Briefly Noted: Andsnes champions Dvořák

Dvořák, Poetic Tone Pictures, Leif Ove Andsnes (released on October 28, 2022) Sony 886449916887 | 56'10"

The last local appearance by Leif Ove Andsnes had been in 2017, a striking duet recital with Marc-André Hamelin. Happily for those like me starved for his stylish playing, Washington Performing Arts brought him back to the Kennedy Center for a stupendous solo concert last month. (Although unreviewed in Washington, the program was the same as his Chicago recital, reviewed by my colleague Lawrence Johnson.) Here in Washington, Andsnes ran the first half all together with no applause: he did not need to ask the audience not to applaud, but the unfamiliarity of the music and his command of attention kept the house quiet. For me the highlight of the evening was an astounding reading of Beethoven's Op. 110, full of technical wizardry and a witty approach to the quotation of silly folk songs and the self-mocking of the concluding fugue, a gesture recalled by Verdi in the finale to his opera Falstaff.

Andsnes's touring program closed with this forgotten set of character pieces by Dvořák, which the Norwegian pianist recorded in 2021. Op. 85, which runs to almost an hour, was a bit much to hear in a single sitting, but as usual Andsnes made a strong case for its revival. Dvořák wrote this collection over the course of several weeks on summer vacation in 1889, three years before he came to the United States. Andsnes came to know the pieces when he studied with a Czech teacher, as well as through a recording by Radoslav Kvapil. The pause in his concertizing during the Covid-19 lockdowns gave Andsnes the chance to study the set in detail, leading to this recording and the live performances on tour. Andsnes hits an ideal balance between the maudlin sentimentality of the simpler, slower pieces ("Twilight Way" and "In the Old Castle," among others) and the fierce virtuosity also required. Highlights include the fun starts and stops of "Toying" and especially the tipsy, spinning runs of "Bacchanalia," which Andsnes has likened to "a Scarlatti sonata gone mad." Folk touches come into play delightfully in "Peasant Ballad" and "Furiant."

Briefly Noted: Lise Davidsen and Leif Ove Andsnes

E. Grieg, Haugtussa / Songs, L. Davidsen, L. O. Andsnes (released on January 7, 2022) Decca 00028948526543 | 75'32"

Soprano Lise Davidsen lifted my spirits during the pandemic, with an extraordinary recital for Vocal Arts DC that, even though it was virtual, was one of my favorite performances of 2021. That program included a wonderful rendition of Edvard Grieg's Sechs Lieder, op. 48, on German poetry and in a German romantic vein. As it turned out, it was also a tease for her new release, a beguiling recital of songs by Norway's most beloved composer. To seal the deal, the Norwegian soprano partnered with Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. The two musicians, working together for the first time, recorded the album last September in the town of Bodø in the Arctic Circle, where a new cultural center, the Stormen Konserthus, opened in 2014.

This collection supplants what was up to this point my reference recording for the Grieg songs, by Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg from the 1990s. This disc, like that one, is anchored on Grieg's only song cycle, the mysterious Haugtussa (The Fairy Maid), with poetry by Arne Garborg in Nynorsk, the New Norwegian that had been reinstated after Norway had finally regained its independence from Denmark. Davidsen sings with both shimmering transparency and, where needed, overwhelming power, incarnating the voice of Veslemøy, the young Norwegian girl with psychic powers. Andsnes accompanies with sensitivity and variety of tone, including magical flourishes upward in "Det syng," impetuous shifts of mood in "Blåbær-Li" and "Killingdans," and tender longing in "Møte." The lover's betrayal of the girl and her suicide in the brook in the final two songs are heart-breaking.

Grieg's nationalist reputation lies in his interest in Norwegian folk music, but living as he was in the period just after Norway's independence, this song cycle and other songs in Nynorsk are just as important. The other songs on this disc range widely in style, from the forlorn "En Svane" to the rousing "Og jeg vil ha mig en Hjertenskjær," where both Davidsen and Andsnes test the forceful dynamic power of their respective instruments to thrilling effect. In addition to gorgeous excerpts from various collections, the album comprises complete performances of the folk music-inspired Five Songs, op. 69, including the very moving poem and music for "Ved Moders Grav" (At Mother's Grave) and the playful "Snegl, Snegl!" (Snail, Snail!). The aforementioned six German songs, op. 48, are just as poignant as remembered from Davidsen's virtual recital, but with more powerful contributions from Andsnes at the keyboard.

