The Times reviews Leif Ove’s London recital
“Most pianists have a composer whose work they avoid. For Leif Ove Andsnes that composer was, until recently, Beethoven. The Norwegian made his name as a Mozartian, and has recorded and performed Schubert extensively. Now his self-directed “Beethoven Journey” with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has led to two recordings of the Piano Concertos, coupling the First and Third, and the Second and Fourth, with the Fifth and the 1808 Choral Fantasia still to come.
“This belated immersion in the relationship between Beethoven’s keyboard and orchestral writing, and a thorough background in the music of Mozart and Schubert, whose work bookends his, can be felt in Andsnes’s lucid reading of the solo keyboard works, most particularly in the sprung silences between the notes. Andsnes never, ever clips rests, and never stops listening to the pulse …”