Katharine Goodson
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
.
Born in Watford
Watford
Watford is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, situated northwest of central London and within the bounds of the M25 motorway. The borough is separated from Greater London to the south by the urbanised parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District.Watford was created as an urban...
, Goodson studied the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
; she also worked with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Her London debut took place on January 16, 1897. The tours of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
which followed placed her in the front rank of British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
female pianists of the era. Goodson made her American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
debut on January 18, 1907, appearing as soloist with the Boston Symphony in a concert in the orchestra's home city.
Goodson died in London in 1958.
Early Life and Training
Katharine Goodson was born in 1872, the second child of Charles and Sarah Goodson of Watford, England. She had two brothers, Arthur and Ernest, and a sister, Ethel.As a child Goodson was reputed to play the violin better than the piano and it was her then teacher, noting that ‘she had a perfect piano hand’, who said that she should focus on the piano ‘rather than master neither’.
At 12, having already made several appearances in the English provinces, she entered the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, studying under Oscar Beringer between 1886 and 1892. After an invitation to play for the renowned pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.-Biography:...
, she was introduced to his former teacher Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna, himself once a student of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
’s own friend and pupil, Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. He is best remembered today for his books of études for the piano. Czerny's music was profoundly influenced by his teachers, Muzio Clementi, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Antonio Salieri and Ludwig van Beethoven.-Early life:Carl Czerny was born...
. Goodson spent four years studying with Leschetizky and despite having previously lost out on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, her performance of the Tschaikowsky Concerto halfway through her studies so impressed Leschestizky that he refused to take any payment for her final two years.
Early Career
On leaving Leschetizky in 1896, Goodson was introduced to the conductor and violinist Eugène YsaÿeEugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
and played with him in Brussels. This forged a meeting with the American violinist Maud Powell
Maud Powell
Maud Powell was an American violinist who gained international acclaim for her skill and virtuosity. She was born in Peru, Illinois. She was the first American violinist to achieve international rank...
, with whom she played numerous concerts, paving the way for engagements across Belgium, Germany and the South of France and rapidly establishing her presence in continental Europe. Goodson based herself in London through this period, debuting there in 1897, in Berlin in 1899 and in Vienna in 1900. Between 1902 and 1904 she toured extensively with the Czech violinist and composer Jan Kubelik
Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Michle . His father, a gardener by occupation, was an amateur violinist. He taught his two sons the violin and after discovering the talent of Jan, who was aged five at the time, arranged for him to study with Karel Weber and...
. When her sister Ethel, who had stayed with her during much of her time in Vienna, went to Budapest to become the governess to the son of Count István Tisza
István Tisza
Count István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged was a Hungarian politician, prime minister, and member of Hungarian Academy of Sciences....
, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Goodson went to stay with academic and parliamentarian William Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington and his wife Lady Katrina Conway at their London house.
It was Leschetizky who again sought to further Goodson’s career with an introduction to the conductor Artúr Nikisch. At the concert hall Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus is a concert hall in Leipzig, Germany. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics. The first Gewandhaus was built in 1781 by architect Johann Carl Friedrich Dauthe. The second opened on 11 December 1884, and was destroyed in the...
, Leipzieg she played Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
’s ‘Pappillona’ and Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
’s ‘A Minor’. After the performance, Nikisch congratulated her: “I have known many artists during my life, and many soloists, but the true musicians I can count on the fingers of one hand, d’Albert
Eugen d'Albert
Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...
, Ysäye
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
, Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.-Biography:...
, and to those you belong, Miss Goodson.”
American Debut
Nikisch and Goodson toured widely together across Germany, and on her return to London the two met again, whereupon Nikisch arranged for her debut engagement with the Boston Symphony OrchestraBoston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
.
The appearance nearly didn’t happen. While making the Atlantic crossing, two days from Boston, her ship encountered a hurricane and a piece of ice, broken away from icebergs further north, crashed through the heavy plate glass of Goodson’s stateroom window as she was resting before dinner, landing within a foot of her head.
Having narrowly avoided injury, her Boston unveiling came on January 18, 1907 to wide acclaim. The Boston Transcript wrote: “Her interpretation was poetic, supplying that indispensable sense of imaginative atmosphere essential to Grieg, while containing precisely that right pitch of bravura abandon, of dramatic sensuousness which the concerto demands. Her rhythm is incisive, full of fire, and yet, when the occasion demands, elastic.”
