Piotr Anderszewski is among the greatest pianists of our time, and this characteristically uncompromising recital contains music imbued, in his own words, ‘with a spirit of rebellion’. A rebel with a cause, Anderszewski opens with the second book of Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path, with its abandonment of the descriptive and picturesque in favour of a transformation into abstraction, an increasing sense of pain and unease. Admirers will know Anderszewski’s Janáček from his live performance of In the Mists taken from his 2008 Carnegie Hall recital. Here, once more, you will hear playing of a manic focus and intensity, with dynamics that range from a whispered pianissimo to a fortissimo that can affect you like a punch in the solar plexus; the overall nature of his performances is raw and astonishing.

Szymanowski’s 22 mazurkas are a reminder of the composer’s courage in outwardly emulating Chopin’s epic offering. But there all similarity ends. The folk element, emanating from Zakopane and the Tatra highlands of Poland, is strong, the idiom more bitter than sweet, the harmony often harsh and acidic. For Anderszewski, the mazurkas are ‘primitive incantations, simultaneously ecstatic and severe in their beauty’, and again his playing burns with conviction, more so than from Rubinstein or Marc-André Hamelin.

Finally, to Bartók’s 14 Bagatelles, where the composer makes his revolutionary intention clear. More flint-stones than diamond-chippings from the master’s workshop, the Bagatelles are a reaction against, as Bartók put it, ‘the exuberance of the Romantic piano music of the 19th century in a style stripped of all inessential descriptive technical means’. Nevertheless, you hear Liszt’s prophecy in the austerity of his dark-hued late piano music. No 3 is bleak and minimalist, No 11 a sinister cat-and-mouse chase, No 13 – ‘Elle est morte’ (Lento funebre) – could hardly be more unnerving, and the final ‘Valse: ma mie quie danse’ (Presto) is savagely ironic.

From Anderszewski all this music leaps off the page. The recorded sound is as dramatic as the playing, and if it is harsh to the point of violence I assume this met with the pianist’s approval. This is an extraordinary album; hardly for those of a nervous disposition or for late-night listening, it is also one that I could never do without.

This review originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today