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Richard Goode’s Schubert: More Than Just “Good”

Jed Distler

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

Because Richard Goode makes relatively few recordings these days, Arkivmusic.com’s reprint of a wonderful Schubert release recorded in 1990 is particularly welcome. Although the A minor D. 845 hardly lacks for first rate recorded versions (from Lili Kraus and Wilhelm Kempff to Michael Endres and Mitsuko Uchida), Goode’s mindful virtuosity and stylish, passionate music making rivet your attention.

His relatively brisk pace for the first-movement Moderato allows for subtle inflections of phrase and pulse that propels the music without ever sounding impatient or rushed. Goode states the Andante’s theme with seeming simplicity and understatement from which the elaborate variations take wing. When the minor-key variation arrives, Goode’s tone takes on a slightly weightier aspect that enhances the music’s change in character. The Scherzo’s dotted rhythms and syncopated accents convey an angular intensity quite different from Radu Lupu’s rounder, more yielding treatment, while Goode’s melodic contouring of the Rondo’s toccata-like patterns move over the barlines to revealing effect.

The D major D. 850’s opening Allegro also is marvelously detailed yet full of forward-moving sweep. It’s interesting how Goode does not inflect the tempo for the loud second theme in the manner of Schnabel, yet the surging dynamics and hard-hitting accents make it sound as if Goode is doing just that. By contrast, minute adjustments to the basic pulse allow Goode to distinguish legato and detached phrasings in the Con moto while maintaining a sense of long line. I like how Goode elongates some of the Scherzo’s loud repeated chords, and pays more attention to the left-hand countermelodies than most. In the wrong hands, the Rondo’s nursery rhyme-like theme can sound trite, yet Goode sidesteps this tendency and preserves the movement’s surface simplicity through pinpointed rhythmic precision, specificity of phrasing, and expressive economy. Also worthy of mention are the late Michael Steinberg’s scholarly annotations and Max Wilcox’s clean, close-up engineering, despite just a tinge of stridency in the loudest passages. Highly recommended.


Recording Details:

Reference Recording: D. 845: This one, Uchida (Philips); D. 850: This one, Curzon (Decca)

  • SCHUBERT, FRANZ:
    Piano Sonata in A minor D. 845; Piano Sonata in D major D. 850
  • Record Label: Nonesuch - 79271
  • Medium: CD

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