Leif Ove Andsnes

March 12, 2012 at PDT

Grieg: Piano Concerto - EP

3 Tracks

September 6, 2018 at PDT

Chopin: Ballades & Nocturnes

Crystal-clear articulation, subtlety of expression, and emotional restraint mark Leif Ove Andsnes’ Chopin. His playing shepherds the composer’s music back to the salon for which it was originally composed. That’s not to say his performances lack fire—quite the opposite, as you’ll hear from the stormy Ballade No. 3. But it’s the way that Ballade No. 1 builds from its hushed beginnings through its overwhelming climaxes—this is where Andsnes proves his mettle as a true musical poet. With that in mind, the Nocturnes here emerge prayerful, yearning, passionate even. But it’s all under control: never too much, always leaving us wanting.

7 Tracks

May 27, 2021 at PDT

Mozart Momentum - 1785

When the 25-year-old Mozart arrived in Vienna in 1781, he was bowled over by its musical possibilities. The Austrian capital was then the center of the Western musical world, teeming with the finest composers and musicians from across Europe. It took just four years for him to prove himself among them. In 1785 alone, he composed some of his most astonishing and inventive piano concertos and chamber works, and it’s that music that Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra explore on this fascinating album. “By giving the piano a more heroic solo role, Mozart planted the seed for what was to become the Romantic piano concerto,” Andsnes tells Apple Music of the influential work housed here. “And he does a few things that are revolutionary and completely new.” Among them, Mozart introduced the then-exotic clarinet into his orchestrations, and wrote thrillingly technical challenges for the piano. “The E-Flat Concerto [No. 22], the third on this recording, features octave passages up and down the keyboard in both hands, which are very demanding,” reveals Andsnes. “Virtuosity became an important part of his expression and a mark of the quality of his music.”

The question of why Mozart’s music suddenly came of age in 1785 intrigues Andsnes. Responding to the sheer competition he faced in Vienna is, perhaps, a reason. “The D Minor and C Major Concertos were written just one month apart, but everything about them is so different,” says Andsnes. “The D Minor [No. 20] is so raw and dark, yet the C Major [No. 21] is so playful and, at the same time, majestic.” This album finds Andsnes reunited with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra after the hugely successful Beethoven Journey, released in 2015, which saw them record Beethoven’s complete piano concertos. Andsnes is drawn to the ensemble’s sense of adventure. “For this recording, I had so many thoughts and ideas in mind for the orchestra,” he says. "But in the end, they gave me a slightly different sound. They really inspired me by the way they changed the music’s color in a tenth of a second from something very open to lonely and intimate.” Read on as Andsnes guides us through the works on this extraordinary and revelatory recording.

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466
“This is a very dramatic work. It’s one of only two piano concertos that Mozart writes in a minor key. Because it’s full of turmoil, it feels as though it’s related to works like Don Giovanni or the Requiem. For the first time, we see how Mozart separates soloist from orchestra—the soloist enters with very different, very lonely music. The second movement is in a major key and has one of those melodies that, when you walk out of the concert hall, you start singing because it’s so charming. In the middle section, there’s a dialogue between the wind instruments and the piano, which was new at the time and something Mozart would go on to develop. Although the ‘Rondo’ is back in the minor key, it’s not dark in the same way as the first movement. It finishes happy and brisk, as if Mozart wants us to forget what happened.”

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
“Mozart presents us with a very different world here. It’s fairytale-like and playful. And that second movement is so soothing. How could he compose something so beautiful? In the middle of this beauty, there are suddenly a few bars of aching harmonies, and it’s so painful. And then you’re back to this carefree atmosphere again. That’s Mozart. It’s these two faces: the tear in the one eye and the smile in the other.”

Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475
“This solo piano piece is unusual for Mozart. It goes from one episode to another without any specific form, so it probably gives us a good insight into what it was like to experience one of his improvisation sessions at the piano, where he would just sit down and play. It’s amazing how those enigmatic, dark octaves, which begin the piece, return at the end. It makes us feel that everything belongs together—but, in fact, there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the different episodes.”

Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478
“Mozart basically invented the piano quartet, and he wrote two of them, including this first one. There’s a real connection to Beethoven here. The first movement’s theme is quite elemental and not as chromatic as some of Mozart’s other pieces in minor keys. But there’s a really interesting dialogue between the piano and the strings, and the textures are quite symphonic in places. After the first movement, there’s a very soothing, wonderful ‘Andante’ and a very joyous virtuoso last movement scored in G major.”

Maurerische Trauermusik in C Minor, K. 477/479a
“A piece for orchestra, and it’s very interesting. It’s from the Freemasonry world, and Mozart creates these kinds of sonic columns. The music isn’t so much about the melody but the atmosphere and rituals. We find this kind of music in his opera The Magic Flute too. This piece has wonderful, mystical orchestration with really great colors.”

Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482
“This is Mozart’s longest piano concerto. It’s huge and technically challenging too. The first movement is very symphonic and multilayered. The second movement, though, is basically his greatest variation piece. It’s unbelievable. It’s in C minor, starting with muted strings presenting the theme, before going through so many wonderful variations. And then, we get to the end. It’s so painful that you feel it has to have some sort of release. That finally comes with a glimpse of C major that, for me, is like a kind of farewell to life. It’s one of his most touching pieces. With the last movement, Mozart gives us a melody you can whistle in the street. It’s a sort of hunting theme. It’s charming, but it features virtuosic and advanced piano writing. In the middle of this joyous movement, Mozart places a beautiful, intimate slower section, with clarinets at the forefront. And then, finally, we return to the hunting theme. For me, this is the most generous of all Mozart’s concertos.”

14 Tracks

April 7, 2022 at PDT

Mozart Momentum - 1786

Following 2021’s Mozart Momentum – 1785, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra continue their exploration of two miraculous years in Mozart’s life. This album moves on to 1786, with Mozart now settled in Vienna (“the land of the piano,” as he called it) and composing his greatest piano concertos and chamber music, each fizzing with energy and reaching to extraordinary depths. The synergy of Andsnes and his musicians can be heard in every bar, as if each player were instinctively attuned to every contour in Mozart’s music. The result is an intensely thrilling performance of Piano Concerto No. 23, its second-movement Adagio one of Mozart’s most beautiful and heart-rending creations. Composed the same month as No. 23, Piano Concerto No. 24 possesses a grandeur that heralds the age of Beethoven. Equally sublime—and sublimely played—are the chamber works that bind this album together, including the Piano Quartet No. 2, a work of dazzling energy with moments of breathtaking intimacy.

14 Tracks

October 27, 2022 at PDT

Dvořák: Poetic Tone Pictures, Op. 85

Antonín Dvořák’s Poetic Tone Pictures is a piano cycle that, for many years, has been little-known and rarely performed, despite its composer’s evergreen popularity. And that’s a shame because this substantial work of 13 pieces is replete with the folkloric magic that could often inspire Dvořák to his best efforts. For the performer, the collection is highly demanding, at times requiring serious virtuosity; and the sense of narrative, with its kaleidoscopic range of color and emotion, pulls the listener headlong into a magical world. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is convinced the pieces deserve a much wider audience.

“My father had an LP of it at home when I was little, with the pianist Radoslav Kvapil, so I listened to at least the first few pieces when I was a child,” Andsnes tells Apple Music. “I was very much attracted by them and played one in a youth competition when I was 12. Later, in my twenties, I played five or six of them in a recital program. It has the same attraction for me today. It’s like opening a book and feeling something very personal as you enter this special room.”

At first, he hesitated to tackle the complete set. “Then the pandemic arrived and, suddenly, we all had a little more time to think and reflect. I decided to play through most of Dvořák’s piano music, just to see what was there. When I came to this cycle, I realized how wonderful it really is.

“Some of them feel like short novels, while others are pictures of everyday life. I think of them as many individual stories, but with some interconnections. For instance, the opening chords of the first piece are repeated at the end of the sixth.” Ultimately, beyond the images suggested by the titles, he considers the music sufficient on its own. “I’m not somebody who necessarily has stories in my mind about these pieces and what they might represent. The amount of special musical material, much of it so personal and intimate, is what I find easy to believe in.

