Beginning with one of Mozart’s few pieces in B minor and finishing with one of Schumann’s last piano works, world-renowned pianist Richard Goode will perform a program Wednesday evening that spans the 18th and 19th centuries.
Music department chair Steve Swayne said Goode is often praised for his skill in interpreting pieces, making them his own.
Music professor and pianist-in-residence Sally Pinkas said Goode chose a “wonderful combination” of composers and pieces for the show.
Goode’s program for the evening will include works by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Schumann. Schumann piece’s “Humoreske” (Op. 20) is known to be a long, emotionally varied piece, Hop programming director Margaret Lawrence said.
“Every movement of ‘Humoreske’ has a completely different personality,” Lawrence said.
Goode will also perform the more whimsical “Children’s Corner” by Debussy. Cynthia Tan ’17, who took piano lessons with Pinkas last year, called the piece one of her favorites growing up, noting that it is lively, lighthearted and exciting.
Goode, who in the 2013-14 season soloed with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, started this concert season at the Lincoln Center for its Mostly Mozart Festival. Among his more than two dozen recordings is a Grammy-nominated full recording of Beethoven’s sonatas. In 1983 he and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman won a Grammy award for Best Chamber Music Performance.
Swayne said Goode’s program will offer listeners moving interpretations, not “prestidigitation.”
“There are places for a lot of rumination and contemplation,” he said.
Goode is known for his attention to the music, not flashy flourishes, Lawrence said.
“He opens up this world to you on this spiritual level that is incredibly involving, very profound, very beautiful, very sensitive,” Lawrence said. “He doesn’t try to grandstand.”
Tan said watching Goode perform live will offer more than his recordings.
“Everybody has their own spin. Everybody brings their own life experiences, their own passion into the music they create,” Tan said. “That’s why seeing live shows is so awesome, because you don’t get that with recordings. People spend so much time trying to perfect recordings that you don’t get the genuine feeling behind the music.”
Goode’s ties to the region go beyond Dartmouth. From 1999 to 2013, Goode served alongside Mitsuko Uchida as co-artistic director of the Marlboro Music School and Festival — a summer program in Marlboro, Vermont, that Goode began attending when he was 14.
Lawrence said the Hop has already sold more than 180 seats to Dartmouth students.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m. in Spaulding Auditorium.
