Piotr Anderszewski (piano) National Concert Hall
Metopes< Liszymanowski Partita No 1 in B flat - Bach Diabelli Variations - Beethoven
It's 10 years since the Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski first appeared in Ireland. Over that time his concerts here have revealed a highly individual, many-sided talent. At one extreme, Anderszewski takes a penchant for slow tempos to steer certain works (including Mozart's Fantasy in C minor, K475) into the realm of the epic. At the other, he can sound like a fetishising miniaturist, totally wrapped up in the shaping of local detail. At the National Concert Hall on Thursday, he revealed himself in different ways in three very different works. The exotically perfumed and decoratively elaborate 1915 Metopes of his fellow-countryman Karol Szymanowski were handled with exquisite care. Their shifting layers were carefully shaped and balanced, and if the sense of pulse was occasionally obscured, there was rarely a moment which failed to shimmer or vibrate.
Bach's Partita in B flat, the performance dedicated by the promoter, the Limerick Music Association's John Ruddock, to the late Bill Young, was communicated with a refined intimacy, the part-playing light yet clear, the rhythm fluid and minutely flexible, only a few moments of Cherkassky-like interior highlighting revealing that this was a public performance and not an opportunity to eavesdrop on someone playing entirely for their own pleasure.
Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, the work which Anderszewski's name is most closely associated, opened with a big-boned ruggedness that was successfully sustained through the more loudly extrovert variations. There was at times a sense of striving after effect, of seeking for tonal and timbral effects beyond the implications of Beethoven's markings, and in the slower variations this was manifested in touches of rubato and emphasis which didn't always ring true. The strangest effect of all was the rather muted, even apologetic final chord. This unsatisfactory resolution to such a long piece may well account for the reserve in the audience's reception to Anderszewski's challenging account of a major but elusive work.
