Richard Goode has been hailed for music-making of tremendous emotional power, depth and expressiveness, and has been acknowledged worldwide as one of today’s leading interpreters of the music of Beethoven.
Mecklenburg Festival recital with Viviane Hagner / Bach, Ysaye, Chopin, Beethoven
“…[Viviane Hagner’s] appearance on Saturday in Schwerin with the American mega-star pianist Richard Goode from New York was in every sense exclusive. Beethoven’s G major sonata and Ysaye’s solo sonata, in which the Dies Irae theme runs emblematically throughout the movements, were perfectly suited to Viviane Hagner’s intense and profound creative power, and her captivating tone. Goode played Bach’s French Suite and a programme of Chopin pieces in his movingly simple yet well thought-out style, full of marvellous sound structures and a strong sense of the melodic lines.”
Die Welt, June 2009
Budapest Festival Orchestra & Ivan Fischer / Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos (Nonesuch)
“… Goode brings his precise touch to these five works, letting the lyricism sing out while keeping the majestic architecture always clearly in view.”
Independent on Sunday, 5 stars , February 2009
"Goode plays as if he’s submitted each note to hours of careful cognition, yet sounds as spontaneous as a genius improviser. A consistently exemplary set"
Classic FM Magazine, 5 stars , February 2009
“Goode is a model of self-restraint: nothing is interposed between the composer’s intentions and the listener.”
The Independent, 5 stars , February 2009
“This is going to become one of the benchmark recordings of these Beethoven masterpieces… one of the best new CDs of the year so far.”
Sam Jackson (Executive Producer) on Classic FM , April 2009
“A landmark recording of the Beethoven concertos. Goode makes the familiar sound unexpectedly fresh. He plays without mannerism, without stylistic quirks, without making anything sound predictable.”
The Financial Times, 5 stars , May 2009
“Goode’s special gift has always been his selfless artistry: his penetrating intellect, warm heart and nimble fingers are entirely placed at the composers’ service.
“Goode knows just how to balance and weigh conflicting elements: argument and repose, dark and light, struggle and wit… Every landmark phrase or interjection pops up freshly felt, as though newly composed.”
“Throughout, the recording is warm and natural. Buy with confidence.”
The Times, 5 stars, May 2009
Wigmore Hall recital / Chopin, Bach & Schubert
“If only more pianists wore their thoughtfulness so lightly. Richard Goode's ability to clothe the intellectual backbone of his interpretations in playing of airy mercuriality may not be unique, but it is rare and individual enough to make his recitals unmissable.
A substantial Chopin selection that began with some rustic mazurkas also brought playing of a confiding delicacy, and a masterclass in how to make the composer's freewheeling filigree sound integral to the rest of the music.
Listening to Goode is always rewarding, but it is never hard work.”
Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 5 stars, February 2009
London Symphony Orchestra & Colin Davis
“…Richard Goode had been the soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No 18 in B flat. Again, Davis revelled in every second of music-making - and well he might, for this was a delectably modest performance of one of Mozart's most modest concertos: entirely Mozartian in its breathing, gentle pathos and mischief, and with Goode's fingers decorating and dancing through the variations of its central song as if eavesdropping with delight on the caprices and follies of Figaro.”
Hilary Finch, The Times, February 2009
“The first half, a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 18 in B flat, K456, was outstanding. Davis frequently turned round to face his soloist, Richard Goode, and their view of the music proved to be in perfect alignment.
Goode combined immaculate fingerwork with a heightened sensitivity to the character of every phrase that was matched by the detailed insights provided by Davis and the LSO players.”
George Hall, The Guardian , February 2009
Recital with Jonathan Biss at the Queen Elizabeth Hall
“Richard Goode had invited Jonathan Biss to join him for the final appearance of his South Bank mini-residency, and so on the platform were perhaps the finest two US pianists of their respective generations.
This partnership is too rewarding to be a one-off.”
