Richard Goode’s long-awaited Beethoven Concerto cycle holds much to admire. For starters, Max Wilcox’s production balances the piano and the Budapest Festival Orchestra in a natural concert hall perspective that allows all instruments to speak without being overly spotlit. A genuine chamber-like ambience prevails, notably in the unusual clarity and character Ivan Fischer elicits in concertante sections, as well as in the first-desk players’ distinct solo work. Compared to the Bronfman/Zinman edition’s stinging detail and visceral impact, or Uchida/Sanderling’s ferocity and heft, Goode and Fischer offer more stylish reserve, on par with the patrician Perahia/Haitink traversals.
Yet Goode also shares Leon Fleisher’s tendency to shape passages across the barlines to emphasize unexpected modulations and asymmetrical phrase groupings. Perhaps Goode displays this quality most cogently in the C minor concerto Rondo’s runs, roulades, and out-of-tempo flourishes. In addition, Goode imbues the slow movements with subtle yet palpable tension and release, notably in No. 4, with its unusually brisk basic tempo, and No. 5’s floating right-hand cantilena.
On the other hand, the matter-of-fact First and Second concerto Rondo finales fall short of their scampering, witty potential, while the Fifth’s small-scaled proficiency in the outer movements may disappoint listeners accustomed to the muscularity and momentum of “big band” Emperors as different as Arrau/Davis and Ashkenazy/Solti.
Michael Steinberg’s excellent and insightful booklet notes count among the best I’ve ever encountered concerning these works. Incidentally, Goode plays the third and longest of Beethoven’s first-movement cadenzas, and, in the Fourth, takes the cadenza option favored by Schnabel, Arrau, and Fleisher.
