Ottawa, June 19

Gilles St-Laurent, the musician and conservator from the Library and Archives Canada (and a lovely Canadian in his own right) who helped so much with the book, came to the hotel this morning and together we set off for Quebec (just across the river, that is), to see the special Glenn Gould exhibit at the Museum of Civilization. A number of Gould’s personal effects are on exhibit there: his eyeglasses (eyeglasses, Gilles pointed out, seem so painfully personal); the famous black felt tip pens; marked-up scores; LP’s; various books on the topic of Gould; and films of him playing.

At first, Gilles and I were denied access to the exhibit because there was a special event happening in the general hall. But I took the book out of my bag and showed it to the guard, who, being a lovely Canadian, allowed us special access to the Gould exhibit. We had the entire thing to ourselves. Once we had made our way past the displays of shoes and jackets, grade school reports, scores covered with Gould’s scrawl, and dozens of random keys (many from hotels around the world), we came upon both CD 318 and the Chickering. The piano looks more war-torn than ever. The lid and case have been scraped and scratched to within an inch of their lives. Gilles said that conservators will be refurbishing the case in a way that doesn’t violate the integrity of the piano as Gould knew it (there is a strict rule against altering the instrument excessively, as the Gould Estate folks want it to remain in the condition Gould left it in).

The more recent dings notwithstanding, it was still wonderful to see the piano up close once again. And there was a bonus: Gould’s faithful Chickering was there, too, cheek by jowl with 318. The two instruments were in such close proximity of each other perhaps for the first time ever. And between the two pianos, of course, stood the pygmy chair. I’d seen it before, but it had been in an elevated in a display case. Now it was on the floor, more truncated at the legs than I had even imagined. It looks like a stout child’s chair. I could only imagine now how low Gould sat to the floor when he played. We lingered at the exhibit, luxuriating in having the place to ourselves. We stayed so long, in fact, that I came close to missing my plane to New York.

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