Jeremy Denk on NPR’s Fresh Air

 

Ok, internet. Fess up. Am I the last person in the world to discover Jeremy Denk’s blog? How have you kept this from me? Even in this amazing age of technology I still manage to find out everything on NPR.

So, in the car the other day, I happened to catch part of Terry Gross’ interview with pianist Jeremy Denk. Luckily, the internet and good ol’ fashioned radio do team up, and it is possible to hear the entire interview here. Denk’s latest album pairs the Ligeti etudes and Beethoven’s final sonata. He discusses the four week, 7-hour-a-day process of learning the Ligeti etudes (dear piano students, go back and re-read those numbers!), the vagaries of the recording process, and the commonalities of late Beethoven’s “vast infinity, and Ligeti’s bite-sized bits of infinity.” Oh, and he throws around charming phrases like “circling down the drain of tonality.”

Then it slips out in this interview that Denk has a blog- Think Denk. Just a few posts in, I adore his somewhat hyperactive writing, and now intend to waste lots and lots of time going back and reading through the archives. Thanks radio, and yeah, you too internet…