One might not think of Richard Goode as a dancer; the sixty six-year-old cuts a portly, bespectacled figure on stage. But when the pianist puts his hands to the keyboard, he is a master of rhythm, making the air move with a fluent physicality that would make a ballerina green. He is a singer of sorts, too, and not only because he tends to hum along with the music. The piano is technically a percussion instrument, but Goode, more than most players, creates the illusion of string-like legato. He even has a quirk, probably barely conscious, of wobbling a finger into a key ever-so-slightly as if adding expressive vibrato.
Now at the peak of his art, the Bronx-born Goode has in recent years added recordings of Bach and Chopin to the classic Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms in his Nonesuch catalog. His discs rank among the least-hyped and most beautifully made of all piano recordings, the bulk of them produced by Max Wilcox, who was Arthur Rubinstein’s partner in the studio. Goode’s latest release is a long-gestated set of the five Beethoven piano concertos, made with conductor Iván Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra.
Bottling the magic of music is an elusive process for even the most accomplished artists, something to which Goode is acutely sensitive. “Recording is something that I used to dread, but I’ve made my peace with it, relaxing into what it means,” he says. “I used to
think of every take as ‘this is it.’ Now I just see a take as one of many possibilities. The recording and editing process has made me a better listener. But the microphone is like a camera, in that it focuses on details you might pass over in the moment. It’s a tricky balance between the forest and the trees, because you don’t want to over-edit and break the flow of natural musicmaking.”
Liberty from obsessing over mistakes is something today’s recording artists enjoy over the players in the era of 78s, before takes could be edited. Goode points out that “you can hear the tension build after the second minute of, say, an Artur Schnabel record because, after it started well, he wouldn’t want to lose a good take. Then as now, the pressures of time and money are very real in the studio. Although a certain tension can be good, what we hear on those old records doesn’t necessarily represent the freedom of Schnabel’s true performing personality. But what I try to keep in mind is that for all the thousands of details that go into the interpretation of a score, there has to be a flow that unites them into a single expression. Without that life force, perfection in detail doesn’t really matter.”
Goode doesn’t like to describe or judge his own playing, saying that is “something easier for others to do.” But taking a break on tour, the master pianist joined Listen in looking back on some of the highlights of his discography, ruminating over the grittiness in Beethoven, the surprise in Brahms, the singing in Schubert and the dancing in Bach.
* * *
This set was recorded in 2005, in the Russell Johnson-designed acoustics of Budapest’s National Concert Hall, although a protracted editing process held it from release until this spring. Not able to find pianos to his liking in Budapest, Goode played the first three concertos on a beautifully restored New York Steinway found in Vienna that was once prepared for Arthur Rubinstein (and played more recently by jazzer Brad Mehldau). Goode played the final two concertos on a bigger-sounding Hamburg Steinway. Perhaps the key ingredient to the set’s success, though, is the chemistry between soloist, conductor and orchestra.
“Iván loves to rehearse and try new things, so the Budapest players don’t have an attitude of ‘we know,’ but rather of ‘we’re looking,’” Goode says. “There’s great emotional commitment to what they do. Sound-wise, the strings have this lively character, and the winds play with a soloistic quality that is rare—they realize that they’re on stage, too. In Beethoven, ‘beautiful’ orchestral playing can be too plush. Beethoven isn’t supposed to feel comfortable; it should stretch you to your limit, intellectually and emotionally. As Piatigorsky once said to a student, ‘If you want comfortable, go home to bed.’ Working with Iván and his orchestra is a visceral experience. The group has a wild side that I love.”
* * *
Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 9 and 25
With the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
(Nonesuch, 1998)
Goode recorded the major Mozart piano concertos with New York’s conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; the five-disc series makes the music come alive with all its operatic promise.