The Guardian, 5 stars, June 2008
“…a recital which is certain to prove a highlight of the year's music-making in London.“
ClassicalSource.com, June 2008
Recital at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Paris
“Goode plays Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata with a breath-taking perfection - bringing out the important details, separating the wheat from the chaff.
… he has a very personal approach to Chopin which is reminiscent of the sound world of Horszowski, with a control that doesn’t rule out passion, and a capacity to delve into the scores and bring out aspects never before heard.
He represents a cultural exception in a world where flamboyance and illusion are the norm.”
Altamusica, May 2008
Recital at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam / Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Debussy
“The ‘Homage to Chopin’ started with a remarkable romantically moving and breathing Bach. With a clear focus Goode gave Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C a great melodical freedom and provided four Sinfonias with fast tempo movements and generous dynamics, which combined with great lyricism achieved a comforting, nearly healing effect.
Goodes message was evident: he allows the listener to be fully aware of the deepest layers of Chopin’s intimacy for which he neither requires bloated technique nor exaggerated bravura.”
Noordhollands Dagblad, May 2008
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Alan Gilbert / Mozart Piano Concerto No.18
“Goode led by example, playing with clarity and a sense of expanding freedom, exuding his appreciation for the music and inspiring his colleagues onstage. The result was a performance in which all parties became equal collaborators.
This was the highlight of the program.
Goode's cadenza in the first movement had a harpsichord zippiness, then settled into pearly note-streams, then grew brilliant and rhythmically dashing.”
Oakland Tribune, March 2008
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Ivan Fischer / Beethoven
"Through his clear ideas and gestures Fischer lets a simple series of repeated notes sound in rhetorical barrage. This power of expression also characterizes pianist Richard Goode, who exposed Beethoven’s both lively and profound aspects with colourful and relaxed playing. One could hear from the dialogue in the Adagio that it is not the first time that Goode and Fischer work together in Beethoven; this will also result in a CD recording to be issued shortly (Nonesuch)."
NRC Handelsblad, March 2008
Solo recital at the Queen Elizabeth Hall / ‘Homage to Chopin’
“Each time Goode returned to Chopin, it was like a homecoming. He found insight in the relative simplicity of the mazurkas, and even virtuoso works didn’t sound like tricky showpieces”
“The first of two Debussy Etudes was dispatched with a melting fragility that made one wonder whether this leonine player could really be making such a delicate sound.
This was mellow, mature playing, its emotion strongly felt but only sufficiently signalled. It takes a classy pianist to achieve that.”
The Guardian, February 2008
“This was a superb evening – Goode at the height of his powers…”
ClassicalSource.com, February 2008
Recital in Washington / Debussy
"Pianist Richard Goode brought his customary clarity of thought and finger work to a meaty program of masterworks... In a set of Debussy preludes, Goode was a master tone painter, summoning up the widest palette imaginable on the instrument. In Ondine, he limned a shimmering, darting portrait of the water nymph, and in the climax of La Cathedrale Engloutie the walls veritably shook from the force."
Washington Post, 16 October 2007
Recital at the Wigmore Hall, London / Brahms, Fauré, Debussy & Haydn
"Goode's handling of Haydn's fragmentary D major sonata of 1773 was light, bright and poised, but there was tonal weight in the broad arc of the adagio and glittering technique in the disconcertingly abrupt finale. The same clarity produced real revelations in Brahms's Fantasias, op. 116. Too often slurred and sweeping in less imaginative hands, the seven miniatures were here pared back, allowing Brahms's characteristic economy and harmonic daring to shine forth. The sixth Nocturne by Fauré, the intellectual pianist's dream composer, allowed Goode to show off a weightier side of his virtuosity. But the second book of Debussy's Preludes took us deepest into his pianism. Debussy's enigmatic qualities make him in many respects the ideal composer for Goode."
The Guardian, May 2007
Recital in Buffalo / Brahms & Bach
“What Goode does at the piano is warm, engaging and marvelously subtle – mesmerizing. ...In the hands of a fine pianist like Goode, the colors are never pale or blurred. They're vivid and interesting.”
