Critic’s Notebook: Anderszewski Recital, Musikverein

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Piotr Anderszewski: Chopin-Mazurkas verwandeln sich bei ihm in Muränen

A Masterclass in Relaxation and Rubato: Piotr Anderszewski at the Musikverein

K.Szymanowski, B.Bartók, L.Janáček, Mazurkas Op. 50, 14 Bagatelles etc. Piotr Anderszewski Warner

Piotr Anderszweski was only the replacement, at his piano recital at Vienna’s Musikverein: Maria João Pires had been scheduled to perform but had to cancel. Not a shabby replacement. Few patrons in the well-filled Golden Hall could have complained beforehand; fewer still afterwards. For one, it’s nice that he isn’t a piano-bench dancer, who tries to tell you with his contortions how you are supposed to feel about the music, rather than making you feel that way through how he plays. He’s got a steady hand at the wheel, and wields a (surprisingly) wild rubato with it, which turned the three Chopin Mazurkas op.59 into relaxed Nocturnes that would, every so often, suddenly, rear their head, and shoot forward like a moray eel aiming for the unsuspecting diver’s naked toe. At those moments, when, after stealing so much time in some places, he had to give it all back at the end of a phrase, the notes became pushed together to the point of cluster chords. Five (out of 20) of Szymanowski’s Mazurkas op.50 varied between relaxed and disembodied, almost indifferent on the one hand (metaphorically, not literally), and lively and besotted with tonal color on the other.

Bartók’s 14 Bagatelles, op.6, are little character pieces that come in all shapes and colors, with cathedral-like grandness one second, prickly little will-o’-the-wisps the next, tickling the ears, turning in the wind this way, then that, and adding a share of lovelorn bitterness. Anderszewski made them come alive, just moving his fingers, entirely unfazed. Where the opening E minor Bach Partita BWV 830 had been so flexible, it had into something intriguing yet almost worryingly romantic, the concluding B major Partita BWV 825, was exalted and sublime, with a steady pulse and forward momentum, very lively (Courante), then exuding celestial peace (Sarabande), a tinkling of bells (Menuet), and dashing, compelling in the concluding Gigue. Bach and Bartók as encores, too, and especially the latter’s Three Hungarian Folk Songs from Csík shone in coy, playful light, sounded almost like Mompou.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Music – It Has To Become Part of Me – An Interview with Piotr Anderszewski

This interview was conducted in 2011 in Salzburg and initially appeared as part of the long-defunct and deleted Classical WETA blog. I have rescucitated it now, to go with a Critic's Notebook review of a recital of Piotr Anderszewski's at the Musikverein.

Piano troubles? Piotr Anderszewski is preparing in the Mozarteum his concert later that night and is interrupted not just by me—late for my interview, coming from another interview and having gotten the time wrong—but by technicians that need to move the piano he had been playing on to another room. He near-imperceptibly rolls his eyes to an equally faint smile and sits down for a quick chat. Being late already, I lose no time: Are you a pianist or a musician?

P.A.: Hmhmmmmmmmmm. He takes a short while to take the question in, assess its treachery, and then continues quickly, almost as if in free verse: More musician than pianist / but even musician / I’m not sure / if I’m a musician… / Pianist / definitely not.

Did you start out with the piano?

P.A.: Yes. Well, I started composing a little bit, actually.

Before you took up the piano?

P.A.: Well, together with the piano. But I was more interested in the composition part and listening to music than I was actually fascinated by the instrument itself. It never really interested very much.

But it’s the way you can express yourself best in music, so that’s why you do it?

P.A.: Ahhhhhh, I guess yes… and it’s the most complete instrument, the most, maybe complex, in a way… and also the repertoire, you know, is so amazing and I think I would feel very frustrated on any other instrument.

Where you ever fascinated by the idea of playing the organ?

P.A.: I played the organ a little bit, yeah…” he says with distinct lack of enthusiasm… “yeah… uhh…” he winds down to a faint grunt before hitting upon a new thought and continues with unexpected vigor: “What I liked about the organ is the setting, the beautiful church, and there is this huge echo, and this whole atmosphere and this I like very much. But the piano has this incredible capacity of suggesting, you know. It can suggest singing—which is astonishing for a percussive instrument. It is an instrument about giving the illusion. And it’s truly a magical instrument. And I mean in a bad sense, as well. It’s a dangerous instrument, because it’s not real. The piano, if you look at the mechanism, at how it works… how to activate the whole mechanism just in order to produce the sound: it’s complex but extremely easy compared to, for example, the violin. Just extremely easy, you know. But then there’s everything that happens between the notes. How do you balance the chords? How do you space notes? It’s very, very… it’s a very mysterious instrument, I think. Why, for example, does one pianist play one note and another plays the same note and it sounds completely, completely different. Despite this mechanism where you’d think you would have very little impact on the outcome. But, in fact you, have a huge impact.

