Jeremy Denk performs Sunday as part of the Portland Conservatory of Music’s Piano Palooza. Photo courtesy of the Portland Conservatory of Music

Though it was his 150th birthday, Charles Ives (1874-1954), obviously, could not be physically present in Portland on Sunday afternoon. But the spirit of the controversial composer paid a visit through the mind and fingers of highly regarded pianist and Ives enthusiast Jeremy Denk.

On the heels of his essay on Ives appearing in the New York Times just two days before and his new album of Ives compositions just released, Denk was here to finish up the festive, three-day “Piano Palooza” held at the burgeoning Portland Conservatory of Music.

With an engaging showmanship, the 54-year-old, prize-winning pianist took on a collection of pieces that sought to contextualize Ives’ brilliant but sometimes (in Denk’s description) “messy” work, particularly his Piano Sonata #2 (aka the “Concord Sonata”) which finished the program. To that end, the first half of the two-hour (plus intermission) concert was bookended by two Beethoven Sonatas, Op. 109 and 110.

There was no doubt from the beginning that Beethoven was in the house as the pianist conjured the composer’s mastery of the form. Hearing just these performances alone by Denk would fulfill most concertgoers’ dreams of a great concert.

Adding a bit of drama, as he also did with facial expressions throughout the performance, the personable Denk noted that these late Beethoven sonatas were created after the composer was totally deaf and in failing health. The powerful outbursts and exquisitely sensitive passages were well executed by the pianist who wowed the sell-out crowd not only with his technical precision but emotional engagement with the works.

Between the Beethoven sonatas came some Americana-rooted, though formally structured, short pieces by Scott Joplin, Louis Moreau Gottschalk and William Bolcom. Each composer inspired jaunty performances from Denk, who seemed to be enjoying their works, periodically throwing gleeful glances at the crowd. Also included was a world-premiere work based on a performance by Nina Simone and arranged by jazz pianist Ethan Iverson in collaboration with Denk. This take on the standard “Just in Time’ may have sacrificed a bit of the song’s essential appeal for the sake of some dazzling, virtuosic variations.

The second half of the program was given over to Ives’ 45-minute sonata conjuring musical visits to Concord, Massachusetts, in its heyday as the home of the Transcendentalist movement. Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts and Thoreau each are given a musical nod by the composer as part of what Denk referred to as Ives’ “modernist account of America.”

The composer’s vision suggested a “glorious imperfection,” as Denk put it in his Times essay. The light and dark contrast of late Beethoven gave way to the spirit of ragtime and gentle, Stephen Foster-like, sentimentality. There are times, as miraculously illustrated by Denk, when the music threatens to become (to use a currently popular word) unhinged in its intensity before a softening of focus recurs.

Testing traditions with ferocity and warmth seems to be what Ives’ work and its interpretation by Jeremy Denk are all about.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.