|
Back
Magical Levit-ation New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
01/12/2025 -
Johann Sebastian Bach: Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903
Johannes Brahms: Ballades, Opus 10
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Opus 92 (arr. Franz Liszt)
Igor Levit (Pianist) 
I. Levit (© Felix Broede)
“Behold, he goes up like clouds,
And his chariots like the whirlwind;
His horses are swifter than eagles.”
Jeremiah 4:13
“This event in my life has remained my greatest pride, the palladium of my whole career as an artist. I tell it but very seldom and only to good friends!”
Franz Liszt, describing Beethoven’s compliment on his piano-playing
During Johann Sebastian Bach’s fugue after the Chromatic Fantasy, I forgot the composer, forgot pianist Igor Levit and forgot the piano itself. The arch of the work, the sounds, the crystal-clear songs ascending from the tangle of notes were, by themselves, a transcendent rarity.
But this was Russian-German pianist artist Igor Levit’s gift to the Carnegie Hall audience this afternoon. He needed no idiosyncratic fireworks, he took the legendary “3 B’s” of music with no apologies, and he simply turned the works (with one exception) into a jewel box of emotions and ethereal feelings.
How else could one explain the whirlwind of the Chromatic Fantasy. One could have explained the glissandi of notes, had Mr. Levit plunged his feet down on the pedal. But, no, these were fingers alone doing the job.
The start was declamatory, yet that was the overture to a virtual dodecaphonic swirl of keys. (Somewhere I read that Schoenberg called Bach “the first 12-tone composer”). That was true as his fingers whipped through the opening, and managed–oh Levit‑ation!–into the fugue, with notes ending with almost Schubertian placidity.
The Brahms early four Ballades were less personal than poetic. Again, I ceased listening to the Steinway and did what no reviewer should do: I lost myself in a performance combining fingers and yes, heart.
If one must have words, the sheerly beautiful opening had the same spirit as Bach’s work. The second sounded like Chopin. But Chopin with deeper less maudlin touch. That Intermezzo was fine. Yet the final Ballade seemed to reach Brahms’ innermost soul.
The four together somehow were unified, of course by the composer. Yet few have the intelligence to create an interior cohesion, a unity once again of fingers and mind.
(Serious as these works were, Mr. Levit had an informal interaction with the audience. Before the Ballades, he looked directly–and kindly–at some latecomers. With a barrage of coughing after a movement of the Beethoven, he not only stopped, but egged on the sounds. Perhaps with an appreciation that they had held things in during the music itself.)
The last work was the most controversial: Franz Liszt’s transcription of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Liszt arranged this (as other works) because listeners had no phonograph records, and traveling orchestras were rare. Thus, Liszt was doing favors for the composer.
Admittedly, this takes a while of accommodation. An orchestra is an orchestra, a piano has its merits but is hardly the same.
So does on hear this as a terrific imitation of an orchestra? A tour de force for an exceptional artist? Or another dazzling Liszt piece of artistry?
Igor Levit eschewed the first description, and, with his dynamic techniqe worked this as a “Dance Sonata”. True, that introduction was a bit of a shocker. But one quickly stopped worrying about a grand orchestra and relied on a grand pianist.
The second movement is such a unique piece, that one could easily hear it as orchestra or piano. Nor was it the least bit funereal. Mr. Levit almost made is un poco allegro. The Scherzo was of course an example of virtuosity and muscle and energy.
The last movement was, to my ears, where an orchestra is needed. The brio of Allegro con brio means a mad dash, where one finds one’s way through orchestral colors. On the piano, it was a mad dash, with Mr. Levit’s notes piling one on the other.
That heaven-sent clarity in the Bach and Brahms was sadly a movement of muddled notes played with such electricity that one could hardly hear the composer’s voice.
Did we want an encore after this physically wearying work? After the well-meaning muddle of the last movement, yes, I needed comfort. And that he gave us in the jewel of Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s arrangement of Martin Luther’s Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland (“Now come, the savior of the gentiles”). Originally choral, of course, but Igor Levit gave it the sensitive touch which only a piano–and a master piano player–can bless us.
Harry Rolnick
|
