Streaming Premiere – Thursday, April 15, 2021, 7pm

Jeremy Denk, piano

Filmed exclusively for Cal Performances in the Music Room of the Rosen House, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Katonah, NY, on March 10–11, 2021.

PROGRAM

J. S. Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, BWV 846–869 (1722)

Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C major Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C minor Prelude and Fugue No. 3 in C-sharp major Prelude and Fugue No. 4 in C-sharp minor Prelude and Fugue No. 5 in D major Prelude and Fugue No. 6 in D minor Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-flat major Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-flat minor Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E major Prelude and Fugue No. 10 in E minor Prelude and Fugue No. 11 in F major Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F minor Prelude and Fugue No. 13 in F-sharp major Prelude and Fugue No. 14 in F-sharp minor Prelude and Fugue No. 15 in G major Prelude and Fugue No. 16 in G minor Prelude and Fugue No. 17 in A-flat major Prelude and Fugue No. 18 in G-sharp minor Prelude and Fugue No. 19 in A major Prelude and Fugue No. 20 in A minor Prelude and Fugue No. 21 in B-flat major Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-flat minor Prelude and Fugue No. 23 in B major Prelude and Fugue No. 24 in B minor

The Cal Performances at Home Spring 2021 season is dedicated to Gail and Dan Rubinfeld, leading supporters of Cal Performances and the well-being of our artists for almost 30 years. Major support provided by The Bernard Osher Foundation. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Will and Linda Schieber. Note: following its premiere, the video recording of this concert will be available on demand through July 14, 2021.

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PROGRAM NOTES

y first encounter with Bach’sWell- start with a principle, or an idea: transcenden- Tempered Clavier was Barbra Strei- talism, parabolas, symbolism. Having estab- Msand’s A Christmas Album, which lished the idea, they’d move to examples: for included Gounod’s version of the first prelude— instance, how Wallace Stevens’ “The Emperor the “Ave Maria.” I was four or five. My father of Ice Cream” was an allegory for the ephemer- remarked to my mother that it sounded like ality of appearances. The idea acquires a life and Barbra was “on coke,” which I assumed was a purpose. This pedagogical move, from a prin- soda, and that the Latin pronunciation left ciple to its instances, to its consequences and something to be desired. And yet I loved it, manifestations: this is one of the most funda- especially the way Barbra gathered intensity mental acts of the Well-Tempered Clavier. We towards the end, riding the waves of her handy begin with a thought, and end with a world. At backup chorus (it would be nice to have one of the opening of each individual piece you find those as a solo pianist, from time to time), and an idea, an emotion, a gesture, a texture. It is then belting out what I later learned in music then taken (in the next one to three minutes, theory was called a “cadential six-four chord”— rarely more) to what you might call a logical it seemed like Bach was a channel for the most conclusion. But sometimes the logical appears incredible, soaring leaps and desires. wildly illogical: the dogged, repeated, machine- Alas, soon enough I came to know the Well- like rhythm of the C minor Prelude erupts into Tempered Clavier like all other pianists: as a re- a changeable improvisation; what we thought quirement for auditions, or a qualifying round was the melancholy accompaniment of the for competitions. Bach is a great, quick way to E minor Prelude turns into an obsession for judge a pianist’s finger independence, struc- both hands, a near-rage, while the melody van- ture, and dexterity. But this gatekeeper role is a ishes. Often, the consequences dwarf the orig- disservice, worse than Gounod’s kitsch. It re- inal idea, like in the C major Prelude, where inforces a pedantic stereotype, and creates an initially framed, demure seventh chords be- aura of fear. come instruments of unbelievable tension. Writing a program note for this landmark of Ideas are not static; they want to grow. music is like blurbing the Bible. Where do you I suppose there’s no avoiding a brief expla- start? With the vast text or its vast influence? nation of a fugue. Fugues are an interesting No matter what you say, you’re going to get combination of strict and open-ended. Their in trouble with someone. And explaining this beginnings are prescribed but their evolutions music involves a lot of lingo: “fugue,” “invert- are not. They start with one voice alone stating ible counterpoint,” “stretto.” Readers who know a musical idea, which then appears in a second, the jargon will be bored by explanation, and third, or fourth—even fifth—voice. Once all readers who don’t will be overwhelmed and voices have entered, the fugue enters a freer turned off. phase. The world is its oyster. The theme may Perhaps best to start, then, with simple facts: appear in any voice, right side up or upside Book One is 24 preludes and fugues, a pair in down or backwards or elongated, or we may every major and minor key. To me this proces- slide into an “episode,” a temporary reprieve, a sion of pairs suggests the animals filing onto contrasting idea. The theme may interrupt and Noah’s ark: two of every species, a way to re- overlap itself, too (“stretto”), in a surge of ex- constitute musical life, should everything van- citement or self-reinforcement. We can move ish. It was published in 1722, nearly 300 years from key to key, draping our idea in a rainbow ago. Its declared purpose was to be a helpful col- of colors. The one thing you cannot do is leave lection of teaching pieces. I’d argue it’s the most the theme altogether, for too long; fugues, like generous, rhapsodic, genial, heartbreaking set marriages, require a reasonably high percent- of lessons ever created. age of fidelity. In the classes I remember most fondly from I like to think of fugues as mini-lives, begin- high school and college, my teachers would ning with an act of birth: they appear to generate