How do you satisfy your own desire for a certain sound?

P.A.: It’s of course linked to the music I play. For me, for example, when I work, when I practice, I always practice with the instrument. When you asked the first question, ‘are you a pianist’… frankly, I didn’t know what to say because in a way, yes, I am. I know some colleagues who study scores and they study it on the train or in the plane and they can really study their piece without actually touching the instrument, without actually activating the sound.

[He gets distracted for a moment by the worry that there is milk in the tea that is approaching—but there is not.]

For me, practicing the score doesn’t make any sense. I cannot—I tried… but for me it’s the score and immediately I have to hear it… it has to be both. I cannot practice on the piano without the score, either. For me it doesn’t work to practice the piano without looking at what I am playing in terms of the score.

Because…?

P.A.: He squirms a bit: Ahyhhhww I don’t know, I need to have this connection of both, of what is written… Now I’m speaking not as an improviser or composer but an interpreter of a certain piece. I need to be in touch with the text, always.

Do you use the music when you play?

P.A.: No. Not during the concert.

Would you like to, if the audience didn’t care?

P.A.: No. I prefer not to use it. The performance is something else, you try to forget… try to forget everything, it’s a state of amnesia of sorts, in the best sense. The more I forget, the better I play.

So you distill the enormous complexities of a score into an impression which you then interpret?

P.A.: Yes… I suppose. Yes. It’s… there has to be the visual contact, somehow. It’s what the composer left us, so there needs to be this material contact. At the end of the day that’s all we’ve got. Of course we have biographies and we know about a composers’ life, more or less, but then practically what we are left with is the manuscript. Or a good edition, at least. And then that’s like a—how to say—it’s just like a drawing. Like a code that you need to decrypt. That you need to translate, actually properly translate, into the world of sounds. So I need to look at while I am translating, while I am doing the work, while I am deciding… I need to see this and be in touch with this text, even though I know it by heart, of course. For me, memorizing is not such an issue… the work really only starts when actually the music is memorized.

Are there any contemporary composer you particularly cherish, either to listen to or to play or both…

P.A.: Hmmm… not really. Honestly, somehow in the last years I haven’t explored this at all, you know. And, frankly, I don’t know why.

But you must be approached by composers?

P.A.: I’ve been approached, people send me scores… but I just feel saturated with all these possibilities… there’s so much already in the classical repertoire I feel I need to do and taking one small piece, taking a Chopin Mazurka, for example, it’s sometimes months of practice for me. I learn rather slowly and deciding to commit to a piece to learn a piece is a big decision for me because I know I will spend months and probably years with this. It’s sort of, well, it’s not a marriage, but almost. I internalize it, somehow—it has to become part of me. So it’s a very, very intimate process; basically a decision about who I let into my life. I don’t know why I am like this. I see other colleagues of mine that have a much lighter approach: ‘Well, it’s just a piece of music and you try to do it as well as you can.’ And for me, it really seems to affect me very personally and very deeply. Every piece has to become myself, somehow, otherwise I just cannot interpret a piece if I don’t have this feeling.

Is there a Liszt-piece you have ever internalized?

P.A.: No… Never. Not a composer that speaks to me, particularly. But maybe… you never know, these things change.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Photo #2 © K.Miura (2007)

Dip Your Ears: No. 274 (Songs of Morning; Piotr Anderszewski’s Schumann)

R.Schumann Piano Music Piotr Anderszewski Virgin/Warner, 2011

The delightful unfunniness of Robert Schumann

Piotr Anderszewski’s 2011 album of Schumann for Virgin (now part of Warner) had me from the very first notes. That’s, granted, never solely down to the performance at hand: It’s partly a matter of mood, a combination of intangibles and good fortune to have one of those moments where with the first chord you are transfixed with a smile and listen to a whole album without your thoughts ever straying. But Anderszewski’s opening of the first “Einfach” in the 1839 Humoreske op.20 did just that. The Humoreske is not only not a funny work (not that we’d necessarily expect that from Schumann, despite the work’s title), it is one of the more contemplative and wistful pieces, even for Schumann. (A least among the earlier works of Schumann, who tends to get darker and more delicious with age.) But even more telling than the gloomy disposition are the turn-on-a-dime mood-swings, the restlessness and how, without warning, it may turn to the lyrically waxing and back again. Not the among the ‘greatest hits’ of Schumann’s piano output, this is still the most conventional Schumann on this disc.

