It seems to get ever harder to persuade Piotr Anderszewski into a recording studio. His new discs are increasingly rare events – the previous one, containing three of Bach’s English Suites, appeared in 2014, and the Mozart works here date back to 2005, the two by Schumann to 2013. All the performances, though, show the lucidity and objectivity that have always been such outstanding qualities of Anderszewski’s playing.
He treats Mozart’s C minor Fantasy K475 as a substantial introduction to the sonata K457 in the same key, moving from one to the other without a break and never over-emphasising the tragic implications of the home key in either work. There’s a brisk efficiency about it all that leaves no room for indulgence, and Anderszewski’s treatment of the great Schumann Fantasy is equally matter-of-fact, almost classically restrained. Even the technical challenges of the final pages of the central march are met without any fuss. It’s almost too straightforward at times, but he brings the same qualities to a touching performance of Schumann’s last piano work, the so-called Ghost Variations, based on the chorale-like theme already used in the Fantasiestücke Op 111 and the Violin Concerto.
