Leif Ove Andsnes pf

Sony Classical 

As Jan Smaczny observes in his booklet note, Dvořák's music has long been viewed largely as a mainstay of the orchestral and chamber repertoires, but as pianists are now exploring the Czech repertoire for solo piano, this situation is beginning to change.

Dvořák's beginnings as a violinist were followed by training at a high level as an organist, though he did not own a piano until he was 39. Thereafter he composed several sets of piano pieces, of which Poetic Tone Pictures was the most substantial work. Despite his not being in any sense a virtuoso, his sound was described by his son-in-law Josef Suk as being ‘full of feeling and virility’.

Leif Ove Andsnes says he was turned on to the riches of the Czech repertoire by a Czech teacher at the Bergen Conservatory: ‘He played me a couple of pieces by Janáček and I completely fell in love with his music.’ Andsnes was enthused by Poetic Tone Pictures after playing the first one in a competition and realised that he loved this music ‘which no one seemed to play’. The arrival of the lockdown was his spur to learn it, and now he is vociferously campaigning for this hour-long solo piano cycle to be recognised as the masterpiece it definitely is.

The writing may not always be ‘pianistic’, but it demands great technical sophistication on the part of the player, and the underlying thread indicates that it should be seen as a piece of programme music. These are significant pieces, some redolent of Musorgsky, others comprised of several contrasting sections, and many suffused with an evanescent charm to which Andsnes does full justice. The sparkling opening piece, ‘Twilight way’, is followed by the playful ‘Toying’; after the ruminative ‘In the old castle’ comes the entrancing ‘Peasant ballad’; ‘Furiant’ tears along, and ‘Goblins’ dance' has no Grieg-like tweeness. ‘Baccanalia’ is suitably exuberant, and ‘Hero's grave’ is expansive in a Beethovenian way. Andsnes has emphatically made his point.