Gramophone Magazine
February 2024
Editor's Choice

Piotr Anderszewski (piano)

Janáček: On an Overgrown Path, Book II
Szymanowski: Mazurkas, Op. 50. Nro 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10
Bartók: 14 Bagatelles, BB 50, Sz. 38

Piotr Anderszewski’s new album juxtaposes solo piano works by three composers who asserted and shaped the musical identity of their Central European countries in the earlier 20th century: Janáček in Moravia, Szymanowski in Poland, and Bartók in Hungary.

“The works on this album are imbued with a sense of rebellion,” says Anderszewski, himself a native of Warsaw. “There is no place here for stylisation or decorum. These works plumb the very roots of music.”

BBC Music Magazine wrote: "For anyone who loves Bach (or the piano) … this life-enhancing disc is required listening".

The Guardian gave the Bach album a ***** review: “Playing his own selection of pieces from Bach’s monumental work may be heresy, but Anderszewki’s intelligence, lucidity and joy is undeniable.

The influence of folk music is crucial in the programme – the second book of Janáček’s On an overgrown path (a collection named after a traditional Moravian wedding song), six of Szymanowski’s 20 mazurkas, and Bartók’s 14 Bagatelles. Szymanowski’s eclectic spirit is evident in the mazurkas, composed during Poland’s halcyon inter-war period as an autonomous state. Often chromatically adventurous, sometimes elusive, they fuse the traditional mazurka and the influence of Chopin with elements of the Goral music of Poland’s southern highlands. Piotr Anderszewski speaks of the music’s “primitive incantations, simultaneously ecstatic and severe in their beauty”.

"The level of detail is apt to leave you speechless. For most pianists, attaining that kind of exactitude requires a Faustian bargain in which the soul of the music (if not of the performer) is sacrificed. Not so here." - Gramophone Magazine, February 2024