. It was, I think, his last performance in Toronto, and it was a staggering impression. The only thing I can really remember is that, when I was being brought home in a car, I was in that wonderful state of half-awakeness in which you hear all sorts of incredible sounds going through your mind. They were all orchestral sounds, but I was playing them all, and suddenly I was Hofmann. I was enchanted.

At age 10, he began attending the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (known until 1947 as the Toronto Conservatory of Music). He studied music theory with Leo Smith, organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero. Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe. This incident is apocryphally related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard. He used this chair for the rest of his life, taking it with him almost everywhere. The chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low and allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of Guerrero's.

Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the "separateness" and clarity of each note. His extremely low position at the instrument permitted him more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.

Gould passed his final Conservatory examination in piano at age 12, achieving the highest marks of any candidate, and thus attaining professional standing as a pianist. One year later he passed the written theory exams, qualifying for an Associate of the Toronto Conservatory of Music (ATCM) diploma.

Piano
Gould was a child prodigy and was described in adulthood as a musical phenomenon. He claimed to have almost never practiced on the piano itself, preferring to study repertoire by reading, another technique he had learned from Guerrero. He may have spoken ironically about his practising, though, as there is evidence that, on occasion, he did practise quite hard, sometimes using his own drills and techniques. He seemed able to practise mentally, once preparing for a recording of Brahms's piano works without playing them until a few weeks before the sessions. Gould could play a vast repertoire of piano music, as well as a wide range of orchestral and operatic transcriptions, from memory. He could "memorize at sight" and once challenged a friend to name any piece of music that he could not "instantly play from memory".

The piano, Gould said, "is not an instrument for which I have any great love as such ... [but] I have played it all my life, and it is the best vehicle I have to express my ideas." In the case of Bach, Gould noted, "[I] fixed the action in some of the instruments I play on—and the piano I use for all recordings is now so fixed—so that it is a shallower and more responsive action than the standard. It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it. This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things."

As a teenager, Gould was significantly influenced by Artur Schnabel and Rosalyn Tureck's recordings of Bach (which he called "upright, with a sense of repose and positiveness"), and the conductor Leopold Stokowski. Gould was known for his vivid imagination. Listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to outright eccentric. His pianism had great clarity and erudition, particularly in contrapuntal passages, and extraordinary control. Gould believed the piano to be "a contrapuntal instrument" and his whole approach to music was centered in the Baroque. Much of the homophony that followed he felt belongs to a less serious and less spiritual period of art.

Gould had a pronounced aversion to what he termed "hedonistic" approaches to piano repertoire, performance, and music generally. For him, "hedonism" in this sense denoted a superficial theatricality, something to which he felt Mozart, for example, became increasingly susceptible later in his career. He associated this drift toward hedonism with the emergence of a cult of showmanship and gratuitous virtuosity on the concert platform in the 19th century and later. The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the "blood sport" with which he struggled, and which he ultimately rejected.

Performances
On 5 June 1938, at age five, Gould played in public for the first time, joining his family on stage to play piano at a church service at the Business Men's Bible Class in Uxbridge, Ontario, in front of a congregation of about 2,000. In 1945, at 13, he made his first appearance with an orchestra in a performance of the first movement of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with the Toronto Symphony. His first solo recital followed in 1947, and his first recital on radio was with the CBC in 1950. This was the beginning of Gould's long association with radio and recording. He founded the Festival Trio chamber group in 1953 with cellist Isaac Mamott and violinist Albert Pratz.

Gould made his American debut on 2 January 1955, in Washington, D.C. at The Phillips Collection. The music critic Paul Hume wrote in the Washington Post, "January 2 is early for predictions, but it is unlikely that the year 1955 will bring us a finer piano recital than that played yesterday afternoon in the Phillips Gallery. We shall be lucky if it brings us others of equal beauty and significance." A performance at The Town Hall in New York City followed on 11 January. Gould's reputation quickly grew. In 1957, he undertook a tour of the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to play there since World War II. His concerts featured Bach, Beethoven, and the serial music of Schoenberg and Berg, which had been suppressed in the Soviet Union during the era of Socialist Realism. Gould debuted in Boston in 1958, playing for the Peabody Mason Concert Series. On 31 January 1960, Gould first appeared on American television on CBS's Ford Presents series, performing Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor (BWV 1052) with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.

Gould believed that the institution of the public concert was an anachronism and a "force of evil", leading to his early retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or failing critical expectation; and that such performances produced unexceptional interpretations because of the limitations of live music. He set forth this doctrine, half in jest, in "GPAADAK", the Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds. On 10 April 1964, he gave his last public performance, at Los Angeles's Wilshire Ebell Theater. Among the pieces he performed were Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, selections from Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Hindemith's Piano Sonata No. 3. Gould performed fewer than 200 concerts, of which fewer than 40 were outside Canada. For a pianist such as Van Cliburn, 200 concerts would have amounted to about two years' touring.

One of Gould's reasons for abandoning live performance was his aesthetic preference for the recording studio, where, in his words, he developed a "love affair with the microphone". There, he could control every aspect of the final musical product by selecting parts of various takes. He felt that he could realize a musical score more fully this way. Gould felt strongly that there was little point in re-recording centuries-old pieces if the performer had no new perspective to bring. For the rest of his life, he eschewed live performance, focusing instead on recording, writing, and broadcasting.

Eccentricities

Gould was widely known for his unusual habits. He often hummed or sang while he played, and his audio engineers were not always able to exclude his voice from recordings. Gould claimed that his singing was unconscious and increased in proportion to his inability to produce his intended interpretation on a given piano. It is likely that the habit originated in his having been taught by his mother to "sing everything that he played", as his biographer Kevin Bazzana wrote. This became "an unbreakable (and notorious) habit". Some of Gould's recordings were severely criticised because of this background "vocalising". For example, a reviewer of his 1981 rerecording of the Goldberg Variations wrote that many listeners would "find the groans and croons intolerable". Gould was known for his peculiar, even theatrical, gesticulations while playing. Another oddity was his insistence on absolute control over every aspect of his environment. The temperature of the recording studio had to be precisely regulated; he invariably insisted that it be extremely warm. According to another of Gould's biographers, Otto Friedrich, the air-conditioning engineer had to work just as hard as the recording engineers.

The piano had to be set at a certain height and would be raised on wooden blocks if necessary. A rug would sometimes be required for his feet. He had to sit exactly  above the floor, and would play concerts only with the chair his father had made. He used this chair even when the seat was completely worn. His chair is so closely identified with him that it is shown in a place of honour in a glass case at Library and Archives Canada.

Conductors had mixed responses to Gould and his playing habits. George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius." Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him." Bernstein created a stir at the concert of April 6, 1962, when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the bossthe soloist or the conductor?", to which the audience laughed. "The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved." Specifically, Bernstein was referring to their rehearsals, with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo. The speech was interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as an abdication of responsibility and an attack on Gould. Plans for a studio recording of the performance came to nothing. The live radio broadcast was subsequently released on CD, Bernstein's disclaimer included.

Gould was averse to cold and wore heavy clothing (including gloves) even in warm places. He was once arrested, possibly being mistaken for a vagrant, while sitting on a park bench in Sarasota, Florida, dressed in his standard all-climate attire of coat, hat and mittens. He also disliked social functions. He hated being touched, and in later life limited personal contact, relying on the telephone and letters for communication. On a visit to Steinway Hall in New York City in 1959, the chief piano technician at the time, William Hupfer, greeted Gould with a slap on the back. Gould was shocked by this, and complained of aching, lack of coordination, and fatigue because of it. He went on to explore the possibility of litigation against Steinway & Sons if his apparent injuries were permanent. He was known for cancelling performances at the last minute, which is why Bernstein's aforementioned public disclaimer opened with, "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here ... [he] will appear in a moment."

In his liner notes and broadcasts, Gould created more than two dozen alter egos for satirical, humorous, and didactic purposes, permitting him to write hostile reviews or incomprehensible commentaries on his own performances. Probably the best-known are the German musicologist Karlheinz Klopweisser, the English conductor Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite, and the American critic Theodore Slutz. These facets of Gould, whether interpreted as neurosis or "play", have provided ample material for psychobiography.

