JEREMY DENK

Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection.

I was a kid with a lot of different, strange interests - kind of crazy.

If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea.

It's no accident that Op. 111 attracts literary attention. Though it's music, it doesn't quite behave like it. It seems to be charged with meaning, to communicate in symbols, ciphers, clues.

I've learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to go to Oberlin and wanted the liberal arts. Obviously I really get intense pleasure out of drawing connections between pieces and poems and literature and ideas.

It's long been my dream to have myself declared incompetent so I could just practice all day, and blog, and not have to take care of any normal life things.

The only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is You.

I'm one of those pianists who tends to ignore every existing recording and lots of traditions about playing pieces when I start.

As you deal with thumb-crossings, or fingerings for the F-sharp-minor scale, or chromatic scales in double thirds, it is hard to accept that these will eventually allow you to probe eternity in the final movement of Beethoven's last sonata. Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address.

I was a kid with a lot of different, strange interests - kind of crazy.

I've learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.

It's long been my dream to have myself declared incompetent so I could just practice all day, and blog, and not have to take care of any normal life things.

I'm one of those pianists who tends to ignore every existing recording and lots of traditions about playing pieces when I start.

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to go to Oberlin and wanted the liberal arts. Obviously I really get intense pleasure out of drawing connections between pieces and poems and literature and ideas.

If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea.

It's no accident that Op. 111 attracts literary attention. Though it's music, it doesn't quite behave like it. It seems to be charged with meaning, to communicate in symbols, ciphers, clues.

As you deal with thumb-crossings, or fingerings for the F-sharp-minor scale, or chromatic scales in double thirds, it is hard to accept that these will eventually allow you to probe eternity in the final movement of Beethoven's last sonata. Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettysburg Address.

Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection.

The only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is You.

Sometimes you wish you could go back and ask your teachers again to guide you; but up there onstage, exactly where they always wanted you to be, you must simply find your way. They have given all the help they can; the only person who can solve the labyrinth of yourself is you.