20 25

Pianist Jeremy Denk is the closest thing classical music has to a public intellectual in his native U.S., with his booklet notes to this live performance offering an excellent example. Technical and yet personal, they provide a kind of play-by-play to the interpretations offered here, which are quite detailed and yet lively. Although the recording was made before the coronavirus reared its ugly receptors, it was released in 2021, and Denk alludes to the periodic and seemingly random C minor shades in the big C major opening movement of the Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503, as suggesting that we now "have to live with uncertainty." As it happens, details of this kind are where Denk excels.