What a Feeling

In the past few weeks' blur of teaching, practicing and attending a few Halloween parties (although my idea to dress as Jennifer Beals in Flashdance never quite panned out), I did manage to drop by at a couple of Lincoln Center performances.

The first was Jeremy Denk's all-Bach recital, part of a weekend-long mini-festival centering around the Canadian enigma Glenn Gould. A late night presentation at the intimate Kaplan Penthouse, the 10:30 pm hit was apparently too early for me as I had difficulty exiting a Midtown dinner party tactfully and almost didn't make it in time. Denk is currently one of my favorite pianists on the scene, mostly due to his incredibly well written and sometimes hilarious blog. His playing isn't bad either, as I learned last year while in the audience for his performance of Berg's Chamber Concerto at the Miller Theatre. Since Bach seems to be one of Denk's areas of expertise, I was anticipating remarkable insights into the three works on the program.

Unfortunately this was not the case. Later, in an informal Q & A session following the performance, the pianist mentioned that he had not felt compelled to do much detailed practice of these pieces in preparation for the recital as he had recorded them recently. Although the majority of the music was admirably articulate, I wished he had taken the time to drill these works until they were technically secure rather than relying on the pedal to drown out occasional imperfections. The movement I was most anticipating turned out to be the biggest disappointment (maybe my expectations were just too lofty - a recurring pattern for me these days). The famous Allemande from the D major Partita is one of my favorite Bach compositions, both to play and to hear. Denk's reading was compulsively detailed, to the point of missing the forest for the trees. Instead of being able to enjoy the gorgeously simple melodic material, I was constantly being distracted by the technicality of Denk's playing as the movement disintegrated into an exercise in dynamic control. Also, some advice: if you plan on attending any late concerts at this venue, I recommend drinking beforehand - the complimentary wine is free for a reason.

The following week I took advantage of a rare evening off to catch City Opera's production of La Boheme. Unbelievably, I had never seen Puccini's magnum opus performed live, a fact I was reminded of when I happened upon the last half of Moonstruck one night on Turner Classic Movies (Nicholas Cage is amazing as Cher's one-handed beau, and so fresh-faced he looks practically adolescent). The performance at the New York State Theater was magical, Mimi and Rodolfo were both breathtakingly tragic, and the onstage snow effects made me oddly nostalgic for winter.