Anderszewski at CAMA: A Little Bit of Tureck and a Whole Lotta Hair

Keyboard phenom, Piotr Anderszewski, opened the season for the Community Music Arts Association in Santa Barbara, Thursday evening, October 16. The program was a thrill for me as it included two Bach partitas (1 and 2), Mozart's sonata in C minor (no. 14), and Beethoven's sonata in A-flat (no. 31). The program thus gave us a history lesson, and one really saw how the sonata form developed over time.

Anderszewski was one of the most unusual pianists that I have ever heard. When he begins a piece, a lopes out on stage like he is trying to catch a bus and then starts to play before his behind makes it onto the bench. His playing has the same interesting dynamic range. He played the Bach slow movements with a delicacy reminiscent of Rosalyn Tureck. The bright, soft notes of these movements gave them tenderness without a maudlin sweetness. The same was true of the slow movements in the Mozart and Beethoven. At the same time, Anderszewski played the faster, forte movements with vigor but always coloring the bass line with dark tones and overlaying it with a bright melody line that seemed to lurch forward rather than sweetly float over the top as one might have expected. I enjoyed the concert, but I also felt it had a strange schizophrenic quality.

Anderszewski's exits from the stage were as unique as his entrances. He rocketed off the bench and bolted at the end of a piece and came back as quickly for a couple of short, staccato bows. He is now wearing his hair long and combed over his forehead and down his eyes. He was overdressed for the perennially hot Lobero Theater, but he never perspired. At times, I felt that I was eavesdropping and that he might be more content to play without an audience, or perhaps, he didn't notice us at all.