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Brahms’s late piano music is a pinnacle of 19th-century Romanticism, though its atmosphere of introspection and veiled emotion is a million miles from the more turbulent works of his youth. Piotr Anderszewski sees in it a testament of sorts, but one that keeps as many secrets as it reveals. By selecting a dozen of these intimate miniatures to make up an absorbing 48-minute programme, the Polish pianist opens a markedly individual window on to the composer’s solitary artistic maturity.
He opens with the aching B-minor Intermezzo from the Op 119 set, the tempo measured and laden with melancholy reflection. Phrasing is fluid across concentrated interpretations that exhibit a distinctive emotional core. The moderate pace continues throughout, with Anderszewski preferring to avoid leavening the mood merely for the sake of contrast. The cumulative effect is one of penetrating regret.
The Op 118 set features a heart-rending account of the tender A-major Intermezzo, the steady pace ramping up its sense of loss. The shadow of death hangs over the Op 116 A-minor Intermezzo, its pent-up grief unleashed in the subsequent G-minor Capriccio. Bringing the recital to a close is the tragic Op 118, No 6, a reading shrouded in otherworldly sorrow.
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