Buffalo News, February 2007
Perspectives Series at Carnegie Hall, New York
“Goode’s pianism has always been marked by lucidity and transparency; the music’s glow seems to emanate from deep inside the notes.”
The New York Times, October 2006
Residency at the 2006 Edinburgh International Festival
“Richard Goode's performance took the breath away with its sheer, heart-stopping beauty.”
The Guardian, August 2006
“His light, flowing and superbly-articulated Bach was characterised by expressive playing, while his very superior account of the Schoenberg stripped everything from the music bar its intense expressiveness: the final, poignant, Mahlerian aphorism stopped the heart… Goode's unfailingly singing and poetic performance of this miracle of music was spellbinding”
The Herald, August 2006
"The contrasting Adagio, however, was all Goode's. Stately and majestically poignant, and miles from the maudlin it sometimes threatens to become, in Goode's hands the movement was all heightened emotional of the themes and scoring that surround it."
The Herald, August 2006
“Goode brought a delicacy to the music that can be difficult to achieve. ... He delivered an eloquent reading of the whimsical slow movement to steer the final rondo to an impressive finale.”
The Scotsman, August 2006
Recital at the Wigmore Hall, London
“…wonderful feeling of spaciousness in the slower music and the simplicity with which he span out the sarabandes … three numbers from the Well Tempered Clavier were perfectly conceived…”
The Guardian, May 2006
Recital at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles
"The emotion this splendid musician revealed in this music rendered moot the usual question of piano versus harpsichord. Since his background includes studies with Rudolf Serkin and Clara Haskil, the solidity and the eloquence (and, yes, Goode-ness) of Goode’s performance the other night came as little surprise but high pleasure nonetheless... That kind of music-making overrides, it seems to me, questions of authenticity and historicity; it was wonderful to hear."
LA Weekly, April 2006
Conductor Iván Fischer discusses ‘Music that Changed Me’
“For a conductor, it is important which soloists you work with. The soloist is a partner who can create inspiration and be a wonderful new impulse in your life. Richard Goode is a pianist with whom I’ve worked closely in recent years. His insight into the music is incredible. He understands and searches for the truth of the composition. Whenever I meet him I see it as an opportunity to learn more about the work. I now see the Beethoven Piano Concertos, and mostly the Second, very differently since I have worked with him”
BBC Music Magazine, April 2006
Recital at the Zankel Hall with Matthew Polenzani and Tamara Mumford
“Mr. Goode vividly conveyed the ferocity Janacek wrote into the piano underpinning.”
New York Times, March 2006
With the Boston Symphony Orchestra / Mozart
“Playing the A-major piano concerto last night at Symphony Hall with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Goode made Mozart seem every bit as relevant today as he was two centuries ago. ... For those who believe deeply in the inherent beauty and importance of the Mozart concertos, Richard Goode is a hero. ... Goode’s performance was inherently authentic, noble and certainly appreciated by his stage mates."
The Boston Herald, January 2006
Beethoven Concerto Cycle at the Barbican with BFO / Ivan Fischer
“Goode’s attention to detail was as welcome as his modest platform manner….It’s a deceptive modesty as Goode is a poet of the piano, a master of expressive nuance and harmonic subtleties, with a featherlight touch. His interaction with Fischer was exemplary, lending a thrill to bravura passages and a pin-drop potency to the slow movements.”
The Observer, June 2005
“This was exceptional…we have come to expect playing of rather special instight and ingerity from the American pianinst Richard Goode. But not often can performers and audiences alike have lived thourgh a concert more intensely from moment to moment than in this programme of the Barbican’s ongoing Bartok and Beethoven series.”
The Independent, June 2005
“Savouring the delicate runs of the first movement, while tearing into an atmospherically taut cadenza with some judicious pedalling, Goode’s poised performance was the perfect counterpoint to the robustness of the orchestra. “
The Times, June 2005
“…Goode’s approach to everything on the platform lacks affectation. With its crystalline, neutral sound his music-making can sound plain and unadorned, but that belies the expressive detail with which he incests it, responding to every nuance and harmonic colour. … There’s real chemistry in the partnership, with ideas traded back and forth, a sense of wonder when the music twists into more remote keys, and a delight in its moments of unbuttoned exuberance.”
