{"id":18070,"date":"2026-03-17T15:27:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T19:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=18070"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:31:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T19:31:55","slug":"review-denk-unites-the-genders-with-rare-artistry-discerning-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/review-denk-unites-the-genders-with-rare-artistry-discerning-program\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: Denk unites the genders with rare artistry, discerning program"},"content":{"rendered":"

For New York Classical Review<\/a><\/p>\n

By David Wright<\/p>\n

It was ladies on one side, gentlemen on the other at Jeremy Denk\u2019s recital in The Town Hall Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

No, the pianist didn\u2019t rearrange the spectator seating. He played music composed by women in the program\u2019s first half, and music by men after intermission.<\/p>\n

The personable musician, as known for his way with words as with notes, spoke to the audience at this recital presented by Peoples\u2019 Symphony Concerts, the nonprofit presently celebrating 125 years of putting on concerts the average working person can afford. Denk took note that this is Women\u2019s History Month, and asked that the audience withhold applause till the end of his \u201csuite\u201d of ten short pieces by seven composers. \u201cI wanted the women to have their say without men interrupting,\u201d he said, getting an appreciative laugh.<\/p>\n

The deliciously varied suite, interlarded with Etudes by the redoubtable H\u00e9l\u00e8ne de Montgeroult, closed with a wistful Andante by Clara Schumann. When he got around to the male composers, Denk noted that the works on his program\u2014Four Pieces, Op. 119 by Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann\u2019s Fantasie in C major, Op. 17\u2014were \u201ctwo of the greatest love letters in music, and both written to the same woman,\u201d the aforementioned Clara.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of savvy programming that could win a person a MacArthur Fellowship, which is exactly what happened to Jeremy Denk in 2013. On Sunday the question was, Can he put his music where his mouth is?<\/p>\n

The answer was an emphatic yes.<\/p>\n

The discovery of the day was Montgeroult (1764-1836), the French marquise and pianist who (the story goes) saved her aristocratic neck in the Revolution by beguiling the tribunal with improvised variations on the \u201cMarseillaise,\u201d and whose startlingly original compositions are just now beginning to come back into vogue.<\/p>\n

Composing in a style described by a biographer as \u201cthe missing link between Mozart and Chopin,\u201d Montgeroult published her magnum opus, Complete Method for Teaching the Fortepiano Including 114 Etudes, in 1820.<\/p>\n

Denk led off with one of those etudes, which put one in mind of Schubert, with the right hand rippling and the left hand crossing repeatedly over it, playing both eloquent bass and bright treble. Robert Schumann was the composer anticipated in another Montgeroult etude with a skipping tune over restless harmonies. Rapid-fire dialogue and more hand-crossing characterized the remaining two etudes, melodious and graceful in Denk\u2019s hands despite their technical challenges.<\/p>\n

Alternating with these etudes was a cream-center assortment of musical bites by other women, vividly characterized by Denk whether tangy, sweet or hot. Missy Mazzoli\u2019s Heartbreaker, composed for a piano competition, showcased Denk\u2019s ability to play fast repeated notes and dizzying leaps with wild abandon. Amy Beach\u2019s \u201cIn Autumn\u201d and \u201cDreaming\u201d (from Four Sketches, Op. 15) hopped gaily and surged romantically, respectively.<\/p>\n

C\u00e9cile Chaminade\u2019s La Lisonjera (The Flatterer), Op. 50 strolled like a boulevardier, charming with elegant voicing and rubato. In contrast, Paris, a 1972 piece by Meredith Monk, alternated sighing phrases with sudden bursts of agitation over a gloomy left-hand ostinato.<\/p>\n

Ruth Crawford Seeger seemed to be channeling Chopin\u2019s \u201cFuneral March\u201d Sonata finale in her Piano Study in Mixed Accents, a bracingly syncopated atonal presto with the two hands playing a single line an octave apart. The Andante from Clara Schumann\u2019s Three Romances, Op. 11, closed the set in a melancholy mood, but with a surge of passion in the middle.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Denk put plenty of snap into the march movement\u2019s dotted rhythm, an obsessive Schumann feature that the pianist indulged completely. He also reveled in piano sonorities from booming bass to ringing middle to singing top, and barreled into the coda\u2019s impossible leaps at top speed. This was Schumann-the-lover unbound.<\/p>\n

Of course the audience applauded madly after this tour de force. Denk patiently waited them out, then performed another kind of tour de force\u2014inhabiting the restless heart and mind of a lover in limbo, far from his beloved, dreaming of happiness remembered, in the achingly slow final movement that elevates this work above all Schumann\u2019s others.<\/p>\n

What encore could follow such a profound experience? Denk\u2019s answer: something completely different\u2014Donald Lambert\u2019s dazzling, hilarious stride-piano take on the Pilgrim\u2019s Chorus from Tannh\u00e4user. Denk couldn\u2019t resist playing it, he said, because \u201cClara detested Wagner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For New York Classical Review By David Wright It was ladies on one side, gentlemen on the other at Jeremy Denk\u2019s recital in The Town Hall Sunday afternoon. No, the pianist didn\u2019t rearrange the spectator seating. He played music composed by women in the program\u2019s first half, and music by men after intermission. The personable … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4196,3610,3612,7496],"class_list":["post-18070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jeremy-denk","tag-piano","tag-review","tag-woman-composers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18073,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18070\/revisions\/18073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/9905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}