Richard Goode, soloist, piano, Bach 6 English Suites in D Minor, 1st movement

“My scores are often worksheets, filled with memoranda of hours spent evolving ideas about a piece.  Bach’s keyboard music has very few phrasing, articulation, or dynamic signs, and so it is an endless challenge for the performer (or at least this performer) to find satisfying slurrings, groupings, stresses, and nuances (plus fingerings) that bring the music fully to life.  Plus, what works one day or week may soon be superseded by a better idea.  The resultant page is, frankly, a mess—or you could call it ‘the description of a struggle”.  
– Richard Goode­­

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Richard Goode

Goode: Beethoven, Sonata No 31, Op110

 

Richard Goode, born in the Bronx 79 years ago, is an American piano soloist especially known for his interpretations of Mozart and Beethoven.  His musical training began at New York’s Mannes College where his teachers included Elvira Szigeti and Nadia Reisenberg and continued at Curtis with Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. Mr. Goode is the first American pianist to record the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and won a Grammy along with his chamber music partner, Richard Stoltzman, for best chamber music performance for Brahms: The sonatas for Clarinet & Piano, Op. 120. He served as co-Artistic Director (1999-2013) of the renowned Marlboro Music School and Festival in Vermont. In 2021, he joined the Peabody Conservatory as Distinguished Artist Faculty.

Much in demand, he continues to perform as soloist with all the major orchestras and gives recitals around the world.  In addition to his live performances, he has made more than two dozen recordings for Nonesuch, ranging from solo and chamber works to lieder and concertos.  Richard Goode’s approach to music-making has been characterized as” having tremendous emotional power, depth, and expressiveness…”

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Anne Akiko Meyers
Victoria Bond
Giuliano Carmignola
George Crumb
Misha Dichter
Simone Dinnerstein
Stanley Drucker
JoAnne Falletta
Renée Fleming
Richard Goode
Sean Hickey
Benjamin Hochman
Yo Yo Ma
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Itzhak Perlman
Eve Queler
Philippe Quint
Gerard Schwarz
Peter Serkin
Arnold Steinhardt
Benita Valente
André Watts