Press

• More info  
  24 Oct 19 Haydn / Schumann Scottish Chamber Orchestra
  Queen's Hall Edinburgh

  ”…Anderszewski’s mellifluous playing ran through the texture like a band of gold.”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ Simon Thompson, The Times, 26th October 2019

  ”Anderszewski masterminded two keyboard concertos: Haydn’s chirpy Concerto in D, written with all the nimble delicacy befitting its intended execution on fortepiano or harpsichord; and the sweeping Romantic brushstrokes of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ Ken Walton, The Scotsman, 29th October 2019

• More info  
  30 Apr 19 Shostakovich Chamber Concert with Belcea Quartet
  Queen Elizabeth Hall London

  ”Piotr Anderszewski joined them for the Piano Quintet from 1940, making his mark straight away…”
  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★ Geoff Brown, The Times, 1st May 2019

  ”Piotr Anderszewski joined the quartet for a night of chamber music delivered with an almost superreal level of definition.

  Anderszewski brought his familiar unfussy clarity to such writing, and added fierceness and even venom, especially in the spiky rhythms of the scherzo and the main theme of the finale, while the biggest climaxes carried fearsome weight and intensity.”
  ★  ★  ★  ★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 1st May 2019

• More info  
  09 Jan 19 Haydn / Beethoven City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
  Symphony Hall

  ”…his performance of the Haydn transformed it from a standard example of 18th-century classicism into a piece of engaging elegance and wit […]. The solo playing in the Beethoven was just as poised and controlled, but the effect was far grander and more imposing, even wild in the finale, so that it seemed to come from a different world altogether…”
  ★  ★  ★  ★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 10th January 2019

  ”It was a beautifully poised immersion in the glories of the Viennese classical school…”
  ★  ★  ★  ★ Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, 10th January 2019

• More info  
  07 Aug 18 Bach, Beethoven Edinburgh International Festival Recital
  Queen's Hall Edinburgh

  With his solid technique and phenomenal musicality, Anderszewksi sprinkled his own gold dust over these quirky variations. He delivered the Beethoven dynamics with a flourish and brought an improvisatory freshness to the more playful movements. The resonant quality he brought to the mystical grave e maestoso at the heart of the variations was transcendent.

  This echoed Anderszewksi’s mastery of the subtle shading that was to the fore in the first half of the concert. There was a lightness to his contrapuntal lines in the three prelude and fugues, in C major, A flat major and D sharp minor, from the second book of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. His dance-like rhythms in Bach’s English Suite No 3 in G minor were spot-on and he breathed poetry into the graceful ornamentation of the Sarabande.
  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  Susan Nickalls, The Scotsman, 8th August 2018

• More info  
  03 May 18 Mozart Play/Direct Scottish Chamber Orchestra
  Queen's Hall Edinburgh

  ”Seamlessly gliding between his dual role as player and director, he showed phenomenal technical prowess coupled with exquisite elasticity.”
  Carol Main, The Scotsman, 8th May 2018

• More info  
  11 Apr 18 Bach / Beethoven Solo Recital
  Barbican, London

  ”[…] it was an astonishing performance, perhaps the most completely convincing reading of the Diabelli I’ve ever heard in the concert hall.

  Some readings, even from indisputably great pianists, can’t entirely avoid squareness in a work that, for all its moments of the transcendence that only late Beethoven can access, sometimes seems to fall back on the mechanics of variation form. But there was no trace of that, or of routine of any kind, in a single bar here. Every one of the 33 variations seemed freshly imagined, with their dizzying contrasts of wit and pathos, explosive energy and communing stillness; it made for a totally enthralling musical journey in which not a single step was misplaced.

  […] The first half of his recital had been devoted to Bach, […] That was equally extraordinary in its own way, with a Glenn Gould-like clarity to the textures and rhythmic articulation, informed by a freewheeling imagination that was never wilful. Anderszewski certainly brought his own ideas to the music, but whether in the stream of melodic invention that courses through the C major Prelude, the quiet intensity with which he invested the opening of D sharp minor Fugue, or the spiky, Scarlatti-like exuberance of the pair of gavottes in the suite, they never seemed anything other than quintessential Bach.”
  ★  ★  ★  ★  ★  Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 12th April 2018

   

  ”Anderszewski’s drily immaculate unfolding of three of Bach’s Preludes and Fugues and his English Suite No 3 in G minor was a world apart, one of classical luminosity and pellucidity.

  […] Anderszewski gave us Beethoven’s […] Diabelli Variations: an account of wonderful poise and thoughtfulness, descending memorably to the depths for the static, enigmatic 20th variation; elsewhere glorying in mercurial precision”
  Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 22nd April 2018

• More info  
  15 Feb 18 Beethoven Philharmonia
  Royal Festival Hall

  ”In his hands the concerto came across as the work of a young man revelling in his own powers of invention, which is just what it is. It was always kept in scale, with little of the defiant rhetoric we associate with the composer’s middle period. […] the orchestral playing was certainly alert, and Anderszewski responded to it in chamber musical fashion. His delicate touch and lyrical poise in the Largo were outstanding, giving the movement a singular grace.”
  ★  ★  ★  ★  Roy Westbrook, Bachtrack, 16th February 2018

• More info  
  12 Oct 17 Bach, Chopin & Janáček Solo Recital
  Chicago Symphony Center

  ”Anderszewski takes a straightforward stylistic approach to Bach, with boldly projected playing, contrapuntal lines clear and bracing. Yet within that esthetic he consistently finds a way to individually shape and characterize the music: a brightly buoyant Prelude, quickish, unsentimental Allemande, impish and playful Courante.