Ionarts-at-Large: Leif Ove Andsnes - Understatement and Innovation

Haydn – yes! How wonderful to see that Leif Ove Andsnes—along with Solveig Kringlebotn and Truls Mørk Norway’s foremost classical artist—brought a Haydn Sonata to his recital at Oslo Opera House. But to see the C-Minor Sonata (No.33, Hob.XVI:20) atop of the bill irked me amid delight. Haydn is not the warm-up, not the oh-this-is-nice-too piece amid more flashy Bartók, Debussy, and Chopin. Just like Haydn Symphonies, however desperately welcome they are in Philharmonic concerts, ought not be the ‘warm-up overture’ before the ‘real composers’. But it’s hard to grumble when Haydn is played with such sincerity (a humorous sincerity, as befits the composer) and earthbound preciousness as Andsnes did. He did so, unfazed by quadraphonic bronchial utterances from the audience that pockmarked all three movements with bemusing regularity.

J.Haydn, Five Piano Sonatas, L.O.Andsnes EMI

Bartók’s Suite for Piano op.14 is a little engine that could, chugging away with whimsy, delight, and lots of rhythmic appeal… sides that Andsnes played up perfectly. It’s a delight in concert, benefitting considerably—like so much Bartók—from live performance. Perhaps this is one reason why Andsnes, amid his vast output for Virgin Classics and EMI, has not recorded any solo-piano Bartók. Stylistically switching on a dime, Andsnes performed three of Debussy’s Images: muscular tone paintings in his hands, rich in nuance and dynamic shades and gratifyingly devoid of clichéd pastels. Here, as elsewhere, a sense of innate rightness ruled. Andsnes makes musical points with everything he plays, but they’re often so subtle, that it’s hard to tell what point that might be. His success isn’t accidental; it comes from being one of the great understated innovators among pianists.

The second half of the recital was given over to Chopin. First: four uninhibited, muscular waltzes without any faux-French flavor and none of the ‘wilting lily’ Chopin-pretensions. This was extraordinarily healthy, robust Chopin – as were the following two ballades and the first, B-Major, Nocturne. When it was over and done with, four encores placated the grateful, proud audience. The Chopin Waltz, the Rachmaninoff Étude-tableau, the Granados Spanish Dance were all welcome. But there was one more, he wanted to squeeze in. At least one bit of Grieg—the composer he has championed more than any other in his quarter of a century long career—in this otherwise Grieg-less Oslo recital. Unfortunately the Lyric Piece op.54/2 (“Gangar”) is such a bloody ear-worm that leaving the opera house—which had incidentally showed itself a quality recital space—it dominated the memory at the exclusion of all the carefully balanced diversity that had come before.

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Leif Ove Andsnes

Charles T. Downey, Leif Ove Andsnes at Strathmore: Pianist brings poetry, introspection
Washington Post, February 14, 2012

Haydn, Piano Sonatas, Leif Ove Andsnes Chopin, Sonatas / Etudes / Mazurkas, Leif Ove Andsnes

Leif Ove Andsnes will celebrate the 25th anniversary of his recital debut next month in Oslo, and this distinctive Norwegian pianist has made periodic visits to Washington for most of that remarkable career. The Washington Performing Arts Society brought him to the Music Center at Strathmore on Sunday night to play the same program he will perform in Oslo. Andsnes held audience members in rapt silence, controlling with hieratic authority even the impulse to applaud, hypnotizing us with his almost obsessive concern for the finest details of sound.

Andsnes opened with an introspective reading of an introspective Haydn sonata (C minor, Hob. XVI:20), distinguished by a delicacy of touch and multicolored shading of phrases. The fast movements were perhaps a little too fast, leading to some slightly smudged decorative elements in the moderato first movement, especially evident in the breathless sextuplet accompaniment of the development section. This was not merely overblown showmanship, though, even in the breakneck finale that was more vivace than simply allegro, but more fascination in the busy burbling of figuration. Small poetic moments were finely polished, such as the pause for reverie at the adagio mini-cadenzas before the closing sections in the first movement. The second movement’s slightly pointed quality was thankfully softened on the repeats. [Continue reading]

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
Washington Performing Arts Society
Music Center at Strathmore

Haydn, C minor piano sonata (Hob. XVI:20), as played by Alfred Brendel (1st movement, 2nd, 3rd)

Bartók, Suite, op. 14 (1916) (as recorded by the composer)

Debussy, Images, 1ère série (as played by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: Reflets dans l'eau, Hommage à Rameau, Mouvement)