“The challenge is to display its diverse and contrasting journey with all the highs and lows, from the religious aspect of the final piece, ‘On the Holy Mountain,’ to the gossiping in ‘Tittle-Tattle’; from the joke in ‘Toying’ to the atmosphere of ‘In the Old Castle.’ Switching between high and low is something I find so interesting in general. It is also part of a Schumann-esque world and even part of late Beethoven with a combination of folk dances and spiritual elements.”

The standout pieces are many and varied. “‘Serenade,’ I think, is central. I just love it! It shows so much of his particular talent: how he can take something that could have been banal—a serenade idea with a guitar figuration and a simple melody—and turn it into this extremely special slow siciliano, which has something almost holy about it, a feeling of true love. ‘Bacchanalia,’ the 10th piece, is wild and virtuosic, climactic in that way, as is ‘At a Hero’s Grave,’ the penultimate piece. Then there is a very special ending in ‘On the Holy Mountain.’”

Andsnes has always had a special fondness for Czech music: “I had a Czech teacher, Jiri Hlinka, whom I met when I was 15 and who really meant a lot to me,” he says. “My love for Janáček came from him. At one of our first lessons, when I arrived, he was sitting there playing the first piece from On an Overgrown Path. I hadn’t heard of Janáček before, and he was a bit shocked! It was so appealing to me that I started playing all those pieces, and one of my first recordings was of Janáček.”

Dvořák, unlike Janáček, has sometimes been mildly dismissed as a composer for the piano. On the one hand, Andsnes thinks the reputation of the Piano Concerto as difficult and unpianistic could be partly to blame; on the other hand, he suggests that Dvořák sometimes suffers when compared to Brahms. “They were friends and admired each other, but because Dvořák’s music doesn’t have the same sort of counterpoint, friction, and textures, he seems a little lighter. But I think he has tremendous gifts in how he can develop very simple material into real jewels, often in surprising ways. I think that’s very much true in these pieces, in which writing ‘program music’ maybe freed his imagination.

“When I started studying the set,” Andsnes adds, “I knew the first pieces and enjoyed all of them, but I was less sure about the second half. Now I see that, actually, it is a very well-conceived cycle: those contrasting last pieces make so much sense.” And it is large, too: “We’re talking 55 minutes,” Andsnes says. For listeners exploring its enchanted journey, though, it might just be a case of the longer, the better.

13 Tracks

September 11, 2014 at PDT

The Beethoven Journey - Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" & Choral Fantasy

5 Tracks

December 31, 1999 at PST

Schubert: Winterreise

A solitary traveler, a frozen landscape, a stricken heart: Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise (Winter Journey) takes the clichés of Romanticism and turns them into a journey into the depths of the human soul. For the distinguished British tenor Ian Bostridge, it’s “the ultimate work that I perform. It’s a work that ranks with the greatest,” and together with his friend and regular collaborator, the Norwegian piano virtuoso Leif Ove Andsnes, he treats it less as a recital than as a drama. A lifetime’s engagement with Schubert—plus Bostridge’s fearless determination to stretch both his voice and his insights to the very limit—make this one of the supreme modern journeys into Schubert’s wintry world: by turns terrifying, tender, and haunting beyond words.

24 Tracks

February 21, 2000 at PST

Haydn: Piano Concertos Nos. 3, 4 & 11

9 Tracks

September 17, 2007 at PDT

Schumann & Brahms: Piano Quintets

8 Tracks

December 31, 2006 at PST

Edvard Grieg

“In Norway, Edvard Grieg is a very big deal,” the internationally acclaimed soprano Lise Davidsen tells Apple Music. “When I was growing up, all my family knew who he was. And so it was very, very special to be able to record this album. Because this is our music, in a way.” Edvard Grieg is, then, perhaps her most personal recording to date, a collection of Grieg songs performed with fellow Norwegian and pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. Music, of course, transcends boundaries, but there is always something magical about a composer returning to their roots. “Like Lise says, we grew up with this music, and I've played Grieg from when I was six years old,” adds Andsnes.


Those familiar with Grieg’s solo piano Lyric Pieces will find even more intimacy and drama in the songs here. “Grieg was a wonderful writer himself, and he loved poetry,” explains Andsnes. “It really inspired him, and in something like the song cycle Haugtussa there is an epic quality to some of the songs. It’s as if the music reaches another dimension. I really do think that this is his greatest music.” There was no way this album could have been anywhere other than Norway, so its creators both retreated to a spectacular music venue in the heart of the Norwegian port town of Bodø. There, in four uninterrupted days, they were able to devote themselves to this beautiful collection. “I'm really proud of this album,” says Davidsen. “I think that's because we reached the point where we did what we wanted to do—what we felt was right.” Read on as Davidsen and Andsnes guide us through their enchanting album in-depth.