  He began the Sarabande in stately and dignified fashion. Just as one began to think that the playing was a bit on the cool side, Anderszewski slowed the pace, segueing into a spacious rendering that probed a striking depth of expression, with an even more subtle rubato and expansive phrasing in the repeat. An insouciant Gavotte and fleet and virtuosic Gigue rounded off the suite.

  More impressive still was Anderszewski’s take on Chopin’s Polonaise Fantasie in A flat major […] Anderszewski drew out the strange harmonic cadences and off-center rhythms with an uncommonly elasticity of legato, the sudden virtuosic bursts as jarring as the elegiac expression was affecting.

  Bach’s English Suite No. 6 in D minor closed the afternoon. Here too there were wonderful touches with an impressionistic Allemande, a witty, tripping Gavotte and lightning bravura in the closing Gigue.

  Yet again it was the Sarabande that stood out. Anderszewski unfolded this inward music with a rapt elevated serenity, rendered with great feeling and delicacy.

  The strong applause and repeated ovations brought Anderszewski back out repeatedly until he offered a single encore–a spare melancholy take on Bartók’s Three Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District.”
  Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review, 23rd October 2017

• More info  
  02 Apr 17 Janáček, Schumann, Webern & Beethoven Duo Recital with Nikolaij Znaider
  Wigmore Hall

  ”This was in no way a violin recital with piano back-up … the piano often leads, and there was a soloistic richness to Anderszewski’s playing…”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★  Erica Jeal, The Guardian, 4th April 2017

  ”…Piotr Anderszewski, seemed willing to delve in the muck of Janáček’s primal, at times even bestial, sound world.”
  ★ ★ ★  Hannah Nepil, The Financial Times, 4th April 2017

• More info  
  10 Mar 17 Mozart, Haydn Hong Kong Arts Festival - Camerata Salzburg
  Hong Kong City Hall

  ”Anderszewski has the ability to move effortlessly between dramatic outbursts and moments of delicacy, to communicate carefully conceived nuances in every phrase, and to hold audience members captive with his flamboyance.”
  Dirk Newton, South China Morning Post, 13th March 2017

• More info  
  17 Feb 17 Mozart Schumann Fantasies
  Recording - Warner Classics

  ”All the performances … show the lucidity and objectivity that have always been such outstanding qualities of Anderszewski’s playing.”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 9th February 2017

• More info  
  09 Feb 16 Bach, Schumann & Szymanowski Solo Recital
  Wigmore Hall

  ”A staggering recital, every single second of it.”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★  Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 11th February 2016

  ”In this Polish pianist’s hands, Szymanowski became not just the centrepiece but the heart of the evening. … Anderszewski’s playing was full of languid flexibility yet also bold colours, showing again that when it comes to this repertoire he is peerless.”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ John Allison, The Telegraph, 11th February 2016

  ”This pianist is a fine advocate for Bach played on the piano, not just for these details, but also in his understanding of the harpsichordist’s treatment of phrasing and articulation. His sound is not dry: on the contrary, it is glossy and warm, and his tasteful pedalling and acute awareness of the rhythmic vitality of the dance music recalled the crystalline textures of the harpsichord. Anderszewski is also alert to the intimacy of Bach: the inner movements of both Partitas were tender and noble, with a muted dynamic range which had the whole audience listening intently…”
  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Frances Wilson, Bachtrack, 10th February 2016

• More info  
  19 Mar 15 Bach & Schumann Solo Recital
  Carnegie Hall

  ”Mr. Anderszewski conveyed the music’s teeming Romanticism while also revealing internal Bachian complexities.

  His account of the Fantasy de-emphasized the monumental qualities of Schumann’s three-movement score to bring out its poetic, yearning explorations. Even the march movement was intricate and intimate.”
  Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, 20th March 2015

• More info  
  19 Feb 14 Bach, Beethoven & Schumann Solo Recital
  Wigmore Hall

  ”Perfectionism is a key streak of this pianist’s personality. He has played Bach’s Overture in the French Style, BWV831, almost since he came on the scene and his performance of it now is deeply immersed in colour and detail, as if each layer of study has been absorbed one upon the other. The softer focus of movements like the Sarabande was Anderszewski at his most typically dreamy…

  To close, Anderszewski returned to an old favourite, Beethoven’s Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 110. But this was not routine: with the lights dimmed, the performance felt like the late-night communing of two old friends, their conversation barely overheard by a silent Wigmore audience.”
  ★ ★ ★ ★  Richard Fairman, The Financial Times, 21st February 2014