PAM GOLDBERG

"Our soloist herself to be an artist with great musical intellect, but also a warmth of spirit." 

Amber Wingler, SAI Pan Pipes [Summer 2023]

"I’ve been putting off reviewing [this] performance of  Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, D959. This sonata, composed at the end of Schubert’s exasperatingly short life, demands everything from the listener and at least as much from the performer. In a world swimming in light music, this is a work of weight, substance and complexity. It is hard work to listen to. It ruthlessly grabs and demands our attention, and we yield because it is also beautiful and perhaps even perfect. My lazy self did not want to become entrapped... But that’s exactly what happened as I listened at last to Goldberg’s interpretation. From the first A-Major chord to the decisive final notes in the same key, Goldberg plays this difficult work with an intermingled blend of intelligence and elegance, technical skill and emotional depth... The album concluded with the Schubert-Liszt Ständchen in a charming performance by the featured artist. But it is clearly the sonata that is the star of this production. In it, Goldberg wields impeccable technique and insightful intelligence to give us an original version of this masterwork, filled with wonder and truth."

Linda Holt, ConcertoNet [June 2023]

"This is a genuinely lovely performance [of the Impromptu] , delicate and well-balanced, emotive... As a whole, this CD produces a sense of lyrical engagement with an overlay of a kind of eloquent fragility..."

Mark J. Estren, InfoDad [June 2023]

FOUR STARS [ * * * * ] "... so we judge [Goldberg] by her easy finesse and realization of Schubert’s especial style. The B-flat Major Impromptu that opens the program, built as a theme-and-variations, offers Goldberg a panoply of colors, lyrical and dramatic, resonantly effected on her Steinway B.  Her execution of runs, triplets, and syncopated, dotted rhythms proves competent and compelling. The extending, natural line of the music has clean flow and internal flux, at once."

Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition [May 2023]

FOUR STARS [ * * * * ] - Honest and forthright performances. "[Pam Goldberg is a] first-rate pianist... These are enormously attractive performances, well balanced vertically, lightly pedaled and slightly sec in tone, and rhtyhmically flexible in a way that's responsive to the shape of the phrases but that never exaggerates and never calls attention to itself. Good sound, too. Warmly recommended."

J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare [Spring 2023]

"You may have the impression Pam Goldberg is playing Schubert on her piano just for you, as I did, when you listen to her lovely, forthright unembellished rendering of his compositions... Her unpretentious score-perfect style results in a beautifully recorded, even-toned listening experience... Goldberg’s rendering of the complex impromptu is so clearly articulated as to allow even a casual listener to hear and understand it easily."

Joel C. Thompson, Cherry Grove Music Review [April 2023]

"The energy Pam derives from playing before live audiences carries over into her recording sessions, if we are to judge from the results in her latest album... Pam’s careful pacing of [the Impromptu] plus a regard for Schubert’s delicate shadings, pays off handsomely in this performance...  At the very end [of the Sonata] following a swirl of arpeggios, Schubert delivers the ultimate surprise as the coda ends in a transformation of the very theme we heard right at the beginning of the sonata. Pam’s superb timing helps bring off this stroke of genius."

Phil Muse, Atlanta Audio Club [Dcember 2022]

“When I recorded these pieces in 2017, the world was a different place. We had never heard of COVID nor had we bore witness to the unspeakable crisis in the Ukraine. The works on this program hold a special place in my heart. I performed Schubert’s Op.90 Impromptus in their entirety in 1994 at my Masters recital at the Manhattan School of Music, and knew then that I would one day play the Op.142 Impromptus as well. Each is a gem and a world unto itself. Yuja Wang’s performance of the Sonata in A major featured here that I heard years ago made a lasting impression on me; I knew I had to learn it. The piece spoke to me in ways I cannot express in words. The last piece on the program, Ständchen, is a favorite of my Father’s, who insisted I learn it. A lawyer by trade and now an art dealer with an exceptional ear and knowledge of piano repertoire, he has been my number one ally in both discussing and critiquing pieces before my performances. There is no doubt that I inherited my passion for the piano and music from him, and it is to him that I dedicate this album.” [Pam Goldberg]

Pam Goldberg has performed on many of New York’s stages, including Weill Recital Hall and Merkin Concert Hall, and at the New York Historical Society, Tenri Cultural Institute, Jewish Museum and Museum of Jewish Heritage. Widely acknowledged to have created the blueprint for venues like Le Poisson Rouge and SubCulture, Goldberg created a unique environmental concept for both performer and audience, one distinctly different from the traditional concert hall. In 2000 she founded Classical Cafe, a non-profit concert series under the auspices of the 92nd Street Y that took place in a jazz club setting on New York City’s upper west side. The significantly positive response to Classical Cafe led to a focus on reaching a larger audience base, and consequently a move to Governors Island as the next venue to host The Rite of Summer Music Festival. The festival’s inaugural concert took place in July 2011 and performances continue up to the present day. In addition to Goldberg’s concertizing and entrepreneurial pursuits, she also teaches privately in New York, and served on the piano faculty of the Diller-Quaile School of Music for 10 years. As a recording artist, she has released two CDs, one featuring Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat major, K.570, and the other an album of Mozart sonatas for piano and violin with violinist, Christine Sohn. Pam Goldberg, who earned her Bachelors degree from Connecticut College and Masters degree from Manhattan School of Music, has studied with Joseph Kalichstein, Stephanie Brown, Arkady Aronov and Miyoko Lotto, among others.
 

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Recorded in January 2017 at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. Recording engineer: Dongsok Shin.
  FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
IMPROMPTU IN B-FLAT MAJOR, OP.142, NO.3 (D.935)
 
PIANO SONATA IN A MAJOR, D.959
I. Allegro
II. Andantino
III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace
IV. Rondo. Allegretto
 
FRANZ SCHUBERT | Arranged by FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886)
STÄNDCHEN (from Schwanengesang, D.957)
 



MSR Classics