Gould was a teetotaller and did not smoke. He did not cook; instead he often ate at restaurants and relied on room service. He ate one meal a day, supplemented by arrowroot biscuits and coffee. In his later years he claimed to be vegetarian, though this is not certain.

Personal life

Gould lived a private life. The documentary filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon said of him: "No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly." He never married, and biographers have spent considerable time on his sexuality. Bazzana writes that "it is tempting to assume that Gould was asexual, an image that certainly fits his aesthetic and the persona he sought to convey, and one can read the whole Gould literature and be convinced that he died a virgin"—but he also mentions that evidence points to "a number of relationships with women that may or may not have been platonic and ultimately became complicated and were ended".

One piece of evidence arrived in 2007. When Gould was in Los Angeles in 1956, he met Cornelia Foss, an art instructor, and her husband Lukas, a conductor. After several years, she and Gould became lovers. In 1967, she left her husband for Gould, taking her two children with her to Toronto. She purchased a house near Gould's apartment. In 2007, Foss confirmed that she and Gould had had a love affair for several years. According to her, "There were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn, and it was partly because he was so very private. But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual." Their affair lasted until 1972, when she returned to her husband. As early as two weeks after leaving her husband, Foss noticed disturbing signs in Gould, alluding to unusual behaviour that was more than "just neurotic". Specifically, he believed that "someone was spying on him", according to Foss's son.

Health and death
Though an admitted hypochondriac, Gould had many pains and ailments, but his autopsy revealed few underlying problems in areas that often troubled him. He worried about everything from high blood pressure (which in his later years he recorded in diary form) to the safety of his hands. (Gould rarely shook people's hands, and habitually wore gloves.) The spine injury he experienced as a child led physicians to prescribe, usually independently, an assortment of analgesics, anxiolytics, and other drugs. Bazzana has speculated that Gould's increasing use of a variety of prescription medications over his career may have had a deleterious effect on his health. It had reached the stage, Bazzana writes, that "he was taking pills to counteract the side effects of other pills, creating a cycle of dependency". In 1956, Gould told photojournalist Jock Carroll about "my hysteria about eating. It's getting worse all the time." In his biography, psychiatrist Peter F. Ostwald noted Gould's increasing neurosis about food in the mid-1950s, something Gould had spoken to him about. Ostwald later discussed the possibility that Gould had developed a "psychogenic eating disorder" around this time. In 1956, Gould was also taking Thorazine, an anti-psychotic medication, and reserpine, another anti-psychotic, which can also be used to lower blood pressure. Cornelia Foss has said that Gould took many antidepressants, which she blamed for his deteriorating mental state.

Whether Gould's behaviour fell within the autism spectrum has been debated. The diagnosis was first suggested by psychiatrist Peter Ostwald, a friend of Gould's, in the 1997 book Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius. There has also been speculation that he may have had bipolar disorder, because he sometimes went several days without sleep, had extreme increases in energy, drove recklessly, and in later life endured severe depressive episodes.

On 27 September 1982, two days after his 50th birthday, after experiencing a severe headache, Gould had a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He was admitted to Toronto General Hospital and his condition rapidly deteriorated. By 4 October, there was evidence of brain damage, and Gould's father decided that his son should be taken off life support. Gould's public funeral was held in St. Paul's Anglican Church on 15 October with singing by Lois Marshall and Maureen Forrester. The service was attended by over 3,000 people and was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is buried next to his parents in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery (section 38, lot 1050). The first few bars of the Goldberg Variations are carved on his grave marker. An animal lover, Gould left half his estate to the Toronto Humane Society; the other half went to the Salvation Army.

In 2000, a movement disorder neurologist suggested in a paper that Gould had dystonia, "a problem little understood in his time."

Perspectives

Writings

Gould periodically told interviewers he would have been a writer if he had not been a pianist. He expounded his criticism and philosophy of music and art in lectures, convocation speeches, periodicals, and CBC radio and television documentaries. Gould participated in many interviews, and had a predilection for scripting them to the extent that they may be seen to be as written work as much as off-the-cuff discussions. Gould's writing style was highly articulate, but sometimes florid, indulgent, and rhetorical. This is especially evident in his (frequent) attempts at humour and irony. Bazzana writes that although some of Gould's "conversational dazzle" found its way into his prolific written output, his writing was "at best uneven [and] at worst awful". While offering "brilliant insights" and "provocative theses", Gould's writing is often marred by "long, tortuous sentences" and a "false formality", Bazzana writes.

In his writing, Gould praised certain composers and rejected what he deemed banal in music composition and its consumption by the public, and also gave analyses of the music of Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Despite a certain affection for Dixieland jazz, Gould was mostly averse to popular music. He enjoyed a jazz concert with his friends as a youth, mentioned jazz in his writings, and once criticized the Beatles for "bad voice leading"—while praising Petula Clark and Barbra Streisand. Gould and jazz pianist Bill Evans were mutual admirers, and Evans made his record Conversations with Myself using Gould's Steinway model CD 318 piano.

On art
Gould's perspective on art is often summed up by this 1962 quotation: "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."

Gould repeatedly called himself "the last puritan", a reference to the philosopher George Santayana's 1935 novel of the same name. But he was progressive in many ways, promulgating the atonal composers of the early 20th century, and anticipating, through his deep involvement in the recording process, the vast changes technology had on the production and distribution of music. Mark Kingwell summarizes the paradox, never resolved by Gould nor his biographers, this way:

Technology
The issue of "authenticity" in relation to an approach like Gould's has been greatly debated (although less so by the end of the 20th century): is a recording less authentic or "direct" for having been highly refined by technical means in the studio? Gould likened his process to that of a film director—one knows that a two-hour film was not made in two hours—and implicitly asked why the recording of music should be different. He went so far as to conduct an experiment with musicians, sound engineers, and laypeople in which they were to listen to a recording and determine where the splices occurred. Each group chose different points, but none was wholly successful. While the test was hardly scientific, Gould remarked, "The tape does lie, and nearly always gets away with it".

In the lecture and essay "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process", one of his most significant texts, Gould makes explicit his views on authenticity and creativity. He asks why the epoch in which a work is received influences its reception as "art", postulating a sonata of his own composition that sounds so like one of Haydn's that it is received as such. If, instead, the sonata had been attributed to an earlier or later composer, it becomes more or less interesting as a piece of music. Yet it is not the work that has changed but its relation within the accepted narrative of music history. Similarly, Gould notes the "pathetic duplicity" in the reception of high-quality forgeries by Han van Meegeren of new paintings attributed to the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, before and after the forgery was known.

Gould preferred an ahistorical, or at least pre-Renaissance, view of art, minimizing the identity of the artist and the attendant historical context in evaluating the artwork: "What gives us the right to assume that in the work of art we must receive a direct communication with the historical attitudes of another period? ... moreover, what makes us assume that the situation of the man who wrote it accurately or faithfully reflects the situation of his time? ... What if the composer, as historian, is faulty?"

Recordings

Studio
In creating music, Gould much preferred the control and intimacy provided by the recording studio. He disliked the concert hall, which he compared to a competitive sporting arena. He gave his final public performance in 1964, and thereafter devoted his career to the studio, recording albums and several radio documentaries. He was attracted to the technical aspects of recording, and considered the manipulation of tape to be another part of the creative process. Although Gould's recording studio producers have testified that "he needed splicing less than most performers", Gould used the process to give himself total artistic control over the recording process. He recounted his recording of the A minor fugue from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier and how it was spliced together from two takes, with the fugue's expositions from one take and its episodes from another.