The Guardian, June 2005
“The melodic contours of the long orchestral introduction had an angularity that made idea foil for Goode’s suave phrasing, his right-hand trills and silver tracery, the left-hand earthier, at times almost guttural…Goode brought out the sense of struggle, of tension built then released when the orchestra returns to the fray. “
Evening Standard, June 2005
Mozart’s Works for Solo Piano on Nonesuch
“…this magnificent CD from one of today’s greatest (and most modest) of pianists. Goode’s way with this music has a rightness and a poise that leaves you with the feeling that it simply can’t be done better.”
Gramophone, June 2005
“For those who have never heard Richard Goode in concert but treasure his sequence of Mozart concerto recordings, there has been a mounting hunger to hear him in Mozart’s music for solo piano. Their wait is over. His latest Nonesuch release will not disappoint…As ever with this artist, every work emerges as freshly as though it were newly minted, without a scintilla of idiosyncrasy or mannerism of any kind. This is a pianist who puts the listener immediately (apparently exclusively, or so it feels) in touch with the composer himself. It is a part of his immense sophistication, and a part of his greatness, that he plays with an often transfiguring simplicity achieved by very few… Mr Goode’s humility is just right, and his subtelty is of a kind, and of an order, that can elude but all connaisseurs. Yet he is among the least exclusive of pianists. The warmth and generosity of his personality, felt by audiences all over the world, is evident in everything he does- butit eludes analysis. You just have to listen.”
Piano, May/June 2005
“One of the finest living players of Mozart, veteran American pianinst Richar Goode brings a wealth of experience and insight to this eclectic programme, dominated by reading of the A minor and F major sonatas full of fresh detail and tender touches…No matter how many times youy’ve heard these works, you will find something new and affecting in Goode’s noble interpretations.”
The Observer, May 2005
“…his reading gives a remarkable picture of the music unravelling after it suddenly reaches new material…almost never finding its way back to the plain opening theme.”
Hi-Fi News, April 2005
“The final recital brought together two superb artists: soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Richard Goode. Upshaw has a small voice of crystalline clarity. Her artistic sensibilities are finely honed, and her interpretations are direct and honest, with words married to music…. Goode, who played solo works of Haydn and Debussy, provided a rippling, delicate accompaniment…”
Opera Now, September/October 2005
“There is no doubt that Goode is one of the most authentic, honest and beautiful musicians there is at the moment…Goode produces a beautiful sounds, full and penetrating without ever being too loud or aggressive…He’s a master of cantabile playing without being tempted by any romantic effects…He respects the polyphony of the music with very small differences between the voices..”
De Morgen, March 2005
“Zinman brought these qualities [crisp, clean, clear music-making] to Bartok's gentle, sometimes Gershwin-y Third Piano Concerto as well, and was fortunate in the bold, beautiful playing of his soloist, Richard Goode. He's not the first name I think of when I think of Bartok. But after Goode's performance here, I'm convinced."
Boston Herald, January 2005
“Lasting barely five minutes, Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces are not so much little as infinitesimal, and they require the utmost clarity. That is exactly what they got from the American pianist Richard Goode, who played them with the focused intensity he brings to everything he plays.”
The Evening Standard, December 2004
“Richard Goode is one of the finest pianists in the world…Few can match his unfailingly beautiful tone, effortless technical command, interpretive insight and total emotional commitment to the music he plays.”
The Washington Post, October 2004
“At times you sense that he is not playing music, he is music.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2004
“Richard Goode brought the intelligence and sensibility of a master pianist to bear on the Mozart [piano concerto in D minor]. He supplied his own curious cadenza for the last movement and by sheer artistic presence kept the audience enthralled throughout despite rain pelting on the Albert Hall roof.”
