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Richard Goode, pianist

Reviews

"His playing wears its heart on its sleeve, openly rejoicing in Beethoven's inventiveness rather than internalising and consciously spiritualising it. Yet this music admits either stance, and a pianist of Goode's intelligence, vision and inspiration finds enlightenment at every corner and, moreover, projects it. His belatedly achieved high reputation on this side of the Atlantic is thoroughly deserved."
"It is music making that satisfies essentially because everything seems so right: quite how he manages to rivet the attention in the way he does without resorting to mannerist quirks remains a mystery, but it is the secret of great piano playing."
The Times (London)

"No contemporary pianist, not even Alfred Brendel, makes Beethoven the centre of his musical world more completely and convincingly than Richard Goode... every one of his performances communicates a shared commitment to discovery. There is no flamboyance or opulence about his playing, just a remarkable attention to detail, to the energy of every texture and harmonic shift, and above all to the way in which the music creates a unique world of sensibility."
The Guardian (London)

"Goode’s detailed engagement with the music, which produces fresh and telling insights into phrasing and structure at every turn, possesses an expressive directness that successfully negotiates a route between the reefs of pedantry and eccentricity. Chopin’s ambiguities have seldom been made to seem more edifying, nor his bejewelled momentum more newly yet naturally minted."
BBC Music Magazine

"Mr. Goode gave his account a distinctly Mozartean accent, with a light touch, a tone that alternated between crystalline and gently singing, as needed, and with currents of courtly elegance and playful subversion intertwined."
"Mr. Goode has thought long and hard and cares deeply about what he plays, and he has much to say that is provocative and moving....Perhaps his most important gift is a clarity and soundness of expression, which compels a listener to re-think familiar pieces in new ways."
"It is hard to think of any other artist on record who has been all at once technically, temperamentally and intellectually as suited to the challenges of these sonatas as Mr Goode is. These beautifully engineered recordings [of the Complete Beethoven Sonatas] may well become a landmark."
The New York Times

"...the music flowed through him with such mellow insights, deep emotional involvement and self-effacing pianism that you felt as though you were confronting the composer’s own thought processes directly rather than through an interpreter."
Chicago Tribune

"This was playing that wrapped the listener in its spell for two hours, playing that made no concessions to fad or fancy, playing that approached the status of revelation."
San Francisco Examiner

"One of the most exciting and satisfying piano recitals in recent memory."
"Richard Goode is among the most persuasive Beethoven interpreters of our time. But his brilliant recital Monday night was a reminder that he is also that rarer and perhaps more marvellous creature: a great Schubert performer."
San Francisco Chronicle

"This performance was truly cherishable - he played with a lucent, buoyant tone, impeccable taste, imagination, style, humor and originality."
Boston Globe

"The pianist produced a total performance that was a joy in the ear, a nourishment for the mind and an uplift for the spirit. For this listener, it was a high point of the musical year."
Los Angeles Times

"This was not just effective playing, this was wise playing - the kind that makes the listener, whatever his previous notions about the music, want to whisper, ‘Yes, this is the way it should go.’"
Toronto Star

"Richard Goode may be the best pianist in America. Goode gave what was simply the best Beethoven performance heard in this city since Rudolf Serkin’s Emperor Concerto of perhaps a decade ago. He gave the same kind of assured, Olympian and deeply involving performance Serkin had given. It was one in which the drama was sweeping but unforced and in which lyrical moments were gorgeously formed. I’ve never heard the slow movement of this concerto sound so beautiful."
Dallas Times Herald