Katharine Goodson
After an invitation to play for the renowned pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, she was introduced to his former teacher Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna, himself once a student of Beethoven's own friend and pupil, Carl Czerny.
This forged a meeting with the American violinist Maud Powell, 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.
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.
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.”[1] Violinist Franz Kneisel was present and immediately engaged her to play with his Kneisal Quartette at further concerts in Boston and New York.
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.
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!
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.”[5] Goodson's international presence remained dominant throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.”[9] The two travelled widely together in their career, never having children, but sharing a close marriage.
She counted among her musical friends her mentor Leschetizky – who called her 'De Liebe Katie', Paderewski, Nikisch, Nellie Melba, Dohnányi, Carreño, Beecham, Henry Wood, Mathilde Marchesi, Ysaÿe, Elgar, Gabrilowitsch and his wife Clara Clemens.
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”.
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.
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.
