Richard Goode

Richard Goode is back! We had to miss him for a while, as he had taken a sabbatical. That was not to idle his time away, but to recharge and explore new repertoire. And it is with renewed energy and undoubtedly further matured insights that he returns to his great love, Beethoven, and not least to the holy trinity of the piano repertoire, the master's last three sonatas. This is a 'tour de force' by any standards, since they demand the utmost from the performer. They are, indeed, a synthesis of all the forms and ways of expression that Beethoven had explored in the preceding sonatas. For the performer, it is a tremendous challenge to find the right balance between the many opposites - between intimate reverie and explosive eruption, between complex fugue and simple aria, between the mundane and the exalted, all the expression of a rich personality. But by no means beyond this great pianist.