Brahms’s final four sets of Piano Pieces total twenty examples. Piotr Anderszewski has recorded twelve of them playing for a few seconds short of forty-nine minutes. These wonderful miniatures open up significant revelations – of truths (no lies), intimacies, and brandishing a big heart within the heroic numbers. Anderszewski has made his choices, although the complete collections would have been preferable, albeit, given his generous renditions, maybe too long for a single CD (although they can fit). In any case he mixes and matches those he does select to give a linked recital that is best listened to complete, which is no hardship given the sublimity and emotional power of the music, although it is surprising that 117/1 is omitted, and, for me, 118/5 is a grievous loss. His approach is also personal (what is notated, and could be rendered verbatim, is but the starting point) if not interventionist, virtuosic as required, confiding elsewhere, a one-to-one with Johannes Brahms’s revelations through music to which we are fortunate eavesdroppers. It says something for Anderszewski’s powers of communication and the inviting nature of the music that, even if the piano’s tone can sometimes be uningratiating, this is a rather special release, a different way of presenting (some of) these late flowerings of accumulated experience – loved, searched, and shared by Anderszewski. What seemed a curious release, Warner Classics 2173298806, turns out to be quite special, which I shall keep alongside Grimaud, Lupu and Ohlsson.
Fantasias (7), Opus 116
» no.2 Intermezzo in A minor
» no.3 Capriccio in G minor
» no.4 Intermezzo in E major
» no.5 Intermezzo in E minor
Intermezzos (3), Opus 117
» no.2 in B flat minor
» no.3 in C sharp minor
Klavierstücke (6), Opus 118
» no.1 Intermezzo in A minor
» no.2 Intermezzo in A major
» no.6 Intermezzo in E flat minor
Klavierstücke (4), Opus 119
» no.1 Intermezzo in B minor
» no.3 Intermezzo in C major
» no.4 Rhapsody in E flat