Comments on: Hot Seattle, Flirty Brahms

By: Rhea

Rhea — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:56:19 +0000

You are a silly, silly man.

By: David Bohne

David Bohne — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:52:46 +0000

I flew in to the Bay Area from Sydney on Saturday to attend your concert in Berkeley with Joshua Bell. It was sublime. Mr. Bell perhaps receives more attention, but your playing was truly wonderful. The violin would have been not so great without you. Thank you for sharing your wonderful gift with the world.

By: Urban Flute

Urban Flute — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:38:01 +0000

Writing from Toronto, Canada. Do I need a valid passport to get across the border into HemiolaLand?! Cheers, Urban Flute

By: Heather Blodgett

Heather Blodgett — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:31:45 +0000

Jeremy Denk,

You have…for lack of a better word… trinitized powers to unlock the door to revelation here….the notes unraveling by virtue of this greater union that is without dualistic separation. But it comes out of three….and she walks in to the most beautiful…serendipity ever known Man.

Heather Blodgett

Leon Kirchner’s Grand Daughter

By: Bill Breakstone

Bill Breakstone — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:24:33 +0000

Jeremy, you are not only a great pianist, but an imaginative and creative writer.

Regarding Brahms A Major Sonata, who cares how many times its been performed by artists both great and mediocre. It’s just a wonderful piece of music, and always open to a different interpretation, a different but subtle nuance.

Your last post mentioned “a Leon,” in that case Kirschner. Reading your Brahms post, it brought to kind another Leon, in this case Fleischer. An old disc of his from the late 1950s included Brahms’ Handel Variations and the Waltzes, Op. 39. We seldom hear that set in its entirety; though it contains woderful pieces, I guess it doesn’t come off as a set because it ends on a very inconclusive waltz of relatively little merit. But the preceeding numbers are heavenly. Perhaps if performed with the addition of another final piece, without break, say one of Brahms’ Rhapsodies, it would leave a better overall impression on an audience.

In any case, please read my blog “Eclectic Renaissance Man” when you have a moment.

Best,

Bill Breakstone

By: Jeffrey Panciera

Jeffrey Panciera — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:30:35 +0000

Sorry about the heat, most unusual. I think 3/4 and other uneven rhythms exist to try to capture a kind of lyricism and defeat our expectations of starting, stoppig and repeating [listen to the Pro Cantionae Antiqua disc of Gaude Virgo of Dunstable, or Rose, Lis by Machaut]. You come very close to unlocking the meaning in music when you analyse, as you do, HOW the music speaks [not what it says. Listen to Kiri’s first disc of Strauss’ 4 Last Songs, universally panned as light-weight, but makes the music speak perfectly.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:44:11 +0000

Jeremy! This is so entertaining.

By: Stephen Hough

Stephen Hough — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:29:22 +0000

Hello Jeremy! Loved this arm-in-arm exploration of (another) Brahms 2nd. I wondered if that whole opening phrase were in a solo piano piece – 5th bar as well – whether we’d play the 4th bar differently? It’s so difficult to play as it is because we want to finish off the beautiful phrase in bar 4 rather than letting the violin make the really significant contribution in the following bar.

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:42:30 +0000

Who was the violinist?

By: Janet

Janet — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 06:01:41 +0000

If you walk down the the unpaved part of Cruger Island Road at Bard until it dead ends in the forest, you will find that someone has abandoned a Wurlizer piano out there. It’s sorely out of tune, but one octave is still vaguely playable.