Richard Goode’s parents were not musicians, but at the age of ten Goode was taken to a Carnegie Hall recital given by Rudolf Serkin where he heard Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations Op. 120 and the Piano Sonata Op. 101. It was a somewhat bewildering experience for a young boy, but over his formative years Goode listened to recordings of Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer and this complemented his musical education. Goode studied at Mannes College in New York with Nadia Reisenberg, Claude Frank and Elvira Szigeti, then went to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he studied with Rudolf Serkin and Mieczysław Horszowski. Through Serkin, he regularly attended the summer courses at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. Goode’s New York debut was made in the New York Young Concert Artists Series in 1962, and eleven years later he won first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in Lucerne. In 1966 he worked at the Spoleto Festival with Jacqueline du Pré, returning to Mannes for two years to complete his studies.

He came to prominence in America with his performances of Beethoven, particularly of the complete piano concertos with David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and of the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas at New York’s 92nd Street Y, and in Kansas City. Goode is also a superlative chamber music player who has worked with clarinettist Richard Stoltzman and singer Dawn Upshaw. He is joint artistic director of the Marlboro Music Festival with Mitsuko Uchida, where annually he organises and takes part in a summer of chamber music. He was a founder of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing regularly there throughout the 1980s, and in 1980 was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize.

Goode’s career progressed gradually. His recordings and tours of South America, Australia, East Asia and Europe have built for him a devoted following of musicians and music-lovers, and his frequent appearances in Britain are always received with acclaim. He plays with all the major orchestras of Europe and America including the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and BBC Symphony, and is now a firm favourite in New York, Los Angeles, London, Milan and Vienna. He takes part in all the major European festivals including the Proms, Aldeburgh and Schleswig-Holstein. In 2002 Goode was artist in residence at the Edinburgh Festival where he played Mozart concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, gave a solo recital of Mozart, Beethoven and Debussy, accompanied baritone Randall Scarlata in a lieder recital and accompanied his wife, violinist Marcia Weinfeld, in a programme of Bach. Goode repeated the solo recital in London and his performance of Beethoven’s ‘Les Adieux’ Sonata was a highlight of the musical season.

Goode’s repertoire is based on Bach and the Classics, Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart; although he likes to explore other areas including Debussy and Chopin, and has commissioned a piano concerto from Robert Helps. A pianist of great integrity and honesty, Goode interprets music with a deep intelligence and understanding. His primary concern is the music, and he is not interested in the trappings of a virtuoso lifestyle. He brings to the music the analytical eyes and brain of a musicologist, yet avoids the dry, academic style of performance that can be associated with this approach. It is Goode’s vast knowledge, not only of music, but of art and literature in general that informs his interpretations and gives them a breadth and expansive quality.

Goode’s most important recordings are those of the complete Beethoven sonatas that he made for Elektra Nonesuch in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They are one of the most critically-acclaimed complete sets, The Gramophone magazine stating, ‘He is constantly inside the music, not on the outside looking in, and what a lively, cultivated, lucid and stimulating guide he is.’ During the late 1970s and 1980s he also recorded some Schubert sonatas, Brahms pieces, and a disc of works by George Perle (b. 1915) who wrote a Ballade for Goode in 1981. In the late 1990s he recorded two discs of Mozart concertos with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. When reviewing the first of these (K. 456 and K. 466) Stephen Plaistow began, ‘This is one of the most delightful recordings of Mozart piano concertos I’ve heard,’ and ended by saying ‘With a first-rate balance and quality of sound, here is a Mozart concerto record to transcend considerations of style and stance.’

A surprise to some was Goode’s disc of Chopin. He himself has said, ‘I have some problems with late nineteenth-century heroism’, and his recordings of Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 60 and Barcarolle Op. 61 eschew nineteenth-century performing traditions: ‘calm and musicianly’ was how one critic described the disc, yet Goode’s recordings often reveal familiar music in a new light. Another foray on disc into twentieth-century music saw Goode again partnering Stoltzman for RCA in works by Bartók, Ives and Stravinsky.

Goode’s most recent recordings are of the Bach partitas. Three were issued in March of 1999, and the remaining three in 2003. When he plays Bach, Goode’s style is his own, and he is not influenced by Bach players of the past such as Glenn Gould. ‘You know, I ask myself, who’s it for, this music? I feel it’s for the performer, to be overheard by the listener. That’s one of the things that makes Bach for me so precious…’ In 2005 Goode performed the complete Beethoven piano concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer and is due to record them.

Goode is in the fortunate position, at an age when many pianists are either burnt-out or have faded from the public eye, of finding his own career blossoming on a large scale. It has also allowed him time and space to evolve into one of the foremost pianists of the day.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — Jonathan Summers (A–Z of Pianists, Naxos 8.558107–10).