It then gets only better by the inclusion of two considerably lesser played works—the “Canonic Études for Pedal Piano”, which Anderszewski transcribed himself for solo piano, and the late, 1853 Gesänge der Frühe (“Songs of Morning”). Debussy loved the Études and wanted to rescue them from obscurity after the pedal piano—really just a device of practicing organ pedaling at one’s grand piano at home—went out of fashion and hence transcribed it for two pianos. Asked about whether he knew of, or had looked at, the Debussy transcription before transcribing it himself Anderszewski replied nicely to the point: “Yes… I heard the Debussy transcription. Don't like it at all. But very keen on transcriptions in general...” It shows. While I don’t share Mr. Anderszewski’s distaste for the Debussy transcription (recorded to wonderful effect by Tzimon Barto & Christoph Eschenbach), I adore this lighter, nimbler transcription just as much—just as I do appreciate the contrast that his quicker tempi bring to the work and which ‘infuses the stringency of Bach with all the romantic essence of Echt-Schumann.

The “Songs of Morning”, just about as devastating and torn as the “Ghost Variations” (his last lucid composition), are Schumann’s second to last work for piano. The calm opening seems to plunge deeper into the soul of their composer than even the most brazenly emotional of Schumann’s preceding works. This, along with other late works, was once derided as ‘showing the ensuing madness’ (a few months later Schumann jumped into the Rhine from whereon his life trailed sadly toward its end at the Endenich asylum). The work is filled with the desperate to embrace ‘everything and al’l—or at last Anderszewski’s interpretation is. And for as long as I listen, it makes this dark and bleak delight, not the flitting Schumann of the Papillions or Arabesque, the most satisfying, most beautiful Schumann to listen to. It is difficult to come up with a pianist better suited than Anderszewski to make that point.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Briefly Noted: Anderszewski's Central European Survey (CD of the Month)

Janáček, On an Overgrown Path (Book 2) / Szymanowski, Mazurkas (selected) / Bartók, Bagatelles (complete), Piotr Anderszewski (released on January 26, 2024) Warner Classics 5419789127 | 65'32"

Schedule conflicts prevented me from hearing Piotr Anderszewski's most recent area recitals at Shriver Hall, in 2023 and 2019, much to my regret. The Polish pianist's program last year included some of Karol Szymanowski's Mazurkas, which are at the heart of this new recital disc, combining sets of early 20th-century miniatures by three esteemed composers from central Europe. Anderszewski once summed up his approach to playing the piano by saying, "to be a musician is to make sense through sound." In performance, he continued, he allows himself "a certain incoherence," to be "in a world of feelings where strict logic is not the most important thing."

The sense of vivid storytelling in an uncomprehended language suits this compilation of pieces enlivened by dissonance and folk-inspired rhythm and harmony. The disc opens with the second book of Janáček's On an Overgrown Path, recorded in 2016 at Warsaw Radio. Anderszewski included the three pieces the composer never officially included in the in the second book, from 1911. Janáček eschewed the character titles he gave each movement in Book 1, providing only tempo markings. This choice gives some emotional distance from the subject matter Janáček ascribed to these pieces, a combination of memories of his childhood and the painful experiences surrounding the death of his 20-year-old daughter Olga in 1903.

The other two selections on this disc were captured last year in Berlin. Anderszewski has long championed the music of fellow Pole Karol Szymanowski, and he gives glowing accounts of six of the twenty Mazurkas published in the composer's Op. 50. Szymanowski went even farther than Chopin in his incorporation of folk elements in his Mazurkas, and Anderszewski brings out the blue-note touches, quintal drones, and imitation of folk instruments.

The complete set of Bartók’s Bagatelles, Op. 6, packs intense flavors into each of these fourteen pieces, most no longer than a minute or two. The experimental nature of this early score, completed in 1908, is announced in the very first piece, where Bartók notated the left hand in four sharps and the right in four flats. The mixture of modal colors, drawn from central European folk music, and atonal techniques revealing the influence of Debussy and Schoenberg, is bracing in Anderszewski's rendition. The final pair of Bagatelles reveal the influence of Stefi Geyer, the young violinist Bartók developed an unrequited love for around this time: a funeral elegy ("Elle est morte") and a madcap waltz ("Ma mie qui danse"), both containing a melodic motif associated with her.


Follow me on Threads (@ionarts_dc)
for more classical music and opera news

#morninglistening to #Mozart w/@ChambOrchEurope on...

