Some pianists romanticize everything they play, and that’s cause for criticism. Richard Goode classicizes everything he plays, and while the practice is also distorting, it’s accepted as aristocratic and intelligent.
Goode’s recital Sunday afternoon at Orchestra Hall was forthright and as reliable as a fine timepiece. The pianist, who sometimes hummed and made little unshowy gestures, appeared to be communing with himself in enjoyment of well-made things — one by Robert Schumann, three each by Johann Sebastian Bach and Joseph Haydn.
But for all the perfectly weighted chords and immaculate passagework, the range of expression was so narrow that Goode’s pianism occasionally seemed to celebrate abstract patterns instead of human documents. Often there was more the sense of a lesson in musical epochs than a sharing of passion for timeless masterworks.
Last on the program, Schumann’s “Kreisleriana” was first in interest given the composer’s bicentennial year. The suite of eight pieces depicting a moody, proto-romantic composer, is a work of high turbulence, introspection and caprice. Schumann wrote, “A positively wild love is in some of the movements.”
Goode’s account was fresh and faithful to the printed text in most matters. Yet the words “extremely” and “very” emphasize directions at the head of seven of the eight pieces, indicating just how forceful Schumann wanted characterizations to be. Goode did not indulge such over-the-top-ness, which was the difference between merely fast and headlong, light and fantastic, quiet and darkly brooding.
His Haydn sonatas — in E major, B minor and C major — showed admirable fingerwork governed by seriousness and moderation. A note by Goode in the program told of how “Haydn delights in abrupt transitions, twists and turns, sudden pauses and apparent non sequiturs.” The pianist’s delight sounded measured, donnish, less than infectious.
The program opened with Preludes and Fugues — in G major, F-sharp minor and C-sharp major — from Book Two of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” gravely played and expertly clarified.
Encores, going off like clockwork, were by William Byrd and Frederic Chopin.
