Monday, October 18, 2010

Jeremy Denk in Wall Street Journal: William Grant Still and Amy Beach '...were busy redecorating the same rooms.'

[William Grant Still (1895-1978)]

The pianist Jeremy Denk is currently performing music of the American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954). In an interview with Stuart Isacoff for The Wall Street Journal, Denk compares the originality of Charles Ives as a composer to that of Beethoven, and finds such originality mostly lacking in the works of William Grant Still and Amy Beach. We believe William Grant Still exhibited daring originality when he incorporated influences of jazz and the Blues in his classical works, including his Symphony No. 1 (Afro-American), which was consciously conceived as a quintessentially American composition which would elevate popular forms of music which had often been regarded as inferior:

Arts & Entertainment
October 19, 2010
By Stuart Isacoff
“We Americans prize independence, innovation and in-your-face moxie. No one better exemplifies these qualities than Charles Ives, a rugged New Englander who, in the early years of the 20th century, practically invented the modern life-insurance industry; wrote sassy essays about politics, morality and art; and composed music of stunning originality. When, in 1920, he published his great piano work, the 'Concord Sonata,' and sent it to reviewers with a note that said 'Complimentary: copies are not to be sold,' the venerable magazine Musical America commented, 'At last a composer who realizes the unsalable quality of his music.'

“As pianist Jeremy Denk puts it in the liner notes for his new CD, 'Jeremy Denk Plays Ives,' released last week, this music is 'brilliant, inventive, tender, edgy, wild, original, witty, haunting . . . so many adjectives.'” “The pianist, who performs Tuesday night at Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in a program of folk-influenced works from Europe, has a wide repertoire. Why did he decide to record Ives? 'For me, it's his tenderness, the affection, the sense of memory he has,' Mr. Denk said recently over a cup of coffee. 'He reaches back to his childhood and re-creates moments of magic, capturing an essence of music making that is more important than what happens in a formal concert. There is,' he reveals, 'a strong Ives-Proust connection for me—it has to do with the time period, and the intense rethinking of what the listening experience is supposed to be.'

“Listening to music by Ives is like wandering through a memory box filled with old photos, sing-along songbooks, political pamphlets, yellowed poems, the bass drum of a big brass band, remnants of an old watering hole, and perhaps a pair of boxing gloves. 'So much music of the time was conservative,' Mr. Denk explains. 'Think of William Grant Still or Amy Beach. They were mostly writing “in the style of. . . .” That is, they were busy redecorating the same rooms. Beethoven didn't do that—he tore things apart. Ives created his persona out of Beethoven and Emerson—men who were intensely self-reliant. He takes things that are commonplace—as Beethoven did—and infuses them with a new vision.” [William Grant Still (1895-1978) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, where a complete Works List by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma is found.]

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