Biography

Known for imagination, a graceful, elegant style, and exquisite technique, Canadian Stewart Goodyear is a pianist whose career spans many genres. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music in his native Toronto, received a Bachelor’s Degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and completed a Master’s Degree at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he now lives. At the core of his repertory are the 32 Beethoven sonatas, recordings of which Jed Distler in Classics Today called “intelligently stylish. Swift tempos, forward sweep, linear clarity, imaginative yet never mannered inflections and genuine joy in executing the composer’s volatile dynamic markings all characterize Goodyear’s interpretations.” In addition to his prowess as a pianist, Goodyear is also known as a skilled improviser and a composer. Recent commissions include a Piano Quintet for the Penderecki String Quartet, and a solo work for the 2022 Honens Piano Competition in Calgary. Orchid Classics has released Goodyear’s recording of his own piano sonata and his suite for piano and orchestra, Callaloo. Another CD of special interest is entitled For Glenn Gould, which combines repertory from Gould’s debut recitals in Montreal and the U.S. His recording of his own transcription of Tchaikovsky’s complete Nutcracker ballet was chosen by the New York Times as one of the best classical music recordings of 2015. 3rd LMMC engagement.

https://www.stewartgoodyearpiano.com/

Notes

Today’s program opens with a work by the pianist himself. It was commissioned by Wigmore Hall in London as part of its Lockdown Commission Scheme during the COVID pandemic. Goodyear gave the first performance there on September 23 of last year and the Canadian premiere in Toronto’s Rose Gellert Hall on November 19. This afternoon’s performance marks its Quebec premiere. The title comes from one of Robert Frost’s most famous poems, written in 1914. The poem, states Goodyear, “describes change and the struggle of humanity to embrace it. During the pandemic, so many people had to create walls in order to protect themselves, but at the same time there was this communication, and I liked the idea of the wall bringing them together.”

Bach’s Partitas, English Suites, and French Suites – six of each – collectively rank among the glories of the keyboard literature. Each is a four-part sequence of dance movements, all in the same key but varied by rhythm, tempo and mood: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. Each movement has a different national origin, respectively German, French, Spanish and English/Irish. To this basic framework additional movements are found between the Sarabande and Gigue. The moniker “French” is not found in any of Bach’s surviving manuscripts. The first reference to “French” Suites is found only in 1762, twelve years after Bach’s death, by the critic and theorist Friedrich W. Marpurg. Numerous attempts have been made to determine just what is specifically “French” about these suites, but in the final analysis, the answer is “very little, if anything.”

The story of how Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations came into being is well-known, though its veracity has been questioned. In l819, a Viennese music publisher, Anton Diabelli (1781-1858), conceived the idea of commissioning about fifty composers each to write a variation based on a waltz tune (actually, a Ländler) he had written. Beethoven, as usual, went his own way. Rather than making a single contribution he spent four years amassing a veritable encyclopedia of 33 variations that Diabelli had to publish separately. Across the huge span of these variations Beethoven takes us from a trivial little tune through a cosmos of creativity, culminating in a double fugue of great power and impetus. Along the way we encounter an astonishing variety of moods and spiritual worlds, from boisterous humor through gaiety, glitter, pomp, caprice, intimacy, solemnity, and mystery to rarefied tranquility.

Robert Markow