Opposite: Jeremy Denk 3 PROGRAM NOTES themselves, through spontaneous self-reproduc- of the harmonies; only one note is dissonant tion. After youthful exposition, with the texture (but not really or darkly dissonant). complete, they enter middle age. The music Some themes are iconoclasts. The A major acquires a wanderlust: a need to change key, Fugue begins with a single short note—an ob- venture forth to unexpected nodes. As a fugue vious joke, as if the piece ends the moment it approaches old age, it begins inevitably to begins. The E major Fugue starts with just a pair retrace its steps: one last emphatic statement, of notes, stops short, and then starts running off or a thrilling stretto, or a striking or moving as if being pursued. The F-sharp minor Fugue arrangement of voices. Bach has great creativity begins with just a bit of ascending scale; it waits; for these sites of return and fulfillment: never then it ascends a bit more, and waits; at last, it quite the same, always adapted to the idea. climbs one more note, and falls. It’s not exactly Sometimes, as in the G major Fugue, there is right to call this a “melody,” so much as a scale the feeling of a mini-apotheosis, reprising the performed by a cautious turtle, painfully slow, theme like a joyful chorus; sometimes, as in the waiting at each juncture to see what will hap- B minor and F minor Fugues, you just hear the pen. These pauses leave room for other sighing, same unsettling enigma, one last haunting time. falling ideas to intervene as the fugue goes on. The main melodies of fugues are called “sub- Ascents play against descents; musical reflec- jects.” Bach’s subjects are lessons in their own tion becomes emotional reflection. right, and objects for meditation. They teach There are verbose subjects, concise subjects, both construction and catchiness (you might unknowable enigmas, and all-too-obvious say: virality). To be a good subject, the idea must dances—like the C minor and C-sharp major. be able to survive a great deal of repetition but They all make us think about the simplest rela- also propel events forward. It must have in- tionships between notes of the scale, and what evitability, and a clear, vivid identity, so it can be those notes might finally mean, in terms of recognized in the middle of all the counterpoint. chords—we try to interpret them, while Bach Last but not least, it must have something to say. reveals the solutions. Several of the catchiest Well-Tempered fugue I am in danger of neglecting the Preludes. subjects feature what I like to call a philosoph- They are a motley and yet incredibly friendly ical two-step: a question, followed by a some- assortment: virtuoso pieces, melancholy rumi- what unexpected answer. The G minor Fugue nations, studies, and curiosities. The first pair, gives you a stern minor descent, followed by the C major and C minor, are iconic chord stud- a graceful, even dancing reply. The A minor ies. They begin with no changes of rhythm, and Fugue theme stops in its middle on a savagely no overt melody, but a stream of continuous dissonant leap, then returns with a flurry of notes. It reminds me of when my mother would close notes. Within the single subject, you find take everything off my plate, except for the opposition, dialectic, a seesaw of parts, each broccoli. You’re going to listen to the harmony, food for future thought. Bach seems to say, whether you like it or not. But there are great single-part subjects, too. But by the last prelude, the B minor, you are at The five notes of the C-sharp minor Fugue sub- the opposite pole, with a texture made of three ject, for instance, begin and end on the same melodies: two duetting, lamenting voices up pitch, with unsettling intervals in between. We top, in an endless interweaving of yearning and depart, but must always return; Bach deploys dissonance, and a walking bass down below— this fatefulness to incredible effect. The quite even the harmonies have been melodized. different A-flat major Fugue simply ascends The Preludes largely explore the joys of the through the A-flat major chord, finds a beauti- miniature: pieces that are over, almost, before ful high neighboring note (F), then slips back they begin. I am reminded of pieces Schumann down to the main chord. That’s it! Its gesture is composed a 115 years later, of fragments that aspiration, and the message is in part the purity reinvent themselves. In the B-flat major Pre -