”Haugtussa (The Mountain Maid)”
Lise Davidsen: “I think this song cycle, about a young girl’s love for a boy, represents a lot of the Norwegian spirit, with its immediate contact with nature. This acceptance of something that is bigger than us, not in terms of religion, but in this connection to nature and the idea that we have trolls and all these creatures. I’m not saying we believe in them, but we have accepted that they somehow exist.”
Leif Ove Andsnes: “There are many parallels with Schubert’s great song cycle Die schöne Müllerin, which is also about love and loss. That’s particularly true in the final song, ‘Bed Gjætle-Bekken’, where the girl sits by a stream and talks to it about her sadness of losing her love. I think the drama is really important here, but sometimes it doesn’t happen so much in performances. Lise, however, brings it out wonderfully.”


”6 Songs”
LOA: “Musically, these two songs are so interesting, but are very different. “No. 4 Med en Vandlilje” has a fluent melodic line and piano accompaniment, while “No. 2, En Svane” is the opposite. It’s very static and the piano just has these chords. But what chords! It’s on a level with the best Schubert songs. It’s only four minutes long, but it’s totally epic.”


”6 Elegiac Songs”
LOA: “For me, these songs have very Wagnerian harmonies, and they’re kind of strange. They’re very concentrated, but extremely interesting.”
LD: “It’s really important to read the text too, which is quite simple, but it communicates these very big feelings about lost love.”


”Melodies of the Heart”
LD: “I can be honest and say that this was the trickiest one to perform, because it’s been done so many times. But it’s such a beautiful song.”
LOA: “It sits between simplicity and ecstasy. It’s a very early song, very fresh, very spring-like. It’s all about the big intervals and big breath, and it’s only just over a minute long, too. The piano writing is wonderful; in fact, Grieg made a transcription of it for solo piano.”


”5 Songs, Op. 60: No. 5, Og jeg vil ha mig en Hjertenskjær”
LD: “This is just so straightforward in its message: ‘I would like to meet someone. And I would like it to happen this way please!’ Of course, there’s a lot packed into this song, but it’s like a fresh breeze.”
LOA: “Yes, it’s straightforward, but right in the middle, Lise stops singing for a line, and the piano just goes off on its own, playing these exulted harmonies. And it doesn't stop!”


”12 Songs, Op. 33: no. 9, Ved Rondane”
LD: “For me, one of the reasons why so many of these songs, including this one, are famous is that they’re like a musical stamp on Norway. It’s what foreigners think of Norway: the mountains and the nature, and Grieg describes it all so beautifully in his music.”


”5 Songs Op.69”
LD: “These songs have such variety from the first to the last, and they encapsulate so many aspects, such as a birthday letter, a snail and a mother’s grave. So there’s everything here. And there’s everything in the piano writing as well. It is so well written.”
LOA: “Grieg encapsulates it all really amazingly. The song about the snail [“No. 4, ‘Snegl, Snegl!’] has this quirkiness about it. And the first one, ‘Der gynger en Båd på Bølge’ is very dramatic. When you first look at this collection, you think, ‘These songs don't belong together, how can they work?’ But it’s one of those things that makes sense simply because of the contrasts. It becomes its own storytelling.”


”9 Songs, Op. 18: No. 5, Poesien”
LD: “This song is like someone who has stepped into a church pulpit and said, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’ It’s from a different time, and it’s difficult to bring to 2021 in a natural way. So, I think of myself as delivering the text rather than me personally talking about it. But I do love it, and I love the fact that it’s so different from all the other songs on the album.”
LOA: “For me, it’s just a very enthusiastic, ecstatic song with wonderful harmonies and great piano writing. It’s absolutely wonderful.”


