We went to a recital this evening, at Symphony Space. Jeremy Denk played the Goldberg Variations. It was extremely interesting — and wonderful to hear. But the “wonderful to hear” part was mine, and the “extremely interesting” part was ours.  

As I don’t mean to pre-empt a proper piece of music criticism, all I’ll say here is that Mr Denk’s performance took off — and it did take off — only after some initial uncertainties that, for my part, I found quite terrifying. How would I write about this event? It would have killed me to say that the evening was not a success. Happily, I don’t have to. But that’s just me. The applause had hardly died out when I learned that Kathleen Had Not Approved. On the contrary, she had channeled the force de frappe of at least three Reverend Mothers to compose her judgment.

(Tindley and Flather, I hope that you’re listening!)

Kathleen, who has never in her entire life lifted a cuticle to hear a recording of the Goldberg Variations, but who, like Cleopatra, has been involuntarily exposed to the best that there is in the world, à la Matthew Arnold, was stern when I remarked that Mr Denk had encountered “difficulties” in the first and the fifth variations. All Kathleen needed was a cigar to put on her best Churchill impersonation. “There were a lot of wrong notes at the beginning,” she intoned, not altogether froggily.

By Variation XIII, I was quite comfortable: Mr Denk was not just running through the score as best he could. He was giving us the Denk Version, and it was extraordinary. I was sure that Kathleen must be hearing this, too. Not, though. It was only when we got out of the taxi that I heard Kathleen’s Round II, which had to do with “emoting.”

Everyone who really knows Kathleen knows that she is supremely entertaining about music that she doesn’t like. Over the weekend, I am sure, I am going to be treated to schoolgirl imitations of Mr Denk’s “emoting,” even though I did my best to head this off at the pass. “That’s not ’emoting’,” I insisted. “It’s just the worry of trying to play the piece exactly right.” But Kathleen has locked on to the idea that Bach is “mathematical,” hence, “not emotional,” hence Mr Denk’s manner of playing is “hypocritical.” Total bosh, and I told her so. But before I convince her, we’ll be fooling around in a back hallway of the Brill Building.

Kathleen was shortsighted enough to dismiss her own review as “That’s who I am [darling]!” I hastened to remind her that she used to hear Mozart rather differently — before a stropping education!

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