4 PROGRAM NOTES lude, for instance, we begin with the sheer vir- that minute of music, a miniature world. It van- tuosity of fast notes, a moto perpetuo. Halfway ishes, and we go on to the next world. through, however, chunky chords bring the This prelude exemplifies one of the Well- manic motion to a halt. From then on, fast fin- Tempered Clavier’s most important themes: the gers and fat chords are in perpetual war. There complicated doorway between major and is a wit to these vast contrasts in small spaces. minor. It’s important to remind ourselves of the And also a sense that the moment Bach tires of larger sweep of European classical music his- an idea, he moves on (a freedom not permitted tory. The major/minor classification of musical in a fugue). In his book Testaments Betrayed, keys was relatively new. Previously, composers Milan Kundera describes the pitfalls of big clas- worked in church modes—there were as many sical pieces and novels as “a collaboration be- as seven—where what we have come to know as tween an eagle and hundreds of heroic spiders major and minor are mixed. By Bach’s time, spinning webs to cover all the crannies.” He common practice had become more con- talks about the boring but necessary moments densed, and more polarized (both a gain and a where composers (and writers) have to develop loss, depending on your point of view). Within or modulate to get back to the desired outcome. every prelude and every fugue, Bach allows But in these preludes, it’s all eagles, no spiders— major and minor to visit each other. We cross composition as flight. and recross the boundary, an act with myriad One of my favorite is the E major Prelude, metaphorical overtones: light meets dark, ex- which begins as a seemingly straightforward trovert becomes introvert, joy gives way to sor- pastoral. As Andras Schiff points out, you can row, etc. These moments of turning are for me hear the shepherd’s pipe, and the “sheep safely the core of the Well-Tempered Clavier. They give graze.” But some measures in, the left hand in- the feeling of a fabric, reversible, invertible, terjects a flat note, a musical cloud. It is reflected turned inside out and back like a Mobius strip, in the right hand, like a cloud is reflected in a an unending emotional richness. It is beautiful lake. With that one gesture, the idyll acquires that Bach belies the premise of his own master- loss, and the picture takes on depth. The poetic piece. On the page, he divides the world into pastoral addresses the play between the beauty major and minor. But in the music, he mur- of nature and the inevitability of loss and murs to us: no, it’s always both. death—and it’s all there, held in suspension in —Jeremy Denk

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost extensively, and was to have those perform- pianists. Winner of a MacArthur “Genius” ances culminate with concerts at Lincoln Cen- Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk ter in New York and the Barbican in London. was recently elected to the American Academy Denk returned to to perform of Arts and Sciences. He returns frequently to Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy with the Orchestra Carnegie Hall and in recent seasons has ap- of St. Luke’s, and made his solo debut at the peared with the Chicago Symphony, New York Royal Festival Hall with the London Philhar - Philharmonic, , San monic, performing Beethoven’s Piano Con - Francisco Symphony, and , certo No. 4. He also made his solo recital debut as well as on tour with the Academy of St at the Boulez Saal in Berlin—performing works Martin in the Fields, and at the Royal Albert by Bach, Ligeti, Berg, and Schumann—and re- Hall as part of the BBC Proms. turned to the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in In 2019–20, until the COVID-19 pandemic France as well as to London’s . led to the shutdown of performances, Denk Further performances abroad included his toured Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier debut with the Bournemouth Symphony,

5 ABOUT THE ARTIST

his returns to the City of Birmingham Sym- the Billboard Classical Charts. His recording of phony and Finland’s Piano Espoo Festival, and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor recitals of the violin sonatas of (Op. 111), paired with Ligeti’s Études, was with Stefan Jackiw. named one of the best discs of the year by Highlights of recent seasons have also in- the New Yorker, NPR, and , cluded a three-week recital tour, culminating and his account of the Beethoven sonata was se- in the pianist’s return to Carnegie Hall; play- lected by BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library as directing Mozart concertos on an extensive tour the best available version recorded on modern with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields; piano. Denk has a long-standing attachment to and a nationwide trio tour with and the music of American visionary Charles Ives, . He also performed and curated and his recording of the composer’s two piano a series of Mozart violin sonata recitals (“Denk sonatas also featured in many “Best of the Year” & Friends”) at Carnegie Hall. lists. His recording c. 1300–c. 2000—featuring Denk is also known for his original and in- works by composers ranging from Guillaume sightful writing on music, which has de Machaut, Gilles Binchois, and Carlo Gesual- praised for its “arresting sensitivity and wit.” do, to Stockhausen, Ligeti, and Glass—was He wrote the libretto for a comic opera pre- released in 2018. sented by Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, Jeremy Denk is a graduate of Oberlin and the Aspen Festival, and his writing has ap- College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard peared in the New Yorker, New Republic, and School. He lives in New York City. Guar dian, and on the front page of Book Review. One of Denk’s New Jeremy Denk is represented exclusively by Yorker contributions, “Every Good Boy Does Opus 3 Artists and appears by permission of Fine,” forms the basis of a book for future pub- Nonesuch Records. lication by Random House in the US, and Mac - millan in the UK. www.jeremydenk.com Denk’s recording of Bach’s Goldberg Varia- tions for Nonesuch Records reached No. 1 on www.caramoor.org