Gould's first commercial recording (of Berg's Piano sonata, Op. 1) came in 1953 on the short-lived Canadian Hallmark label. He soon signed with Columbia Records' classical music division and, in 1955, recorded Bach: The Goldberg Variations, his breakthrough work. Although there was some controversy at Columbia about the appropriateness of this "debut" piece, the record received extraordinary praise and was among the best-selling classical music albums of its era. Gould became closely associated with the piece, playing it in full or in part at many recitals. A new recording of the Goldberg Variations, in 1981, was among his last albums; the piece was one of a few he recorded twice in the studio. The 1981 release was one of CBS Masterworks' first digital recordings. The 1955 interpretation is highly energetic and often frenetic; the later is slower and more deliberate—Gould wanted to treat the aria and its 30 variations as a cohesive whole.

Gould said Bach was "first and last an architect, a constructor of sound, and what makes him so inestimably valuable to us is that he was beyond a doubt the greatest architect of sound who ever lived". He recorded most of Bach's other keyboard works, including both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the partitas, French Suites, English Suites, inventions and sinfonias, keyboard concertos, and a number of toccatas (which interested him least, being less polyphonic). For his only recording at the organ, he recorded some of The Art of Fugue, which was also released posthumously on piano.

As for Beethoven, Gould preferred the composer's early and late periods. He recorded all five of the piano concertos, 23 of the piano sonatas, and numerous bagatelles and variations. Gould was the first pianist to record any of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies (beginning with the Fifth Symphony, in 1967, with the Sixth released in 1969).

Gould also recorded works by Brahms, Mozart, and many other prominent piano composers, though he was outspoken in his criticism of the Romantic era as a whole. He was extremely critical of Chopin. When asked whether he found himself wanting to play Chopin, he replied: "No, I don't. I play it in a weak moment—maybe once a year or twice a year for myself. But it doesn't convince me." But in 1970, he played Chopin's B minor sonata for the CBC and said he liked some of the miniatures and "sort of liked the first movement of the B minor".

Although he recorded all of Mozart's sonatas and admitted enjoying the "actual playing" of them, Gould said he disliked Mozart's later works. He was fond of a number of lesser-known composers such as Orlando Gibbons, whose Anthems he had heard as a teenager, and whose music he felt a "spiritual attachment" to. He recorded a number of Gibbons's keyboard works, and called him his favourite composer, despite his better-known admiration for Bach. He made recordings of piano music by Jean Sibelius (the Sonatines and Kyllikki), Georges Bizet (the Variations Chromatiques de Concert and the Premier nocturne), Richard Strauss (the Piano Sonata, the Five Pieces, and Enoch Arden with Claude Rains), and Hindemith (the three piano sonatas and the sonatas for brass and piano). He also made recordings of Schoenberg's complete piano works. In early September 1982, Gould made his final recording: Strauss's Piano Sonata in B minor.

Collaborations

The success of Gould's collaborations was to a degree dependent upon his collaborators' receptiveness to his sometimes unconventional readings of the music. The musicologist Michael Stegemann considered Gould's television collaboration with American violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1965, in which they played works by Bach, Beethoven and Schoenberg, a success because "Menuhin was ready to embrace the new perspectives opened up by an unorthodox view". But Stegemann deemed the 1966 collaboration with soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, recording Strauss's Ophelia Lieder, an "outright fiasco". Schwarzkopf believed in "total fidelity" to the score, and objected to the temperature:

Gould recorded Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Ernst Krenek with numerous vocalists, including Donald Gramm and Ellen Faull. He also recorded Bach's six sonatas for violin and harpsichord (BWV 1014–1019) with Jaime Laredo, and the three sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard with Leonard Rose. Claude Rains narrated their recording of Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden. Gould also collaborated with members of the New York Philharmonic, the flutist Julius Baker and the violinist Rafael Druian, in a recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, and with Leopold Stokowski and the American Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in 1966.

Gould collaborated extensively with Vladimir Golschmann and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra for the Columbia Masterworks label in his recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1958 and several works by Bach in the 1960s, including the Keyboard Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1054), the Keyboard Concerto No. 5 (BWV 1056) and the Keyboard Concerto No. 7 (BWV 1058) in 1967 and the Keyboard Concerto No. 2 in E major (BWV 1053) and the Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A major (BWV 1055) in 1969.

Documentaries
Gould made numerous television and radio programs for CBC Television and CBC Radio. Notable productions include his musique concrète Solitude Trilogy, which consists of The Idea of North, a meditation on Northern Canada and its people; The Latecomers, about Newfoundland; and The Quiet in the Land, about Mennonites in Manitoba. All three use a radiophonic electronic-music technique that Gould called "contrapuntal radio", in which several people are heard speaking at once—much like the voices in a fugue—manipulated through overdubbing and editing. His experience of driving across northern Ontario while listening to Top 40 radio in 1967 inspired one of his most unusual radio pieces, The Search for Petula Clark, a witty and eloquent dissertation on Clark's recordings.

Also among Gould's CBC programs was an educational lecture on the music of Bach, "Glenn Gould On Bach", which featured a collaborative performance with Julius Baker and Oscar Shumsky of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.

Transcriptions, compositions, and conducting

Gould was also a prolific transcriber of orchestral repertoire for piano. He transcribed his own Wagner and Ravel recordings, as well as Strauss's operas and Schubert's and Bruckner's symphonies, which he played privately for pleasure.

Gould dabbled in composition, with few finished works. As a teenager, he wrote chamber music and piano works in the style of the Second Viennese school. Significant works include a string quartet, which he finished in his 20s (published 1956, recorded 1960), and his cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Later works include the Lieberson Madrigal (soprano, alto, tenor, bass [SATB] and piano), and So You Want to Write a Fugue? (SATB with piano or string-quartet accompaniment). His String Quartet (Op. 1) received a mixed reaction: the Christian Science Monitor and Saturday Review were quite laudatory, the Montreal Star less so. There is little critical commentary on Gould's compositions because there are few of them; he never succeeded beyond Opus 1, and left a number of works unfinished. He attributed his failure as a composer to his lack of a "personal voice". Most of his work is published by Schott Music. The recording Glenn Gould: The Composer contains his original works.

Towards the end of his life, Gould began conducting. He had earlier directed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde from the harpsipiano (a piano with metal hammers to simulate a harpsichord's sound), and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (the Urlicht section) in the 1960s. His first known public appearance conducting occurred in 1939 when he was six, while appearing as a pianist in a concert for the Business Men's Bible Class in Uxbridge. By 1957 he emerged as the conductor for the CBC Television program Chrysler Festival, in which he collaborated with Maureen Forrester. In the same year he also joined forces with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra as a conductor in a radio broadcast of Mozart's Symphony No. 1 and Schubert's Symphony No. 4 ("Tragic").

In 1958, Gould wrote to Golschmann of his "temporary retirement" from conducting, apparently as a result of the unanticipated muscular strain it created. Gould found himself "practically crippled" after his conducting appearances and unable to perform properly at the piano. Yet even at the age of 26, Gould continued to contemplate retiring as a piano soloist and devoting himself entirely to conducting. Immediately before his death, he was finalizing plans to appear as a conductor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1982 and in recordings of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Beethoven's Coriolan Overture in 1983. His last recording as a conductor was of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll in its original chamber-music scoring. He intended to spend his later years conducting, writing about music, and composing while pursuing an idlyllic "neoThoreauvian way of life" in the countryside.

Legacy and honours

Gould is one of the most acclaimed musicians of the 20th century. His unique pianistic method, insight into the architecture of compositions, and relatively free interpretation of scores created performances and recordings that were revelatory to many listeners and highly objectionable to others. Philosopher Mark Kingwell wrote, "his influence is made inescapable. No performer after him can avoid the example he sets ... Now, everyone must perform through him: he can be emulated or rejected, but he cannot be ignored." Among the pianists who acknowledged Gould's influence are Andras Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Ivo Pogorelich, and Peter Serkin.

One of Gould's performances of the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier was chosen for inclusion on the NASA Voyager Golden Record by a committee headed by Carl Sagan. The record was placed on the spacecraft Voyager 1. On 25 August 2012, the spacecraft became the first to cross the heliopause and enter the interstellar medium.

