The Life and Times of Glenn Gould (5/5)

"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 Toronto 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."" LER