Leif Ove Andsnes
Perth Concert Hall
Composer and pianist Geirr Tviett is a problematic figure for Norwegians because of his association with the neo-Heathen nationalist movement and its links with the Quisling puppet-administration in the Second World War. Like his jazz pianist contemporary Tord Gustavson, however, Leif Ove Andsnes is concerned with what little of his music survives to be performed – almost all of it was destroyed in a fire at the composer’s home in the year both men were born.
In this recital, a UK exclusive performance from Andsnes in Perth, the pianist spoke to the audience only to give some of that background before playing Tveitt’s Sonata No 29, the sole surviving score of around 30 such works for the keyboard. Named “Sonata Etere” (Sonata of the ether), one of its distinguishing techniques requires the pianist to hold down a long block of notes with the left forearm while playing a staccato line with the right hand, each note resonating the harmonics of the depressed keys. The device is introduced in the variations of the second movement and then revisited at the end of the finale.
Those are the simplest and sparest moments of the half-hour work, which is highly virtuosic elsewhere. The opening movement is filled with unresolved tension, not unlike orchestral Shostakovich, while the edgy third, driven by a propulsive left hand, becomes a frenetic, even possessed, and then exhausted dance. In this player’s hands it was unarguably compelling.
Andsnes presented his countryman in the context of music that was often just as dark. Schubert’s 1823 Sonata in A minor, D784, seems to be the composer interrogating himself, or the universe, on the uncertain future, posing unanswerable questions and receiving the most tentative of replies. It too, ends in a troubled, frantic finale.
The later Impromptu No 1 in F Minor, D935, is superficially lighter but, like the contemporaneous song-cycle Winterriese, has a darker heart. Schubert is quite technically specific in his expressive instructions, and the pedal work of Andsnes was as precise as his eloquent fingering.
Apart from a Chopin Mazurka by way of a cheerier encore, the recital was completed by the late Brahms sequence Fantasien, Opus 116, Andsnes launching into them swiftly after the Schubert Impromptu and taking only small pauses between the three Capprici and four Intermezzi. If the first of the latter is quintessential late Brahms, sad and lovely, and the final one, in E Major, sounds like the careful tying up of loose ends of the narrative, the two between seemed startlingly modern in Andsnes’ reading. Here was Brahms foreshadowing the compositional journey of the 20th century, and influencing what we now know as The Great American Songbook.
From this great pianist these four works emerged as distinct, utterly enthralling stories in themselves. Since Perth’s superb hall was first opened almost 20 years ago it has provided some of the finest piano recitals Scotland has heard – and this was another to add to that distinguished list.
Keith Bruce