Richard Goode

Chopin

About this Album

Pianist Richard Goode presents an all-Chopin recital, affording listeners a rare opportunity to hear another side of Goode, who has been widely acknowledged as one of today's leading interpreters of the music of Beethoven and Schubert. The disc includes performances of the Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61, in A-flat Major; the Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 2; the Scherzo, Op. 54 in E Major; the Barcarolle, Op. 60, in F-sharp Major; and five Mazurkas: Op. 7, No. 3 in F Minor; Op. 41, No. 3 in A-flat Major; Op. 17 No. 1 in B-flat Major; Op. 17, No. 2 in E Minor; and Op. 17, No. 4 in A Minor.

In 1995, Goode spent a year-long sabbatical with the music of Chopin, and of the experience says, “I immersed myself in Chopin as I had in Beethoven. It is equivalent to learning a language. It educates you to a different way of playing piano.” The critical response to his concert performances of Chopin had already been well documented: Allan Ulrich (San Francisco Examiner) commented on the "exploratory, spontaneous charge" that Goode brought to the music, while James Oestreich (New York Times) noted Goode's "wonderful perspicacity" in "a torrent of Chopin." John von Rhein (Chicago Tribune) said in a concert review, “Goode rose splendidly to the big heroic pages of Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie."

With this recording, listeners have the chance to rediscover Chopin in much the same way the artist has. As Goode has remarked, “There’s a quality of ecstasy in Chopin and in late Beethoven. That’s something Beethoven learned to have and that Chopin had from the beginning.”