Beethoven: The Complete Sonatas - Richard Goode

Beethoven : The Complete Sonatas
Richard Goode - 1993

Gramophone Music Magazine Recommended Recording of Beethoven's Complete Sonatas

CD 01 Piano Sonata No.1 F minor Piano Sonata No.2 A major Piano Sonata No.3 in C major CD 02 Sonata No.5 in C minor, op.10, no.1 Sonata No.6 in F major, op.10, no.2 Sonata No.7 in D major, op.10, no.3 CD 03 Sonata No.4 in E flat Major, Op.7 Sonata No.9 in E major, op.14, no.1 Sonata No.8 in C minor, op.13 CD 04 Sonata No.10 in G major, op.14, no.2 Sonata : No.11 in B flat major, op.22 Sonata No.12 in A flat major, op.26 CD 05 Sonata No.13 in E-flat major, op.27, no.1 Sonata No.14 in C flat minor, op.27, no.2 Sonata No.15 in D major, op.28 CD 06 Sonata No.16 in G major, Op.31, No.1 Sonata No.17 in D minor, Op.31, No.2 (Tempest) Sonata No.18 in E-flat major, Op. 31, No.3 CD 07 Sonata No. 21 in C Major (Waldstein), Op. 53 Sonata No. 22 in F Major, Op. 54 Sonata No. 23 in F Minor (Appassionata), Op. 57 CD 08 Sonata No.19 in G minor, op.49, no.1 Sonata No.24 in F-flat major, op.78 Sonata No.25 in G major, op.79 Sonata No.26 in E-moll major, op.81a Sonata No.27 in E minor, op.90 CD 09 Sonata No.28 in A major, op. 101, Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat major, op.106 CD 10    Sonata No.30 in E, op.109Sonata No.31 in A flat, op.110 Sonata No.32 in C minor, op.111

Reviews :

Gramophone Music Magazine : Stephen Plaistow

Richard Goode is due to play all the Beethoven sonatas in London this year his first recital, at the South Bank, is on March 31st and by the time the year is out I shall be surprised if he isn't very much better known to Gramophone readers and concert-goers in this country than he is now. Rather like Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who was one of his mentors, Goode as a soloist has for many years been hiding his light under a bushel. If you already know him in this capacity, that is likely to be through his broadcasts. For until the last few years he has been active principally as an ensemble player, in chamber music, a field in which he excels as Horszowski and Goode's other mentor at the Curtis Institute, Rudolf Serkin, did. He is American and his reputation in the USA is considerable, but in this country his currently listed recordings, on Nonesuch and RCA, are still few, and mostly of chamber music.All this by way of preamble because there is nothing whatsoever about him in the Nonesuch booklet. Nor are recording dates given, though we're told all but six of the sonatas were recorded in New York at the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the others, also in New York, at RCA's studios. Production and engineering are credited to Max Wilcox. His expertise and care leave me little to quibble with. One or two movement pauses I'd have preferred shorter, quasi attacca, but maybe Goode didn't want them that way. More seriously, at the moment the recapitulation arrives in the finale of the Moonlight Sonata there appears to be a crotchet beat missing over bars 102-03, though whether this is an editing fault or because the pianist has slightly telescoped the rhythm here (which would be uncharacteristic of him) I can't be certain.

Whoever commissioned the long essay for the booklet from Michael Steinberg did the set a fine service. As to the engineering, I would rate the sound and microphone balances good to very good and they're pretty consistent over the ten CDs. The lower end of the dynamic range is very well defined, perhaps better than the other. In the first movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Scherzo of the A flat Sonata, Op. 110, Wilcox hasn't been completely successful in dissuading Goode from stamping on the pedal, but I haven't found this Serkinesque habit obtrusive elsewhere. I guess all the recordings go back a bit, because when the five last sonatas (Op. 101 to Op. 111) came out in this country as a two-disc set in 1989 the reported expectation was that the cycle, co-produced by Nonesuch with Book of the Month Records, would be completed that year.

