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, 30 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, 24 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
Solo with Boston Symphony Orchestra
"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. ...the overall feeling that this is a piece of chamber music, and not a flamboyant showpiece for a star-struck soloist. 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, 4 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