”6 Songs, Op.48”
LD: “These songs have everything in them, from ‘Gruß’ and ‘Lauf der Welt’ to ‘Zur Rosenzeit’. Grieg has an amazing ability to write all emotions in five or six songs. That, for me, is what makes them so interesting to sing.”
LOA: “They’re a real highlight. First, we have the simplicity of ‘Gruß’, and then he switches mood immediately for ‘Dereinst, Gedanke mein’ and we’re in the world of Schubert again. This song has been a favourite of mine for a long time. It has that sort of divine quality of the best Schubert songs. It's universal. It's unbelievable. And then you have the next two songs, which are very playful and improvisatory, and then the last two, which are so dramatic again.”


”12 Songs, Op. 33: No. 2, Våren”
LD: “Maybe this song is an invitation to album number two! For me, ‘Våren’ describes Norway. We have seasons there in a very clear way. And våren [spring] is one of them. And this song describes how it returns, and what it means. In some part of the country it means getting your life back after the darkness and getting into a different emotional state.”
LOA: “Sometimes in Norway it feels like one could hibernate for a few months and then come back to life. And that's what this song is about. This person gets, once again, the opportunity to experience life and nature, and the spring.”

28 Tracks

April 26, 2000 at PDT

Grieg: Piano Concerto, Sonata Op.7, Lyric Pieces Opp.43, 54 & 65

31 Tracks

August 31, 2003 at PDT

Grieg & Schumann: Piano Concertos

Leif Ove Andsnes made his recording debut in 1990 with the Piano Concerto in A minor by his compatriot Grieg. The Norwegian pianist returned to its magnificent music a dozen years later to set down a live recording in company with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Mariss Jansons, catching the spontaneity of a concert performance while revealing deep imaginative insights into a work of extraordinary beauty and strength. Andsnes and his companions shape an equally rich interpretation of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, illuminating expressive details and dramatic contrasts that are all too often obscured beneath the hands of less sympathetic performers. The quality of the music-making is matched by ideally balanced recorded sound, which plays its part in raising this album into the ranks of all-time classical greats.

6 Tracks

February 17, 2002 at PST

Grieg: Lyric Pieces

Edvard Grieg published his 66 Lyric Pieces in 10 volumes between 1867 and 1901. Each one is a masterful miniature—melodically inspired and emotionally complex yet possessing an affecting and charming simplicity. Fellow Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes studied at the Bergen music school that now bears Grieg’s name and recorded this album on the composer’s own Steinway piano at his villa in Troldhaugen in 2002. Now a museum, the location was the inspiration for “Wedding Day at Troldhaugen,” the most famous and joyous of all the Lyric Pieces, which was written to mark the occasion of Grieg’s 25th wedding anniversary. This album is a gorgeous, warm-hearted celebration of Nordic landscapes, folklore, and seasonal scenes, as well as both ebullient and intimate piano playing.

24 Tracks

November 24, 2005 at PST

Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 1 & 2

6 Tracks

September 10, 2012 at PDT

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3

6 Tracks

September 2, 2012 at PDT

Rachmaninov: Complete Piano Concertos

12 Tracks

March 19, 2003 at PST

Dvořák: Violin Concerto, Op. 53 & Piano Quintet, Op. 81

7 Tracks

September 30, 2010 at PDT

Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4

6 Tracks

February 21, 2015 at PST

The Beethoven Journey - Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5 (Deluxe Edition with Bonus Tracks)

Celebrated pianist Leif Ove Andsnes dedicated four years of his life to The Beethoven Journey, a multi-season project in which he only performed and recorded Beethoven’s five piano concertos. That work is now a breathtaking collection featuring Andsnes’ radiant interpretations of some of Beethoven’s finest (and most famous) work, including the hilly precision of Concerto No. 5—also known as the “Emperor Concerto.” The deluxe version of the set boasts an exclusive encore performance in Andsnes’ native Norway: two movements of the lively and seductive “Bagatelles.”

19 Tracks

August 26, 2007 at PDT

Ballad for Edvard Grieg

10 Tracks

February 13, 2014 at PST

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4

6 Tracks

February 8, 1999 at PST

Haydn: Piano Sonatas

15 Tracks

December 31, 1995 at PST

Chopin: Cello Sonata G Minor; Schumann: Adagio & Allegro Op. 70 Etc.

13 Tracks

November 18, 2012 at PST

Chopin: Piano Sonatas

12 Tracks