Pianistic Revelations

Call it the Wall Street Willies or what you will, the audience attending Richard Goode's Cal Performances recital at Zellerbach Hall on Sunday afternoon was in need of a musical bailout. Despite the somber tone of Bach's G-minor prelude from Bk. 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, which began his program, there was a palpable feeling of relief — that "this too shall pass." When Goode launched into the Fugue subject's obstinate repeated notes (evoking the Fugue for organ titled "These are the ten holy commandments," which also contains six repeated notes), Bach was like an Old Testament prophet who had come not to scold but to inspire. And as it progressed, dramatically turning into a double fugue with rhetorical flourishes at the end, I was amazed at how joyous all the strict double and triple counterpoint had become and how convincing the final cadence in the major key sounded. The French Suite in G Major, composed some 20 years earlier, was the perfect continuation, providing music of the most entrancing lightness. It was hard to believe it was the same composer, so completely had the learned cantor been spirited away by the lively dance music of his youth. It was brilliant programming, and as Goode subtly showed, the masters don't simply become better with age, they just have different things to say. The Chopin group that followed illustrated a welcome option that I wish more pianists would use. The program listed four "selected" Mazurkas, yet the program notes gave no hint as to which of the 50-odd gems that show Chopin at his most ethnic and at his most improvisatory would be selected. This gave Goode the option to choose which pieces he would do (on the spot?) for this particular concert. He chose wisely, even tossing in a fifth Mazurka as a lagniappe. Here, as in the Bach set, there was a contrast between early and late pieces and between lighthearted and serious. In Chopin's Mazurkas, "serious" does not mean "learned," as it does in Bach. The dance rhythms are still there, but they can evoke a mood for which words like pain and rancor, or even spleen, do not suffice. Goode did them all justice, and I was particularly touched by the variants he played in one of the most poignant ones, in A minor, Op. 7, No. 2. The alterations consisted mainly of a descending chromatic scale and another ravishing filigree passage that said, "There is textual fidelity, and there is spiritual fidelity, and if one must choose, I'll take the latter."

Feathery Embroidery

The final work in the Chopin set was the great C-sharp Minor Scherzo, Op. 39. I'd never heard Goode play it before, and it was worth the wait. Or maybe I should say, weightless, which is the way the embroidery of the chorale theme sounded. There may have been more-dramatic readings of this defiant work, but I can hardly imagine a more transcendent one. The Schubert Sonata in B flat (opus Posthumous), composed in the last months of his life, concluded the program. It was marvelous for once to hear the repeat of the exposition of the first movement, and it made me forgive the omission of the repeat in the finale of the "Moonlight" Sonata that Goode played here awhile back. Not only did we get to hear the infinitely consoling music of the beginning yet again (can we ever hear this divine music too many times?), but also the first ending that is only heard if the repeat is observed. This passage, which contains the trill in the lowest register, is hammered out fortissimo, instead of as the usual distant rumble. It seems to erupt out of nowhere, but is really a continuation of the rhetorical aspect of the piece — a kind of "Dialogue With Death," showing that Schubert may not have been going as "gently" into that good night as we might have otherwise thought. It seems appropriate that this most songlike of sonatas presents a synthesis of the anguish of the "Erlking" and the acceptance of "Death and the Maiden." The slow movement of the Sonata is in the extremely distant key of C-sharp minor. It recalls the slow movement from the "Wanderer" fantasy in its sense of remoteness and dislocation, and by its inclusion of a contrasting section in major key. Goode caressed the insistent repetition of the ubiquitous rhythmic figures in the left hand with infinite care, making it into something more than obstinate, thus evoking both tragedy and acceptance. The Scherzo was a return to the lighthearted theme of the program, but with a touch of irony or sarcasm in the trio section as Goode played it, the sforzandos in the bass stubborn and witty to the end. The finale brought together all the qualities that make Goode's playing so marvelous. It opened my ears to a transcendent world of humor, passion, and grace.