Katherine Goodson

Katharine Goodson (18 June 1872 – 14 April 1958) was an English pianist.

Born in Watford, Goodson studied the piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London; she also worked with Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna. Her London debut took place on 16 January 1897. The tours of Europe which followed placed her in the front rank of British female pianists of the era. Goodson made her American debut on 18 January 1907, appearing as soloist with the Boston Symphony in a concert in the orchestra's home city.

Goodson died in London in 1958.

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, studying under Oscar Beringer between 1886 and 1892. 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. Goodson spent four years studying with Leschetizky and despite having previously lost out on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, 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.

On leaving Leschetizky in 1896, Goodson was introduced to the conductor and violinist Eugène Ysaÿe and played with him in Brussels. 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. 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 Kubelík. 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, 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.

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