David Fanning admired that first instalment, with some reservations, and subsequently the two issues of the Op. 31 and Op. 10 Sonatas on single CDs. ''Difficult to avoid a sustained panegyric'' he wrote, reviewing the three Op. 31 Sonatas, and that's very much my feeling about the cycle as a whole. There is some unevenness of achievement but the level, in general, is wonderfully high, with no lapses from grace. The more I listened the more I liked it, and if I predict it will be enjoyed and talked about for a long time, that is because I've revisited quite frequently the four discs already in circulation, in particular those of the late sonatas, and I'm confident they stand up well. Everything demands assessment in the company of the best there is. The interpretation of the A major Sonata, Op. 101 strikes me as one of the finest ever put on record. Reservations? You may have a doubt as to whether the playing in this sonata or that represents everything Goode is capable of: sometimes he disappoints, slightly, by appearing to hold back from the listener "through temperamental reserve?" the boldness and fullness of communciation the greatest players achieve. I think one might say that, for all their insight and illumination, some of the performances lack the final leap and a degree of transcendence. Among the late sonatas I feel this, fitfully, about the A flat, Op. 110. In the first movement Goode sounds as if he's trying too hard. Emil Gilels (while taking more licence) conveyed in his celebrated version for DG (9/86) an atmosphere of freshness and discovery as if the music were being improvised. Yet Goode is marvellous later in the sonata, at the close of the reprise of the Arioso, taking the listener through the 'heartbeat' chords into the inversion of the Fugue and by way of the difficult transition (which gave Beethoven much trouble) to the serentiy and triumph of the final pages with a sureness and quality of imagination that are exceptional. If this isn't Beethoven interpretation of the highest class I don't know what is. I would have liked an even stiller slow movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata, of which I'm sure Goode is capable, but that and a few other small regrets are probably attributable to the business of record making. I look forward immensely to hearing him in Beethoven 'live'.

Consideration of that enormous span of slow music in the Hammerklavier brings to mind the great 'set-piece' slow movements of the early sonatas as well: in Op. 2 Nos. 2 and 3, Op. 7, Op. 10 Nos. 1 and 3. How any artist succeeds in doing full justice to their 'interior' nature in the studio I don't know, and I've often felt too they're elusive when you listen to them at home. Perhaps over headphones is best. Those processional, inward, even monumental and ineluctable qualities which they share demand intense concentration on both sides of the microphone. Goode makes them eloquent but I can imagine their being even more spellbinding (and slower?) at his concerts. My other general point about his early sonatas would be that they could smile a little more. In Op. 14 No. 2 in G he is delicious perfect. There is abundant wit, as he plays it, in the first movement of Op. 10 No. 2 in F too; and DJF drew attention to the characterization of the comedy in the finale of Op. 10 No. 3 in D. But occasionally elsewhere I should have liked the young Beethoven in his first maturity to sound even more youthful. Judging from the po-faced playing of the first two concertos one customarily hears, youthfulness in Beethoven performance is not a quality greatly prized these days.

But a quality often to be observed in Goode is allure. I think that's why I like him so much: the finish of his playing, technical and musical, is immaculate but on top of that he is exciting. His sound always makes you listen. His feeling for it and for fine gradations of sound from one end of his wide dynamic range to the other are those of a virtuoso and inform everything he does. And when he's more obviously on virtuoso territory, as in the Waldstein and Appassionata, he responds to their demands for brilliance and thrilling projection as to the manner born. I am reminded that this man had five years of Russian-school training; he really can play.

Well, brilliance in Beethoven is commonly met with. One could say that sheer musical competence, of Richard Goode's order, is harder to come by. He is constantly inside the music, not on the outside looking in, and what a lively, cultivated, lucid and stimulating guide he is. For me, the full extent of his musical personality has perhaps still to emerge and may do so as I get to know these recordings better; or perhaps not. The set has something of the air of work-in-progress, in the best sense. I've indicated that from time to time Goode doesn't clinch a performance or, for my taste, go quite far enough. But there is nothing diffident or half-hearted about the way he makes this cycle of Beethoven resound wonderfully, the earlier sonatas appearing as no less masterly or characteristic of their composer than the later. Time, and other opinions, will be needed before one can rank this set in relations to all the others, though I'm sure it is an important one, superior to many, and will last. How gratifying that a musician-pianist who has avoided being hoovered up by anyone's publicity machine and has been quietly getting better these past 30 years should now float to the top.'

Also :

Penguin Guide to Compact Discs and DVDs, 2005/06 Edition

"It is not just the power of Goode's playing that singles him out, but also the beauty, when he has such subtle control over a formidably wide tonal and dynamic range. Even at its weightiest, the sound is never dangerous. Particularly in the early sonatas, Goode brings out the wit and parody, while slow movements regularly draw sensuously velvety legato. Helped by unusually full and clear recording, with no haze of reverberation, the clarity of his articulation is breathtaking, as in the running semiquavers of the finale of the Appassionata Sonata. Above all, Goode has a natural gravity which compels attention. One has to go back to the pre-digital era to find a Beethoven cycle of comparable command and intensity. A first choice for those wanting a modern digital cycle."