#morninglistening to #Mozart w/@ChambOrchEurope on @WarnerClassicUS w/#PiotrAnderszewski

Amazon: http://a-fwd.to/sawebYi

in #pianoconcertos Nos. 25 & 27 on #Epiphany

#classicalmusic #classicalmusiccollection
#classicalcdcollection #WienerKlassik #orchestralmusic #pianoconcerto #Mozart #chamberorchestraofeurope
#Anderszewski

http://ift.tt/2CMvWnD
via Instagram

Anderszewski Plays More Bach

Bach, English Suites BWV 806, 808, 810, P. Anderszewski (released on March 10, 2015) Warner 825646219377 | 66'35" Bach, English Suite BWV 811 (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (Erato, 2004) Scores, BWV 806-811

For his last concert in the area, a 2012 recital at Shriver Hall, Piotr Anderszewski played two of Bach's English suites, nos. 3 and 6. (He had played no. 6 in his only other local solo recital before that, at the National Gallery of Art in 2006.) The Polish pianist had recorded one of these suites, no. 6 for Erato in 2004, and has now recorded the other for a disc of nos. 1, 3, and 5 for Warner Classics. Anderszewski is one of our favorite choices for Bach on the modern piano, along with Alexandre Tharaud, Angela Hewitt, and Murray Perahia. Anderszewski can certainly deliver technical flair and polish, as in the flashy gigues of these suites, but he is also willing to surprise with some movements that one could describe as weird, like the otherworldly "double" of the sarabande and music-box gavottes in the third suite.

In advance of his recital at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on Saturday night, Anderszewski gave a rare interview to Thierry Hillériteau at his studio in the Rue des Saints-Pères in Paris (Piotr Anderszewski, un marteau du piano, March 27) for Le Figaro, in which he explained some of his (often chimerical) thoughts about the English suites. Bach's polyphony, he said, develops one's hands purely and physically: "there are no longer two, there are three or four hands. Afterward you feel like you can touch objects differently, and your brain feels much the same." In 2011, he took a long hiatus from playing in public, spending time in meditation and reflection. It left him "more permeable," but still obsessed with sound: "to be a musician is to make sense through sound," as he put it. He now allows himself "a certain incoherence," to be "in a world of feelings where strict logic is not the most important thing."

This is one way of describing what beguiles my ear in Anderszewski's way with these English suites. The set is distinguished by Bach's decision to begin each of the suites with a prelude, and each one has a different character, not identified with a word in the score but not difficult to guess for a musician. Anderszewski has an approach for each on this disc that makes sense: a multiform fantasia or intonation, with the feel of improvisation in the A major prelude; a Vivaldi-like concerto of ritornello and solo episodes for the G minor; a virtuoso fugue for the E minor, which might make a fine encore for a performance of the Well-Tempered Clavier. As noted of his Shriver Hall performance, Anderszewski is also becoming more adventurous with his ornamentation, which only adds to the diverting qualities of this recording.

Anderszewski @ Shriver

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Piotr Anderszewski makes Shriver Hall debut
Washington Post, December 4, 2012

Bach, English Suite No. 6 (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2004) Schumann, Humoreske (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2011)

Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski is on a U.S. tour this month, making his first return to the Washington area since a recital at the National Gallery of Art in 2006. For his debut at Shriver Hall in Baltimore, where he played Sunday evening, the program paired two of the composers whose music he has recorded to critical acclaim, Bach and Schumann. Anderszewski is not a fastidious fine-tuner of sound at the keyboard, but he used a broad palette of articulation and voicing to put his mark on some familiar pieces.

He chose Bach's third and sixth English suites, and they made an ingenious pairing. Anderszewski added many small embellishments to the score, taking all of the repeats but never to the point of obfuscating Bach's music. [Continue reading]

Piotr Anderszewski, piano
Bach, English Suites 3 and 6
Schumann, Fantasy in C Major, op. 17
Shriver Hall

ADDENDUM:
The third and sixth English suites are the two that both have gavottes in the optional dance position, and as Anderszewski's performance showed, they have many other things in common. For both of these suites, Bach also wrote out completely ornamented “doubles” for the sarabandes, which Anderszewski played after making his own ornamentations to the original dance, then further ornamenting Bach’s ornamentation on the final repeat. In both cases, the “double” had the feel almost of a completely different movement.

Swedish Chamber Orchestra at Strathmore

Piotr Anderszewski, pianist (photo by Sheila Rock)

Created in 1995, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra has already recorded over 35 CDs. This busy ensemble, Sweden’s only full-time professional chamber ensemble, performed a strong program of Beethoven and Schumann at Strathmore Tuesday evening, sponsored by Washington Performing Arts Society. Their 38 players pack a laser-like punch, which was immediately evident in the striking opening chords of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture. As part of the somewhat historically informed performance (HIP) ensemble, the hard timpani mallets gave a hearty ‘poing,’ while Music Director Thomas Dausgaard gave a good balance of specific cues and beatless general gestures (often with the shoulder) reminiscent of Andrew Manze (recently reviewed by Charles), with whom the ensemble regularly performs. No backs leaned against any chairs among either performers or audience.

