Jeremy Denk - Ives Denk

‘Denk is a multi-faceted, intelligent pianist, equally at home playing solo in recital or concertos with orchestra. A natural, instinctive educator with a rare ability to reach out to his audience.’ – Guardian

Pianist Jeremy Denk, known as a champion of Charles Ives, is acclaimed for his performances of the great American composer’s works. Ives Denk, released in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Ives’ birth, features the composer’s four violin sonatas, performed with violinist Stefan Jackiw, as well as remastered versions of his Sonatas No. 1 and 2 for piano, from Denk’s 2010 debut recording, Jeremy Denk Plays Ives.

In his liner note, Denk says that Ives’ “deepest dream was to create an original musical style, a fresh and uniquely American voice. He achieved this. But it was a voice most didn’t want to hear, and still don’t. He is one of history’s least popular populists ... Ives’ writing – epecially the later ones, when he was in terrible physical decline – are... often unhinged with anger, full of mean-spirited nicknames and simplistic binaries, they reflect some of the worst angles of America. One thing that saves Ives’ music from these dangers is his sense of humor, and his willingness to embrace failure.”

“If there is one piece that sums up for me Ives’ difficult virtues, it is the slow movement of the first violin sonata, a jagged musical reflection on the Civil War, so eerily relevant now, with America split into red-blue madness. It is interesting to compare this kind of piece, profound yet unloved, with the far more identifiably American voice of Aaron Copland ... Ives is optimistic but always messy, always falling apart at the seams. His music suggests America will just have to muddle through, and wrestle with its own failure. At this particular historical moment, Ives seems to be more right than ever.”

“‘In the Barn’ is a joyful disaster,” Denk says of the second sonata movement, which is available here today. “It starts with country fiddling, slips slyly into urban ragtime, and as time passes, every imaginable genre makes a cameo – overheated Wagnerian Romanticism, fashionable exoticism, a dizzying tour of the early twentieth century musical world.”

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists, proclaimed by the New York Times as “a pianist you want to hear no matter what he performs.” Denk is also a New York Times bestselling author, the recipient of both the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In the 2024-25 season, Denk will continue his collaboration with longtime musical partners Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis. This includes performances at the Tsindali Festival and five nights at Wigmore Hall, on the heels of his multi-concert artist residency at the Wigmore in 2023-24. Denk also returns to the Lammermuir Festival in multiple performances, including the complete Ives violin sonatas with Maria Wloszczowska, and a solo recital featuring female composers from the past to the present day. He continues to perform this same solo programme on tour across the US and will further his exploration of Bach in ongoing performances of the complete Partitas.

Denk’s latest album of Mozart piano concertos was released in 2021 on Nonesuch Records. The album was deemed “urgent and essential” by BBC Radio 3 and was Classic FM's Album of the Week. His recording of the Goldberg Variations reached No. 1 on the Billboard Classical Charts, and his recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 111 paired with Ligeti’s Études was named one of the best discs of the year by the New Yorker, NPR, and the Washington Post, while his account of the Beethoven sonata was selected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as the best available version recorded on modern piano. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Every Good Boy Does Fine was published to universal acclaim in 2022.

Tracklisting

Disc 1
01. Sonata No. 4 (“Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting”): I. Allegro
02. Sonata No. 4 (“Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting”): II. Largo
03. Sonata No. 4 (“Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting”): III. Allegro
04. Sonata No. 3: I. Adagio; Andante; Allegretto; Adagio
05. Sonata No. 3: II. Allegro
06. Sonata No. 3: III Adagio cantabile
07. Sonata No. 2: I. Autumn
08. Sonata No. 2: II. In the Barn
09. Sonata No. 2: III. The Revival
10. Sonata No. 1: I. Andante; Allegro vivace; Andante
11. Sonata No. 1: II. Largo cantabile; Piu mosso; Largo
12. Sonata No. 1: III. Allegro

Disc 2
01. Piano Sonata No. 1: I. Adagio con moto
02. Piano Sonata No. 1: IIa. Allegro moderato 
03. Piano Sonata No. 1: IIb. Allegro ("In the Inn")
04. Piano Sonata No. 1: III. Largo-Allegro-Largo
05. Piano Sonata No. 1: IVa. [No tempo heading]
06. Piano Sonata No. 1: IVb. Allegro-Presto-Slow
07. Piano Sonata No. 1: V. Andante maestoso
08. Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass., 1840-1860"): Emerson
09. Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass., 1840-1860"): Hawthorne
10. Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass., 1840-1860"): The Alcotts
11. Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass., 1840-1860"): Thoreau

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