Gould is a popular subject of biography and critical analysis. Philosophers such as Kingwell and Giorgio Agamben have interpreted his life and ideas. References to Gould and his work are plentiful in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts. François Girard's Genie Award-winning 1993 film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould includes interviews with people who knew him, dramatizations of scenes from his life, and fanciful segments including an animation set to music. Thomas Bernhard's 1983 novel The Loser purports to be an extended first-person essay about Gould and his lifelong friendship with two fellow students from the Mozarteum school in Salzburg, both of whom have abandoned their careers as concert pianists due to the intimidating example of Gould's genius.

Gould left an extensive body of work beyond the keyboard. After retiring from concertising, he was increasingly interested in other media, including audio and film documentary and writing, through which he mused on aesthetics, composition, music history, and the effect of the electronic age on media consumption. (Gould grew up in Toronto at the same time that Canadian theorists Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Harold Innis were making their mark on communications studies.) Anthologies of Gould's writing and letters have been published, and Library and Archives Canada holds a significant portion of his papers.

In 1983, Gould was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. He was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 1998, and designated a National Historic Person in 2012. A federal plaque reflecting the designation was erected next to a sculpture of him in downtown Toronto. The Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto was named after him. To commemorate what would have been Gould's 75th birthday, the Canadian Museum of Civilization held an exhibition, Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius, in 2007. The multimedia exhibit was held in conjunction with Library and Archives Canada.

Glenn Gould Foundation

The Glenn Gould Foundation was established in Toronto in 1983 to honour Gould and keep alive his memory and life's work. The foundation's mission "is to extend awareness of the legacy of Glenn Gould as an extraordinary musician, communicator, and Canadian, and to advance his visionary and innovative ideas into the future", and its prime activity is the triennial awarding of the Glenn Gould Prize to "an individual who has earned international recognition as the result of a highly exceptional contribution to music and its communication, through the use of any communications technologies." The prize consists of  and the responsibility of awarding the  Glenn Gould Protégé Prize to a young musician of the winner's choice.

Glenn Gould School

The Royal Conservatory of Music Professional School in Toronto adopted the name The Glenn Gould School in 1997 after its most famous alumnus.

Awards
Gould received many honours both during his lifetime and posthumously. He was awarded the 1969 Molson Prize, then worth C$15,000. In 1970, the Canadian government offered him the Companion of the Order of Canada, but he declined, believing himself too young.

Juno Awards
The Juno Awards are presented annually by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won three, accepting one in person.

Grammy Awards
The Grammys are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won four and, as with the Junos, accepted one in person. In 1983 he was inducted posthumously into the Grammy Hall of Fame for his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations.

See also
 Gould Estate v Stoddart Publishing Co Ltd
 List of Canadian composers

References
Footnotes

Citations

Bibliography

Books

Multimedia sources

External links

 Glenn Gould at Sony Classical
 The Glenn Gould Foundation
 The Glenn Gould Archive at Library and Archives Canada

1932 births
1982 deaths
20th-century Canadian conductors (music)
20th-century Canadian male musicians
20th-century classical composers
20th-century classical pianists
Bach musicians
Burials at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
Canadian classical composers
Canadian classical pianists
Canadian conductors (music)
Canadian male classical composers
Canadian male pianists
Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductees
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Norwegian descent
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Grammy Award winners
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year – Solo or Chamber Ensemble winners
Male classical pianists
Male conductors (music)
Musicians from Toronto
Musicians with dystonia
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Sony Classical Records artists
The Royal Conservatory of Music alumni

Glenn Gould


FIFA 21 is an association football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts as part of the FIFA series. It is the 28th installment in the FIFA series, and was released on 9 October 2020 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Enhanced versions for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S were released on 3 December 2020, in addition to a version for Stadia in March 2021.

Features

Ultimate Team
Ultimate Team features 100 icon players, including 11 new names: Eric Cantona, Petr Čech, Ashley Cole, Samuel Eto'o, Philipp Lahm, Ferenc Puskás, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Davor Šuker, Fernando Torres, Nemanja Vidić, and Xavi all feature as icons for the first time. Jens Lehmann was not featured as an icon in FUT 21 compared to previous games.

Ultimate Team sees the addition of a co-op gameplay feature in the form of Division Rivals, Squad Battles and Friendlies with a friend online to unlock objectives and rewards. FUT was surrounded by controversy due to it being classified as a loot box and a source of online gambling. In January 2019, EA agreed to stop selling FIFA points in Belgium, following government pressure. Petitions to ban the points elsewhere began in June 2020, with the points' legality being debated in the US and UK, the latter via the UK's Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Similarly, a Dutch judge decided that EA should be fined €0.5 million per week until the loot boxes were removed. The players can customize their own FUT stadium with tifos, pyrotechnics, trophies, music, statues and stands as their FUT club grows. In-game stats can now be upgraded individually for special cards (the example given is if Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a free-kick for a TOTW in-form item, the free-kick accuracy can be much higher than his other in-form items). Live FUT friendlies combines house rules with squad rules to create different match types that change throughout the year. Redesigned menus allow the access to their squad and stadium directly from anywhere in the main menu. In new FUT events, the players can pick sides and compete against the FUT community to unlock packs, coins, club items or players in Team Event Objectives. The players can work together with the entire community and earn shared rewards by completing objectives as a collective.

The Top 100 has been expanded to Top 200 in FUT Champions. 30 matches in Division Rivals contribute to their weekly rating. They can play more matches for skill points and FUT Champions points but they won't increase own rank. Players can make extra coin rewards when they get promoted to a new division for the first time in Division Rivals. Squad Battles can be used to determine their rivals division at the start of FUT 21.

Fitness and training consumable items have been removed from the game. Players still lose fitness and stamina during a match, but automatically start their next game at full fitness. Healing items have been simplified to just gold common and rare items.

The player's club can be transferred from PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5, and from Xbox One to Xbox Series X and Series S, but not from PlayStation to Xbox or vice versa.

On 9 September 2020, EA Released the Ultimate Team ratings of the Top 100 Players. Barcelona forward Lionel Messi topped the list with a rating of 93, followed by Juventus forward Cristiano Ronaldo with a 92 rating, and Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak, Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar, Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, and Bayern Munich forward Robert Lewandowski all with 91's.

Career Mode
Career Mode sees new additions following years of criticism from the community - mainly to the manager mode. New additions include; a revamped interactive match simulation mode, which allows players to instantly jump in and out of matches in addition to changing game plans in real time. A new and improved training system which allows for weekly training schedules and the ability to train players to play in different positions, new stats such as match fitness and growth, an improved youth academy system, more transfer options such as loan to buy deals, and enhanced opposition AI.

VOLTA Football 21
Volta Football was introduced in FIFA 20, and returns in FIFA 21. According to producers, Volta 21 has gameplay improvements and introduces new playing modes such as The Debut, the sequel to last year's story mode, featuring Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry, Kaká and Frank Lampard. Volta Football also features Volta Squads, an online mode where people can play with friends, and Feature Battles mode. There are also five new locations (Dubai, Milan, Paris, São Paulo and Sydney) with the addition of the VOLTA Stadium.

The story of Volta 21 is the continuation of the story of Revvy as he continues his career journey as a street footballer, taking part in a tournament in São Paulo hosted by Kaká. After Revvy's team win, Kaká invites Revvy's teammate Kotaro Tokuda to a tournament in Dubai as his team's captain. Revvy and his teammates are jealous, but Beatriz Villanova – Alex Hunter's agent – has set up a series of matches against the teams in the tournament around the World in the hopes that beating them would secure Revvy's team a place in the tournament, at the expense of one of the other teams with the agreement being Revvy will have to pay her back if his team make it to Dubai. After winning their matches in Paris, Sydney, and Milan, Revvy's team are invited to the tournament. Upon arrival, Beatriz informs the team that the teams would be managed by legendary former footballers – those Managers being Zidane, Henry, Kaká, and Lampard. Revvy chooses Henry as his team's Manager. The team go on to win the tournament, defeating Kaká's team in the final. Revvy's team then plays an exhibition match against a team consisting of the legendary players.

