Eminent pianist Richard Goode is on board for a Honolulu Chamber Music Series concert tomorrow featuring mainstays of the standard piano repertoire.

Keyboard music has been around for many centuries (some texts start with Pythagoras in the sixth-century B.C.) and is still very much alive today, but the standard repertoire spans, curiously enough, only about 200 years, a period often summed up as including "the three B's" — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

Goode made a name for himself within this repertoire, performing around the world and producing numerous recordings, some of them definitive. He is recognized as a foremost interpreter of Beethoven.

Over the years, Goode's reputation expanded to include his interpretations of other composers, from Brahms to Chopin and Schubert, and even a few works earlier and later than the standard repertoire.

Now in his 60s, Goode remains highly respected, especially for his interpretations and for the insights he offers. His audiences discover, over and over again, how to hear anew works they thought they knew.

Tomorrow's program includes no Beethoven but covers the full range of the standard repertoire, from Bach's "Partita No. 5," composed in the 1730s, through Mozart's "Rondo in A Minor" and Brahms' "Op. 116 Fantasies" to Debussy's "Preludes, Book II of 1913."

Although these works are now all "piano pieces," they were composed for different instruments.

Bach used the harpsichord, an instrument in which the strings are plucked rather than struck, and Mozart wrote for the forte-piano, a forerunner of the modern piano that has a very different sound and requires different technique. Only Brahms and Debussy used modern pianos, which emerged around 1860, but those early models differed markedly in sound and touch, depending on the manufacturer. In short, the four works on the program were composed for four different instruments.

Two of the challenges Goode will face revolve around the instrument.

First, every instrumentalist develops an intimate relationship with his or her instrument, learning its capabilities, its nuances, even its moods. Pianists, unfortunately, rarely perform on their own instruments and must forge a new relationship for each concert.

Second, because of the program, Goode will need to reconcile modern piano technique with the music as it was written: How much pedal is appropriate? How to adjust for the relative "decay" of notes? Which tempo will capture the intent?

Pianists and critics alike relish mulling over subtle differences in instruments, styles and techniques: Was the Debussy French enough, and the Brahms German enough? Was the Mozart all the things we've come to associate with Mozart — pristine yet dramatic, light yet profound? Was the Bach authentically Baroque?

If you want to start an argument among friends, ask what "authentic" means.

But such questions tend to relegate performing musicians to relative anonymity as mere conveyers of composers' intent.

Audiences have heard Bach, Mozart, Brahms and Debussy countless times. While it is a joy to hear these works once again, tomorrow's concert is less about the composer than it is about Goode and what he has to say about these pieces.