Chopin (see Chopin First Editions Online), Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, op. 47 (as played by Evgeny Kissin); Four Waltzes; Nocturne in B Major, op. 62/1 (as played by Aldo Ciccolini); Ballade No. 1 in G minor, op. 23

Previously on Ionarts:
2009 | 2008

Katherine Boyle, Grammy nominee Leif Ove Andsnes is ready to play — but not at awards show (Washington Post, February 11)

Andsnes and Rhode: Pictures Reframed

Leif Ove Andsnes, pianist (photo courtesy of NRK)

On Friday night, sponsored by the Washington Performing Arts Society, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (in his first local appearance since a recital at Strathmore last year) and South African visual artist Robin Rhode presented Pictures Reframed, a multimedia concert centered on Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The program revolved around the theme of childhood, an inspiring idea, and Andsnes seemed completely at peace with himself, without pretense -- in short, exactly the kind of pianist who will succeed in the changing world of classical music. He began, without any flourish, with Mussorgsky’s unfinished, two-movement work Memories of Childhood and Schumann’s Kinderszenen. Each work was conceived as the reminiscences of an adult looking back on childhood, but Andsnes’ simplicity was so utterly childlike one almost forgot that there was maturity behind the music.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, Andsnes and Rhode's 'Pictures': The frame doesn't fit (Washington Post, November 23) Igor Toronyi-Lalic, Lief [sic] Ove Andsnes combines music and visual art (The Times, November 21) Martin Bernheimer, Pictures Reframed (Financial Times, November 18) Jason V. Serinus, Putting It Together (San Francisco Classical Voice, November 17) Kenneth Delong, Pianist great, visuals not (Calgary Herald, November 17) Richard Lacayo, Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition" — Plus More Pictures (TIME, November 16) Anthony Tommasini, Sound and Vision: A Piano Recital With a Multimedia Heart (New York Times, November 15) Albert Imperato, The Art of Collaboration and the Meaning of "Pictures Reframed" (Huffington Post, November 12)

Andsnes was remarkably steadfast, unaffected, and economical in his movement, and did not seem to feel the need to give the pieces too much nuance. He performed the music as a child would, without the jaded years of experience, and it was gorgeous. The intermittent short films, dubiously received, were programmed as a seamless extension of the music, with Andsnes handing over the baton during his final notes. The first of the two featured films, Rhode’s Kid Candle, was a mixed media film of a live action boy interacting with a hand-drawn horizontal plane and candle, the image all the while flickering as a candle would between the negative and positive film. The art beautifully complemented the music, an outwardly simplistic commentary on the imagination of a child.

The idea of setting Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to new images is certainly nothing new. However, the way in which Rhode drew upon Viktor Hartmann’s pictures, the original inspiring art, was certainly interesting, if also difficult to follow (only upon reading Rhode’s program notes did many of the connections become illuminated). As in the music itself, the promenade was the only connective tissue, for which Rhode created the marvelous image of a youth whose feet are unable to touch the ground. The boy is discovering his path, portrayed by geometric shapes that move and transform at the touch of his feet.

In the crowded elevator leaving the concert, the silence was heavy as thoughts and reactions were surely in development. Then a simple question was posed by a smiling man: “What did you all think...?” And just like that, former strangers were now connected and engaged. If nothing else, Andsnes and Rhode created dialogue and passion among the patrons of their art, a much needed element to keep the field living and breathing. For better or worse or unknowing, at least the audience members felt something.

Saving Rachmaninov for Last

If the National Symphony Orchestra had been interested in hiring an exciting, young conductor, along the lines of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, it might have considered the man on the podium at this week's concerts. The Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov (pictured), then not even 30, succeeded Osmo Vänskä as the Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a post he will relinquish this September to Donald Runnicles. (He reportedly cut back the amount of conducting he does with the BBCSSO, in order to spend more time with his young children back in Israel, which would make a possible connection to the NSO difficult anyway.) However, if the surprising program he led last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall was any indication, it would have been anything but boring.

