Leif Ove Andsnes

I think he is my new favorite player! I saw him in concert yesterday and wow is he good! His program was as follows:

Beethoven – Sonata no. 21 in c major, op. 53 (Waldstein)
Brahms – Four Ballades, op. 10
Schoenberg – Six Little Piano Pieces op. 19
Beethoven – Sonata no. 32 in C minor, op. 111

Encores were: 1. A piece I’d never heard before by I think he said a Hungarian composer. The piece was under a minute long and was quite unusual - just a few notes like a motif and played very softly like distant bells under water. 2. Chopin Waltz. 3. Schumann Romance.

Both Beethoven sonatas completely wowed me! I wish you all could have seen how well he played all the trills – the kind where the RH is trilling but another RH finger is playing melody notes. Really, just unbelievable how well he can do that. - some of those trills were so long!

I was prepared to not like the Schoenberg music, but I actually did! I think all six pieces are cool little gems and now I’ll put the set on my ‘to do’ list.

Andsnes is very elegant (and handsome!!), and I am most astounded by his playing. Honestly, I did not hear one single slip or smudge anywhere! He wore a black suit, rather simply-cut, which showed off his trim physique ( ). Except the collar on his jacket was a little screwed up for the entire 2nd half of the concert. I kept thinking that someone backstage would fix it when he walked off stage between pieces, but nobody did. I wanted so badly to go up there and fix his collar myself. Probably that’s just the ‘mom’ in me; I’m always fixing my kids clothes.

 

Yes, that was very interesting. Two favorites! Except I'm cracking up now because again Andsnes' collar was screwed up from about 4:17 to the end. :lol:

 

Ahhhhhh....torture.....