Violinist Franz Kneisel
Franz Kneisel
Franz Kneisel was an American violinist and teacher of Romanian birth.Born in Bucharest, the son of a German bandmaster, he learned to play the flute, clarinet and trumpet, as well as the violin...
was present and immediately engaged her to play with his Kneisal Quartette at further concerts in Boston and New York. Through this relationship Goodson became instrumental in the American popularisation of her composer husband Arthur Hinton, giving the first performances of his ‘Piano Quintet’, ‘Trio in D Minor’ and later his ‘Rhapsody’ and many other pieces for piano, notably the ‘Rigandon’, ‘Fireflies’ from ‘A Summer Pilgrimage’ and ‘Romance in A flat’.
International Career
Hinton’s own work equally favoured Goodson’s career. Following her second American tour and a brief spell back in London, Hinton was invited to go to Australia to conduct the music exams for its Royal Schools of MusicAssociated Board of the Royal Schools of Music
ABRSM is an internationally recognised educational body and charity that provides examinations in music The organisation, based in London, UK, runs exams in centres all over the world...
and a tour there was arranged for Goodson. Despite some trepidation on her part – noting that both Paderewski and pianist María Teresa Carreño
Teresa Carreño
María Teresa Carreño García de Sena was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor.Born into a musical family, she was at first taught by her father, then by Mathias, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein and her talent was recognized at an early age...
had recently toured there, while their peer Mark Hambourg
Mark Hambourg
Mark Hambourg was a distinguished Russian-British concert pianist, among the most famous of his age.- Life :Mark Hambourg was the eldest son of the pianist Michael Hambourg , and was brother of the cellist Boris Hambourg and the violinist Jan Hambourg , and of the musical organiser Clement...
was half way through his third Australian tour – she was greeted with enthusiasm.
A third American tour immediately followed where her appearances included working with the conductors Vasily Safonoff and Ossip Gabrilowitsch
Ossip Gabrilowitsch
Ossip Gabrilowitsch was a Russian-born American pianist, conductor and composer.- Biography :...
. With violinist Bronislaw Huberman
Bronislaw Huberman
Bronisław Huberman was a Jewish Polish violinist. He was known for his individualistic and personal interpretations and was praised for his tone color, expressiveness, and flexibility...
and cellist Felix Salmond
Felix Salmond
Felix Adrian Norman Salmond was an English cellist and cello teacher who achieved success in both England and the United States of America.-Early life and career:...
she contributed to the Beethoven Association concerts, raising funds for the association’s publication of Thayer’s
Alexander Wheelock Thayer
Alexander Wheelock Thayer , was a librarian and journalist who became the author of the first scholarly biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, still after many updatings regarded as a standard work of reference on the composer.-Life:Originally a librarian at Harvard law school, Thayer became aware of...
‘Life of Beethoven’.
It was after her fourth American tour that Goodson furthered her horizons with a tour of Jamaica in early 1915. Critical acclaim was again poured on her, although it was a night encounter at Parson Green’s Mission House in a roofless room that perhaps made the greater impression on Goodson. She wrote: “We had ten rat-bats in our room that night, innumerable lizards on the walls and mosquitoes ad infinitum. We wrapped our heads in scarves, but I can truthfully say I do not think I lost consciousness for five minutes during that longest night I have ever spent, for it was a succession of swoops, and creeps, and bites! Ugh!”
Goodson spent much of 1916 in North America, performing at fundraising concerts for the Red Cross and Canadian Prisoners of War. In all, her international career took her to North America over a total of seven separate tours, including two world tours that she shared with the Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. She also toured Java and Sumatra and developed a presence in the Nordic region with a tour of Norway, Sweden and Finland.
In May 1918 Goodson claimed to become the first woman to give a Recital at the Albert Hall, London, playing a Chopin programme on behalf of the Kensington War Hospital Supply Depot. The Pall Mall Gazette noted: “Her reception was extraordinarily enthusiastic and the stage was literally inundated with bouquets.”
