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It’s been quite an amazing few weeks for Richard Goode and even more so, for the audiences who have had the good fortune to hear his concerts of some of the greatest music ever written – the last three Beethoven Sonatas; the last three Schubert Sonatas, as well as a program of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Schumann. From Yale to Middlebury, Dartmouth to Duke, Fresno to Berkeley, Boston to Atlanta and St. Paul to Toronto, Richard demonstrated why critics have consistently proclaimed:
“Goode has so thoroughly entered into the spirit of the compositions he performs that you’d swear the composer himself was at the keyboard.”
Tuesday’s Boston Globe shared the experience of last Saturday’s rapturous sold-out Celebrity Series audience:
Richard Goode beautifully navigates late Beethoven
By Matthew Guerrieri
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT | NOVEMBER 04, 2014
“If Goode’s choices underscored Beethoven’s audacity, the magnitude of his technique reaffirmed Beethoven’s grace. Goode’s touch was unfailingly deep, solid, and resonant even in soft passages, lending definition and intent to every note. And his virtuosity was invisibly profound, making Beethoven’s most awkward passages feel natural. It is no small feat to have such knotty music seem to fall effortlessly into place.”
And in California, where he performed the last three Schubert Sonatas on one concert for the first time, Matias Tarnopolsky, the Director of Cal Performances in Berkeley, wrote, “The concert was extraordinary…it was an unforgettable experience.” For the Berkeley Daily Planet “If Arthur Schnabel was the first great champion of these works, it might well be said that Richard Goode is a candidate to establish himself among Schnabel’s heirs as a great interpreter of Schubert’s last three sonatas for piano.”
The Spring includes five appearances at Carnegie Hall – a Mozart concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony; a Main Hall recital; two chamber music concerts with young artists from the Marlboro Festival; and a master class on Debussy in the new education centre. Among others, there are also concerts with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony; Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony and Herbert Blomstedt and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. As one London critic wrote his concerts are “As Goode As It Gets.”
