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Love at First Touch

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Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano.

The real hero of Katie Hafner's book “A Romance on Three Legs" is not, as the subtitle suggests, the pianist Glenn Gould, or even the piano he was obsessed with, but a nearly blind man named Verne Edquist, who confirms that behind every great pianist is a great tuner. Hafner, a former correspondent for The New York Times, tells Gould's story through his obsessions, for which this Canadian virtuoso became almost as well known as he was for his 1956 recording of the “Goldberg" Variations. He sometimes performed with his nose practically against the keyboard, and was so terrified of catching a chill that at the height of summer he wore a heavy coat and gloves. He shrank from shaking hands with people. His greatest obsession, though, was his search for the perfect piano, which after years of frustration was finally resolved the day he sat down in an auditorium in Toronto in front of Steinway grand No. CD 318. And so began the most important relationship of his life.

The suspense in this story is mostly flattened by the sheer weight of technical detail it is made to bear, which cramps the writing and makes it seem hurried. Lively encounters between Gould and his technicians or his handlers at Steinway & Sons are invariably cut off with an explanation of how pianos work or a history of the industry as bland as an encyclopedia entry. There are a few “fancy that!" sweeteners to get you through these bits — for example, that “in the early 20th century, piano tuners outnumbered members of any other trade in English insane asylums." Or that during World War II Steinway ran a neat sideline in the manufacture of coffins. But it is a relief to get back to the dysfunctional buddy movie with Edquist and Gould, or rather — since Gould is already the subject of several biographies — back to Edquist. The freshest material is the piano tuner's tale.

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