JEREMY DENK Piano Recital
25th Singapore
Victoria Concert Hall
Saturday (9 June 2018 )
This review was published in The Straits Times on 11 June 2018 with the title "Variations take centrestage".
On
the Singapore International Piano Festival's third evening, American pianist
Jeremy Denk presented a recital centred on the theme of variations. Although he
dropped Brahms' Schumann Variations at the eleventh hour, its
replacement, Mozart's Rondo in A minor (K.511) also had the feel of
variations taking place.
In
his preamble, Denk explained that all the works had a sense of circularity and
the idea of returning in common. Thus the sad, desolate theme of the Mozart
doing its rounds had an added resonance. Utter clarity and crystalline
sonorities characterised this masterpiece of private and intimate tragedy.
Even
if the music ventured off at a tangent on some metaphysical journey, it always
returned home to a familiar, and almost comfortable, feeling of bleakness.
Denk's elegant and perfectly conceived reading did this slowly pulsing and
gently throbbing movement full justice.
Classicism
transitioned to romanticism for Beethoven's Sonata No.30 in E major
(Op.109), a late work that exhibited extremes of dynamics and
quasi-improvisational episodes in between. The first two movements contrasted
dreamy sentimentality with violent flailings, trenchantly brought out by Denk
before settling into the final movement's Theme and Variations.
The
serene theme, a lovely chorale in E major, went through myriad transformation -
including some almost jazzy asides - before arriving back at that rock of
reassuring stability. This schema writ large would return in the second half,
in the form of J.S.Bach's Goldberg Variations.
This
Magnum Opus of the keyboard repertoire, once considered arcane and nigh
unplayable, has never been more popular among audiences than the present. An Aria
in G major is subjected to 30 variations, every third one being a canon, in
what is the mathematician-musician's dream.
Even
the variations are not true variations of the Aria in the usual sense,
but built upon the sequence of bass notes on the left hand. Instead of a
strait-jacket, this offered an independence of compositional thought which Bach
fully exploited. So did Denk, who offered a nuanced and often brilliant
performance that had not a dull moment.
His
breezy reading clocked in one minute short of an hour. This was achieved by
playing the Aria in a goodly pace, no protractedness for its own sake,
and judiciously omitting repeats for many variations. Each half of 15
variations were perfectly balanced and poised.
Ornamentations
were kept to the minimum, but he relished in the show-boating aspects of faster
numbers, flaunting it like a consummate jazzman. Ultimately the respect shown
to the slower variations, particularly No.25 in G minor (known as the Black
Pearl), sealed the deal, leading back to the luminous Aria without
further fuss or fancy.
There
was a standing ovation, to which he reciprocated with another gem in G major,
the slow movement from Mozart's Sonata Facile in C major (K.545).
Closing with an uproarious improvisation on Wagner's Pilgrim's Chorus
from Tannhäuser by 1940s stride pianist Donald Lambert, Denk brought
down the house.
