He was a pianist, composer and teacher born Moses Isidore Goodman in Cape Town, South Africa, to parents that had immigrated from eastern Europe. He started to learn music while very young and at the same time wrote his own compositions. One of his compositions was performed by the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra when he was still ony six years old.
After the death of his father when he was 12 years old his mother took him to London where he studied at the Royal College of Music in London and performed in Europe and Great Britain before emigrating to Australia.
He became a teacher at the New South Wales Conservatory, where he taught for 50 years, and performed with many leading orchestras including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra , where he was known as a champion of Liszt, Rachmaninov, and the Romantic period of music.
His compositions include New Guinean Fantasy, which he composed on the island during the battle there in 1944, and the film scores for the 1935 The Burgomeister and 1955 Jedda . His biography Isador Goodman: A Life in Music was published in 1983 by his fourth wife Virginia Goodman
He was a lifelong friend of the composer and musical director Lindley Evans, and they both died on the same day. His final performances was in September 1982 and he passed away in December of that year suffering from cancer. He was 73 years old.
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra recordings
Warsaw Concerto ( Richard Addinsell)
DG 413 259-2 (CD: Warsaw Concerto)
Conductor – Patrick Thomas
Piano – Isador Goodman
Here he performs Chopin’s “Berceuse in D flat major”, Op. 57….
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isador_Goodman
- http://www.gold-music.com/1573/Isador_Goodman.html
- http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2005/July05/Dangerous_moonlight_4767333.htm
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0329101/