Describing the diverse influences behind his two daunting books of Etudes, Ligeti once cited fractal geometry, the rhythmic asymmetries of African music, the player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow, and even jazz (specifically Thelonius Monk and Bill Evans). Listening to the Etudes, the various inspirations are audible to a degree but more often they are consumed by the blazing individuality of these short pieces, each of which explores a discreet set of pianistic or compositional ideas with ferocious concentration and intensity.
Before sitting down to play on Sunday, Denk spoke briefly to the audience of his reasons for pairing these two works. He was drawn, he said, to the contrast between the pristine order of Bach’s music and the pristine disorder of Ligeti’s (“mathematics after chaos theory,’’ he called it). Despite this contrast, both Bach and Ligeti had attempted to push keyboard virtuosity to its outer limits. They also shared, in Denk’s words, an “outrageous naughtiness and occasional perversity’’ in their approach, as well as an intuitive feel for “the wild beauties’’ that were possible at the piano.
Opening with the Ligeti, Denk showed himself deft at summoning those wild beauties, teasing out the mysterious shapes and alluring colors in this strange and wonderful keyboard menagerie. From the hectically scurrying etude, appropriately titled “Désordre’’ (“Disorder’’), to the notorious “L’escalier du diable,’’ in which the composer calls for a thundering volume marked by eight fortes — “ffffffff’’ — Denk proved he had the technique and courage to plunge into the heart of the Ligetian storm.
