An Evening of Bach

Richard Goode is one of today’s most thoughtful and sincere musicians, always seeking musical truth rather than personal fame or fortune. I have had the good fortune to witness his many wonderful performances. Mr. Goode had been absent from the Vancouver stage for a good many years, and so it was with great anticipation that I attended his solo recital last evening, dedicated entirely to the music of J. S. Bach.

Goode opened both the first and second half of his recital with a Prelude and Fugue from the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. He began his recital with the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 870. He does not shy away from exploiting (in the best sense of the word) the colouristic potential of the modern piano in Bach, and he employed a very judicious use of pedal. The results were of course music making with a great deal of colour, a very “pianistic” sort of playing. He played the fugue with a keen sense of motion.

The French Suite No. 5 in G Major, BWV 816 is a work that is technically within the reach of many piano students. It does, however, take a great musician like Goode to bring out the true beauty and craftsmanship of the piece. After beautifully playing the Allemande, Goode achieved an incredible sense of lightness and buoyancy in the bubbly Courante. I appreciated his choice of tempo in the Sarabande, where every note was like a pearl within a precious necklace. Goode brought out a wonderful feeling of lilt in the famous Gavotte (another work often butchered by many young students), always emphasizing the horizontal line of the music. There was gentleness in Goode’s playing of the Loure, and a great feeling of bounce in the Gigue.

It is quite rare for pianists to include the Sinfonias in a recital programme, as Good did last evening. I personally think that the fifteen Sinfonias are, in terms of compositional craftsmanship and musicality, just as staggering as the Well-Tempered Clavier. That the pieces were played with incredible pianism is probably something that can be assumed, but Goode also successfully brought out the distinct and contrasting characteristic of each individual work. I found particularly memorable the beauty of his sound in the E-flat major and G minor Sinfonias. The final Sinfonia in B minor was given a performance light and fleet fingered performance that took our breath away.

After the interval, the artist began his performance with the Prelude and Fugue in F Major, BWV 880, where he especially brought out the humour of the fugue with its quirky subject.

Bach’s Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 is an unusual work, since it does not end with a Gigue, but a boisterous Capriccio. I did miss the sense of space and feeling of high drama in the opening Grave adagio, with its dotted rhythmic figures, as well as a sense of surprise and wonder at the beginning of the Andante section (m. 8). I did think that the transition to the ¾ section was beautifully done. From where I sat, there was some blurring of lines in the Courante, but that could have been a result of the acoustic of the hall rather than a case of over-pedaling. In the deceptively simple Sarabande, Goode beautifully sustained the long melodic lines, as well as the feeling of the walking rhythm. I thought that he had a real sense of the pulse of the music in the Rondeau, something that is so difficult to achieve. The closing Capriccio was played with great energy, and a sense of propulsion, of forward motion. 

I don’t know if I admired Goode’s playing more, or that he managed to play the Italian Concerto, BWV 971 without the aid of the page-turner, an amazing feat in itself! The opening movement had great energy. There could perhaps be greater contrast between the ripieno and the concertino. In the Andante, Goode had a real feeling for the long line of the right hand, and a sense of buoyancy in the left hand. The Presto closing movement was breathtaking, with the most incredible feeling of lightness and energy in the left hand I have heard in a long time.

It was a truly enjoyable evening of great music played by a great pianist. When I hear wonderful Bach playing by pianists like Goode or Andras Schiff, I find it even more difficult to understand the great fame achieved by that other Canadian pianist for her Bach playing, which seems to me very ordinary, even pedestrian. That said, it may seem excessively harsh (and picky) to say that last night’s concert was merely very beautiful, but what I felt was that the artist did not touch on the spiritual dimension of Bach’s music, a sense of reaching into the hereafter. At risk of being accused of asking for the impossible, I do believe that Bach’s music possesses these qualities. I thought Schiff was more successful in reaching beyond the notes when he performed Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier here a few years back. I would love to hear Goode play the same programme many times to really get a sense of what he is trying to achieve with these works.

