Like his name, Piotr Anderszewski’s music-making doesn’t go down easily.
At Friday’s CU Artist Series concert at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, the 38-year-old Polish-born pianist displayed a singular artistry that isn’t immediately accessible but, on careful listening, left the audience spellbound.
Winner of the esteemed Gilmore International Piano Festival in 2002, Anderszewski’s conscientious approach to music is first from an intellectual viewpoint and secondarily from an emotional perspective. The result is a deeply felt artistic understanding that lends itself particularly well to his chosen program of two Bach partitas — or, sets of variations — as well as Robert Schumann’s temperamental Humoreske in B-flat Major and Karol Szymanowski’s Masques.
Minus a few slipups in the program, especially after intermission, Anderszewski presents a reliable, studied technique punctuated by a stolid stage presence that altogether directs the listener to focus on the music — not the performer.
Among the many memorable ingredients of the evening was the impossibly soft, sunny lightness of being that Anderszewski provoked in the partitas, opening and closing the program. As well, his ability to illuminate the emotional extremes of the weighty Humoreske — a journey from exquisite tenderness and purest simplicity to brooding darkness and nervous animation — was captivating. Most striking, however, was Anderszewski’s bold take on his countryman’s fantastical Masques, an intoxicating — yet tightly structured — exploration of complex and troubled psyches. In Szecherezade, the first of the work’s three atmospheric movements, Anderszewski beautifully played the frolicking themes into and against each other, whereas in the Clown Tantris movement, he shifted gears to fully voice its skittish, jagged and rhythmically compelling constitution.
While Anderszewski’s artistic mode and overall demeanor transcend mere virtuosity, he delivered a wonderfully flamboyant and sensual interpretation of Don Juan’s Serenade, the final movement of the collectively exclamatory Masques.
Anderszewski ended the evening with an attentive, pensive reading of the first of Beethoven’s six bagatelles as an encore.
Anderszewski continues his regional tour at the University of Wyoming tonight. Call 307-766-6666 for more information.
