Comments on: Mozart, Trickster

By: Bob & Miriam

Bob & Miriam — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:15:45 +0000

We enjoyed hearing JD’s Mozart in San Francisco two weeks ago with the SFSO. He has definitely come a long way since playing piano prodigiously for Sunday morning services at the UU church in Las Cruces, NM!

His self-composed cadenzas for the “Elvira Madigan” concerto were every bit as stunning as Glenn Gould’s outrageously Reger-esque cadenza for Beethoven’s 1st concerto was in the late 1950s. Onward, chromatically!

By: Karen Van Duyne

Karen Van Duyne — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:11:35 +0000

I read this a while back, but just have to say I love this one! Man, I missed your when you were in S.F! . Absolutely love the blog. More please!

By: Dan Coren

Dan Coren — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:38:34 +0000

Hi,

I write about music myself and create my own sound examples, rather laboriously. Can you tell me what’s involved in creating the elegantly presented audio examples — and notated examples, for that matter — on your blog, or point me in the direction I need to go to learn.

Your blog is wonderful. Your playing even more so.

By: Jeff Robbins

Jeff Robbins — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 02:35:00 +0000

I’m an amateur studying this work. I very much agree with your analysis. However, I went searching online about this piece to try to learn something about the Andante which seems one of the weirder things Mozart ever did. He seems to have set himself some sort of problem to solve for himself and has little interest in whether his audience follows or is even there. “Can I turn off my amazing gift for melody and follow a very austere motive wherever it goes?” Reminds me of Beethoven in his “to hell with the audience” moods. I’d love to know your thoughts.

By: Ted McIrvine

Ted McIrvine — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:35:33 +0000

I am a real Jeremy Denk fan, having heard his Ives’ “Concord” and Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” in Brevard, NC, where I maintain a blog about the creative and performing arts in Western North Carolina.

Throughout the last twenty years, I have always annotated my Mozart by identifying orchestration possibilities (such as JD’s bassoon) or sometimes operatic voices for individual voices in important moments. How gratifying to realize that JD does the same!

By: m.croche

m.croche — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:41:15 +0000

I’m too lazy to do the necessary research with respect to chronology, but this Mozart sonata always reminded me of Haydn’s F-major sonata Hob. XVI/47, which appeared in the same year Mozart’s sonata was written but which (if I were to use my ever-fallible gut) looks as though it might have been written some 15-20 years earlier.

The Haydn sonata, too, has an opening in mock 2-part invention style (something for the younglings) which gradually morphs into something more “modern”, culminating in difficult (for me)runs in thirds and octaves.

Probably just a coincidence, but submitted for your consideration.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:05:13 +0000

If only my music analysis classes had had one tenth of the creativity and vitality of this, Jeremy, I may have stopped treating them as my weekly open-eyed-sleeping practice sessions…

Pure genius. Both Mozart and you.

By: Jeremy Denk

Jeremy Denk — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:04:25 +0000

Movable do is the only kind of do worth having.

By: Eric Barnhill

Eric Barnhill — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:47:45 +0000

Movable do, sir? I’m calling the solfege police.

By: Jeremy Denk

Jeremy Denk — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:52:53 +0000

Melissa, I’ve noticed many bassoonists have a strong rapscallion gene. Thank goodness there is no cure for this.