Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Richard Goode joins Peabody Faculty

So?

Great news for them, especially after the passing of Leon Fleisher.

Didn't he do all of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas; that's quite a feat. They're lucky to have him.

Perhaps I'm being a jerk here, but I'm listening to his Mozart A major concerto right now and, frankly, I don't find it to be anything special. What's the big deal that he's teaching at some bigshot conservatory? Music schools are a joke anyway. I think they do more harm than good anymore.

I have his recordings of the Beethoven sonatas. He is definitely skilled but I find his playing a bit bland. Just my opinion.

I'm not a great judge of musical talent/performance myself. I can, however, admire any man or woman that makes a successful career in classical music and does so with dedication. It's these things that draw more and more young people to this type of music. Does mediocre performance water down the music? Perhaps. But it's still, on the whole, benefitial to the art form.

a[Almost all the great pianists in history were trained at great music schools.

1. Greatness is never created in a school.
2. I said they do more harm than good... anymore.

1. If you mean that the great pianists had a lot of talent before they went to a conservatory, that's obviously true. If you mean they didn't learn a lot in the overwhelming majority of cases or that they would have been just as great without the instruction, that's false.
2. Not sure what you're getting at here, but if you mean present day conservatory training is not beneficial and does more harm than good I don't agree. Plus, you make the statement with no explanation of what you mean.

I don't want you to misunderstand me; I very much value teaching. It's the modern school system which I reject. Not only are they impractical, moneysucking monsters, but it is my opinion that what's being taught today, at least in the classical departments, is something very different than it was in the old days. Just listen to literally any classical recordings of 100 years ago compared to today, whether it's golden age pianists, violinists or Claude Debussy accompanying a singer. The classical music tradition has lost its organic quality, and I'm very against paying institutions large sums of money to learn how to be a homogenized musician.

I don't agree in the slightest with anything you say in this paragraph.

So?

Maybe start a new thread to discuss your opinions. I think it could be very interesting. I started this thread because I thought some here might be interested to know that Richard Goode is now full time major faculty at Peabody.

You mean like the Paris Conservatory at the turn of the 20th century that was directed by organist Theodore Dubois? He refused to allow French baroque music such as by Rameau or Couperin or late romantic music such as by Wagner or Mahler to be played or studied there. He saved his harshest vitriol for Debussy and Ravel. He threatened to expel from the conservatory any student who attended the 1902 world premiere performance of Debussy's opera Pelleas et Melissande. When conservatory student Maurice Ravel's string quartet was debuted in 1904, Dubois publicly rejected it as not being a valid musical composition. Dubois later was forced to retire early after a public scandal in which he had pressured conservatory faculty into blocking Ravel from receiving the Prix de Rome.

Being over 40 years younger than my piano teacher, I was taught by a pianist who had studied in the 1930's with the Leschetizky student Arne Oldberg. Oldberg was a pianist and composer in the music department at Northwestern U. who had some of his works performed by the Chicago Symphony. Per my teacher, Oldberg flatly refused to teach the music of Debussy because he did not consider it to be pianistic.

If the instruction of today is homogenizing, I shudder to think of what adjectives would be needed for the far more rigid instruction of 100 years ago.

Will Goode be teaching exclusively at Peabody? I believe he used to teach at Mannes although I'm not positive about that.

The article says he will be full time but I have no idea. He is very energetic but still, he is in his late 70s.

I remember being as off the mark as Chopinetto is in my young age. I even dropped out of my school with a written letter about the wrongs the 'academy' is doing to classical music, only to return later with another full scholarship.

The Universities keep getting better, and recording and the artists keep evolving and getting better IMO. Its easy to romanticize the past.

Good for Mr. Goode. I hope he has a long and wonderful tenure... and deeply touches the lives of many young musicians, which is likely

Why is it that some professional musicians are driven to perform and teach until they drop? A typical retirement just doesn't seem to be in the cards for these folks. On the plus side, it's great that Goode is willing to share his knowledge and experience with young aspiring musicians.

Agree.

It's definitely easy to romanticize the past - particularly when you weren't alive back then - and even if you were it's human nature to want to view the past through rose colored glasses.

That said, the cost of higher education today has become obscene IMO. The annual cost of TUITION alone at Peabody is approximately $54K.