The applause is hearty at the end of the concert. But Pianist Andreas Henkel receives it only with a light smile, never loosing his cool mind. Two years after the first fulminating experience, in the Small Concert Hall of the Gasteig, he proved his fullness of mind once more - with Johann Sebastian Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, the opening, and his Chorale "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", the encore at the end.
The 37-year old is a communicative musician, offering questions with his Bach-interpretation, which he answers conclusively with a brilliant technique which carries him through the playing of bizarre chromatic scales. Moreover, it is as though, Henkel takes the listener by the hand to guide him towards the secrets of great music. Beethoven's "Farewell-Sonata" op. 81 towers up highly sculptured as second piece. Henkel places tight musical power and tension beside tender moments and fragility. Owing to the dry acoustic of the hall, his forte sounded sometimes a little bit weak, on the contrary his piano-passages shone more. Henkel draws sharp musical structures. However his touch always stays elastic and rich with nuances - this above all is shown to the best advantage in Chopin's Barcarolle op. 60 and Brahms' Klavierstücke op. 118.
Even in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Nr. 6, the pianist from Saxony doesn't need to work out the simple paw-effect, but proves even more, how many dancing and elastic moments can be found in this piano giant of music history. An evening of musical discoveries with a pianist one would like to experience also in a bigger setting.

ULRICH MÖLLER-ARNSBERG