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Leif ove Andsnes: The Beethoven Journey

17 September 2012, 17:05

Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes captures the sparkling spirit behind Beethoven's first and third piano concertos in this characterful recording with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Leif Ove Andsnes dances over the keyboard with ease as he tackles the flighty classical piano melodies of the Piano Concerto No. 1, injecting a sense of cheeky personality into the music - perfectly suited to Beethoven's lively tunes! This album is part of an exciting project entitled 'The Beethoven Journey', which sees Andsnes recording all five Beethoven piano concertos. But the album is a journey in itself, moving from joyful wit to moments of stately elegance. The interplay between the piano and orchestra is just another reason to enjoy the music. It's an album imbued with personality and charm, polishing Beethoven's timeless works of genius and bringing them smiling into the 21st Century.

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Andsnes’ Beethoven Journey at the Finish Line

Artistic Quality:

Sound Quality:

In 2012 Leif Ove Andsnes launched “The Beethoven Journey”, a project involving concert performances of all five Beethoven piano concertos and the Choral Fantasy, plus recordings with the pianist leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the piano. When I interviewed Andsnes that year, he had not yet led the “Emperor” Concerto (No. 5), and expressed curiosity concerning the challenges of coordinating a work of such formidable symphonic dimensions while being unusually busy at the keyboard and not able to conduct as much. Judging from the cycle’s third and final release, coordination is not a problem.

Soloist and orchestra dovetail each other efficiently and flexibly, although I suspect that a full-time podium presence would have more solidly aligned the first-movement tutti measures just before the final cadenza, or would have insisted that the solo bassoon play out. The small string section makes up in sheer precision and responsiveness what it lacks in regard to the heft and sustaining power we usually expect from Beethoven’s grand orchestral image. At the same time, the timpani and horns are effectively “in your face”, especially throughout the Rondo.

Andsnes plays best in the first movement. He dispatches the runs and broken octaves with ease (not to mention the difficult right-hand thirds against descending left-hand triplets), and makes something special of the exposition’s detours into B minor and C-flat major territory. While other slow-movement performances like those of Gilels and Arrau find more spacious poetry and harmonic tension in the long descending cantabiles and upward chain of trills, Andsnes plays the transitional measures leading into the Rondo gorgeously. In the Rondo proper, however, Andsnes’ clean traversal of the solo part is reserved to a fault: he doesn’t let loose in the unaccompanied passages as he often does in concert.

But he does so in the Choral Fantasy’s long opening solo cadenza, if not quite with the nervous energy and animal abandon of Rudolf Serkin or Anton Kuerti. Here the Mahler Chamber Orchestra truly comes into its own with crisply sprung rhythms, pinpointed note attacks, and vividly characterized first-desk playing in the variations–no reticent bassoonist this time! The rapid back and forth piano/orchestra exchanges are as exciting and energetic as the Prague Philharmonic Choir’s timbral definition and clear diction. Who would have predicted the Choral Fantasy to be the Andsnes Beethoven Journey’s high point?

Recording Details:

• BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN : Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major Op. 73 (“Emperor”); Choral Fantasy in C minor Op. 80

Soloists: Leif Ove Andsnes (piano)

• Conductor: Andsnes, Leif Ove
• Orchestra: Mahler Chamber Orchestra
• Orchestra: Prague Philharmonic Choir
• Record Label: Sony Classical - 88843058862

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