Stewart Goodyear's Beethoven Piano Concertos: "One of the most thrilling projects I've ever been a part of."
Pianist Stewart Goodyear's Beethoven Piano Concerto cycle recorded with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was this week's Album of the Week on Scala Radio.
Last updated 13th Mar 2020
If you're new to Beethoven's epic concertos and you’re partial to bingeing, be sure to set aside time this weekend (or in the weeks to come) to listen to all five back to back.
Stewart Goodyear’s album with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Andrew Constantine might be a good starting point to explore Beethoven's piano concertos, not least because bingeing on Beethoven's output was how Goodyear was first introduced to the composers piano sonatas at the tender age of nine. Yes, nine.
Speaking to Simon Mayo earlier today from the US, an otherwise bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Goodyear described the experience of listening to the entire set of sonatas for the first time.
“My day started from 10 in the morning until 11 at night. One LP after the other. Each one felt like opening up a box of chocolates. I heard all of these different layers of humanity in the sonatas - that was an important day At the end of that day I knew I wanted to be a pianist. My journey with Beethoven started there.”
Beethoven’s piano concertos showcase his talents as a virtuoso pianist (some say Beethoven wrote them deliberately to antagonise his Viennese peers). Each concerto are epic in detail, range and development. Like the symphonies, hear the concertos back to back and you hear someone dramatically changing the way they’re writing from one work to the next. There’s a whiff of the opera about them too, all commanded from the keyboard by one musician.
There have been many who have risen to the considerable challenge set by Ludwig (and there will be many to come too). From Orchid Classics this week and on Scala Radio, pianist Stewart Goodyear is the latest to add his name to the list.
Describing his recording project with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, pianist Stewart Goodyear said, "It's was one of the most thrilling projects I've ever been a part of. Every time I listen to those recordings I beam."
And Stewart's first introduction to classical music? Via the LP collection his father left behind when he died from cancer. An album collection including luminaries like Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin Ballads, The Who, and the Beatles. “Each LP was an opus number,” he explained.
So, that's a few others back catalogues to get your teeth into after the Beethoven piano concertos then.
Listen to Stewart's interview with Simon Mayo via Listen Again
Discover more about Stewart Goodyear on his website__.