Ehnes and Denk Shine

It was day two of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival when four hundred and twenty five people filled the small St. Nicholas Recital Hall on the Ivy-like Lakeside School campus. For six weeks each summer, some of the most distinguished musicians make the trip to Seattle and perform a wide swath of the standard and not-so-standard chamber music repertoire.

The small space and sellout crowd pushed my seat for the concert all the way to the front row. Intimate is an understatement. I was close enough to touch the stage and within reach of the musicians on the right side of the stage. Such close proximity makes it easy to focus on the wrong things. Socks, a foot wiggling off a piano pedal, beads of sweat and shimmering attire.

But, once the first ad hoc ensemble launched into the springy melodies of Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet in F Minor these distractions became an afterthought.

Before I even got to the Mendelssohn, and socks, there was a free recital. It’s notable that a festival as popular as the Seattle Chamber Music Festival gives curious listeners thirty or forty minutes of free music. The crowd was full, but not at capacity, for pianist Jeremy Denk’s performance of Charles Ives’ First Piano Sonata. Denk convinced me of the sonata’s merit. For five movements and just about thirty minutes, the sonata is far from cohesive. Each movement, which according to Ives is to resemble rural Connecticut life, is actually more urban in character with the free, improvisational feel of the work and the ample use of rag time and “inn” imagery.

The music was vintage Ives. Complicated, textured and demanding for listeners. But Denk somehow made music out of the quagmire of sound and distorted hymn material. His charisma set the stage but his playing ruled the evening.

The rest of the evening wasn’t as unruly.

The main concert was a proper mix of romantic music that began with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet in F Minor and ended with Gabriel Faure’s Piano Quartet in G Minor. In the middle long-time chamber festival participant Ronald Thomas and relative newcomer Andrew Armstrong performed Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G Minor.

The evening belonged to James Ehnes and Jeremy Denk, though. Both proved why they are musicians on the rise. Denk’s work at the keyboard in the Faure and Ehnes commanding lead in the Mendelssohn Quartet showed why these two artists are quickly moving to the forefront of classical performers. They are peerless musicians with an ability to take control without taking over.

But, even Ehnes, Denk and their fellow musicians couldn’t freshen music that, by today’s standards, sounds old fashioned. Over two hours of earnest Romantic music was too much of the same. Don’t get me wrong, the music on Wednesday’s program is objectively good. But, those searching for something new would have been sorely disappointed, unless listeners were coming to the pieces for the first time.

By the end of the evening, I revisited the Ives Piano Sonata in my mind. Ives is played so little, I doubt I will ever hear this piece performed live again. Yet, it is music that should define summer music festivals. The piece is filled with so many ideas, curiosities and tricks that it will stick in your mind long after being heard. Ives’ compositions are brash and the composer breaks rules for the fun of it.

A little bit of adventure never hurt anyone and with playing as good as Denk’s and, later on, Ehnes, Armstrong and Thomas, perhaps the paying public might actually enjoy more pieces like Ives First Piano Sonata.