Richard Goode to play Bach, Haydn and Schumann in Philadelphia

     Richard Goode   (photo: Deborah Feingold)

Richard Goode will play a recital under the auspices of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 8:00 PM. 

Goode, about whom such praise as “you’d swear the composer himself was at the keyboard, expressing musical thoughts that had just come into his head,” has been heard from critics, will perform works by Bach, Haydn and Schumann.

The program is inspired.  Bach represents the summation of all that had come before, Haydn the path toward what was to come next, and Schumann all that had yet to be imagined.

As important to the overall effect as is the music that will be performed at this concert, that music with which the listener may be even more familiar, Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt, and Brahms, creates a splendid historical context for the evening.

• Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp Minor, BWV 883
• Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp Major, BWV 872
• Haydn: Sonata in E Major, Hob. XVI: 22
• Haydn: Sonata in B Minor, Hob. XVI: 32
• Haydn: Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 50
• Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16

Richard Goode needs no introduction.  He is a world renowned pianist, highly respected for his performaces of the Beethoven piano sonatas and the music of the German classic and romantic repertoire. 

Here Goode plays the Sarabande from Bach's Partita No. 1 in B flat from a recital last month in Jerusalem. In this performance one can sense what was to come in the piano music of Haydn and Beethoven, and Schumann beyond.  It is quite a different Bach from the one we are most accustomed to hearing.

And here is Goode playing several Chopin Mazurkas from the same recital:

Mazurka in C Major, Op.24, No.2
Mazurka in E minor, Op.41, No.2
Mazurka in B Major, Op.41, No.3
Mazurka in C# minor, Op.50, No.3

Intended or not, there is a Schumanesque quality to the playing. And while perhaps not what one would expect of Chopin stylistically, the playing does underscore the unavoidable Germanic influences on the romantic movement that was in full bloom at the time these pieces were written. 

Below is a defining performance by Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev of the Sehr langsam movement of Schumann's Kreisleriana.  In it one can hear the romantic fantasy world inhabited by Schumann and have a clear vision of the two conflicting personalities of E.T.A. Hoffmann's fictional protagonist, Kreisler, as well as those of Schumann himself.

 For more info: Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

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