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Silence and Awe on A Winter Evening New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
01/27/2026 -
Robert Schumann: Klavierstücke, Opus 32 – Carnaval, Opus 9
Győrgy Kurtág: Selections from Játékok
Leos Janácek: Book 1 from On an Overgrown Path
Leif Ove Andsnes (Pianist) 
L. O. Andsnes (© Helge Hansen/Sony Music Entertainment)
“Music fills my everyday life. I still read literature and everything else that interests me, I also compose and teach, but somehow everything always revolves around music. Since my hearing deteriorated, I have been reading a lot of scores, because now I can only really hear the music, from the inside, by reading it.”
Győrgy Kurtág in his 100th year
“I hear music constantly in the empty silence, while the intellect is still and all emotional strings are relaxed.”
Leos Janácek
Not a single sound–not a cough or sneeze or single hand clapping was heard during or apart from the first three pieces. And that was totally appropriate for Leif Ove Andsnes in his Carnegie Hall recital.
While the Schumann, Kurtág and Janácek were hardly stylistically binding, Mr. Andsnes’ playing, as always, was spellbinding in its entirety. Audience silence was not out of respect but out of awe.
Mr. Andsnes chose this program with the care of a diamond cutter. For one thing, the works of three composers were not continuous. They were aphoristic. Four movements from a rarely played Schumann, five “games” from Kurtág’s 11‑volumes of Játékok. The complete first book of Janácek’s atmospheric On an Overgrown Path, and, after the intermission, the complete Carnaval.
Yet there were more links. Schumann was a master of children’s music, Kurtág’s games were inspired by piano‑games of children (though damned precocious children). Janácek’s breathtaking nature-pieces were formless with imagic titles. Kurtág’s short works were equally formless, with no “music” titles.
And Carnival included all the links of the first half. Names of dances and people and commedia dell’arte personalities. Diverse sounds from inspiration rather than form. Music which could attract children as well as painting-lovers.
So, despite the difference in countries and styles, the 54‑year‑old artist played with consistent serious artistry.
The opening Schumann Piano Pieces, the first of two bookend works by the composer, were unfamiliar to most in the audience, simply because, like the amorphous title, they have no particular images, and even the melodies are hard to decipher.
Yet Mr. Andsnes paid no attention and whirled through the opening Scherzo and the most un-jig‑like Gigue. With his virtual gossip‑column love for Clara, the Romanze was a staccato-legato etude soaring above mere adoration with Mr. Andsnes playing.
Whatever merits they had, the five Kurtág miniatures had the cryptic puzzles of all his Games. He wrote so many of them (and at the age of 100, is probably still composing) that one unavoidably hears them and forgets them. Yet each last night had the effect of a musical lightning bolt. Rather, a swift Stravinsky lightning bolt in an homage to a teacher. And a slow, erratic bolt in homage to another teacher, Leos Janácek.
Mr. Andsnes offered his own homage to what Kurtág called “pedological performance pieces.” The pianist needn’t have exaggerated the works. The tone‑clusters, the harmonics, those Stravinsky-like xylophone arpeggios were played straight. The results were 15 minutes of original questions.
No answers necessary.
For me, Book 1 of Janácek’s On an Overgrown Path created ten of nature’s vagaries. Hardly McDowell’s slurpy nature, or the mysterious Mahler nature, Janácek, as always, told his stories, diverted from his stories (perhaps admiring a tree or simply taking a piss), resuming his walk and suddenly ending.
No description of his owl (“not flying away”) or swallows chattering, or the mystical chapel could come near to Mr. Andsnes’ most serious, most un‑romantic performance. Nor, as in every work of the great Moravian composer, could one wish to decipher its effects.
The more I hear of Janácek, the more I realize that he possesses a singular genius given to very very few.
The final work was Carnaval, Yes, it is familiar, yes, it is played dozens of times each year. But yes, the fireworks and pictures are never tiring and always individual for each virtuoso.
Leif Ove Andsnes played as polar opposition to his first half. Those pieces was taken with utmost care for every note, every passage. And that was most appropriate.
Carnaval is a work of the most subjective inspiration, demanding the most personal rendering. If Mr. Andsnes took his “Butterflies” or “Paganini” with whirligig swiftness, if he played the “Waltz” or “Chopin” with impassioned endearment or gave the finale a combination of march, resplendence and triumph, those were his delights. (As they were ours!)
Such a virtuoso, such an artist created such understanding of the familiar and the arcane, that his concert was aeons more worthy than mere respectful. It left us with a feeling of emotional transcendence.
Alas, after repeated applause from the audience, Mr. Andsnes played two encores. They were both superfluous. That Mozart Rondo was sweet enough, but it diluted the mysterious ties which bound the diverse inspirations in a single joy.
The only encore I wanted was a repeat of the entire Carnaval. And perhaps Book 2 of the Janácek. And another hours worth of both awe and joy.
Harry Rolnick
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