United Kingdom Various: Leif Ove Andsnes (piano). Wigmore Hall, London, 21.11.2022. (MB)

Aleksandr Vustin – Lamento
Janáček – Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, ‘From the Street’
Valentin Silvestrov – Bagatelle, Op.1 No.3
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.31 in A-flat main, Op.110
Dvořák – Poetic Tone Pictures, Op.85

Leif Ove Andsnes’s performances are all the time very nicely value listening to; this programme, mixing the acquainted and unfamiliar was no exception. The first half provided quick items by Russian and Ukrainian composers, both facet of Janáček’s tribute to František Pavlík, a employee killed demonstrating for a Czech college in Brno, adopted by Beethoven’s penultimate sonata: nonetheless one considers it, and nonetheless clichéd this will sound, a chic tune from and to the human spirit and what it would but obtain.

Aleksandr Vustin, invited by Andsnes in 2019 to his Rosendal Chamber Festival, in what was solely Vustin’s second journey exterior Russia, died the next yr, an early sufferer of the coronavirus pandemic. His Lamento, itself impressed by the funeral of a good friend and its sounds, is tonal, but strikes in usually stunning methods. Opening two-part left-handwriting quickly has a right-hand melody soar above — a recollection, I discovered later, of a hen that started to sing on the funeral and wouldn’t cease. It made for an fascinating prelude to Janáček’s Sonata 1.X.1905, ‘From the Street’, its first motion in Andsnes’s efficiency each exact and suggestive: like work and composer, one may say. Proudly turbulent in its post-Romanticism, passages of its music appeared nearly to amass proto-filmic character, maybe in sluggish movement, in remembrance. The composer’s profound nationwide delight sang forth nonetheless extra immediately within the second motion, the stubbornness of his writing, not least in sheer persistence of figures, transmuted as soon as extra right into a declaration of spirit, made with a nice sense of musical drama.

One of Valentin Silvestrov’s Bagatelles provided cool distinction, behaving (not less than I fancied) not fully not like Vustin’s piece. The quiet dignity of Andsnes’s efficiency once more made for an fascinating prelude to a sonata, this time Beethoven’s in A-flat main, Op.110. Its first motion sang with a simplicity each fragile and powerful. Welcome, one may say, to late Beethoven. Fractures had been usually solely implied; this was not probably the most modernist of accounts, nor was there any motive it needs to be. Yet implied they had been. The flip to the minor was communicated with ineffable disappointment, but by no means mawkishness. Again, this was Beethoven. The scherzo’s gruff humour didn’t try to hide the difficulties of the trio. The overriding impression was of stunning concision. Mournful dignity characterised Beethoven’s Klagender Gesang within the finale, the fugue first providing launch and intensification, its voicing to die for: stunning, little question, but above all truthful. Contrast and complement of fabric registered and developed all through, the inverted fugue enabling but in no sense guaranteeing final triumph. There was, rightly, no simple path.

The second half was given to Dvořák’s Poetic Tone Pictures, Op.85: new, I confess to me, and fairly a discovery. Andsnes had explored them throughout lockdown, welcoming the invention of ‘life-affirming music of the greatest invention and imagination’. Dvořák can often pale alongside Janáček, however not right here. This work emerged as a Schumannesque assortment, performed with affection, characterisation, and acute understanding. Indeed, the scene-setting of its first piece, ‘Night journey’ instantly introduced Schumann to thoughts: not that it sounded ‘like’ Schumann, however when it comes to the function it performed in introduction, and its vein of fantasy. Andsnes’s communication of the appeal and Romantic snares of this evening was finely judged certainly. An exquisite procession of characters, scenes, sketches in a robust sense ensued: not not like a great novel, or maybe higher, a group of quick tales. ‘At the old castle’ haunted. A vigorous ‘Furiant’ put Andsnes’s fingers duly by their paces. Dances of every kind, goblins and all, invited us in — not all the time with out hazard. Exuberance and introspection knowledgeable each other throughout extra elevated canvases and earthier songs. Andsnes’s cantabile within the ‘Serenade’ was simply the factor, as was his Lisztian grandiloquence in ‘At a hero’s grave’. Fascinating — and nourishing.

Mark Berry