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By rights, an important young pianist such as Piotr Anderszewski
deserves to be introduced to the Chicago concert public at
our foremost downtown venue, Orchestra Hall. But such debuts
happen less frequently these days as the Symphony Center piano
series recycles the same brand-name artists season after season.
So hats off to Marna Seltzer, the enterprising director of
the University of Chicago Presents series, for engineering
Anderszewski's Chicago recital debut Friday night in Mandel
Hall on extremely short notice.
The 32-year-old Polish-Hungarian pianist was en route from
Tokyo to Paris when Seltzer managed to persuade him to add
Chicago to his concert itinerary. He was replacing the Hagen
Quartet, which had canceled its North American tour because
of the illness of one of its members.
The fact that Seltzer presented Anderszewski as part of a
chamber music series built around the theme "Musicians and
Poets" seemed fitting, since he is both a musician and a poet.
With his combination of technical mastery and exploratory
daring, he exemplifies many of the ideals of the series. It
seems only a matter of time before enough people in America
discover what a phenomenally gifted pianist he is. Then he
will enjoy the big career for which he clearly is destined.
You knew right away this is a most serious artist when Anderszewski
(pronounced On-der-shev-ski) began his program with nothing
less than Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations. It's rare enough
to find a relatively young pianist tackling one of the most
challenging works in the keyboard repertory, rarer still to
find an interpretation so deeply felt, so illuminating, so
alive to the essence of late Beethoven.
Anderszewski has made a specialty of the "Diabelli" Variations—the
piece launched his international career in London in 1991—and
he has recorded it, triumphantly, in both audio and video
formats. Music this profoundly idiosyncratic demands a performer
with enough imagination and personality to meet Beethoven
on his own exalted terms. This pianist has plenty of both.
He presented a very different view of the 33 variations than
Alfred Brendel in his performance here last April, but the
younger man's Beethoven was entirely convincing on its own
terms.
With Anderszewski, the flow from one variation to the next
was natural and unforced. He gave each one a distinctive character
without losing the long view. His sonority was rich and rounded,
firmly built from the bass up.
Even more remarkable was his careful, but never slavish,
attention to Beethoven's detailed dynamic and tempo scheme.
Such major signposts as variations 14, 20, 24 and 31 were
suffused with a hushed deliberation and inwardness that were
simply ravishing. The audience listened in awed silence.
But, then, there doesn't appear to be anything Anderszewski
cannot play with authority. He gave us the full expressive
range of Janacek's "In the Mist," with its chopped-up harmonies,
fragmented melodies and delicate washes of local color. And
his Bach Partita No. 1 was an eloquent argument for playing
Bach on the modern piano. The composer's intricate contrapuntal
designs were revealed as from the inside: crisp, lacy and
buoyant.
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