On Friday evening at Carnegie Hall, pianist Richard Goode performed in recital as popular a program as one could imagine. There were no surprises, only renditions of familiar works by classical music's best known composers - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Schumann.
Of all the piano recitals I've heard this season, this was the one I'd been looking forward to most. I've seen Richard Goode many times over the past few decades and have always appreciated the straightforward, no-nonsense manner with which he approaches whatever works are to be performed. He invariably displays great sensitivity as well as total respect for the composer's intentions. This past October, I even attended the first part of a master class at Mannes in which he provided an in-depth analysis of the problems faced by a musician when first attempting a given piece of music. It was an enlightening experience that helped me better understand what I hear at the recitals I attend; it also revealed the difficulties faced by any pianist when he or she sits down at the keyboard.
The program opened with Mozart's Adagio in B Minor, K. 540 (1788). The work is something of an enigma in that it not only was composed as a standalone piece but was also the only keyboard work the composer wrote in the key of B minor. Mozart ordinarily made use of the minor keys to express intense emotion and it may be the work was written, at least in part, as a testament to the personal anguish he felt in witnessing his prospects in Vienna, originally so promising, decline so precipitously in the final years of his life. In this view, the B major ending could then be seen as representing his hope for a positive resolution to his problems.
The Mozart was followed by Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 (1809), nicknamed "à Thérèse" for its dedication to Thérèse von Brunswick whose sister Josephine is often conjectured to have been the composer's "Immortal Beloved." This is a very short and compact work that, like the composer's final sonata, the Op. 111, consists of only two movements. The music is characteristic of Beethoven's "heroic" middle period and if it at times conveys a sense of lightheartedness that may have to do as much with the composer's new found financial security as with the pleasant memories of the summer weeks spent in the company of the Brunsviks in Hungary.
Next was Brahms's Klavierstücke, Op. 76 (1871-1878). This is a collection of eight piano pieces written by Brahms over the course of several years. In titling the anthology "Piano Pieces," the composer was obviously trying to avoid any programmatic associations. In taking this route, Brahms consciously distanced himself from the approach taken by his one-time mentor Schumann whose solo piano works invariably followed some form of extra-musical program. This may have been an indication that Brahms finally considered himself to have come into his own (his first great success, A German Requiem, had had its premiere in 1869), but it may also have been that he simply wished to call attention to the music rather than to any outside associations that might be attached to it.
After intermission, Mr. Goode returned to play Debussy's Children's Corner (1908). The work was written as a present to the composer's three year old daughter Claude-Emma who was to die tragically at age 14, only a few months after Debussy himself. It is a playful work filled with the echoes of childhood and much different from the more impressionist works Debussy composed during this same period (it preceded the first book of Préludes by two years). The final piece, Golliwogg's Cakewalk, in fact contains not only elements of ragtime but even a parody of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
The program concluded with Schumann's Humoreske in B-flat Major, Op. 20 (1839). So varied are the moods of these pieces - joyous moments followed by those of the deepest despair - that it's tempting to see in them portents of the composer's approaching madness. In fact, in describing the work in a letter to Clara, Schumann himself wrote, "All week I've been sitting at the piano and composing and writing and laughing and crying, all at the same time." That pretty much sums of the spirit of the work.
While it was thoroughly enjoyable to hear such tasteful renditions of old favorites as were performed here, one would have wished that a few less familiar pieces had been included. It is recitals and concert performances that offer non-musicians the best opportunity to become acquainted with the less frequented corners of the repertoire. While I realize that programs at Carnegie Hall are selected with at least one eye on ticket sales, I nevertheless feel the musicians have an obligation to audiences to provide them with something new to carry away with them once the performance has ended. At last season's Carnegie Hall recital, for example, Mr. Goode gave a brilliant rendition of Janáček's On an Overgrown Path, a work that I couldn't recall ever having heard before and that I thought truly worth experiencing. Though I'll continue to attend the pianist's recitals no matter what music he chooses to play, I do hope next season's program is a bit more adventurous.
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