PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI

QUEEN’S HALL

MUSIC

THERE is a statue in Arnstadt depicting Bach as a robust, carefree youth. Is that how Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski envisages him, after the ferocious pounding he gave the Queen’s Hall piano yesterday in Bach’s colossal partita, misleadingly named the

French Overture in B minor?

But the statue is an imaginary likeness of the composer. And similarly, Anderszewski’s view of Bach, with his coarse loud tone and overbearing left hand, seemed miles away from the true nature of the music, which requires sensitivity at either end of the dynamic scale.

So this was not a pleasant listening experience, despite Anderszewski’s virile capturing of the French Baroque élan that distinguishes this music. And it wasn’t limited to the one work. In Schumann’s enigmatic

Novellette in F sharp minor, he again overheated the angstridden fortissimos to the point of horrifying distortion.

After the interval, matters improved with Szymanowski’s gorgeously Debussyesque

Métopes – musical depictions from Homer’s Odyssey – painted with gossamer brushstrokes and delicate, heartstopping nuances.

And his second Bach marathon – the more genteel

English Suite No 6 in D minor

– was so much more palatable than the first. There was still a sense of living on the edge, but kept within the bounds of style and integrity.