Later Career
Goodson’s international presence remained dominant throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The latter decade also brought with it Goodson’s first experience playing with the conductor Sir Thomas BeechamThomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
, in 1931. The two maintained a lasting professional relationship, based on a mutual appreciation. Following Beecham’s “Vocal Birthday Tribute to Delius
Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
” in 1932, the Daily Sketch noted: “Goodson played the solo part so attractively that once Sir Thomas was caught by a sudden pause singing his own satisfaction over it.” It was also Beecham, who in 1936, encouraged Goodson to diversify and tour performing a harpsichord concerto. The Daily Telegraph wrote: “For a famous Leschetizky pupil, it must have seemed like exchanging big guns for bows and arrows. Miss Goodson seemed to have taken to the new arm as to the manner born”.
The Second World War interrupted Goodson’s later career, during which she experienced the destruction of her London home in the Blitz, followed shortly by the death of her husband and then further extensive bomb damage to her country home. Nevertheless, in 1944-1945 she returned to the piano to play with the conductors Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
, Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
and Basil Cameron
Basil Cameron
Basil Cameron, CBE was an English conductor. He was born in Reading, Berkshire, England, the son of a German immigrant family. His birth name was Basil George Cameron Hindenberg. -Career:...
.
In April 1947 Goodson appeared again with Beecham, shortly before making her first television appearance, which she swiftly followed by a return to radio in an appearance with the BBC Scottish Orchestra under the conductor Ian Whyte
Ian Whyte (conductor)
Ian Whyte was a Scottish conductor and composer, and founder of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.Born in Dunfermline, Whyte studied in London, and was a pupil of Stanford and Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music...
. Although Goodson made few broadcastings and fewer recordings, leaving her legacy largely unheard to contemporary audiences, those recordings that do exist remain well regarded.
Family
Goodson – known to her family as ‘Kaigee’ – was supported in her career by her family from a young age. She wrote of losing a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music as a girl and the words her father spoke afterwards:“‘Will you memorise something for me tonight and never forget it?’
I smiled at him through my tears. ‘Of course I will, Daddy. What is it?’
‘Failures,’ he said, holding up his fingers for emphasis, ‘are with heroic minds the stepping stones to success.’”
Goodson claimed these words helped maintain her resolve throughout her career.
Her younger sister Ethel, who accompanied Goodson to Vienna, was especially close to her and Goodson was bereft when, early in her career, Ethel moved to Hungary to become a governess, claiming that without her “there seemed no one to whom I could have a real heart to heart talk and who would understand my longings and aspirations”.
Her mother, too, was close, once writing effusively to Goodson: “If I have really been able to help you one little bit, the comfort, the joy is all mine, for you know how, did it belong to me, I would lay the whole world of wealth and love and glory at your feet. You should be a Queen of Fairyland forevermore.”
Goodson herself evidently had a playful side. En-route to Boston for her American debut she and her husband dined with some elderly society ladies, who enquired after their profession. For some days, to the horror of the Bostonians, the two musicians kept up the pretence that they were circus performers and had a camel called Gertrude in the ship’s hold.
On arrival in Boston, a newspaper printed a light-hearted story about an expensive and naive trip Goodson had made to a Monte Carlo casino. Two elderly spinsters promptly returned their tickets saying that “they did not know that Katharine Goodson was that kind of girl!” Goodson wrote: “I felt that I had not only lost my money but my reputation too.”
Marriage
During Goodson’s time in Vienna Arthur Hinton, a fellow Royal Acadamean and London friend (with whom she had played in the Academy Orchestra), was studying in the city under Karl Navratil and the two spent much of their time together. Later Hinton went to Munich to study composition with Joseph Rheinberger. When they both returned to London, Hinton became a regular visitor of the Conways, with whom Goodson lived as she sought to establish her career. The two married in 1903. She said of him: “I think Arthur Hinton must have mesmerized me into marrying him, for I had decided never, never to marry; everybody thought my career might be spoilt should I do so, but somehow or other our minds and hearts seemed to have been drawing ever nearer. We had the same ideals of work and living, loving the same artistic life, the same surroundings, even to books and furniture, and always nearly the same people.”The two travelled widely together in their career, never having children, but sharing a close marriage. Hinton wrote to her during her American tour of 1930: “I am filled with the same love, which neither time, nor space, nor anything that life may bring will ever have power to change”.
Hinton died in 1941. A year later, as part of a long eulogy, Goodson wrote of him in terms of their shared passion: “I keep you where the music is, that is the best place”.
