The artist has a particularly winning manner when talking about this music. He uses both English and French (you can opt for which of the two languages you want translated into the other), and explains with a mixture of intimacy and awe how the work came about.
Diabelli, a music publisher in Vienna, came up with a money-making idea. He himself wrote a short waltz, and then sent it to 50 composers asking each of them to pen one variation on it. The results would be published as a book, and the compilation hopefully would sell to enthusiasts for all the various contributors.
Beethoven, however, was a difficult fish to catch. At first he refused, but four years later issued from his ivory tower no less than 33 variations on Diabelli's simple little tune. Anderszewski's account of this, and of how the variations rise to staggering heights of brilliance, complexity and sheer scope, is worth watching again and again. He says, for instance, that when you get to number 20 you feel you've surely reached the end. How could anyone write anything more wide-ranging from such basic material? And yet there are 13 more still to come. As for the performance itself, it's clearly in the highest class.
What many people will notice first from the next two CDs is that Anderszewski has had a haircut, giving him an altogether more modern, fashionable look. The music, however, remains in the top class. The Chopin disc is of polonaises, mazurkas and ballades. The first was a stately Polish dance, the second a wilder peasant romp, and the third a free form used for the expression of inner feeling. Chopin made himself a master of all three, but brought to them all the sophistication of his adopted Paris. Anderszewski, now resident in France, has trodden the same path.
The second CD contains Bach's Sixth English Suite, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No:30, and Webern's Opus 27 "Variations." The variety here is remarkable. Beethoven may be this artist's trump card, but the freshness and vigor he brings to Bach is also intoxicating. Even the Webern (only seven minutes long) might tempt waverers to listen again to this difficult modernist.
All four items this month can be enthusiastically recommended.
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