Jeu de cartes A Haunted Landscape Rach 3, Andsnes

Two relative oddities formed the first half, both to my surprise having already appeared on NSO concerts before, but certainly not with any regularity. Stravinsky's neoclassical ballet music for Jeu de cartes favors rhythmic vitality over sustained melodic interest. Although Volkov's beat was always crisp and clear, the cross-metrical relationships, simultaneously and between sections, did not always crystallize. There were some intriguing colors in the palette, diverting to the ear, especially the tongue-in-cheek quotations of other music including snippets of the overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville, but the result was strangely hollow. Much more satisfying was George Crumb's A Haunted Landscape, a fascinating tutorial on how to creep out your listener. After the activity of the Stravinsky, the large orchestra seemed frozen in stasis, as much of the piece is a tense ticking out of sounds from prepared piano, harp, and a zoological display of percussion. From time to time, a halo of strings shone in the darkness on shimmering triads, radiating up into the very high octaves, not always to pleasing effect. The reactionary listener had to sit through this memorable pairing to have his Rachmaninov, a risky programming strategy considering that those truly set in their ways could plan to arrive at intermission. Judging by the fullness of the crowd right from the start, no one did and all seemed generally pleased by the more adventurous portion of the concert, which was played with verve. As a recalcitrant Rachmaninov-averse person, I was tempted to leave at intermission and skip another performance of that composer's third piano concerto. But no, it was Leif Ove Andsnes at the keyboard, and experience has taught me that a great player -- Martha Argerich and Gabriela Montero, Anna Vinnitskaya -- can compel me to work through my gag reflex to this syrupy music, especially by playing it in as straightforward a way as possible.

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, NSO's Refreshingly Quirky Program Seals the Deal With Rachmaninoff (Washington Post, January 16)

Where Barry Douglas applied force and arm power to the third concerto with the Baltimore Symphony this summer, Andsnes moved through much of the work with speed. As technique goes, he made a blazing impression on his top-notch 1995 recording of the works (remastered for re-release a few years ago), made a few years after Andsnes had to take a sabbatical to realign his approach to playing because of intense shoulder pain. Volkov was on the money, following every shift of the transmission, but the orchestra did not do well as a whole in keeping in lockstep with his beat. The result was technically ferocious, not too treacly at the dangerously saccharine points, and a little disjointed. Even I would have been happy to hear one of the études-tableaux included on Andsnes' recording as an encore, but the warm ovation was apparently not long enough. This concert will be repeated tonight and Saturday evening (January 16 and 17, 8 pm).

Leif Ove Andsnes @ Strathmore

Leif Ove Andsnes, pianist (photo courtesy of NRK)

Washington Performing Arts Society brought Leif Ove Andsnes to Strathmore on Tuesday night. While the Norwegian pianist may be less famous than some of the musicians who are reliable WPAS favorites, he drew a respectable audience who impressed by their silent attention, the sort who glare at a dropped program. Although we have recommended several recordings by Andsnes, including his Mozart concerti, Schubert (with Ian Bostridge), and Bartók (with Christian Tetzlaff), this is the first live review at Ionarts, and it was worth the wait.

After opening with Bach's E minor toccata (BWV 914), Andsnes launched into Beethoven's E-flat major sonata (op. 27, no. 1 -- see this online score). The work has been often in my ears recently, in recordings by András Schiff and Paul Lewis and, most importantly, on Alfred Brendel's farewell recital. Like Brendel and Lewis, Andsnes took the indication of "Quasi una fantasia" as a prompt for a detached, dreamy style for much of the piece, with a gentle approach to the first movement's first subject and aloof wonder at those unexpected C major chords. By contrast, the Allegro section was a wash of very fast notes and hammered accents. The second movement was even and clear-themed, and after holding the final note for a long time, Andsnes proceeded into an easy, straightforward third movement, as if it were marked attacca. The only complaint was related to the register shifts of the fourth movement's theme, which sounded a little hammered, although Andsnes never gave ground on the fast tempo.

Birch, the national tree of Finland

The high point of this program was at the end of the second half, a set of lesser-known Scandinavian works, introduced with brief and entertaining comments by Andsnes. Four short pieces by Sibelius, left off the official program, gave glimpses into the Finnish composer's sound world, known primarily for orchestral works and less for the piano. The final piece of Kyllikki (op. 41, based on an episode from the Kalevala) was a flighty account of the inveterate party girl's late night adventures, with a murky ballad in the middle. A waltz marked Elegiaco (op. 76, no. 10) recalled a tragic memory, leading into The Birch (op. 75, no. 4), a folk-inspired evocation of Finland's national tree. Oscillating chords seemed to recall quivering leaves, and the pentatonic melodic snippets were redolent of the mythic north (once, visiting rural Sweden, I was struck by how much it looked like my own home state of Michigan where, above the tree line, white birch and conifers dominate). A gloomy Barcarola (op. 24, no. 10) was more appropriate to a skiff among icy floes than to a gondola, Venice by way of Finland.