A Debut with Bach and Beethoven

One of the hallmarks of a successful musical performance is when, on top of the visceral excitement the music generates, an artist draws the audience into the emotional and spiritual world of the composers. Andras Schiff did this masterfully in his recent recital here, and I knew that Nelson Goerner, making his Vancouver debut last night, would have a, shall we say, a tough act to follow.

J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 6 in E Minor, BWV 830, has the largest canvas of the six, large in scope as well as in emotional range, and the most technically difficult. Goerner’s performance of this great work was certainly a pianistic tour de force, but unfortunately not more than that. In the opening Toccata, the pianist failed, to my ears, to fathom the profundity and the gravity of the music. It also lacked a certain feeling of spaciousness, and of musical tension. I believe that the artist could have made greater use of the brief moments of silence in between musical ideas, especially right before the arrival of the fugue (m. 26). In the great fugue, I do commend Goerner in the clarity of the voices and textures, but again, it was not a spiritual journey, such that with the return of the opening musical idea (m. 89), it did not evoke a sense of great emotional release.

I do not believe that the repeats in the dances should be observed just for the sake of observing them. Goerner observed every repeat in the dances, but played them exactly the same way as he did the first time.  I feel that repeats should be played only if the artist has something different to say about the music.

Goerner displayed an incredible deftness and lightness of touch in the Corrente as well as the rhythmically tricky Tempo de Gavotta, but it sounded more like, forgive me, Scarlatti rather than Bach. Even in the great Sarabande, it became like a series of beautiful notes, rather than a sense of time standing still. The artist very successfully navigated the incredible complexities of the fugue-like Gigue, and it was truly stunning piano playing. Mr. Goerner is a young man; he has all the time in the world to plunge the depths of Bach. To me, he is at the beginning of this incredible journey.

Of all the “great” composers, Felix Mendelssohn is a figure that sometimes puzzles me. The composer of the great Violin Concerto in E Minor, the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Piano Trio in D Minor, and the joyous Octet in E-flat Major, music that are, to me, divinely inspired, also wrote a lot of music that are merely effective. The Fantasy in F-sharp Minor, Op. 28, the so-called Scottish Sonata, is one such piece. To my ears, it is a piece, written by a great pianist, reveling in the act (and joy) of playing the piano. To that end, Goerner succeeded admirably, and the playing was one of great sweep and panache. Musically and pianistically, it was a more successful performance than one given by Murray Perahia years ago.

It is difficult to believe that we would be hearing Beethoven Hammerklavier twice in one season (Steven Osborne gave a wonderful performance of this work a few weeks ago). Goerner was a different pianist in the Beethoven, and it was a performance of total commitment, and of great beauty and depth. He understood and realized the construction and architecture of the 1^st movement, resulting in a performance of grandeur and excitement.

In the Scherzo, the pianist understood the unique humour in late Beethoven, the pregnant pauses, the Prestissimo scale-run at m. 112 and brief tremolo that follows (m. 113-114) were particularly effective as well as truly humourous. I was particularly moved by Goerner’s playing of the tremendous Adagio sostenuto, which was certain, as Beethoven instructed, Appassionato e con molto sentimento. Here, the artist succeeded in drawing us into the emotional core of the music. The final three-voice fugue was played with absolute confidence and conviction, and stunning trills! To me, the performance of this great work was masterful, and completely satisfactory.

After a well-deserved ovation, the Goerner gave us two items for “dessert”, a Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s rhythmically intriguing Nocturne, and Felix Blumenfeld’s (Vladimir Horowitz’s teacher) Etude for the Left Hand. The performance of the Blumenfeld was truly breathtaking. One would almost be tempted to say that Mr. Goerner has the greatest left-hand in the music world. It was an incredible feat of pianism.

We are truly fortunate to have the Vancouver Chopin Society as well as the Vancouver Recital Society to keep the solo recital alive in our community. We await the joys of further musical discoveries in the next few months and coming concert seasons.