Déjà Review: this review was first published in November 2009 and the recording is still available.

Piotr Anderszewski (piano)
At Carnegie Hall
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Partita no. 2 in C minor, BWV 826 (1725-31)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26 (1839-40)
Leoš Janáček (1854-1938)
V mlhách (In the mists) (1912)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Sonata No.31 in A flat major Op.110 (1821)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District Sz35a/BB 45b (1907)
rec. 2008, Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Carnegie Hall
Originally reviewed as Virgin Classics release
Erato 2672912 [2 CDs: 84]

This recital has received some near universal plaudits so I was interested to hear it.

Let’s start with the Janáček in which Anderszewski plays up residual Debussyisms rather too insistently. There’s pellucid colour but things sound piquantly sectionalised in this performance and just a bit manicured, as if he were looking inwards and not having ingested the requisite rhetoric from within. I don’t know how long he’s been playing the piece but it sounds stylistically hesitant. He fusses over the second piece; in fact he can’t leave it alone, his quest for fantasy and colour leading him more and more astray. There are tempo extremes in the third and in the last, although there are some terse, florid and even lasciviously coloured moments, the vital spine of the music is fractured. This is not really good Janáček playing. It is too busy, too interested in making points, too insistent on imposing its own schema. Somewhere along the line the composer – who can usually take care of himself – takes a pummelling.

Beethoven’s Op.110 doesn’t open Moderato cantabile to my ears; there’s not much amabilità here. There are strong sinewy contrasts in the second movement and a concomitant sense of characterisation. Better still is the Arioso finale. There are moments of rapt eloquence that show what this pianist can do when he brings a sensitive sense of proportion to bear on the music, and doesn’t try to ruffle its feathers. Timbral control and colour, as well as true chordal power before the Fugue are indices of his exemplary commitment here – and he is equally capable of great delicacy and touch too.

The Bach Partita certainly offers some intriguing moments. There’s an arresting call to arms in the Sinfonia, good voicings in the Allemande and a wittily articulate and palpably dynamic Rondeau. What I miss is something that, say, Craig Sheppard offers – a cohesive sense of naturalness allied to a strongly rhythmic energy. The Schumann gives Anderszewski plenty of opportunities to parade his Romanticist credentials. Here he proves powerful, strong and teaky in the Scherzino, capable of playing that makes the intestines shake. There are times when one would wish for a greater sense of finesse perhaps – the finale, whilst rollingly assured, isn’t quite as refined as some. The little Bartók pieces make for a delightful encore.

So it’s something of a mixed recital for me. Its greater strengths reside when Anderszewski doesn’t feel he has anything to prove or impose, when he can inhabit the music simply from within. At his worst he can be showy and as the Janáček shows some music doesn’t require kite-flying to make its point.

Jonathan Woolf

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