The Daily Telegraph, August 2004
“Goode shows that he is also a master of the larger form in Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, D.845 (1825). Without betraying the reputation of a great Beethoven interpreter which always preceeds him, Goode continued to deliver an intimidating, peremptory discourse, of symphonic dimensions, violent and marked by a refusal to concede or to settle for amiability. This initial ‘question – response’ phrasing, with the grupetto chiselled to perfection, was proff of a reading that was eloquent without being rhetorical, intelligent without being didactic.”
ConcertoNet.com, June 2004
“He gave a towering account of Schubert’s A minor sonata... The pounding brutality of his unhurried first movement pointed straight ahead to Shostakovich; the filigree decoration of his Andante was impossibly ravishing... a complete artist indeed.”
The Sunday Times, May 2004
“Richard Goode, a pianist who doesn't have an unmotivated musical bone in his body, was on hand to animate every corner of Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3 … his playing was endlessly nuanced and alive.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 2004
“Richard Goode’s thrilling performances reminded us of what classical music is capable of offering uss, its ability not just to present beauty, but to present meaning… a powerful performance that demonstrated that the key to these scores [Schubert’s late sonatas] is to fill them with passion.”
The Toronto Globe and Mail, October 2003
“Richard Goode possesses a unique spark of musical genius. Goode is a true poet of the piano. The sheer tonal splendour he produced was astounding!”
Miami MV Daily, October 2003
“Goode demonstrated once again why he remains one of our leading musical artists. Unlike others equipped with similar staggering technique, Goode deploys his resources wholly at the service of the music.”
Miami Sun-Sentinel, October 2003
“Richard Goode, whose generosity and naturalness as a man are reflected in his comparable qualities as a performer, now brings us his second volume of Bach’s six partitas. It really is a sublime disc.”
Gramophone, July 2003
“Eminent konturenscharfer Anschlag und eine starke Fähigkeit zur Kontrastierung zeichnen goodes Spiel aus. Zwischen kantiger Klarheit und übersinnlichem Hauch fesselt er mit Beethovens E-Dur Sonate op. 109."
"Goode’s playing shows an eminently finely carved attack and a great ability for contrast… He captivated in Beethoven’s E major sonata op.109 between linear clarity and supernatural lightness.”
Abendzeitung, July 2003
“Goode is one of the master musicians of the day, and his recital was all one could hope for: intelligently conceived, without a conceptual “design” on us; satisfying as a whole, down to the last encore, yet charged with spontaneity; executed with a virtuosity and breathtaking purity of tone that were constantly adjusted to new idioms but never demanded attention for themselves”
The Sunday Times, May 2003
“He is also one of the most flamboyantly gifted interpreters of the classical and romantic repertoire, and this recital revealed the depth of his musicality.”
The Guardian, April 2003
“Goode relished him, [Debussy] took imaginative flights with each prelude, and made every one a pristine experience.”
Financial Times, April 2003
“Goode’s Beethoven has long been admired, but this seamless account of the Op 81a Sonata, les Adieux, suggested that it is becoming yet more magisterial. Even that, though, paled alongside his reading of Schubert’s late A major Sonata, in which each movement brought fresh revelations – the magically poetic transition between exposition and development in the opening Allegro, the voicing of the main theme of Andante, sounding like a visitation from the world of Die Winterreise, and the right hand’s sparkling dialogue with itself, alternately in the treble and the bass, in the finale. This was Schubert of peerless comprehensiveness.”
The Guardian, May 2002
“ Goode traversed an enticing program spanning more than three centuries, with the leisurely air of a man thoroughly enjoying himself. His playing had focus, intensity and fire, but it also had a pervasive and natural ease of a player perfectly at home with his instrument and his repertoire.”
Seattle Times, October 2002
“It is virtually impossible to walk away from one of Mr. Goode's recitals without the sense of having gained some new insight, subtle or otherwise, into the works he played or about pianism itself."
The New York Times, 2002
“Richard Goode, the pianists’ pianist, a superb artist who at best attacks the classical repertoire with the full force of his heart and mind.”
The Times
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