Licenses
The game features more than 30 official leagues, over 700 clubs, and over 17,000 players. In August 2020, EA Sports announced an exclusive multi-year partnership with Milan and Inter Milan.

Juventus, Roma, River Plate, Boca Juniors and Corinthians are not featured in FIFA 21 and instead are known as Piemonte Calcio, Roma FC, Nuñez, Buenos Aires and Oceânico FC respectively. The game retains the players' likenesses (except for Oceânico FC), but the official badge, kits and stadiums are unavailable and instead feature custom designs and generic stadiums produced by EA Sports. Bayern Munich is also featured in the game with licensed players and kits but do not have their stadium licence and play in a generic stadium. The Finland national football team is fully licensed for the first time.

Elland Road, home of Leeds United, was not originally included in the game despite the club achieving promotion to the Premier League. EA stated that this was due to the season being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant there was insufficient time for it to be included at launch. However, in February 2021, the stadium was finally added to the game, thus ensuring all 20 Premier League teams had their respective stadiums.

The Riazor, home of Deportivo de La Coruña, didn't appear in FIFA 21 due to the club's
relegation to Segunda B. This meant that it was one of two stadiums (along with the Stadio Olimpico), the home ground of AS Roma, to be deleted.

In November 2020, Zlatan Ibrahimović announced he is not pleased with usage of his likeness by EA Sports in its games, especially FIFA 21 and intends to take legal actions against the developer. Claiming that he didn't personally authorize EA Sports to use his likeness he was joined by Gareth Bale and also started to receive support from as many as 300 other players.

Release
FIFA 21 was released worldwide on 9 October 2020 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. As with previous installments, the Switch version is a "Legacy Edition", that contains updated kits, rosters, and minor updates, but does not include the new modes. The game has three official editions: Ultimate, Champions and Standard. The Ultimate and Champions editions were released on 6 October ahead of the release of the standard edition on 9 October. EA Play subscribers were able to get a 10-hour early access trial of FIFA 21 on 1 October. The game was also released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Stadia in December.

Covers and ambassadors
In July 2020, Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappé was announced as the cover star of the all three editions. Erling Haaland, Trent Alexander-Arnold, João Félix, Sam Kerr, Wu Lei, Javier Hernández, and Carlos Vela were announced as the official ambassadors of the game.

The FIFA Next ambassadors, a curated list featuring the emerging talent who embody the meaning of 'Win as One', are Mason Mount, Georgia Stanway, Phil Foden, Mallory Pugh, Steven Bergwijn, Théo Hernandez, Rodrygo, Sergiño Dest, Giovanni Reyna, Bruno Guimarães, Hwang Hee-chan, and Aaron Connolly.

Commentary
It is the first game in the series to feature neither Martin Tyler nor Alan Smith as English-language commentators since FIFA 06. They were replaced by Derek Rae and Lee Dixon.

Reception

According to Metacritic, the Xbox One version of the game received "generally positive" reviews from critics while the PC and PS4 versions received "mixed or average" reviews. The Nintendo Switch version received "generally unfavourable" reviews from critics.

IGN gave the Nintendo Switch version of FIFA 21 a 2/10, electing to largely republish the same review it previously gave FIFA 20 since the game was "virtually unchanged" from it (which itself was also largely unchanged from FIFA 19), and concluding that "if last year's release was borderline insulting, this year's is just plain disgraceful."

It was nominated for the category of Best Sports/Racing game at The Game Awards 2020.

Upon its reveal, critics and fans criticised FIFA 21s box art, calling its composition incoherent and comparing it to the cover of EA Sports UFC 4, which received similar criticism.

"Content granting" controversy
In mid-March 2021, players discovered that at least one EA employee was selling special "Icon Moment" cards from the Ultimate Team portion of the game, otherwise rare cards to be gained through grinding in the game or through microtransaction purchases with a chance to get one in new packs. These sales went for hundreds of U.S. dollars via direct sale through secret channels, rather than through the in-game trading system. This became known as "EAGate" as more players reported such sales. EA launched an investigation, reporting initially that multiple EA accounts were apparently selling these Icon Moments through the game's "content granting" mechanism, which allows EA to normally grant players Ultimate Team items at its discretion outside of normal gameplay, and later that it was indefinitely suspending the "content granting" system until they completed their investigation.

References

External links

2020 video games
Association football video games
EA Sports games
EA Vancouver games
21
Frostbite (game engine) games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Nintendo Switch games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 4 Pro enhanced games
PlayStation 5 games
Sports video games with career mode
Stadia games
Video games developed in Canada
Video games developed in Romania
Video games set in 2021
Windows games
Women's association football video games
Xbox One games
Xbox Series X and Series S games

FIFA 21


Sergey Vladimirovich Girinis (, , 1882–1961), until 1919 known as Raul Isaakovich Ginzburg (, ), was a Soviet revolutionary, journalist and trade unionist. He was a leading figure in the labour movement in Vilna (Vilnius) in the 1910s, adhering to a Menshevik-Internationalist line. He later joined the Communist Party of Lithuania. After a prisoner exchange, he was based in Moscow and represented Lithuanian trade unions in the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern). Girinis was a prolific writer, authoring different works on political theory and history.

Early life
Raul Ginzburg was born on 10 April 1882 in  village, Roslavlsky Uyezd, Smolensk Governorate. After graduating from the  in 1900–1901, Ginzburg went on to study at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. There he became involved in the revolutionary movement and he soon found himself expelled from the conservatory.

In 1901, he went into exile in Geneva, Switzerland, where he continued his studies. In Geneva, he befriended Georgi Plekhanov, who became a key political inspiration for Ginzburg. Ginzburg joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In early 1902, Ginzburg returned to Russia (to Roslavl) and smuggled illegal Marxist literature. He was arrested by the Czarist authorities in March 1902 for his political activities, then exiled to eastern Siberia.

Having spent almost three years in Siberia, Ginzburg returned to his home region by early 1905. He took part in the Roslavl Group of Internationalists led by the zemstvo doctor M. A. Rivkin. During the 1905 Russian Revolution, Ginzburg was active in Bryansk and Roslavl. He organized a trade union of printing-shop workers in Smolensk. In 1907, he began his journalist career as editor of the newspaper Dneprovskaya Zarya ('Dniepr Dawn'). This newspaper was subsequently banned for its political content.

Vilna decade
In 1911, he was expelled from Smolensk and shifted his residence to Vilna. In Vilna, he continued to be involved in organizing trade unions. He worked at editorial offices of Severo-Zapadny Golos ('North-Western Voice'), Vechernyaya Gazeta ('Evening Newspaper'), and  ('Herald of Knowledge'). In 1916, Ginzburg joined the United Social-Democrats (Internationalists), an organization that published and agitated against the German occupation authorities in Vilna.

He eventually emerged as the leader of the Vilna organization of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Mensheviks). During the spring of 1918, Ginzburg's group took part in the united internationalist social democrat platform in Vilna (along with former members of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party and the small communist cell). In the debates with the other social democrats, Ginzburg called for the formation of an independent Lithuanian-Belorussian democratic republic (covering all of Lithuania, all of Belorussia including the Mogilev Governorate and the Vitebsk Governorate) with its own constituent assembly. His position was sharply criticized by the other factions and he stopped attending the joint meetings. Afterwards, Ginzburg's faction regrouped as the Social Democratic Labour Party of Lithuania and Belorussia (internationalists). This party upheld a Menshevik-Internationalist line. During the summer of 1918, Ginzburg escaped to Petrograd to avoid persecution by the German military authorities. In Petrograd, he contributed to the Bolshevik newspaper Severnaya Kommuna ('Northern Commune').

As the Red Army seized Vilna in January 1919, Ginzburg returned to the city. He was named deputy head of the Education Department of the city and was elected to the Vilna Soviet of Workers Deputies. As Vilna was seized by Polish forces, he moved into underground activities. At one point in the second half of 1919, he was captured by the Polish secret police, but he managed to escape from captivity.

