5 – A different kind of clarity. When you play the music is always going somewhere – never static. The line is clear. It makes music I might not ordinarily choose to listen to pleasurable.

As a matter of fact, as I thought about my planned blog posting, I had imagined beginning it, “To follow up on our conversation at Jay’s Oyster… ” different Portland concert, but we were at the Mendelssohn one too.

On to my planned posting. I want to list the things that I like about your playing, as I said, to validate my credentials as a disinterested fan.

1 – Passion
2 – Clarity. Every note is perfectly audible. You never go too fast for your skills. Which means, of course, that you can go lightening fast, but it never makes this listener tense up.
3 – You never bang on the piano. Well, not that I’ve heard.
4 – Control. No note ever “pops out” of the line inappropriately. I’m very sorry that I missed the perfect chromatic scale from that Portland concert when it was broadcast today.

Then, icing on the cake, you love analysis and your are beautifully articulate about it. It’s a different kind of pleasure, but what a treat to have a performer of your skills be able to TALK about it (or write). I just love it. I can’t wait to print out this edition of your blog and sit down with the Kreutzer, discovering it all over again. (Loved your blog from December or sometime about analysis itself.) (Do you have a copy of the Portland concert? Apparently it is an “Only on 89.7″ not-for-sale recording. You said I needed to broaden my library of pianists. That would be a great Christmas present!”

OK. Good closure fix. Got this off my to-do list!!!

A fan in Watertown

MARC AND NOA
PORTLAND

“After the shock of this, one can come to an understanding: Beethoven is setting up a dualism of light/dark.”

okay after reading that, i really want to hear you play this, because my favorite music has very dark themes, and the contrast with the light just magnifies its beauty. wish i had the recording while i’m reading your blog so i could hear what you are writing.

“And they, too, together come to realize that fragile G major is the precarious answer. How can G major be an answer, in the key of A major?”

well why not? i mean, i know that yes as far as music theory goes, it doesn’t make sense, but that’s the beauty of it – it goes against the rules!

“I want to get up from the piano and explain to them how incredibly amazing it is that Beethoven takes us there, how he tries to rock our world and propose that 2+2=3.”

two plus two does equal three. you didn’t know that?

“Its answeritude (answer+attitude=the quality of being an answer) comes from another source”

you should get that added to the dictionary.

“Wow, how did I get there from dumplings? Perhaps via Beethoven.”

only you jeremy. only you. and that’s why i love this blog!

“The last note (the resolution) is short; after the breadth and lyricism of the idea, it gives itself over abruptly to silence. “

ooooo i like that! okay will refrain from gushing over music. the way you describe it, it sounds like beethoven leaves you hanging there. question question question BYE! wait hold on a secomd! WHAT WAS THAT?! definitely unexpected (and that’s where it derives it’s beauty

“It does not ask the typical questions of “famous” openings, such as What Key Am I In? or Where’s the Downbeat? or What’s the Tempo? or so forth (all more or less rephrasings of the common life question Where Am I Going?);”

so unoriginal. show me something i haven’t already heard. i think one of the things that annoyed me in music history about some of the earlier periods was the structure. i think that’s why i had a fondness for modern music – the forms were tweaked and sometimes even dissolved, and the composers created music that was complete unexpected and ran far from the accepted forms (and annoyed many audiences) anyway you can figure out all the answers to those questions on your own you don’t need an intro to do that. i feel like i’m challenging beethoven to impress me.

“A lot of times listening to the beginnings of classical pieces, I can say to myself: yes, this opening idea comes from the tonic triad, and this is the coy reply moving us to the dominant, etc. etc “

just curious… do you always start analyzing music in your head as you listen, or do you sometimes just simply sit and listen and let the music sink in? it’s the same in theatre – you can go to a show and get caught up in all the technicalities of the stage direction and the lighting and costumes, etc. or you can just sit and watch and get lost in the show and absorb it all as a whole.

“The sort of question I feel it asks is Why Do I Exist? or How Did I Come Into Being? And that is what gives it, for me, a kind of surreal beauty: an oddly certain question, a fragment that is strangely and prematurely complete. The piece is mature beyond its measures.
“

a much more impressive and philosophical question than “what key am i in?” i think this intrigues you more simply because it’s not easy and it’s not laid out for you. it forces you to think and look into yourself as well as beethoven’s mind.

“[Regular readers of Think Denk are not deluding themselves if they imagine, or anticipate with sinking certainty and dread, that I am drawing some implicit comparison between the opening of the Kreutzer Sonata and a steaming plate of dumplings; BUT do they suspect I am willing to sink yet sillier and imagine the ensuing piano phrase as soy sauce? This may yet have been left to the imagination; too late, now. I am sorry.]“

honestly i wouldn’t expect less from you. it’s a part of your style that i relish in. (silly me ending a sentence with a preposition)

and sadly, i have to go to british literature now. i will finish later. promise!

“To mar their whiteness with black soy sauce was a necessary, beautiful sin. “

isn’t it though? i venture to say that even though you mar the beauty of the dumblings with the soy sauce, the ultimate and greater beatuy lies in the combination of the two.

“Are you hungry? Eat something.
Are you tired? Get some sleep.
What would you like to drink with those nachos? A margarita.”

ugh. it’s just too easy. how can everything just be reduced to simple question and response? we make a mistake in grossly generalizing and simplifying everything. the beauty of life is in it’s surprises and complications.

“For instance I did not eat the dumplings; they were not an answer to my hunger, which was solved by spicy soup; but they seemed an answer to another question:”

enlightenment comes in funny places. someting as simple as seeing a rock can prompt enlightenment. you found it in your dumplings (and a very yummy and satisfying mode of enlightenment i must say!)

“it may sound ridiculous to say that when I saw the dumplings (I did not need to eat them, only see them) they relieved me internally and made me cherish my nook for the moment, in time and in space. “

i relate this to my senior silent retreat experience. are you he type that keeps rushing around – do you get caught up in your work and forget to just sit and be still and silent for a moment and observe everything around you? that retreat helped me just look at myself and the cosmos…

oh darn. bell just rang. off to philosophy. i will continue later.

I had been dithering and procastinating with a ticket purchase – what a choice! Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk in Carnegie (I’ve been dying to see you, I so enjoy your writing) or Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt playing the lovely Brahms sonatas at Alice Tully…add to the dilemma my pregnant self…seven months…and I wasn’t sure if I could last through either concert…by the time I could decide, only third tier tickets were left…no fun for a violin/piano duo.

Then, a stroke of luck, a colleague who had to travel suddenly offered me her plum orchestra seats. What a joy! I could see every expression, hear everything so closely. My daughter danced inside me through the Mozart, then seemed stunned motionless by the opening of the Beethoven, just like me! I’ve heard the Kreutzer before, but somehow this performance was just magical! How wonderful, now, to hear your thoughts on such a beloved piece.

Thank you always for your beautiful writing and playing.