ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

It was the curtain call of not so much a life as an opera for perhaps the greatest piano virtuoso of the 20th century, who moved millions with his spiritual renditions of Bach, but was so afraid of intimacy and germs he was reluctant to let people touch him.

“No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly,” said renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

History tells us that Gould, like so many geniuses, attained musical nirvana by giving up earthly desires for his work and that he could not love unless his Steinway was in the room.

And yet, for four-and-a-half years, Gould allowed a beautiful, married artist to care for him, to caress him. In the words of his favourite Barbra Streisand song, “He Touched Me” – “Suddenly . . . nothing was the same.” To this day, Gould is remembered as a Canadian cultural giant, yet his private life remains shrouded in mystery. For most of his adult life, rumours abounded that he was asexual or gay.

Gould was so paranoid about exposing his private life, he would cut off any colleagues or friends who discussed it and once fired a cleaning lady for gossiping about him.

Now, for the first time, we know that the intensely private Gould carried on an affair for five years, beginning in 1967, with a married German-American painter named Cornelia Foss. She left her husband Lukas, himself a prominent pianist and conductor, and moved her two children to ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ at the height of the affair. A year before her move, Gould had asked her to marry him.

This bold attempt at domesticity may have marked the most intense chapter in Gould’s lifelong struggle with his demons. His phobias and pill-popping for a number of maladies, many of them imaginary, likely contributed to his early death on Oct. 4, 1982, nine days after his 50th birthday.

At her summer home in the Hamptons, Foss spoke to me recently – her first published interview on the subject – about life with Glenn Gould.

It is a story of obsession and heartbreak. Most of all, it is the rarest of windows into the guarded inner life of one of the 20th century’s most compelling, and mystifying, artistic figures.

“I think there were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn and it was partly because he was so very private,” Foss said.

“But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual.”

Lukas was 34 at the time and his wife 25. It was the beginning of a long relationship for all of them.

(The Fosses had both fled the Nazis in their native Germany and were educated in Europe and California.)

“He was the James Dean of classical music,” said Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic of the Washington Post and a friend of Gould’s. “He made Bach swing.”

Cornelia bought a house in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ near Gould’s penthouse apartment at 110 St. Clair Ave. W. and Avenue Rd.

“I don’t know any woman who could have lived in that apartment with Mr. Gould – he was so terribly messy,” Kecskes said.

Although she holds back some intimate details of their affair, Foss says Gould was very romantic.

But Cornelia saw disturbing signs in Gould as early as 1967, just two weeks after she had left her husband.

“He didn’t like being showcased on stage,” Cornelia said.

(During his years with Cornelia, Gould was estranged from both his parents, she said.)

Michael Clarkson, a former ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Star reporter, has written five psychology books, four on fears and phobias.

He is now writing a screenplay involving Glenn Gould and can be reached at feardoctor@rogers.com.