Leif Ove Andsnes on Schubert for Four Hands

Released on Warner Classics at the end of November, Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou's recital of Schubert's late works for piano four hands has just been named as Recording of the Month in the January edition of Gramophone, where Jed Distler hailed it as 'an instant classic' thanks to the pianists' 'perfect sympathy with each other and the music'.

Shortly before Christmas I spoke to Leif Ove about Schubert's lifelong affinity with the genre, how the composer's renewed fascination with counterpoint in his final year plays out in the works on the album, the challenges and rewards of sharing a keyboard and pedals with another performer, and how his friendship with Chamayou came about thanks to a shared bond with an inspirational teacher...

Do you have any theories as to why Schubert wrote so much wonderful music for four hands in 1828?

He was drawn to the genre throughout his life: I think it suited him both musically and socially, playing with friends and pupils and so on. But why these masterpieces in his final year? Bertrand and I have talked about this, and it’s interesting how he searches for contrapuntal complexity late in his short life – the last things we have from him in writing are counterpoint exercises. He attended classes with a famous counterpoint teacher called Simon Sechter, so he obviously wanted to go deeper into fugal writing. 

And I think he succeeds extremely well in these pieces. The fugato writing in the Fantasie is very strong, especially in terms of how the ending builds up. I also think the short fugue that we’ve recorded is really beautiful – like so much of his music, it has this cantabile quality infusing the counterpoint. Then in the Lebensstürme there’s so much independent playfulness going on…the range of possibilities he explores is unbelievable.

Do you see him exploring any of those elements in his solo piano writing from the same period, or are they unique to the four-hand compositions?

We see some of it in his late piano writing in general, and also in the song cycles: the last songs he writes are Schwanengesang, where the piano textures are sometimes unusually thick and full. I think he was maybe searching for something richer in the piano writing towards the end, and therefore having four hands on the same piano opened up more possibilities. Having said that, he also writes the most fabulous music for two hands in that final year, including the last sonatas…

But in these pieces for four hands you’re aware that there’s more thickness and detail in the middle register than there usually is in the solo piano music, and it can even feel a bit uncomfortable at first - you’re tempted to thin it out a bit!  But that’s part of the writing: he really wants that kind of colour and richness, so you need to embrace it. It’s like when Mozart writes string quintets rather than quartets: what richness he can create with that extra voice!

I can’t help wondering how all of this would have played out if he’d lived for another twenty years…

Even five! If you think how much happened at the end of his life, it’s hard not to speculate…Of course a sort of mythology has grown up around his early death, as with Mozart: some people argue that he finds a new language because he knows he doesn’t have much time left, but I don’t believe that at all! He was a young man, only 31 – he knew he was sick, but there is no sign of him knowing that he was dying. On the contrary: he was writing so prolifically and taking lessons with a counterpoint professor…that’s not a man who’s on his deathbed. 

How did your friendship with Bertrand begin?

It came about through my incredible mentor Jacques de Tiège, who died a few years ago and also got to know Bertrand towards the end of his life. Bertrand was experiencing a physical problem with one of his hands, which had become so bad that he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to continue playing. Jacques analysed it and found a solution, and Bertrand is eternally grateful for that.

Jacques mentioned Bertrand to me, and funnily enough the first thing of his I listened to was a 2014 recording of Schubert’s Wanderer-Fantasie and the three last piano pieces. I immediately recognised that this wasn’t just wonderful piano-playing, but also a type of musicianship which I could relate to on a deeper level. Often you hear people who sound like exotic birds from a different universe, whereas with Bertrand I felt this strange instant connection.

When did you first perform together?

In 2016 I invited Bertrand to play at my first Rosenthal Chamber Music Festival, which takes place in a small village in the fjords - I spent ten wonderful years at the helm, and the theme of my first year was 1828 so we focused a lot on late Schubert. We wrapped up the whole festival with the Fantasie – it was the first time we played together, and it was such an emotional experience for us. It was possibly the closest I’ve been to tears in a performance, because that ending is absolutely without mercy. Schubert often embarks on these long journeys, but this one finishes so abruptly: suddenly you’re just there with the F minor chord and it’s over! 

It’s very difficult to find the right partner for four-hand music – and a very different dynamic from playing music for two pianos. Obviously there's the slightly uncomfortable thing of having to share the same keyboard: only one of you can handle the pedals, and you have to be really physically synchronised for the timing and feeling of phrases. But I feel uniquely at home with Bertrand – I’ve never experienced that kind of synergy on one piano. 

We started exploring more repertoire together, and after a few years we came up with this programme for an album. In concerts we combine Schubert with Kurtág, who also wrote some wonderful four-hand music. Kurtág takes the intimacy of four-hand playing even further than Schubert did; he introduces these very mysterious crossings of hands, almost like a game of Twister! You have to be good friends to do that, and it’s very touching to think of him playing these things with his late wife Márta.

Which other four-hand partnerships do you particularly admire?

I heard the famous Perahia/Lupu album when I was quite young and it had a huge impact on me, both for the Schubert Fantasie and the Mozart sonata. I think it was a very important recording for four-hand piano music. 

Sometimes people play this repertoire on two pianos, and it sort of works - but I just don’t think it’s the same thing. You can feel the lack of intimacy that comes from having two players sharing the same instrument. It sounds too comfortable if you have your own keyboard and pedals – you should struggle a bit, because that’s part of the music!

The F minor Fantasie is perhaps the best-known work in the four-hand repertoire as a whole, but tell me a little about the other pieces on the album…

Obviously there’s a kinship between the Fugue and the Fantasie where he also starts to use more contrapuntal elements, but beyond that I think each of these pieces have such different characters. 

Lebensstürme is very Beethovenian in its simple statements in the main theme, and it’s the more extrovert of the pieces. It’s full of very virtuosic passages, with incredible independent voices and a wonderful playfulness…but it also has a beautiful dreamy second theme which floats around very freely. It’s a big piece, almost the length of the Fantasie, and it has everything that the Fantasie has to offer except maybe the reflective moments and that very unique sense of nostalgia.

The Rondo is his last piece, and it’s lyrical rather than dramatic – it’s one of these extremely sensuous intimate pieces that Schubert does so well. It’s quite challenging to nail because the tempo sits somewhere between Allegretto and Andantino: you have to find a walking pace that has both calmness and fluency. There’s so much incredible nuance in terms of chromaticism, harmony and shading, and of course it sings so beautifully: those cantabile lines go on forever, and when you get it right it feels like a flower blooming. We often play it first in concert and sometimes it feels like the flower just doesn’t want to bloom that day! You have to approach it with an almost childlike openness, as you do with a lot of Mozart, and allow things to unfold spontaneously in performance. 

All of these contrasts are what makes this such a great programme – he’s showing these extremely different faces of himself in this last year of his life. It’s such a complete portrait.