Jeremy Denk, Every Good Boy Does Fine ***

This memoir from concert pianist Jeremy Denk covers his musical education from his first lessons at age seven through his doctorate from Julliard. He describes his piano teachers and what he learned from them in the context of his family and school life.

Denk is a very good writer, especially talented at capturing the day-to-day details of living as a young musician: finding the time (and motivation) to practice, questioning how important music is relative to other life goals, learning your teacher's personality, reconciling conflicting feedback, staying even-keeled in the face of (constructive?) criticism. He effectively conveys the mix of arrogance and insecurity he felt as a clearly talented pianist. I enjoyed the earlier parts of the book best, before Denk knows for sure he wants to become a professional musician.

I was less impressed with Denk's writing about music. He describes what he learns from his various teachers, but the lessons tend to be either generic (pay attention to the composer's dynamics markings, vary the attack on the keys, "make it sing") or specific to a particular piece of music (don't play Chopin's "Raindrop" sonata exactly in time). I appreciate the countless factors that a musician needs to balance, both technical and interpretative, but didn't gain much for my musical appreciation. The chapters on harmony, melody, and rhythm are far too metaphorical to be useful to me.

For me, one of the most fascinating rhythmic comparisons in the classical canon is between Mozart and Beethoven, who composed at close to the same time, and using related language, with astonishingly different results. ... Mozart balances stoppage and flow. He knows when to interrupt, when to elide (an underrated virtue), when to gently turn a corner. ... But if Mozart wrote the ideally timeless, Beethoven managed to write something quite different: music in search of time.

This excerpt starts with a promising notion but fails to elaborate on it.

P.S. I feel I have to note that Every Good Boy Does Fine has the most amateurish cover design I've ever seen from a major publisher. An unbalanced layout, clip-art pasted into the upper right, mismatched fonts. Denk explicitly thanks the designer in his acknowledgements, which makes me question his aesthetic taste.