Friends, Colleagues & Pupils
Goodson’s career introduced her to the elite of the musical, artistic and political worlds. She counted among her musical friends her mentor Leschetizky – who called her ‘De Liebe Katie’, PaderewskiIgnacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski GBE was a Polish pianist, composer, diplomat, politician, and the second Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland.-Biography:...
, Nikisch, Nellie Melba, Dohnányi
Erno Dohnányi
Ernő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....
, Carreño
Teresa Carreño
María Teresa Carreño García de Sena was a Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor.Born into a musical family, she was at first taught by her father, then by Mathias, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Anton Rubinstein and her talent was recognized at an early age...
, Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
, Henry Wood
Henry Wood
Henry Wood was a British conductor.Henry Wood may also refer to:* Henry C. Wood , American Civil War Medal of Honor recipient* Henry Wood , English cricketer...
, Mathilde Marchesi
Mathilde Marchesi
Mathilde Marchesi was a German mezzo-soprano, a renowned teacher of singing, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method.-Biography:...
, Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe
Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian violinist, composer and conductor born in Liège. He was regarded as "The King of the Violin", or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the "tzar"...
, Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Gabrilowitsch
Ossip Gabrilowitsch
Ossip Gabrilowitsch was a Russian-born American pianist, conductor and composer.- Biography :...
and his wife Clara Clemens
Clara Clemens
Clara Langhorne Clemens Samossoud, formerly Clara Langhorne Clemens Gabrilowitsch , was the daughter of Samuel Clemens, who wrote as Mark Twain. She was a contralto concert singer and, as her father's only surviving daughter, managed his estate and guarded his legacy after his death.She was...
. Other friends in the arts included the actress Eleanora Duse and Clemens’ father Samuel, better known under his pen name, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
.
Of Melba, known for having a demanding personality, Goodson spoke warmly: “I had heard people say that the great singer was cold and unresponsive; she seemed to me exactly the reverse, a generous impulsive ardour continually bubbled forth, combined with much fun and merriment, which frequently showed itself when she was free of conventional surroundings”.
Goodson also carried on the Leschetizky tradition, writing extensively on piano technique as well as taking on pupils of her own, including Sir Clifford Curzon
Clifford Curzon
Sir Clifford Michael Curzon, CBE was an English pianist.-Early life:Clifford Michael Siegenberg was born in London to Michael and Constance Mary Siegenberg...
, Mark Hambourg’s acclaimed daughter, Michal, while the Canadian writer Elizabeth Smart also studied with her.
International Acclaim
Daily Telegraph, UK:Katharine Goodson’s performance in the Tschaikowsky Concerto was the other big event of the evening. The Concerto was all radiance, romantic, exuberant, idyllic, heroic, flamboyant: a furore followed.
Evening Standard, UK:
The highest of the week-end high spots on the wireless was Katharine Goodson’s performance of the Greig Concerto with the BBC Orchestra last night. There was the sympathetic insight of the cultured artist in her interpretation, and a touch that was both resolute and pliable in her performance. I cannot remember when a piano forte artist came over better.
San Francisco Globe, US:
She is a poetess, one of the greatest piano-artists of the day.
Winnipeg Free Press, Canada:
Stands absolutely in the front rank of any living pianist in the world today.
Toronto World, Canada:
To be capable of perfection in such gems of musical art establishes Miss Goodson among the genuine artists.
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia:
She is indeed the feminine counterpart of that most perfect of all pianists, Paderewski.
Le Figaro, France:
Incomparable technique, superb tone.
Idun, Sweden:
A genius, an inspired artist.
Munechener Staatzeitung, Germany:
It was astounding to hear how deeply she penetrated into the profoundness of the Brahms Sonate in F minor.
Vienna Times, Austria:
Virsuosity, temperament, expression and personality place her on top of my list of eminent pianists.
Pesti Maplo, Hungary:
The piano playing of Katharine Goodson is a genuinely monumental art, which we today, among the names of women pianists, can only associate with those of Theresa Carreno and Sofie Menter. Our eminent guest played the F Minor of Brahms in such a broadly conceived spirit and with such a gripping rhythm and power as would have done honour to d’Albert.
Pesti Maplo, Hungary:
Her playing is not merely an aesthetic function: it is an aesthetic revelation.