Pianist Piotr Anderszewski joined the ensemble in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Unfortunately, the combination of a substandard instrument and unimaginative, technical playing with a banged-out cadenza limited the work’s success. The tense soloist refused to dance with the orchestra, his willing dance partner. The evening could have been an opportunity to invite a fortepianist such as Kristian Bezuidenhout to offer a unique experience with a more modestly sized piano.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Washington Post, April 3) Steve Smith, Take Beethoven, Instill Period Flavor, Heighten the Drama (New York Times, April 1)

Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 filled the second half of the program and allowed the strings to shine. Despite issues with the trumpets at the exposed opening, the ensemble’s sweeping energy was addictive, albeit sometimes undermined by balance issues. With only two double-basses, the ensemble at times sounded top-heavy, and the dominant violin sections occasionally covered the winds. Dausgaard elicited a superbly crafted extended crescendo in the third movement, and the period of tranquility in the second-movement scherzo was an incredible contrast to the clear, quick material beforehand. The Danish conductor magically released the final chord of the symphony with an upward gesture, similar in direction to the release of the string players, thus helping to further transport the orchestra’s bounteous sound. Plan for this compelling conductor's Baltimore Symphony performances this summer (June 12 to 15).

Piotr Anderszewski at the NGA

J.S.Bach, L.v.Beethoven, A.Webern, English Suite, Piano Sonata op.110, Variations op. 27, P.Anderszewski Virgin/Erato K.Szymanowski, Piano Sonata No. 3, Métopes, Masques, P.Anderszewski Virgin/Erato

The draw of the renowned pianist Piotr Anderszewski and perfect weather last Sunday somewhat balanced attendance at the National Gallery of Art’s free concert: the house was full for all but a few seats, none had to sit outside the West Garden Court. On the program were promising items: Mozart’s Fantasia and Sonata in C minor (K. 475 and 457, respectively) played, as they often are, in tandem with the Fantasy serving as a grand overture to the sonata that is barely longer. Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles, op. 126, and J. S. Bach’s sixth English Suite, BWV 811, followed.

Anderszewski has a way of playing so naturally, so unburdened, that it makes you question what could possibly be special about him or any other particular pianist… why anyone might be considered better than another, or what it is that makes us think one good, another less so. Well, what is special about this Hungarian/Polish artist is precisely that ability to appear unmannered and matter-of-fact that one cannot think of the music any other way while played, as containing any ideology or aesthetic statement. It simply is. And that’s what he did in the excellent Fantasia and, playing as at least as well, in the sonata which, however, is musically less interesting to these ears. Adjusting for the acoustics, he took care to provide a pedal-easy, light touch without being kept from ringing out those low bass notes when the Fantasy called for it. It’s easy to hear Beethoven on the horizon in that work (in the way Mozart shifts gears from fast to slow or subtle to bold); it’s surprising how that spirit is all but missing in the contemporaneous (1785), more conventional sonata.

The Beethoven bagatelles from 1823 hark back to earlier works for solo piano, far less challenging or daunting than any of the preceding late sonatas (op. 111 was finished in early 1822). They are a most welcome contrast to the overarching, fierce-looking God of music, his often gloom and meaning-infused late works that bear an unbearable, intimidating greatness. The step from the Mozart Fantasia to these Bagatelles is a notably smaller one than one would have expected comparing the two composers’ piano sonatas. Played with just enough brio to be joyful, enough restraint to be audible, it was a gladly heard appetizer to the English Suite.

Here, again, the program provided more contrast on paper than in sound: these suites, at least No. 6, are a work that – when played on the piano – sounds appreciably less like Bach… fuller, less concerned with counterpoint or playing one line against the other. (Coincidentally or not, the pianist does not have to cross his hands, playing it.) On a modern grand and in the West Garden Court acoustic, it sounded warm; warmer than it already does. Only in the Sarabande avec double does ‘typical’ Bach break through, it was followed by sensual, meditative Gavottes and the playful finishing Gigue. Anderszewski’s notes reminded of supple, purple grapes, not little pebbles. Then again, short of rolling a harpsichord into the West Garden Court, that’s about the only way it can sound. His nimble playing having been excellent, I don’t suppose anyone in the audience had any complaints about this highly competent performance of a most pleasing recital.