Girinis-Ginzburg (having adopted the name 'Girinis' the preceding year) joined the Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia in early 1920, along with some other members of his Menshevik-Internationalist group in Vilna. In April 1920, the Communist Party sent him to Kaunas, the provisional capital of the Republic of Lithuania. Between April and June 1920, he served as the secretary of the Central Bureau of Trade Unions of Lithuania. He was the main organizer of the first congress of the Lithuanian trade unions held in Kaunas. In July 1920, he was arrested for having organized a general strike in the city and tried by a military tribunal.

In Soviet Russia
Girinis was sent to Soviet Russia with the first exchange of political prisoners between Soviet Russia and Lithuania. He settled down in Moscow. In June–July 1921, he attended the 3rd World Congress of the Communist International as a delegate of the Communist Party of Lithuania. Around the same time, at the first congress of the Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern), he was elected to the Profintern Central Council representing the Lithuanian trade unions. In July 1924, Girinis attended the fourth congress of the Communist Party of Lithuania (held in Moscow) as a delegate with consultative vote. The fourth party congress elected him to the party's Central Committee.

He wrote books seeking to popularize Marxism-Leninism to wider audiences. Girinis worked closely with the Lithuanian communist leader Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas. This cooperation was especially close in 1926–1927, as the two worked in the Baltic Sections of Profintern (Girinis) and Comintern (Kapsukas).

During the 1930s Girinis held various positions. He continued to lead the Baltic Section of Profintern. He was active in party work in Moscow and Tashkent. He spent some time stationed at the Soviet representative office in Prague. He worked as instructor at the political department of the Moscow–Kazan Railway. Continuing his journalistic activities, he served as the head of the editorial departments of the newspapers Pravda,  and Vechernyaya Moskva.

Later life
During the Second World War, Girinis was in charge of the Newspaper Information Bureau of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks). In the aftermath of the war, Girinis taught at trade union and party schools, teaching history and trade union theory.

Girinis was a prolific writer, authoring various books, articles, and pamphlets. He wrote extensively on the history of labour and revolutionary movements in Lithuania in 1918–1921. Between 1951 and 1954, he collaborated with the Institute for Party History of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, gathering archival materials for history of labour and left-wing movements.

Girinis died in Moscow on 8 September 1961. He was survived by his daughter, Olga Sergeevna Rivkina.

Bibliography
Ленин о национализме ('Lenin on Nationalism'), 1924
Ленин о религии ('Lenin on Religion'), 1924
Ленин об искусстве ('Lenin on Art'), 1924
Očerednoe izvraščenie marksizma: o "teorii" Enčmena ; sbornik statej, 1924
Ленин о сельском пролетариате ('Lenin on the Rural Proletariat'), 1925
Für den Leninismus ('For Leninism'), 1931

References

1882 births
1961 deaths
Lithuanian trade unionists
Soviet trade unionists
Members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania
Communist Party of the Soviet Union members
Lithuanian journalists
Soviet journalists
Mezhraiontsy
Mensheviks

Sergey Girinis


Sandro Bracchitta (born 24 September 1966 in Ragusa) is an Italian printmaker.

Biography
Leading exponent of Italian engraving of the XXI° century, he studied in Florence where he attended the Course of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence getting his degree in 1990; in the same year he began working as a painter and engraver. His first solo exhibition took place in 1991 at Palazzo Datini in Prato, Italy.

In 2020 he was awarded a scholarship to specialise at "Il Bisonte", the School of Graphic Arts in Florence, and in 1993 he worked as an assistant of Maestro Viggiano, in the same school. In the same year he began to exhibit his works in several art exhibitions.

In 1994 he was invited to take part in the 'World Triennial Engraving Exhibition' in Chamalières (France), and in the same year he won the '14th edition of Mini Print International', in Cadaqués (Spain).

From 1994 to 1997 he was invited to several outstanding national and international exhibitions such as the '21st and 22nd International Biennial Graphics Exhibition' in Lubiana (Slovenia), The International Award in Graphics Arts in Biella (Italy), the Ibiza Biennial in Spain, the Cracow Triennial Engraving Exhibition in Poland, the Stedeliske Museum of Sint Niklaas, Belgium, as well as the International Graphics Exhibition in Bitola (Macedonia), Kharkiu (Russia), Uzice (Croatia), Györ and Budapest (Hungary).

In 2001 he received an award from the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo at the International Exhibition of Prints in Kanagay, and an award from the City Museum of Györ in Hungary. He received the Leonardo Sciascia "Amateur d'Estampes" award in 2007, and the Grand Prize at the Ural Print Triennial in Russia. In 2009 he received the Grand Prize at the 2nd Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Exhibition in Thailand. He was invited to exhibit at the Sicilian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.

In 2007 he received the first prize at the International Biennial of Engraving of Acqui Terme. in 2011 he was invited to the World Plate and Print Art Exhibition Millennial Wind, in the temple of Buddhist Tripitaka, in South Korea.

He was also invited – as the only Italian representative – to take part in the '4th Sapporo International Biennial' in Japan, in the 'Triennial Graphics Exhibition' in Tallinn (Estonia) and in the 'Beijing Ex Libris International Show' in the People's Republic of China, and to the 54th Venice Biennale.

In 2017 the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi in Florence acquires one of his works of engraving.

On several occasions he exhibited with the "Gruppo di Scicli", a group of important and renowned Sicilian artists.

Currently, he is professor of engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo. He lives and works in Ragusa.

Solo exhibitions
1997
Dvorni TRG Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
1999
Pyhäniemi '99, Hollola, Finland.
Galleria della Pergola, Pesaro, Italy.
2000
Galleria Bottega d'Arte, Acqui Terme (Al), Italy.
Covalenco Gallery, Geldrop, Holland.
2001
Galleria Tornabuoni, Florence, Italy.
2003
Zebra Two Gallery, London, Great Britain.
Beukers Gallery, Rotterdam, Holland.
Galleria Lo Magno, Modica (Rg), Italy.
2004
Galerie de Wégimont, Liege, Belgium.
La Luce Del Vulcano, Galleria Visconti Fine Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
2005
Ciclicamente Accade, GrafiqueArtGallery, Bologna, Italy.
Galleria Repetto e Massucco, Acqui Terme (Al), Italy.
2006
La Luce Del Vulcano, Galleria Chantal Bamberger, Strasbourg, France.
Gallery Heike Arndt, København, Denmark.
Galleria Zangbieri, Basil, Switzerland.
2012
Craved Miracles, Ex Chiesa di San Michele, Modica (Rg), Italy.
2013
Craved Miracles, Regional Museum, Valdstein Castle, Jičìn, Czech Republic.
Carte, Galleria Koinè, Scicli, Ragusa, Italy.
2016
Teatro de Vila Real, Douro, Portugal.
2017
Oltre la soglia del tempo presente, Museo della Media Valle del Liri (sezione archeologica), Sora, Italy.
Incisioni/Prints, Ex Convento del Carmine, Modica, Italy.
2018
Casa e Trasloco, Pygmalion Gallery, Timișoara, Romania.
Nel respiro del tempo Incisioni /Prints 1997–2017, Umberto Mastroianni, Fundation, Castello di Ladislao, Arpino Italy
L'archetipo... il segno, Quadrifoglio Gallery, Ortigia, Siracusa, Italy

Group exhibitions
1993
Galleria Il Bisonte, Florence, Italy.
1995
21st International Biennial Graphics Exhibition, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Prize for Young Italian Engravers, Museo d'Arte Con¬tem¬poranea Villa Croce, Genoa, Italy.
1996
International Prize for Graphic Art, Biella, Italy.
14th Ibiza Biennial, Ibiza, Spain.
1997
Cracow Triennial Engraving Exhibition, Krakow, Poland.
Stedeliske Museum, Sint Niklaas, Belgium.
III Biennial Engraving Exhibition Dry Point, Uzice, Croatia.
1998
4th Sapporo International Print Biennial Exhibition, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan.
First World Small Printings & Ex-libris Works Exhibition, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
2000
Quarant'anni de Il Bisonte, Museo Marino Marini, Concorso Internazionale per la Grafica d'Arte (3rd prize), Florence, Italy.
Krakow Triennial Engraving Exhibition "Bridge to the future", Kraków, Poland.
International Print Triennial, Nuremberg, Germany.
5th European Engraving Biennial of Small Graphics Forms, Vigado Gallery, Budapest, Hungary.
2001
International Print Triennial 2001, Kawa Prefectural Gallery, Kanagawa (National Museum Prize of the National Museum of Modern Art of Tokyo), Japan.
2002
Intergraphia, World Award Winners Gallery, Torun City Museum, Poland.
Graphica Creativa 2002, Jyvaskyla, Finland.
The 12th Space International Print Biennial, Sunkok Kunstmuseum, Seoul, Korea.
6th International Biennial of Small Graphic Forms, Budapest.
2003
4° Biennale Internationale de Gravure, Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Liege, Belgium.
Seven Print Artists from around the World, Hyundai Arts Center Gallery, Ulsan, Korea.
Il Bisonte agli Uffizi, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy.
8th Engraving Triennial, Museo della Permanente, Milan, Italy.
2004
Sandro Bracchitta – Piero Ruggeri, Beukers Gallery, Rotterdam, Holland.
2005
Biennale Internationale de Gravure, Liege, Belgium.
2006
National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, People's Republic of China.
2007
Internationale Grafiktriennale Krakau, Oldenburg Wien 2007 at Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria.
2008
13th International Biennial Print Exhibition, R.O.C. National Taiwan.
2009
The 2nd Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Exhibition "Grand Prize for Engraving", Bangkok, Thailand.
Biennale Internazionale D'Estampe Contemporaine de Trois-Rivières, Quèbec, Canada.
2010
In Galleria..., Galleria Stefano Forni, Bologna, Italy.
Galleria Zangbieri, Basel, Switzerland.
2011
Maestri dell'incisione contemporanea italiana, Museo Slesiano di Katowice, Poland.
Space International Print Biennial, Seoul, Korea.
World Plate and Print Art Exhibition – Millennial Wind' Korea.
54th Venice International Biennial of Art, Pavilion Italy / Sicily, curated by V. Sgarbi, Galleria Civica Montevergini, Syracuse (Sicily).
Acqui Incisione Prize-Travelling Exhibition, Fundación C.I.E.C., Centro Internacional de la Estampa Contemporánea, Betanzos, Coruña, Spain.
2012
Acqui Incisione Prize-Travelling Exhibition, Palazzo Robellini, Acqui Terme and AL-Cultuur Centrum, Ypres, Belgium.
2013
Tribuna Graphic 2013, Art Museum Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
2014
Segni Moderni, O RI E Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
7th international printmaking Biennial of Douro 2014, Museu do Côa, Vila Nova de Foz Côa – Portugal.
Rene Carcan International Prize For Printmaking, BELvue Museum, Brussels, Belgium.
2015
Print Works of Contemporary Artists in Italy, Art Zone Kaguraoka Gallery, Kyoto, Japan.
5TH Guanlan International Print Biennial, Guanlan, China.
2nd Global Print 2015, Douro, Côa Museum, Vila Nova de Fozcôa, Portugal.
5th Indonesia Triennial of Graphic Art, BentaraBudaya, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Diplomatic Art, Helios Gallery, Timişoara, Romania.
Print Works of Contemporary Artists in Italy, Art Zone Kaguraoka Gallery, Kyoto, Japan.
5TH Guanlan International Print Biennial, Printmaking Museum, Guanlan, China.
2nd Global Print 2015, Douro, Côa Museum, Vila Nova de Fozcôa, Portugal.
5th Indonesia Triennial of Graphic Art, BentaraBudaya, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Diplomatic Art, Helios Gallery, Timişoara, Romania.
International Print Triennial, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art, Krakow, Poland.
2016
Incisori italiani, Palazzo Lomellini, Carmagnola, Italy.
1st Łódź International Print Biennial, Fabryka Sztuki, Łódź, Poland.
2017
6TH Guanlan International Print Biennial, China Printmaking Museum, Guanlan, China.
Imago Mundi, Spazio ZAC – Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, Palermo, Italy.
Libri d'Artista, Academy of Fine Arts collection, Oratorio dei SS. Elena e Costantino, Palermo, Italy.
2018
Italian-Irish Connection, Garter Lane Art Center, Waterford, Ireland.
Italia – Cina, Esposizione Internazionale di Incisione, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea del Yinchuan, China.
Italian-Irish Connection, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland.
Alter Ego, grafica Romena e Italiana, Museo d'Arte di Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
2019
Empatie e Contaminazioni, Musei Civici, Pavia, Italy.
7TH Guanlan International Print Biennial, China Printmaking Museum, Guanlan, China.
Deja vu-Odessa, Invitational Visual Art Project, Literary Museum, Odessa, Ucraina.
Resonance between civilization, China Printmaking Museum, Guanlan, China. *Parallelsi, San Stefano Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria.
On Paper IV, MACC, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Calasetta, Italy.

Prizes
1994
14th Mini Print International, Taller Galleria Fort, Cadaquès, Spain.
1997
2nd National Prize of Engraving "Fabio Bertoni" ( first prize), Fermignano (Ps), Italy.
1998
Grand Prix, International Mini Print Finland, Lahti Art Museum, Finland.
2001
International Triennial of Engraving, Kanagawa, Japan.
2001
Prix of the Municipal Museum of Györ, Hungary.
2007
Grand Prix, Biennial international of Print, Acqui Terme. Italy.
Grand Prix, Ural Print Triennial, Russia.
Grand Prix Leonardo Sciascia "Ama¬teur d'Estampes", Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy.
2009
Grand Prix, 2nd International Triennial Print and Drawing Exhibition, Bangkok, Thailand.
Internazionale D'Estampe Contemporaine de Trois- Rivières, Quèbec, Canada. ( Purchase Prize)
2011
16th Space International Print Biennial Biennial, Seoul, Korea (Purchase Prize).
2015
"Giuseppe Maestri" Prize, Museo Civico delle Cappuccine, Bagnacavallo (Ra), Italy.
2019
7TH Guanlan International Print Biennial of Printing,(honorary work), Guanlan, China.

