Richard Goode & Beethoven

No. 311 of the ongoing ITYWLTMT series of audio montages, which can be found in our archives at https://archive.org/details/pcast311

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This week, we continue working our way through the Beethoven piano sonatas with a pair of sonata sets, one from the beginning of the cycle (his first three, op. 2) and from about two-thirds down the list (nos. 19 and 20, op. 49). What these sonatas have in common, if anything, is their brevity.

Composed in 1795, the Op. 2 sonatas are the first published piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. They are dedicated to Franz Joseph Haydn, a sign of respect for one of Beethoven’s most important teachers. Each of the three sonatas from the Op. 2 contains extraordinary slow movements, true masterpieces in their own right. The Adagio from the first sonata is an excellent example of the kind of playing Beethoven must have exhibited when performing for his friends and patrons. Extremely lyrical, this piece possesses an improvisatory quality that is not dampened by conforming to a simple binary structure.

The Op. 49 sonatas are considered relatively simple sonatas by some pianists, published in 1805 (although the works were actually composed a decade earlier in 1795–96, thus contemporaneous to the op. 2 set). Because they were published in Vienna in 1805, nearly a decade after actually written, they were assigned then-current opus and sonata numbers, which classified them alongside works from the composer's middle period. Both works are approximately eight minutes in length, and are split into two movements. These sonatas are referred to as the Leichte Sonaten to be given to his friends and students.

This week’s featured pianist, Richard Goode, studied piano with Elvira Szigeti, Claude Frank, Nadia Reisenberg at Mannes School of Music and Rudolf Serkin and Mieczysław Horszowski at the Curtis Institute. Not unlike his countryman Jeremy Denk, he is mainly a recitalist and chamber musician; his chamber-music partners included Dawn Upshaw, Richard Stoltzman and Alexander Schneider.

He is especially known for his interpretations of Mozart and Beethoven; Goode was the first American-born pianist to record the complete Beethoven piano sonatas.

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