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MUSIC REVIEW Piotr Anderszewski, piano
Presented by the International Piano Festiva At: Williams
College, Tuesday night
WILLIAMSTOWN - Pianist Piotr Anderszewski is already established
as a major figure in several countries, and it's only a matter
of time before American households will need to learn how
to pronounce his name.
Bruno Monsaingeon, who made Glenn Gould's last video, Bach's
"Goldberg Variations," has taped Anderszewski in his signature
piece, Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations," a video that has
already won acclaim in Europe and will be released to the
home market in this country in just a few days. It may be
the best visual document ever made of a pianist in performance,
and Anderszewski makes the hourlong work pass in a flash of
lightning.
Anderszewski's wonderful fingers are directed by a strikingly
original musical intelligence; he's a poet at the keyboard,
an interpretive genius, which means you can't argue with him,
even if you don't like what he's doing. And he's one of the
few pianists today who could get away with playing a recital
on a sultry night wearing a black body shirt instead of a
penguin suit. The brooding photographs of Anderszewski that
the International Piano Festival had posted around the lobby
of Chapin Hall had disappeared by concert's end on Tuesday
night.
With talent scouts, a record company executive, and various
music-world movers and shakers in the audience, his recital
featured the first and last Bach Partitas, Janacek's suite
"In the Mist," and Chopin's F-Minor Ballade. For his encore,
Anderszewski offered Bach's entire Third Partita, all 15 minutes
of it.
The Chopin Ballade may not have been completely convincing
but it was entirely enthralling, played across an enormous
dynamic and emotional range and with prismatic attention to
inner voices and polyphony; the opening floated into view
like a ship appearing in a mist on the horizon. In the Janacek,
the piano virtually disappeared to became an additional sound
of nature; in the last movement it began to sing with earthy
peasant cantillation.
There's nothing compromising about Anderszewski's Bach, but
it does bridge several viewpoints. He's unafraid to use the
full resources of the modern piano, its full dynamic range,
with full command of the subtleties of pianissimo, and both
pedals. Much that he does seems to be in the romantic tradition
- the unusual voicings, the emotional depth charge.
But much is also strikingly modern - the way Anderszewski
cherishes dissonance and the counterpull of simultaneous emotions.
Each movement of the Third Partita seemed set as a mirror,
reflecting all the others; among other things, it was a performance
representing relativity. The pianist's program bio speaks
of his attraction to highly structured works, which is apparent
in his playing, which stands at the point where mathematics
becomes the music of the spheres.
Connecting the viewpoints is Anderszewski's animating sense
of rhythm, the most remarkable in Bach since the legendary
Wanda Landowska's. Bach's dance rhythms are defining, and
Anderszewski is in constant motion. He's not dancing to the
music himself, but you can see the rhythmic impulse originate
at the center of his being and pulse through his fingers and
onto the keyboard. For Piotr Anderszewski life is rhythm,
and rhythm is life.
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