Classical Music Review: Disappointing performances by famed senior pianists

Richard Goode, piano

Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall

April 17, 2018

Leon Fleisher, pianist/conductor

The Peabody Conservatory Chamber Orchestra

Town Hall, Manhattan

April 15, 2018

The renowned New York pianist Richard Goode (b. 1943) is best known for his complete recorded Beethoven sonatas and for music of the classical era generally. His recent wide-ranging Lincoln Center recital largely disappointed outside his Beethoven core. He began with an unusual offering, Two Pavanes and Galliards by Renaissance composer William Byrd. These pieces are usually played on the virginal or harpsichord, and while the piano could in theory be a viable alternative, Goode did not emphasize the dance character adequately to make the pieces come alive. Comparatively, Bach is more often played on the piano, even though written for harpsichord; the standard of Bach playing from young pianists has risen in recent years, so that I now expect crystalline clarity and inner voice emphasis that Goode did not deliver in his over-pedaled and metronomic performance of the “English” Suite in D minor, BWV 811, composed by a young Bach in 1715. The long fugue in the prelude was virtuosic but played rapidly without attention to inner voices, creating a surprisingly monotonous beginning to the suite. As in the Byrd, lack of emphasis of dance rhythms in what is, after all, a dance suite made the overall performance a bit wooden. It reminded me of old-time pianists who would include Bach in their recitals mostly to show how fast they could play the fugues. Bach does not respond well to such empty virtuosic display. Goode's stage presence is reticent, and often accompanied by his humming. All the pieces were played with music, even the Beethoven which presumably he could play in his sleep.

The best piece of the recital, as expected, was Beethoven’s Sonata No. 28 in A, Op. 101 (1816), the first of his experimental late sonatas. The piece is not quite of the quality of the later sonatas, but is still intriguing and innovative, beginning with a lyrical slow movement, and including a Schumann-esque central forceful march on an odd, angular rather unmelodic theme. The ending movement’s fugue feels like a study for the later massive Hammerklavier Sonata. Here, Goode was on his home turf, and delivered a well-paced, intellectually coherent performance that felt very modern, not trying to force Beethoven into a classical or romantic box. After intermission, his performance of Book Two of the Debussy Preludes (1911-13) failed to impress. Doing these 11 pieces as a successful set (as in the Chopin Preludes or Etudes) requires a very imaginative pianist who can either dazzle with tone color (like Monet playing with blues and greens) or with outright velocity, variety and virtuosity. Goode did neither, and his middle of the road playing, while OK for 1-2 pieces, was not compelling enough to maintain my interest in the complete set. He was best in the stately procession (inspired by an Egyptian vase he owed) of Canope, and in the flashy ending Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), where he fired up his fingerwork to create a vivid sound picture of flashing lights. The other nine pieces did not communicate similar inspiration, sadly. Listen to Marc-André Hamelin for real excitement in this repertory.

Leon Fleisher’s appearance with the Peabody Conservatory (Baltimore) Chamber Orchestra was a sad affair. The legendary ninety-year-old pianist programmed an all-Mozart concert of two symphonies and a concerto, but his conducting did not seem to give the young musicians much to work with. There was neither facial expression nor expressive hand motions in his conducting (done seated), and the orchestra’s frequent ensemble lapses suggested a lack of effective rehearsal or coordination. Fleisher often just stopped conducting, which may be OK with a virtuoso ensemble like the Vienna Philharmonic, who can pretty much play on its own, but is not so great with a student ensemble.  

Fleisher showed some good musical ideas in the Mozart Concerto in A, K. 414, including well chosen tempi and nice lyrical melody in the slow movement, but his inconsistent execution of trills revealed declining technique. The opening Symphony No. 1 in E flat, K. 16, composed when Mozart was 9 (!) is not very substantial, and needed a far more buoyant, brisk performance in tune with a child prodigy’s world than Fleisher delivered. The second half performance of the “Jupiter” Symphony No. 41, K, 551 did not reveal any new insights into a very familiar piece. The ending Molto Allegro was well played by the young orchestra, showing excellent precision, velocity, and articulation, and the Andante was blissfully not too slow, but a clearer set of ideas from the conducting stand was needed in such a familiar piece. The audience, many who seemed chronologic contemporaries of Fleisher, honored him with robust ovations, but I failed to see the excitement. Are concerts honoraria or about the music? The scene reminded me of rock concerts I seen on PBS featuring blissed out seventy-year-old audiences rocking out to arthritic 1960’s rock bands who keep performing despite age’s toll. Nostalgia is well and good, but I think that both rock and roll and the conducting of young orchestras is best done by people with some vitality. You have to know when you have lost this, or risk becoming a fossil on stage.