Classical music spotlight: Jeremey Denk with SPCO

Thursday- Sunday 4/19-22

Jeremy Denk and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra have a good thing going. The popular pianist and blogger, who in November gave a memorable account of Beethoven's First Concerto with the SPCO, returns this week for four performances at the SPCO Center. On the orchestra's engine408 series, he'll play solo etudes by György Ligeti and, with SPCO members, two works by Charles Ives (a Denk specialty). On its Chamber Music Series he'll be heard in Edward Elgar's remarkable 1919 Piano Quintet -- "ghostly stuff," the composer called it -- and in Brahms' late Sonata for viola and piano (Op. 120, No. 1). Music by Dvorak, Wolf and Prokofiev rounds out a delectable program.