I was intrigued by a recent Press report that the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould may have suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.

This may explain the more bizarre aspects of his life and career.

As a pianist, he sat unusually low at the keyboard on a special, tatty chair and sang as he played. He never gave a concert after the age of 31, performing only in the recording studio.

He wore overcoat, scarf and gloves in midsummer. A hypochondriac, he stuffed himself with hundreds of pills. An insomniac recluse, he phoned his friends at 3am. He suffered from a host of phobias.

He once sued Steinway because a piano-tuner had allegedly injured him when shaking his hand. Clearly, there was more to all this than the eccentricity of genius. The Asperger's diagnosis makes sense.

Before his death in 1982, aged 50, Gould made 90 recordings. His luminous Bach is legendary, particularly his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations, with its astonishing mastery of colour and touch and its contrapuntal clarity.

In some other composers, his wilful individuality and perversions of tempo could be disastrous. But Gould's Bach is a classic for all time.

-Roger Moodiman, Marine Parade, Brighton