6 CREDITS

For Cal Performances at Home EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY PROGRAMS Tiffani Snow, Producer Rica Anderson, Interim Director, Artistic Literacy Jeremy Little, Technical Director Jeremy Robins, Executive Video Producer HUMAN RESOURCES Ras Dia, Operations Coordinator Judy Hatch, Human Resources Director Shan Whitney, Human Resources Generalist For Ibis Productions, Inc. Jeremy Robins, Director MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Hugo Faraco, Camera Operator Jenny Reik, Director of Marketing and Nara Garber, Camera Operator Communications Kharon Benson, Camera Operator Ron Foster-Smith, Associate Director Francis Adjei, Camera Operator of Marketing Emily Buffman, Site Producer Mark Van Oss, Communications Editor Colin Gee, Editor Louisa Spier, Public Relations Manager Cheryl Games, Web and Digital Marketing For Future Tense Media Manager Jesse Yang, Creative Director Jeanette Peach, Public Relations Senior Associate Elise Chen, Email Production Associate For Cal Performances Lynn Zummo, New Technology Coordinator EXECUTIVE OFFICE Terri Washington, Social Media and Digital Jeremy Geffen, Executive and Artistic Director Content Specialist Kelly Brown, Executive Assistant to the Director OPERATIONS ADMINISTRATION Jeremy Little, Production Manager Andy Kraus, Director of Strategy and Alan Herro, Production Admin Manager Administration Kevin Riggall, Head Carpenter Calvin Eng, Chief Financial Officer Matt Norman, Head Electrician Rafael Soto, Finance Specialist Tom Craft, Audio/Video Department Head Marilyn Stanley, Finance Specialist Jo Parks, Video Engineer Gawain Lavers, Applications Programmer Tiffani Snow, Event Manager Ingrid Williams, IT Support Analyst Ginarose Perino, Rental Business Manager Sean Nittner, Systems Administrator Rob Bean, Event Operations Manager

ARTISTIC PLANNING STAGE CREW Katy Tucker, Director of Artistic Planning Charles Clear, Senior Scene Technician Robin Pomerance, Artistic Administrator David Ambrose, Senior Scene Technician Jacob Heule, Senior Scene Technician DEVELOPMENT Jorg Peter “Winter” Sichelschmidt, Taun Miller Wright, Chief Development Officer Senior Scene Technician Elizabeth Meyer, Director of Institutional Giving Joseph Swails, Senior Scene Technician Jennifer Sime, Associate Director of Mark Mensch, Senior Scene Technician Development, Individual Giving Mathison Ott, Senior Scene Technician Jamie McClave, Individual Giving Mike Bragg, Senior Scene Technician and Special Events Officer Ricky Artis, Senior Scene Technician Jocelyn Aptowitz, Major Gifts Associate Robert Haycock, Senior Scene Technician

7 CREDITS

STUDENT MUSICAL ACTIVITIES Opening fanfare used by permission from Jordi Mark Sumner, Director, UC Choral Ensembles Savall from his 2015 recording of Monteverdi's Bill Ganz, Associate Director, L'Orfeo on Alia Vox. UC Choral Ensembles Matthew Sadowski, Director of Bands/ Major support for the Cal Performances Interim Department Manager Digital Classroom is provided by Wells Fargo. Ted Moore, Director, UC Jazz Ensembles Brittney Nguyen, SMA Coordinator Major support for Beyond the Stage is provided by Bank of America. TICKET OFFICE calperformances.org Liz Baqir, Ticket Services Manager Gordon Young, Assistant Ticket Office Manager © 2021 Regents of the University of California Sherice Jones, Assistant Ticket Office Manager Jeffrey Mason, Patron Services Associate

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