Bibliography
B. Kovic, Sandro Bracchitta. Metafora e geografia del silenzio,(exhibition catalogue, Dvori trg Galerja, Ljubljana, November 1997), Barone&Bella, Ragusa 1997 (pp. 8–9).
O. Fazzina, Dentro la materia, in Sandro Bracchitta. Opere. (exhibition catalogue, Galleria degli Archi, Comiso, 14 February – 1 March 1998), Edizioni Salarchi immagini, Comiso, 1998 (pp. 7–8)
N. Micieli, Un atlante dei luoghi della rigenerazione, in N. Micieli, Sandro Bracchitta. Incisioni, 1996–2000 (exhibition catalogue, Galleria degli Archi, Comiso, 24 September – 19 October 2000; Galleria Bottega d'Arte, Acqui Terme, 7–28 October 2000; Visconti Fine Art, Kolizej, Ljubljana, 15 January – 15 February 2001), Edizioni Salarchi immagini, Comiso, 2000.
M. Goldin (edited by), Per amore. Quindici anni di scelte a Palazzo Sarcinelli (exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Sarcinelli, Galleria Comunale, Conegliano, 19 October – 8 December 2002), Linea d'ombra Libri, Cornuda, 2002.
M. Di Capua, Lo sguardo italiano, in G. Distefano (curated by), Lo sguardo italiano. Ventidue artisti per Bufalino (exhibition catalogue, Foyer del Teatro Naselli, Comiso, 8 December 2004 – 9 January 2005), Fondazione Gesualdo Bufalino, Comiso 2004 (pp. 13–16).
J.P. Rouge, Sandro Bracchitta, in J.P. Rouge (curated by), Wegimont Culture. Bracchitta, De Bolle, Deconick, Viollet-Le-Duck (exhibition catalogue, Galerie de Wegimont, Liege, September, 2004), n.197, Philippe Delate, Liege, 2004 (pp. 2–3).
Sciaccaluga, Prima del Big Bang?, in Sandro Bracchitta. Opere recenti (exhibition catalogue, Galleria Repetto e Massucco, Acqui Terme, 29 October – 10 December 2005), Li.Ze.A., Acqui Terme, 2005.
G. Giuffrè, Quale paesaggio, in Quale paesaggio (exhibition catalogue, Galleria Lo Magno, Modica, 2–20 December 2006), Edizioni Salarchi immagini, Comiso, 2006.
G. Frazzetto, Sacralità del visibile: il Gruppo di Scicli, in A. Sarnari (curated by), Il Gruppo di Scicli (exhibition catalogue, Fabbriche Chiaramontane, Agrigento, 19 July – 7 September 2008), Edizioni Salarchi immagini – Amici della pittura siciliana dell'Ottocento, Comiso, Agrigento, 2008 (pp. 15–17).
A. Gerbino, Nel corpo, nel paesaggio, in A. Gerbino (curated by), Nel corpo, nel paesaggio. Quindici artisti per l'Accademia delle Scienze Mediche. Oli, tecniche miste e pastelli, (catalogue of the permanent exhibition, Accademia delle Scienze Mediche, Palermo), Plumelia quaderni di cultura, Bagheria, 2008 (pp. 17–21).
A. Guastella, Materia e antimateria, in A. Gerbino (curated by), Nel corpo, nel paesaggio. Quindici artisti per l'Accademia delle Scienze Mediche. Oli, tecniche miste e pastelli, (catalogue of the permanent exhibition, Accademia delle Scienze Mediche, Palermo), Plumelia quaderni di cultura, Bagheria, 2008 (pp. 57–58).
G. Schialvino, L'incisione, in Sandro Bracchitta. Incisioni. (exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Mormino, Donnalucata, 8–30 August 2009) Arti Grafiche Mora, Ragusa, 2009 (pp. 9–10)
E. Valenza, Sandro Bracchitta, in "Continente Sicilia", January–April 2012 (catalogue of the exhibition Eruzioni, la sedia rossa, curated by G. Maltese, Galleria Mediterranea, Palermo, 10 February – 11 March 2012), Editrice Jetset, Palermo 2012 (pp. 1848–1851).
A. D'Amico (curated by), Craved Miracles, (exhibition catalogue, Ex Chiesa di San Michele, Modica, 7 July – 30 August 2012), Silvana Editoriale, 2012, Cinisello Balsamo, Milano.
Paolo Nifoì, Loredana Rea, Daniela Vasta, (exhibition catalogue) "Incisioni/Prints", Ex Convento del Carmine, Modica, Italy. Edizioni Salarchi Immagini, 2017, Ragusa Italy.
 D. Vasta, Storie di Incisori opere e protagonisti della grafica moderna e contemporanea, Gangemi Editore, 2019, Roma Italy.

References

External links
 Mazza, Silvia (9 July 2012), "A Modica le case 'cieche' di Bracchitta", Il Giornale dell'Arte. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
 "Mostra di Sandro Bracchitta nella Repubblica Ceca", Ragusa News, 5 July 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2015.

1966 births
Living people
Italian engravers

Sandro Bracchitta


Marina Beach is a natural beach in Chennai, Tamil Nadu along the Bay of Bengal sea. The beach is the first longest beach in India and the second longest in the world. The length of the beach is 13 km.

It is a renowned beach because the memorial of the two chief ministers M. G. Ramachandran and C. N. Annadurai. It houses the cemetery of Former Chief Ministers Kalaingar M. Karunanidhi and Amma J. Jayalalithaa. It is the most crowded beach in the country. More than 10,000 to 25,000 visitors visit the beach on weekdays while more than 50,000 visitors visit the beach during holidays.

Beaches of Asia
Geography of India
Chennai

Marina Beach


King Taejo (Taejo the great) (claimed 47 – 165) was the sixth monarch of Goguryeo, the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, from AD 53 to 146. Under his reign, the young state expanded its territory and developed into a centrally ruled kingdom. His 93-year reign is thought to be the third longest of any monarch in the world, although his claim was disputed.

Background
Taejo's father was the youngest son of Goguryeo's second king, Yuri, Go Jaesa (재사, 再思), the head of the Go house of the Gyeru lineage, one of the five powerful houses of the royal court. His mother was from Buyeo (Queen Mother Buyeo).

Although the unpopular Mobon had named his son Ik as the crown prince, after Mobon's death in 53, the Goguryeo court nominated Jaesa to be the next king. Citing his advanced age, Jaesa declined and his seven-year-old son, Gung(taejo) became king. His mother then acted as regent for the young king.

Expansion and centralization
During the first year of his reign, he centralized the kingdom by turning the five clans into five provinces ruled by a governor from that clan, who were under the direct control of the king. He thereby firmly established royal control of the military, economy, and politics.

He conquered the states of Eastern Okjeo in 56, Galsa in 68, Jona in 72, and Juna in 74. He absorbed regional forces into the central bureaucracy, and traveled throughout his territories to strengthen royal control.

He fought on various occasions with China's Han dynasty and disrupted trade between Lelang and Han. In 55, he ordered the construction of a fortress in the Liaodong Commandery. He attacked Chinese border regions in 105, 111, and 118. In 122, Taejo allied with the Mahan confederacy of central Korea and the neighboring Yemaek tribe to attack Liaodong, greatly expanding the realm of Goguryeo. He launched another major attack in 146.

Death
In the 94th year of his reign, Taejo's younger brother Suseong took the throne to become King Chadae. Although not found in the more orthodox Samguk Sagi, the Samguk Yusa says that Chadae soon killed both of Taejo's sons, and that the subsequent king Sindae, younger half-brother to Taejo and Chadae, killed both of his brothers in 165.

According to Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa, Taejo died aged 118, after ruling for 93 years. This claim, if taken at face value, would make him the longest living and reigning king in Korean history and also among the longest lived in world history.

According to the Chinese historical work Book of Later Han (in volume 85), Taejo died in the year 121, and his son Chadae stepped up.  After Emperor An of Han decided not to initiate another battle  with Goguryeo, Chadae settled peace with the Han dynasty in the following year.  The imperial edict for this event was recorded as well.  This date of death would involve a reign of 68 years—still one of the thirty longest reigning monarchs—and a lifespan of 74 years, in contrast to a nigh-supernatural 118-year longevity.

Controversy surrounding rise to power
Jumong, the founder of Goguryeo, declared his surname to be Go. However, his son Yuri chose to use the surname Hae (해; 解). The three successors of Jumong and Yuri all utilized the surname Hae as well, instead of Go. After the last of these Hae rulers, a boy with the surname Go rose to the throne after deposing the last Hae ruler and his appointed successor. From viewing these historical facts, some scholars have come to the conclusion that the difference in surname was not a coincidence, but a clear indication that Jumong's immediate successors were not his descendants. The Hae rulers indicate the brief rule of the Sono-clan and the rise of King Taejo may indicate that the Go rulers of the Gyeru-clan regained power.

Another point of great interest among select scholars is the bestowing of the posthumous title of Taejo, which means "Grand Ancestor," on the sixth ruler of Goguryeo and not the first. Scholars have therefore stated that this fact is further proof that different families ruled early Goguryeo before the consolidation of power under King Taejo. These are highly controversial at present times among historians and scholars.

See also
History of Korea
Three Kingdoms of Korea
List of Korean monarchs

References

Yang, S.C.  The South and North Korean political systems:  A comparative analysis. (Rev. Ed.)  Seoul:  Hollym.
http://www.koreandb.net/Sam/bon/samkuk/04_1501.htm

47 births
165 deaths
Goguryeo monarchs
Longevity claims
2nd-century monarchs in Asia
1st-century monarchs in Asia
1st-century Korean people
2nd-century Korean people

Taejodae of Goguryeo