courtesy of Sony Music Masterworks
This Friday Sony Classical will release its fourth solo album featuring the prodigious Berlin-based pianist Igor Levit. Over the course of his first three albums, Levit made it clear that he has never been shy about rising to major challenges. His first album took on the last five sonatas composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, each of which presented its own set of ambitious demands on the performer. This was followed by a comprehensive account of the six solo keyboard partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 825–830). His most recent album then juxtaposed three radically different approaches to composing variations, Bach’s BWV 988 (“Goldberg”) variations, Beethoven’s Opus 120 set of 33 variations composed on the waltz theme given to him by the publisher Anton Diabelli, and, in what almost feels like a defiant can-you-top-this gesture, Frederic Rzewski’s 36 variations on the Chilean song “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” (the people united will never be defeated). Such a sequence makes for a tough act to follow, and Levit’s new album is entitled simply Life. For those who wish to get the jump on others, Amazon.com is, as usual, currently processing pre-orders.
It goes without says that Life will probably strike many as an idiosyncratic title. (Those of my generation may well think that it will mark the beginning of a new trilogy of recordings, the remaining two of which will be entitled The Universe and Everything.) However, Levit’s approach is far more sober, since it was triggered by the tragic death of a close friend in an accident. Such an event brings out the introspective in many of us. Perhaps the best justification for the album title may have to do with the extent to which each of the nine compositions on this album pursues the same intense virtuosity encountered in Levit’s previous recordings but this time motivated by the composer’s capacity for introspection.
This may cause some listeners to raise their respective eyebrows. Composers like Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Ferruccio Busoni tend to be viewed as extroverted unto an extreme. However, Schumann is represented by his WoO 24 “Geistervariationen” (ghost variations), the last piano work he composed before being committed to an insane asylum, not the best time for the extroverted Florestan side of his personality. Similarly, two of the Liszt selections are transcriptions of scenes from operas by Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal, both involving episodes of intense introspection, while Busoni is represented by the last of his seven elegies for solo piano.
In this vein it is also interesting to note how Levit has decided to return to Rzewski’s music. This time his selection comes from a series of compositions that the composer collected under the title Dreams. Specifically, Levit plays the third of these pieces, entitled “A Mensch.” Listening to this music unfold, one can easily imagine Rzewski pursuing his own identify through the evocation of a European-Jewish personality type.
Clearly, this is not music for casual listening. One is not expected to hit the “Play” button and let this music roll into the ears. Levit seems to have prepared a program that reflects his capacities for introspection; and, through presenting these selections, he encourages the listener to explore introspection from his own point of view. This is an ambitious undertaking; and, quite honestly, I have no idea how will it will succeed for how many listeners. For my part I am impressed with how Levit seems to have established new grounds upon which listener and performer may engage with each other.
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