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Jeremy Denk

Interview: Jeremy Denk on bringing Vergil to Netflix, relaxing with goats, collaborating with Joshua Bell, and his book

Jeremy Denk Has a Lot to Say About Mozart
By Victoria Looseleaf

Called a “thinking person’s pianist … an artist with a deep soul, thoughtful, probing, alternately sublime and sassy,” by composer/conductor John Adams, Jeremy Denk is all of those things — and more. Winner of a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius grant”) and the Avery Fisher Prize, the North Carolina-born musician who received a doctor of music degree from the Juilliard School, was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A Manhattan resident, Denk, is a frequent presence at Carnegie Hall, and in recent seasons has also appeared with, among others, the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition, the musician toured with Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. Last season Denk also reunited with his long-time collaborators, Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, for concerts in 11 American cities.

As for his discography, the 49-year old’s 2012 recording featuring Beethoven’s final piano sonatas and György Ligeti Etudes was named one of the best of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post, while Denk’s 2013 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations is a must-have for Bach aficionados. And for those seeking a musical jaunt through seven centuries, Denk recorded c.1300–c.2000, which was released earlier this year by Nonesuch and features selections ranging from Guillaume de Machaut to Stockhausen and Glass.

Then there is Denk the scribe, with his witty and provocative musings appearing on liner notes for his recordings and in publications such as The New Yorker and The New Republic. His blog, think denk, offered technical analyses and newsy wordplay, while a memoir is also in the works. But music comes first, with the pianist returning to Southern California to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 19 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Oct. 26 and 27, led by guest conductor Nicholas McGegan. I caught up with Denk by phone from San Francisco, where he was enjoying some down time with his partner before hitting the road again.

You’ve performed with McGegan before, as well as playing Mozart with him. How would you describe your musical relationship?

He’s so knowledgeable about this era of the repertory and he’s like a genial guide to it. If I had to describe it, it’s a pleasant, a little bit witty and an unexpected conversation. At least I hope it’s witty, because sometimes witty can go awry.

Why do audiences never tire of Mozart?

I’ve given a lot of thought to this question of Mozart and what he has to offer. Obviously, Mozart is often thought of as centrally an opera composer, even though he wrote this amazing symphonic music. But his operas manage to distill something about the human experience that’s special. It’s a revelation, and one of the things he’s able to do in a musical style is coalesce — combine in a single stretch of music even the most opposing emotions — from the sublime to the ridiculous, from tragic to comic. He spins on a dime from one to the other.

He gets that elements of life don’t come at you separately, but emotions come at us at the same time. There’s no easy way to just deal with one emotion. Life also seems contrapuntal in that way. In an opera, he’ll have a peasant character, a nobleman, a schemer — all these different types — and he’ll manage to capture their voices and put them all together in an ensemble in this great picture of humanity. I feel that when I’m playing Mozart, which is why it’s compelling and important to me.

Can you talk a bit about the Concerto No. 19 and do you play your own cadenzas?

I grew up with Mozart and you really feel you can dig into this. There’s a changeability that’s tremendous, but not wild [and] a kind of consciousness of all these different things going on at the same time. He has the ability to weave them. This 19th concerto is not played that often, but it has a lot of delights that deserve to be heard, and that’s why I proposed it. It’s full of Mozart being a little off his normal way of working and doing things experimentally.

Yes, I do play my own cadenzas. It’s fun and important, because there are some cases — a Beethoven concerto — where you can’t begin to compete with the ones he wrote. You can’t even imagine coming up with one, and a lot of Mozart’s could be one way or the other, but none have that quality of being indelible. You have the feeling he’s improvising and it could go any which way. You have to listen to the materials and you have to come up with something clever. What do these melodies do, what if you put it in the minor? It’s like getting under the hood of a car.

[Playing your own cadenzas] is more popular than it used to be, but some people feel they don’t want to trifle with a lot of Mozart’s concertos. Sometimes you have no choice, because he didn’t leave a cadenza. Forgive me for saying this, but sometimes the cadenzas aren’t that good — and if he were playing it, he’d improvise himself.

You’ve been working as artistic partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, including directing the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 from the keyboard. What are the challenges in that?

I’ve worked with them five or six years now and I know them very well. After all this time, it doesn’t require very much of me. We’ve developed a rapport and I don’t need to wave my arms. I just set a tempo and if there’s something wrong, we rehearse and talk about it. It seems to really work. They’re responsive and know what to expect from me.

What makes for a good collaboration — working with Bell and Isserlis, for example?

We’ve got the Beethoven Triple Concerto upcoming, and inevitably, one of the best things in a good relationship is a little bit of tension. Not too much, but two different worldviews that can intersect. Often when you’re with an orchestra, an orchestra brings a kind of frame, a sense of a whole and the pianist brings a sense of whimsy, pulling against the orchestra. That can either be good or go off the rails.

With chamber music it’s a mutual respect, but there are also different things that everybody brings to the table. It’s very hard to know when you’re going to have a great chamber music experience. You need an alchemy with the piece; there’s also everyone’s mood. A lot of things can go into it. There’s a weird knowing when to take over and lead and when to give in to the other people. How to pass off from one thing to the other is also important and that’s dependent on the kind of music it is.

Some of my favorite things in the musical world, and even in literature have to do with one tradition meeting another. There’s a weird reference when [Ezra] Pound translated Chinese poetry: You have this ultra-European modernist looking at an ancient tradition and there’s this wonderful sense of two tectonic plates grating against each other, creating unexpected sparks and insights. That’s partly what makes a good collaboration for me.

Even in Mozart himself — there’s the tradition of his time — the music he’s used to hearing and the norms of his times. There’s his unique, slightly perverse, wild imagination, and there’s that collaboration where he has to conform to an extent and rebel, so when he’s composing, it’s a collaboration between him and a wider cultural world.

Would you consider yourself — or any concertizing musician at your level — somewhat obsessed, and if so, how do you relax?

I’m extremely obsessive. I got in trouble this morning when I started practicing Bach and couldn’t stop, so yes, I’m obsessive. Take the Goldberg Variations or Ligeti — you have to be obsessive or you won’t survive it. That’s the struggle, if the thing you’re obsessed with will destroy you, but a lot of it is knowing how to have a balanced existence. I also practice a lot of hours these days and when you come across a free day, you don’t exactly know what to do with yourself. There are lots of things that normal people do and I wonder, ‘How do you do that, to relax enough to feel you’re doing it right?’

I’ve got a place in the Catskills with goats — and no — I never tried goat yoga, but I do love hanging out with the goats. They love to be entertained and I love them entertaining me. I also love to cook, I love to hike and go out in nature. Normal people do those things, but it just takes a while for me to adjust because I’m an obsessive musician.

To learn more about Jeremy Denk’s upcoming memoir and other details, read the full interview.