Pianist Richard Goode: Breaking in the Steinway
It’s not every day you get to celebrate a gleaming, brand-new Steinway concert grand. Fredonia State
College welcomed its new instrument by inviting Steinway artist Richard Goode to break the piano in.
“I actually think that pianos shouldn’t have to be broken in,” he says. “The whole idea of a new piano, when
you get it from the factory, it should be ready to go. Some people have the idea that a piano has to be
seasoned and weathered from playing. From the very beginning, it should be.
You would expect Goode to take pianos personally. In concert and on CD, he emerges as a deeply
thoughtful artist. He gives the effect of being completely one with the instrument — so much so that, when he
played Buffalo’s prestigious Ramsi P. Tick Memorial Concert Series, one listener marveled, “He plays as if
the piano isn’t there.”
Goode, who studied at the Curtis Institute with Rudolf Serkin, is never on autopilot. He gives the impression
of savoring every melody and harmony.
“When the perfect feeling comes over you, you feel the current flowing,” he says. “You can usually tell
listening to takes when the current really flows.”
It’s not every day you get to celebrate a gleaming, brand-new Steinway concert grand. Fredonia State
College welcomed its new instrument by inviting Steinway artist Richard Goode to break the piano in.
“I actually think that pianos shouldn’t have to be broken in,” he says. “The whole idea of a new piano, when
you get it from the factory, it should be ready to go. Some people have the idea that a piano has to be
seasoned and weathered from playing. From the very beginning, it should be.
You would expect Goode to take pianos personally. In concert and on CD, he emerges as a deeply
thoughtful artist. He gives the effect of being completely one with the instrument — so much so that, when he
played Buffalo’s prestigious Ramsi P. Tick Memorial Concert Series, one listener marveled, “He plays as if
the piano isn’t there.”
Goode, who studied at the Curtis Institute with Rudolf Serkin, is never on autopilot. He gives the impression
of savoring every melody and harmony.
“When the perfect feeling comes over you, you feel the current flowing,” he says. “You can usually tell
listening to takes when the current really flows.”