Concluding the set was the G minor ballade by Grieg, which Andsnes has played everywhere since the Grieg centenary last fall, including on top of a Norwegian mountain (the video of the piano being lifted up there by helicopter -- to the strains of Grieg's piano concerto, of course -- is a hoot). Composed after Grieg's parents had died, it is akin to Chopin's ballades (and their connection to the poetry of his native Poland) in its nostalgia for family and home. However, much like Grieg himself, the piece joins together Scandinavian folk elements and more southern, extended harmonies that would fit in with Ravel, Debussy, or even Poulenc.


Grieg, Ballade in G minor, op. 24, Leif Ove Andsnes

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, Pianist Andsnes, Better Than the Hype (Washington Post, April 24)

To seal that connection, Andsnes closed with a second-half selection of less familiar Debussy preludes, mixed together from Books 1 and 2. Was it my imagination or were preldues chosen for their possibly nordic connection? There were murky chromatic clouds of fog that wrapped the listener in veils of ambiguity (Book 2/1), jerky melodic bits tossed up by the wind in the plain (1/3), footsteps on white snow in dusky silence (1/6), and a glacially beautiful Ondine (2/8). Andsnes was at his best creating a varied palette of color, as in the ethereal enigma of Canope (2/10), the Spanish dance and clanging guitar of La Puerta del vino (2/3), the playfully interrupted serenade (1/9), and the bucolic heather lea of Scotland (2/5). In pure virtuosic displays, as in the wild toccata of Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest (1/7), he was formidable but slightly constrained toward squareness. This detracted not in the least from an innovative program, one of the high marks of this season's piano recitals.

For the next WPAS concert, Kurt Masur will lead the Orchestre National de France next Monday (April 28, 8 pm), in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Beethoven (Piano Concerto No. 2) and Bruckner (Symphony No. 7) are on the program.

Andsnes' Latest Mozart

Mozart, Piano Concertos 17 and 20 (K. 453 and 466), Leif Ove Andsnes, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (released February 26, 2008) EMI Classics 50999 5 00281 2 2

The second installment of the series of Mozart piano concerti from Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra is just as pleasing as the first one, from 2004. The arrangement is nearly perfect for Mozart concerti, a small, tightly knit chamber orchestra with whom Andsnes appears regularly as guest leader (here he plays the solo part and conducts from the piano). The slightly odd DVD of the group, playing excerpts of Mozart concerti in a lovely old Norwegian post office (video of one movement embedded below), shows a close, warm, and friendly collaboration. The only improvement one could possibly hope to make would be the use of 18th-century instruments.

Andsnes' Mozart Concerti: No. 9/18 DVD: Excerpts of 9/18/20

This Mozart has a contained sound, not overblown, with the piano and wind solos coming through clearly, neither strident nor distant. At the same time, these beautiful concerti (two of the most familiar, especially no. 20) are not timid or retiring either, and Andsnes displays intelligence, sensitivity, and icy sure finger dexterity. The tempi of the outer movements are fleet but never feel excessively raced. There is not much need for new recordings of these concerti, as there are by one count 78 recordings of K. 453 and 164 (!) recordings of K. 466 available. For someone who does not already own one of them (and even those who do), this recording and its companion volume are excellent and finely detailed Mozart. The only reservation is that, for anyone interested in a historically informed performance (HIP) version, the Academy of Ancient Music's recording of the same two concerti, with Robert Levin on fortepiano, is to be recommended instead.

If you do end up buying this disc, which we warmly recommend, note that the cadenzas have been misidentified in the first printing of the booklet. For the third movement of K. 466, Andsnes did not compose his own cadenza (it is by Johann Nepomuk Hummel) and the one in the first movement, by Beethoven, was not edited by Edwin Fischer. Andsnes and the NCO toured the U.S. in 2006 but, alas, did not visit Washington. However, Andsnes will make a stop here as part of his spring world tour, playing a solo recital in the Music Center at Strathmore (April 22, 8 pm), sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society. The program will include selections from Debussy's two books of preludes (likely to put last night's Debussy by Lang Lang to shame) and the ballade by Edvard Grieg that Andsnes has been playing everywhere, to observe the 100th anniversary of the Norwegian composer's death last year. It will also feature one of the Schubert sonatas (C minor, D. 958), many of which he has recorded on his series of Schubertiade recitals with Ian Bostridge. All fans of fine piano playing are encouraged to attend.


Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 9 (3rd movement)
Leif Ove Andsnes, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra