Pianist Igor Levit has released a very personal double album marked by a desire for encounter and togetherness. The program includes rarely played arrangements of Bach and Brahms by Ferruccio Busoni and Max Reger, as well as Palais de Mari – Morton Feldman's final work for piano. "Encounter" is the pianist's sixth disc released on the Sony Classical label and conveys the urgent desire for human togetherness – at a time when isolation is the order of the day. For September 15 2020, Igor Levit - Encounter is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release'

The pianist Igor Levit is always one-upping himself. His recordings have swollen from a collection of four Beethoven sonatas to the entire cycle; his performances, from a traditional recital to, as of Sunday, a livestream lasting over 15 hours. In an extraordinary act of musical self-flagellation, Mr. Levit played Erik Satie's "Vexations" - a mysterious and absurd work consisting only of four lines repeated 840 times - to evoke and draw attention to the difficulties facing artists during the coronavirus pandemic. (Each iteration was printed on a single sheet of paper; they will be auctioned later to raise money for out-of-work musicians.) "Vexations" performances are extremely rare, and typically presented as a roughly 19-hour relay with a long roster of pianists. But Mr. Levit - accomplishing the unthinkable, if inadvisable - did it alone in a Berlin studio, starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday and finishing at 5:30 a.m. Sunday, relatively early even with scattered intermissions. If Mr. Levit's traversal, paid for using the $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award he received in 2018, was brisk, it was only for small stretches. The tempo direction is "très lent" ("very slowly"), which he started with and often returned to. But there were flashes in which he hurriedly pecked the keyboard as if jaded and exasperated, understandably dropping notes along the way. "I got so tired that literally my fingers stopped moving," Mr. Levit said in an interview on Sunday. "Maybe a chord came a second late, but nobody died because of it. I'm OK with that; it's part of the performance." At no point, he said, did he feel like he wasn't going to finish. And he avoided scaring himself beforehand with the piece's history, like in 1970 when Peter Evans quit after 595 repetitions, claiming to have had evil thoughts and visions. Pianists who take on "Vexations," he later said, "do so at their own great peril." Mr. Levit may have felt confident, but his facial expressions betrayed frustrated exhaustion. He sometimes slouched or stared emptily into the distance, or held a palm to his reddened forehead - given a persistent sheen by sweat - as if in despair. The fascinating livestream occasionally slid into something more disturbingly voyeuristic, like witnessing a private crisis of faith and bracing for it to all go wrong. But it didn't. If anything, Mr. Levit found renewed focus near the end, returning to a slow, even drawn-out tempo for what is inevitably an anticlimax. When I heard "Vexations" at the Guggenheim Museum in 2017, the audience didn't realize it was over until the pianist stood up from his bench. There was clearer finality in Mr. Levit's performance. He had been tossing the sheet music of each repetition onto the floor, and once he got rid of the last one, he slowly closed the lid of the piano, held his face in his hands and walked away, nonchalantly picking his iPhone off a side table on the way out. He slept for only a few hours before resuming his Sunday as usual. In the early evening, still riding a high from "Vexations," he spoke about his experience with it and what might come next. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
  Where do you even start with preparing for this? From the beginning of planning to the concert was about three and a half or four weeks. And I didn't train for it at all. I tried to play it at home, but without pressure and the actual thing happening - honestly, I got bored. There was no point of just playing it. There couldn't have been any emotional preparation, but I did have a musical goal. I told myself: I am not playing performance art, not stoically in the same tempo. I wanted to just let myself go, to do as much as I could to make it like a piece, like storytelling. Did it leave you in any sort of pain? I'm not making this up: I'm feeling really good. I have no back or hand issues, no headache. What about psychologically? There were moments of anger, there were moments of fear, sadness, devastation. But these were touchable moments for me more than anything psychological. In the middle, I looked at where I was and thought: There are still 590 to go, what the heck? It took me about half an hour to get through that, but it was really the only moment where I thought, not that I wasn't going to make it, but that I was annoyed. I feel like that showed in your playing. I just let myself go. And I wasn't thinking about questions about the dynamics; it was just following my emotions. Sometimes that was just counting every single number. But there were also moments where I was thinking about how I'm playing this piece while the U.S. is burning. This country I love so much - I felt a great level of despair and anger. I can't tell you that it translated into the music, but it at least translated into me. A very long part of the performance was driven by this thought. Were you keeping up with the news during the intermissions? This was the first time since the bloody iPhone was invented that I didn't have it with me for 16 hours! But I had seen the news from Minneapolis the night before. Then what were you doing when you weren't playing? Peeing. Sorry if that's not a good answer. But I was drinking water all the time, probably five and a half liters at least. I was really sorry to have to stop. I do not like intermissions; it's really hard to stand up. I wish I could play concerts without them. What comes after something like "Vexations"? I honestly don't know. This morning, my friends came over for coffee and I opened my iPad and Googled "the longest piano pieces ever." And 90 percent of what comes out is Sorabji. Then Frederic Rzewski's "The Road," which is an incredible cycle. He once told me it's like "War and Peace" music. So you're not going to just take a break. Are you kidding? Of course not.  PHOTO: Stephan Zwickirsch

We are about a week into the COVID-19 shut downs that have affected almost every arts organization, performing artist, teacher, professor, food industry worker, and beyond. No matter what we do, this will have a giant impact on the economy. For artists, losing performance fees and teaching wages are the hardest blows. Luckily the internet is an incredible resource in times of social isolation. Whether you're an independent artist, small nonprofit organization, or a large institution, there are ways to move your performances online and even monetize these efforts to help mitigate the large-scale cancellations and loss of income facing our creative community.  Artists are already going online with their music. Igor Levit has been live on Twitter. The Dropkick Murphy's hosted a St. Patrick's Day live stream. You can simply go live on any mobile device these days, but there are a few ways to step up your game to get better audio and a good picture. The following is a quick start guide to considering all of the specs and opportunities for your live streaming set up.  Adam Schumaker from I CARE IF YOU LISTEN recommend that you take these steps to get started: 1. Decide the social media platform you want your streams to originate from – I'd recommend a platform you have the most followers and activity on. 2. Assess your streaming devices – what do you and your friends have to work with on the tech side? How can you make it better? How will you mount your cameras and get a great picture? 3. Make your audio the best it can be. Can you collaborate with friends before you go buy something? 4. Last, how will your streaming benefit your community and career in terms of collaborations, networking, and finances. Be creative. Experiment. Have fun. READ THE FULL I CARE IF YOU LISTEN ARTICLE

As the Covid-19 virus has taken hold, human beings have turned to singing and music. We are expressing an eternal need for harmony. Neighbours play instruments from balconies as Italy stays under coronavirus lockdown – video Music, said Saint Thomas Aquinas, can be defined as "the exaltation of the mind derived from things eternal bursting forth in sound". Faced with the stresses and difficulties of the coronavirus outbreak, it should come as no surprise that so many people have found a response to the pandemic in music. Our bodies may be doing the right and responsible thing by remaining at home, but our minds are not so easily locked down. Things eternal still need to burst forth somehow, and in the face of the Covid-19 virus, music has become one of humankind's most defiant public assertions that life must continue in harmony. Nowhere has this musical expression of the will to survive been more inspiring than in Italy. A week ago, a few Italians began to open their windows in the evening and venture out on their balconies to sing.  When people look back on the pandemic of 2020, they will remember many things. One of them ought to be the speed with which human beings, their freedom to associate constrained, turned towards music in what may almost be described as a global prisoners' chorus. In music, supply has been quick to respond to demand. The Berlin-based concert pianist Igor Levit plays a sonata live on Twitter each evening from his living room.  Simon Rattle, who conducted a livestreamed concert from an empty hall in Berlin last weekend, put it well when he said beforehand: "We hope that simply playing sends a signal."  READ THE FULL Guardian ARTICLE & WATCH THE VIDEO

Renowned pianist Igor Levit, in a hoodie and sock feet, played music by Franz Schubert in his Berlin living room this afternoon. Anyone who wanted could follow along on Twitter (where you can still watch the performance, and catch the next one). Kalamazoo's Gilmore Keyboard Festival, which had to cancel all of its spring 2020 concerts, helped people find the feed. The Festival is doing its best to connect people with live classical music, even if they can only watch and listen on a screen. "You choose to be a musician because you can't help but make music, and it's wonderful to see that there is still an outlet, that this can still happen for folks," Gilmore Director Pierre van der Westhuizen said of Levit's concert, which he planned to watch. "He's one of my favorite artists and so intimately connected with our organization," he added. Levit received the Gilmore Artist Award in 2018 and was scheduled to play at the 2020 Festival. The Gilmore's Twitter feed is one place to watch for virtual concerts. Westhuizen noted that the Guardian newspaper's list of "quarantine soirees" is also a good resource. Westhuizen says the Gilmore hopes to reschedule some artists for performances this fall and next spring.  SEE THE 89.9WMUK PAGE

People are asked to stay at home and avoid social contacts to stop the spread of the unusual coronavirus. Meanwhile, musicians are getting creative. The coronavirus pandemic is very serious, but it's part of human nature to deal with even the worse situations with humor and creativity. The viral videos of Italy's "balcony singers" demonstrate this well. Now that even the most intimate concerts have been cancelled in Germany, a growing number of artists are offering a live-stream of their music. Among the forerunners of this trend, star pianist Igor Levit has been streaming almost every evening concerts to his 58,000 Twitter followers, garnering thousands of likes. Many humorous musical videos are also being shared online, from rapped songs on washing hand to parodies of famous pop songs, such as The Knack's "My Sharona" (1979), which can easily be switched to "My Corona." Watch the attached video. Musicians and music fans worldwide have been posting parodies and serious songs online, with some of them obtaining millions of clicks. A growing number of Spotify users have also been creatively reacting to the outbreak with their playlists. Classic hits take on a new meaning amid the crisis - from "Toxic" by Britney Spears to "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police, from "Down With The Sickness" by Disturbed to "Heal The World" by Michael Jackson.  Described as "The sickest playlist on the worldwide web," the Spotify playlist "COVID-19 Quarantine-Party" created by user @chadwickjohnson has 85,000 followers. There are dozens of similar playlists. Spotify user Raphael Angelo Fernandez Rios, who usually doesn't draw much attention with his lists on the music streaming platform, drew 8,000 followers with his list labeled "Coronavirus beats to panic to." For all music lovers, there's reassuringly still tons of good beats and timeless melodies out there to accompany us through this exceptional crisis and all the bad news that comes with it. READ THE FULL Deutsche Welle ARTICLE & WATCH THE VIDEO

Bans on mass gatherings introduced to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic might have been expected to deal a death blow to musical life, but have instead prompted a boom in free online concerts. One musician to step up to the plate is Russian-German pianist Igor Levit, who took to Twitter on Thursday evening to stream an impromptu rendition of Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata Op. 53 from his Berlin flat to entertain audiences penned at home by the virus. Across Europe and the world, authorities are shuttering schools, museums, bars and concert halls in an effort to prevent the kind of close physical contact that fosters the transmission of a virus that has killed more than 4,000 people worldwide. Germany has so far reported 2,369 confirmed coronavirus cases and five deaths. Berlin, among other German cities and regions, has announced plans to gradually close schools and reduce public transport over the coming week. "It's a sad time, it's a weird time, but acting is better than doing nothing," Levit told viewers of his stream, before sitting down at his Steinway to trill the piece's swooping opening bars. "Let's bring the house concert into the 21st century!" READ THE FULL Reuters ARTICLE

Welcome to theartsdesk - Classical CDs Weekly: Beethoven, Bruckner, Notice Recordings. Definitive box sets of sonatas and symphonies, plus striking new music from a US independent label by Graham Rickson for Saturday, 22 February 2020. "Beethoven paid no attention at all to the conventions of his own time In fact, he only ever wrote music for the future." One strength of Igor Levit's magnificent traversal of Beethoven's piano sonatas is how contemporary, how disarmingly modern he makes many of them sound. Speeds in outer movements are generally swift, the dynamic contrasts extreme. Try No. 25's tiny last movement, pushed to the limit here and almost buckling under the strain. But there's so much energy and joy; you suspect that Beethoven would have approved. He would also have grinned at Levit's fizzing account of No. 25, the grace and flamboyance perfectly matched. One of this set's many attractions is hearing Levit doesn't underplay the earlier, less familiar sonatas. The first three, dedicated to Haydn, are wonderfully handled. No. 2's first movement is laugh-out-loud funny, and No. 3's finale closes with a nicely emphatic full stop. READ THE FULL artsdesk ARTICLE

"Citizen. European. Pianist," declares Russian-born, Berlin-based Igor Levit on the front page of his website. One should add, since he wouldn't, Mensch and master of giants. High-level human integrity seems a given when great pianists essay epics: certainly true of Elisabeth Leonskaja and Imogen Cooper tackling respective sonata trilogies by Beethoven and Schubert, or András Schiff in Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier. Last night was on that level. Questions may linger over the nature of Shostakovich's many-headed hydra of a homage to Bach, but none about Levit's expressive intent and execution in every phrase. Levit let nothing escape his rigorous but always expressive focus. That made the relatively few outbursts of violence, above all in the whirlwind of the D flat major Fugue, and the cumulative fugues at the end of each set of 12 - Shostakovich clearly divides up his sequence, making a new pure beginning with the F sharp major Prelude and Fugue of No. 13 - all the more overwhelming. Any sense of technical bursting at the seams was reined in with the pianist's intense rhythmic sense, and very rarely did he resort to the sustaining pedal to help with welters of sound. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px} READ THE FULL artsdesk REVIEW

You seldom hear a Champions League-level roar of approval at the Wigmore Hall. Last night, though, Igor Levit drew a throaty collective bark of appreciation from the audience after (for once) an awed hush had followed the final dying cadences of the aria's return in Bach's Goldberg Variations. Had he earned it? Absolutely. This recital was first of three devoted to the idea of Variations. Friday will see Levit play Beethoven's Diabelli set, and Frederic Rzewski's mighty deconstruction of the revolutionary anthem "The People United Will Never Be Defeated". On 27 May, the Russian-born Berlin pianist will take his regular explorations of lesser-known music further with the enormous, post-Shostakovich Passacaglia on DSCH composed by the Scottish-Welsh Lancastrian Ronald Stevenson in the early Sixties.  Yesterday, though, the universally acclaimed Levit showed his paces at the familar core of the modern piano repertoire (albeit with a work that Bach conceived in 1741 as exercises for the two-manual harpsichord).   READ THE FULL artsdesk REVIEW

Himself an exceptional pianist, the highly original and politically committed Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson died in 2015 at the age of 87. Written between 1960 and 1963 and characteristically ambitious, his vast Passacaglia, based on Shostakovich's musicalisation of his name in the form DSCH, is perhaps the largest single span of piano music ever composed. On Monday 27 May, pianist Igor Levit will perform Stevenson's approximately 85 minute long Passacaglia at Wigmore Hall. Watch the attached video as levit explains. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px}

Igor Levit arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 1 ahead of his first concert at Carnegie Hall's main Stern Auditorium. It was the last day of February and his entry didn't go smoothly. "It was actually four hours," he recalled. "There were 900 people standing in the line - approximately 900 people - it was packed to the stairs, to the escalator, and they literally had one window open. Nothing was working, nothing. There were no announcements made. There were kids. There were old people. It was just a disaster." Winner of last year's Gilmore Artist Award, given quadrennially to a pianist along with a $300,000 prize, Levit is among the most probing young artists in classical music. His website describes him as "Citizen. European. Pianist." READ THE FULL AP ARTICLE

Along with Daniil Trifonov, pianist Igor Levit's concerts and CDs must recall what it first felt like to encounter Gilels and Richter, two other super-talented Russian pianists who brought excitement to classical music. When I saw Igor Levit live, one of the most striking aspects for this sensitive and strong pianist was the fascinating combination of music choices. So it wasn't surprising that the pieces for his latest solo CD are as varied as night and day: included works are by Busoni, Bach, Schumann, Rzewski, Wagner, Liszt, and Bill Evans, whose "Peace Pipe" couldn't get a more sensitive rendering. Returning to the studio after three years, Levit reflects on both being and being beaten by the gaping gorge of grief, selecting works as a musical journey as a way of reflecting on and memorializing the accidental death of an intimate friend. Yet even as the origin of the album is death, the title is Life - suggesting that music, no matter how sad, is consoling and supportive and life-affirming. This Sony Classical release will simply make you glad to be alive. It is beautifully played, beautifully felt, and beautifully conveyed piano playing. READ THE FULL STAGEADNCINEMA REVIEW p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px}

This album is a tribute to Igor Levit's close friend, Hannes Malte Mahler, who died in a bike accident in 2016. The recital is a meditation on life and death and the protean nature of art. Many of the works are transcriptions. The towering shadows of Busoni and Liszt loom large. The secular and the sacred meld together in an uneasy cocktail, and the recital offers no easy answers to questions about grief and loss. This is one of the most outstanding piano recitals I have ever heard. Levit has a probing and highly original musical mind which he combines with the most breathtaking virtuosity. Amazing stuff! READ THE FULL MusicWeb International REVIEW p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d; min-height: 14.0px} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}

Igor Levit the fascinating German-Russian pianist was featured on the Schubert Club's International Artists Series here in Saint Paul, Minnesota recently. The highly anticipated program had us on tenterhooks as the lone piano stood on the empty stage. Then out he walked in a long, flowing, white shirt, one arm leading his lanky body, and with barely a bow he sat at the instrument and began. He immediately set a tone of introspection- a serious, studied, and probing approach, as if suspended in another dimension. Levit's approach is unique. I am reminded of the genius of Glenn Gould, who was fiercely independent and resistant to the live concert experience. Levit, like Gould, seemed to be immersed in his deepest, innermost sanctum. One can imagine him alone with the piano playing at a remote shrine and we in the audience, the privileged few, there to overhear his mystic communion with music. Recently, Igor Levit has recorded these works in an album entitled Life and he will be performing this program until the end of the year.  READ THE FULL Interlude ARTICLE

In January 2018, pianist Igor Levit was named the recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award, which is given every four years. The jury said, "Levit is not only a superb pianist but also a deeply thoughtful and insightful artist." His latest release on Sony Classical is a very personal selection of works born out of profound loss. Sparked by the tragic death of a close friend in an accident, "Life" concentrates on works whose gloomy grandeur and melancholy beauty have occupied him for years. Each of them pays tribute to the virtuoso possibilities of the piano. Poetic moments of contemplative silence blend with life-affirming music with a direct physical fascination. Igor Levit - Life is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release' p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #4d4d4d}

Pianist Igor Levit needed only one hand, in the opening piece of his solemn, deeply felt recital at the Herbst Theatre on Thursday, Nov. 1, to conjure a meeting of musical minds and souls. With his performance of the famous Chaconne from Bach's Violin Partita No. 2, in Brahms' arrangement for the left hand alone, this fearless 31-year-old Russian-born artist put himself in a probing, intimate conversation with both the Bach original and Brahms' prismatic interpretation. From the meditative statement of the opening subject to a throbbing bass pattern, desperate runs and hovering chords, the Chaconne emerged in a sheath of new light and shadow. READ THE FULL San Francisco Chronicle REVIEW p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px}

Like a pop musician touring a new album release, pianist Igor Levit comes to town on the strength of his inventive double-disc set for Sony Classical. Titled "Life," the release stands as a musical memorial for a close friend killed in an accident, but also as a testament to the potency and imagination of Levit's keyboard artistry. The programmatic themes are those of death and remembrance, as borne out in music of an elegiac bent. For his San Francisco - Herbst Theatre recital on Thursday, Nov. 1, Levit has extracted music that features conversations across the decades and centuries - Brahms and Busoni arranging Bach, Liszt paraphrasing the music of Wagner, and so forth. SEE San Francisco Chronicle ARTICLE

The title of pianist Igor Levit's magisterial new release is a misnomer, at least in part. Its main subject is actually death - the pain of it, the mystery, the search for solace or meaning in the aftermath of a loved one's departure (the record was inspired by a close friend's sudden death in a bicycle accident). But just as death casts a single life into relief - highlighting some parts, obscuring or reinterpreting others - Levit's program, consisting primarily of hand-me-downs and transcriptions, explores the way musical meaning changes over time. Brahms reshapes the Bach Chaconne for piano left hand; Liszt illuminates the "Liebestod" from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde"; Busoni transcribes Liszt riffing on Meyerbeer. read the full San Francisco Chronicle article

In the Gramophone - Listening Room for Fri 19th October 2018 are Daniil Trifonov and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in Rachmaninov, Dvořák from Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, John Harbison's Requiem, Schumann from Igor Levit and Liszt from Till Fellner It's always a pleasure to hear the great Philadelphia Orchestra in the music of Rachmaninov – it's rather like hearing the LSO in Elgar or the Vienna or New York Phil in Mahler: there's a direct link and a palpable sense of belonging. Daniil Trifonov launches a survey of the piano concertos, couched in terms of a journey, and finds fine partners in the great Pennsylvania orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Also, fine pianism this week, courtesy of Igor Levit (playing Schumann). p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px} SEE ALL THE Gramophone PICKS

What have we before us in the form of pianist Igor Levit? Who is this guy? His playing is in every way the equal of any of his contemporaries, set apart from them mainly by an unnamable quality that would rightly be called transcendence, had not Daniil Trifonov's publicists claimed the title. His music-making seems fetched from the beyond and headed back for it, or to it. Count on his performing some of the repertory on his new CD, "Igor Levit, Life" (Sony) - complex, rarely performed music a concertgoer would do well to get under the belt pre-performance - at his Herbst Theatre recital for San Francisco Performances on November 1. But don't assume it will sound the same. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; color: #606060; min-height: 14.0px} READ THE FULL The Bay Area Reporter ARTICLE

Igor Levit has been named as the recipient of the 2018 Gilmore Artist Award. The prestigious Award - worth $300,000 - has a track record of honouring some of today's most brilliant and interesting pianists, ones who combine virtuosity with individuality and a questing musical mind. Awarded every four years, the most recent winners were Rafał Blechacz in 2014, Kirill Gerstein (2010) and Ingrid Fliter (2006), all of whom have achieved acclaim for their subsequent achievements. Levit, however, is arguably much better-known than any of those three previous recipients were at the time of their Award; signed to Sony Classical, he received Gramophone's Recording of the Year in 2016 for his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! READ THE FULL Gramophone ARTICLE   p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica; min-height: 13.0px}

Igor Levit is young, in demand and gave three performances at this year's Beethovenfest in Bonn. And he spoke with DW after a recital at the city's Church of the Holy Cross. Your program included works by Johann Sebastian Bach and by Ferruccio Busoni, who considered himself Bach's biggest fan. Busoni transcribed a number of Bach's works for piano, but some of his own compositions such as his "Fantasy After Johann Sebastian Bach" sound a lot different. Can you explain why?   PHOTO  (picture-alliance/dpa/J. Büttner) READ THE Deutsche Welle INTERVIEW p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial}

This year I arrived in time for the first of two recitals by the Russian-German pianist, Igor Levit: two Schubert masterpieces sandwiching the Eroica Variations of Beethoven. The Schubert pieces were studies in contrasts: the Allegretto D915 sounding almost like a fantasy, such was its freedom and looseness; the penultimate sonata, D959, more rhythmically structured. The second movement was heart-tuggingly tender. On my final night, Igor Levit was back for the Goldberg Variations. The opening Aria was played in poetry rather than prose, and with such ever-changing ornamentation that we could almost have been listening to improvisation. Levit plays with liquid delicacy and thoughtfulness. By the time he reached the end of the painfully intense Adagio 25th variation he looked utterly drained. Somehow he dug deep to find the energy to finish the work off. The variations demand complete concentration for an audience, never mind the pianist. One measure of a great performance is how completely the figure sitting at the keyboard can spellbind the listeners. For the best part of an hour and a half Levit did just that. He is on his way to becoming a great pianist. READ THE FULL guardian REVIEW   p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px} And so another Schubertiade visit drew to a close. The conservatism of the environs is deceptive. Look carefully at the landscape around the villages and you'll see strikingly contemporary design and craft. Eat in the surrounding hotels and restaurants and you'll become aware this is an area with much small-scale organic food production. Many of the villages in the Bregenzerwald are powered by renewable energy. Small-c conservatism blends with rather contemporary conservation. And, while the repertoire is hardly experimental, young performers such as Levit are finding new ways of playing and thinking about the greatest of all music. p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}

Deep into Igor Levit's monumental Birmingham Town Hall performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's vast cycle of Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues, I wondered if this work was some kind of Everest for pianists. It's rare to meet it complete, in concert. The careful, transparent counterpoint places exacting demands on its interpreters and although it's never flashy, there are devilishly difficult corners. Success here depends upon unwavering concertation from musician and listener alike. If you fell, there'd be no soft landing, and certainly nowhere to hide. But the mountain analogy only gets you so far. This isn't music of lofty vistas, of high-wire daring or summit-triumph. Shostakovich's immaculate miniatures are spare, interior, and their rewards quiet and very personal. When Levit reached the final page of the last, defiant fugue – the effort and intensity registering on his face and his hands pounding out its final unisons – it was clear that this was a long, lonely and intensely moving pilgrimage to some of the subtlest landscapes the piano can paint.  PHOTO:Robbie Lawrence READ THE FULL Bachtrack REVIEW p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Arial; min-height: 11.0px} span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre}

Making his Santa Barbara debut last Thursday, March 9, at the Music Academy of the West's Hahn Hall, Igor Levit gave a masterful concert that featured compositions by Frederic Rzewski and Beethoven. The audience was delighted by Levit's rendition of Beethoven's 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, which was featured on his third studio album and winner of Gramophone's 2016 Instrumental Award. The performance was immediately impressive as Levit had the 33 Variations memorized, and it was apparent that there was a strong emotional connection to the composition. Fingers moved in a frenzy during the more intense variations and delicately during the softer intervals. Levit played with a dramatic flair, pausing before the beginning of each variation, leaving the audience in suspense until his energetic hands flew across the keys. READ THE FULL Santa Barbara Independent ARTICLE p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}

Once in a great while, a pianist will come along whose mastery announces itself practically from the moment fingers touch the keyboard. Such a pianist is Russian-German pianist Igor Levit, who made his downtown Chicago debut Sunday, afternoon March 12, 2017 at Orchestra Hall (he actually had made his area solo debut at Ravinia in 2015) with an extraordinary recital that must have had listeners wondering when they last encountered a keyboard talent this formidable  PHOTO (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)  p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px} span.Apple-tab-span {white-space:pre} READ THE FULL Chicago Tribune REVIEW

Igor Levit began his recording career with Beethoven's last three piano sonatas, and his deeply felt, impressively mature readings made his name. Now he is performing a full cycle at the Wigmore Hall, and his take on the earlier sonatas turns out to be very much in the same spirit. There is little sense of Classical reserve in Levit's early Beethoven; instead everything is performed in an intensely expressive style. It's impulsive and unpredictable, with huge contrasts of dynamic and tempo. Sometimes the results feel counterintuitive, but they are always compelling. READ THE FULL artsdesk REVIEW

Igor Levit, the Russian-German pianist born in 1987, has already proved a wizard at Beethoven. His recordings of the late sonatas, and of the Diabelli Variations, hoovered up awards and superlatives. This autumn, Levit began his first complete series of Beethoven sonatas, in London and Brussels, spread out between now and March. Since Beethoven took some four decades of his 56-year life to write this body of 32 works, an enforced breathing space between concerts comes as a reward: time for reflection and anticipation instead merely of open-mouthed amazement after the more usual rapid marathon. On the evidence of last Monday's Wigmore Hall concert, broadcast live on Radio 3, I regret having missed the first two in the series. Levit catapulted the explosive opening of Op 10, No 1 in C minor into life, the entire work unfolding with turbulence alternating with hushed serenity. These outer limits in which Levit so delights give his playing a sense of risk, that variety of light and shade you might find in Goya's equally monolithic groups of prints, Los Caprichos, created in the same period (artist and composer died a year apart). This is Levit's style, closer to the analytical clarity of, say, Alfred Brendel than to the spacious freedoms of Daniel Barenboim: all three pianists, however different, understand Beethoven's wit, the bright gleam that unites this entire body of music. READ THE FULL guardian REVIEW p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}

Igor Levit, the widely acclaimed pianist, still in his late 20s continues his Beethoven Piano Sonatas in this sold-out series at London's Wigmore Hall. A former BBC New Generation Artist, and more recently winner of the Gramophone Recording of the Year prize, Igor Levit is one of today's leading interpreters of Beethoven's music. What is so surprising about Levit is not only the maturity of his interpretations, but his boundless appetite for new repertoire of works as difficult and demanding as possible.  For his long awaited debut album three years ago, Levit chose some of the most challenging repertoire ever written for piano: Beethoven's last five piano sonatas, on a two-CD set. The Wigmore Hall program includes: Beethoven
Piano Sonata No.5 in C minor, Op.10 No.1
Piano Sonata No.19 in G minor, Op. 49 No.1 Piano sonata No.20 in G major, Op.49 No. INTERVAL Beethoven
Piano Sonata No.22 in F major, Op.54
Piano Sonata No.23 in F minor, Op.57 (Appassionata). Click her to Listen to this Radio 3 in Concert - Live from Wigmore Hall, with Igor Levit playing  - Beethoven piano sonatas. Presented by Martin Handley.  p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica; min-height: 12.0px}

The eight Wigmore Hall recitals that make up Igor Levit's season-long survey of the the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas stretch from this autumn to next June. If the schedule appears stately, the playing is anything but. Where some pianists may approach the 32 in a reverent mood of homage, Levit's playing constantly highlights the white-hot invention of Beethoven's writing, the stylistic disruptions and innovations, and the extreme contrasts of dynamics. At times it can seem disconcerting. Yet so was Beethoven. It's all there in the score, from the amazing contrasts of sonority Levit conjured from the closing pages of the Largo of the E-flat sonata opus 7, to the hurtling joy of the closing movement of the opus 81A "Les Adieux" sonata in the same key, in which Levit's fingers were a match for Beethoven's challenging Vivacissimamente marking. READ THE FULL guardian REVIEW

Igor Levit proved he was premier league last night at Wigmore Hall. The outstanding cycles of Beethoven piano sonatas heard at the Wigmore Hall in recent years have been those of Andras Schiff and Paul Lewis. Now joining those artists in the premier league is the Russian–German Igor Levit, who began his cyclelast night with Beethoven's first sonata, the F minor, op.2, no.1, though his programme later ventured also into the composer's middle period. READ THE FULL Evening Standard REVIEW

At the end of an enthralling evening of music-making, and moving and witty acceptance speeches, it was Igor Levit who was called to the stage to accept the most coveted prize of all: Gramophone's Recording of the Year. Winning the Recording of the Year Award is an extraordinary achievement for the 29-year-old pianist who was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2011-13, and for whom this is only his third recording for Sony Classical, the label he signed an exclusive contract with in 2012. Levit performed twice during the ceremony itself, first giving a wonderfully lyrical account of the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations, which suspended the audience in rapt silence, and then, after an impassioned acceptance speech, the main melody from Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated! SEE ALL THE Gramophone AWARD WINNERS

Igor Levit's late Beethoven sonatas (11/13) and Bach Partitas (10/14) on Sony Classical have already made bold declarations of his pianistic and artistic prowess. His musical personality is as integrated and mature as his technique. And both of these are placed at the service of the music's glory rather than his own. The three-CD Now 77, and so far as I know still going strong both as composer and pianist, Frederic Rzewski can hardly complain at daunting comparisons with Bach and Beethoven, since his variation set The People United Will Never Be Defeated! so conspicuously invite them. Igor Levit - Bach, Beethoven, Rzewski wins 2016 Gramophone Award READ CLASSIC fm ARTICLE

Making his Tanglewood debut and performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the first time, pianist Igor Levit hit one out of the park with his performance of Beethoven's third piano concerto in C minor. And I expect we'll hear a lot more about Igor Levit in the future. With conductor David Afkham, who also made his Tanglewood and BSO debut on Sunday afternoon Levit's moment came in the first movement of the Beethoven concerto, he had a good but slightly tentative start. Then again, Levit might have been instructed to play the part this way so who knows how the opening might sound the next time he plays this piece. All I know is his brief hint of hesitation lasted only a few bars. By the end of the first movement, Levit looked and sounded like someone used to performing with one of the world's greatest orchestras.        (Photo by Hilary Scott, courtesy of Tanglewood) READ THE FULL MassLive REVIEW

Igor Levit seemed to come out of nowhere. Largely unknown at the time of his 2013 debut recording of the last five Beethoven sonatas, the pianist has racked up a nearly unbroken string of accolades for his playing, which is daring, expressive, and inwardly focused in a way that belies his relative youth. (He was born in 1987.) "He is the future," the Los Angeles Times intoned last year. Given Levit's abrupt early success, it's all the more intriguing that his career has proceeded not in a straight line but by reinvention, detours and course changes rather than straight-line advances. Having started his studies at age 3, Levit went through a period at 16 or 17 when "I simply didn't like the piano at all," he said recently by phone from Berlin, where he moved a few months ago. (Levit was born in Russia, but moved with his family to Germany when he was 8.) "I liked the music, but the instrument, as it is, I disliked a lot." He changed tack and began playing Renaissance vocal music, an immersion that led him, eventually, to Bach, whose music he plays with vital rhythmic force. Another time, he became dissatisfied with the Romantic-era fare he'd been playing. In search of something new, he discovered the American-born composer Frederic Rzewski, of whom he's become a close friend and of whose works he is a passionate advocate. "I permanently try out new things," he said. "These questions I raise all the time. And out of these questions I make certain decisions, regarding repertoire, regarding myself in general." READ THE FULL Boston Globe ARTICLE

He played spotlit surrounded on four sides by a hushed and fascinated audience – like a green baize gladiator in the world snooker championships. Indeed it was gladiatorial as the Russian pianist alternately charmed, beguiled, hammered and finally finessed into submission Frederic Rzewski's epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated. Levit has recently recorded it along with Bach's Goldberg Variations and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. It doesn't have their musical substance but it's a flamboyant, hugely demanding yet audience-friendly showpiece. The intimate and intensely involving in-the-round layout was a huge success – when did we last get a standing ovation for a piano recital at the Town Hall? So why aren't more solo and chamber music recitals presented this way? READ THE FULL Birmingham Post ARTICLE

Igor Levit is a much-admired young pianist famed for the boldness of his musical imagination, and this unusual programme allowed him to meld the music of JS Bach with that of his celebrated arranger Ferrucio Busoni in a way which exalted them both. But first he played a charming little Passacaglia by Bach's precursor Johann Caspar Keril, to focus our minds on the variation form which was going to frame the evening.    The purity of the voices in Bach's ‘Ricercar a 3' from his Musical Offering was pushed to an intense expressiveness, and the three ‘Contrapuncti' from The Art of Fugue grew steadily in majesty, with passion surging through their scrunching dissonances. Busoni's arrangements of Bach's preludes, fugues, and chorales combined reverent fidelity to the originals with adventurous exploration, as we saw first with his Fantasia after JS Bach BV253 and then – with Herculean power – with his extraordinary Fantasia contrappuntistica. And if this latter work makes the listener's brain reel with its labyrinthine form and wandering tonality, it makes massive demands on the performer.  Levit did it full justice, with a performance which brought out its intellectual astringency, but the unaffected melodiousness of the encore – a Bach-Busoni chorale - was still a relief. READ THE FULL Independent REVIEW

Among the current crop of brilliant young pianists, Igor Levit stands out for his total high-seriousness. Leave it to the likes of Yuja Wang to make amusing YouTube videos of party pieces by Liszt and Moszkowski. Levit focuses on loftier heights. That might seem not entirely healthy in a pianist who's not yet 30. But as this stupendous recital showed, being "high-serious" doesn't imply playing safe. In fact it was excessive in every way, making outlandish demands of complexity, virtuoso difficulty, overwhelming length, and sheer loudness. The programme was cleverly devised, focusing on just two composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, the sober church musician of 18th-century Leipzig, and the flamboyant travelling virtuoso pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni, who was born exactly 150 years ago. read the full TELEGRAPH article READ theguardian REVIEW READ Financial Times

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross places Igor Levit as one of "the most promising pianists of his generation." On Wednesday, Feb. 17, Levit - a Russian-born, German pianist - makes his Schubert Club debut with a recital of pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Prokofiev. (In January 2016, Levit was featured in an episode of New Classical Tracks.) For the first time ever, Classical Minnesota Public Radio will broadcast this concert live from the Ordway Music Hall in St. Paul. Join host Elena See for the live broadcast of this Schubert Club event.

The young Russian German piano virtuoso Igor Levit has garnered excited and well-deserved attention in recent months. He performed Bach's "Goldberg" Variations in an extravagantly sparse New York staging by performance artist Marina Abramovic, and released a phenomenal three-disc set pairing that work with variation sets by Beethoven and Frederic Rzewski. Now Levit brings his keyboard gifts to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Thursday, Feb. 11, in his first local recital - Sonatas by Beethoven and Prokofiev along with works by Bach and Schubert. SEE SF GATE LISTING

It's common practice in the classical-music world - and an often annoying one - to introduce young soloists by reeling off a litany of their competition prizes, strung together like a list of battles won. But Igor Levit has been winning attention in the cutthroat arena of virtuoso pianists through a remarkable chorus of critical praise for his searching intellect and maturity of purpose - qualities that don't necessarily shine at competitions. Reviewing his Southern California debut last year, Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed proclaimed: "He is the future." Igor Levit plays this Wednesday, Feb. 10, at Meany Hall, University of Washington. Part of the UW President's Piano Series. READ THE FULL Seattle Times ARTICLE

Today's output of classical albums is (pardon me while I scribble on the back of an envelope) something like triple what it was a generation ago. I won't vouch for that exact ratio, but I will for Anne Midgette's description of how it feels: "Keeping up with the stream of new releases is like trying to drink from a fire hose." Now imagine trying to capture a hose's jet-spray in a bucket, and you'll see why making a classical "best-of-year" list in 2015 struck many writers as a thankless task, even a hopeless one. Yet that didn't stop more of us than ever from trying - perhaps enough of us to be called a crowd. Could that crowd, taken together, have some kind of collective wisdom? That was more or less the premise behind my "Classical Mega-Meta-List" last year (inspired by economist /blogger Tyler Cowen). I tallied every "best of year" list I could find - a total of 36, comprising about 100 writers.  This year I found far more: 64 lists, with at least 160 contributors, which makes this year's meta-list 60-77% more mega. It's not surprising that almost twice as many releases made the final cut, defined by being chosen for more than three best-of-year lists. Last year, 28 albums reached that threshold; this year, 50 albums did. That's a 78% increase. Igor Levit's 'Bach | Beethoven | Rzewski' received more than 12 votes in this pole. Two of the top five albums feature twenty-something Russian-born pianists playing variation sets - yet they could hardly be more different. Igor Levit, whose family moved to Germany when he was eight, focuses on leviathan variation sets by the greatest German composers, Bach and Beethoven - and adds an equally mammoth set by Frederick Rzewski based on a Chilean protest song, The People United Will Never be Defeated. Levit fell in love with it when he combed the music library as a student in Hannover, and he has recently commissioned a new work from the American composer. (Footnote: the pianist who recorded the premiere of the Rzewski in 1976, Ursula Oppens, issued a remake in 2015 which also made the mega-meta-list Bronze category - the only contemporary classic to make the list twice.) READ THE FULL IOWA PUBLIC RADIO PAGE

New Classical Tracks is a Syndicated Feature airing Nationally on Classical 24 & Statewide on Minnesota Public Radio. Listen to Julie Amacher's Feature with Igor Levit. READ THE TRANSCRIPT - Igor Levit is a 28-year-old Russian/German pianist. If you look up just about any article on this young artist you'll see he's often referred to as "the future of piano." Perhaps that's because his goal is to explore human nature from every angle through music, and he demonstrates that through his most recent release. It's a three-CD recording featuring three of the most demanding keyboard cycles: Bach's Goldberg variations; Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, and Rzewski's "The People United Will Never be Defeated." Recording any one of these variations would be quite a feat, so I asked Igor why he decided to record all of these variations into one marathon package. "I think they speak to each other, they create an incredible atmosphere, they are incredibly human, the human idea is really strong in these pieces," he explains. "And I wouldn't want to record Goldberg only or Diabelli only or 'People' only. I really thought that these compositions belong together. They are unique among any variation cycles, I think, ever written for piano. So when I had the chance to record all three of them over a year - it took me a year to record them, but it took me 12 years to work on them … of course, there was no doubt to do it." Most recently, Levit teamed up with artist Marina Abramovic for a bare-bones performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Igor told me this humbling experience has forever changed his approach to this set of variations. "What happens is - that once people go get into the Park Avenue, they have to leave their mobile phones, their watches, laptops, iPads, whatever, in a locker," he says. "They get noise-canceling headphones. They walk into the space and then there's nothing. It's just silence. So for 30 minutes, people are just there in total silence. And after these 30 minutes, once I arrive in the middle of the space, then once I start playing, there's nothing else than the music." Of the three works on this recording, Igor Levit has probably lived with Beethoven's Diabelli variations the longest. It was first introduced to him by his piano teacher when he was just 15 years old. "He said, 'I think the Diabelli Variations are going to be your piece. Look at it.' So he gave me the pages and they were in the wrong order. So basically I started reading from the middle of the piece and it was quite exciting. "What I think is very important about it is the experience of expressions. Beethoven writes this most incredible piece, 33 variations. And what you experience, very often, is that … it's like if you cook with ingredients which do not fit together at all. Sometimes, within one variation there are emotions which do not fit together at all. In the end, though, you realize, 'Hey. That's the one and only possible way.' And you make this incredible journey from the theme … to the end. Once someone from the audience came and said, 'There's this one variation - it sounds like a musical Tourette's Syndrome.' And I always answer, 'What is so bizarre about that?' That is what human nature is about. All of us, we experience that. So what you experience here in this piece, again, among many, many other experiences, is the pure most intense picture of the human nature. Everything is in it." While he was working on both the Diabelli and the Goldberg variations, Igor Levitt decided to also master another very challenging set by American composer Frederic Rzewski. Igor was just 16 when he discovered "The People United Will never be Defeated," and he was absolutely amazed. He ordered the music and was absolutely horrified he couldn't play a note at the time. "But since then I've been working slowly on 'The People United'," he admits. "I realized that this piece, 'The People United,' really is one of the most significant compositions, musical works, ever written by one of the significant composers of our time. And I think this piece is right up there with Goldberg and Diabelli. And I know for some people that sounds provoking, but I stand there and say absolutely this is the case." Music that explores the human condition by Bach, Beethoven and Rzewski all compiled into one complete collection by Igor Levit, a young artist who is molding the future of classical music. This week on New Classical Tracks, you can enter for a chance to win a copy of Igor Levit's Bach: Goldberg Variations, Beethoven: Diabelli Variations, Rzewski's 'The People United will Never be Defeated' three-CD set. Winners will be drawn at random. Be sure to enter by midnight CST on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2015.

Pianist Igor Levit admits that variations have always been his favorite musical form. He says "The faster the change and the higher the frequency, the more I like it. I view variations like travel books." On his latest album, Levit explores three monuments of the form: Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, plus Frederic Rzewski's gigantic cycle on the Chilean revolutionary song El pueblo unido, jamas sera vencido!, which has the reputation of being nearly unplayable. Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Op 120 (53:52) from Igor Levit - Bach, Beethoven and Rzewski on Sony Classical is a WFMT: Chicago 'Featured Release.'

In the middle of December, the city experienced some peculiar pianist behavior. At the Drill Hall of the Park Avenue Armory, the fast-rising Russian-German pianist Igor Levit played the "Goldberg Variations" on a gradually rotating platform, as part of a classical-music installation designed by the artist Marina Abramović. At Carnegie Hall, the established virtuoso Evgeny Kissin intermingled pieces by early-twentieth-century Jewish composers with his own dramatic recitations of Yiddish-language poems by I. L. Peretz. These departures from routine were welcome. The recital format has become so robotically predictable that we tend to forget its origins in the flamboyant self-display of Paganini and Liszt. The very idea of a piano "recital," introduced by Liszt in 1840, took inspiration from stage monologues and poetry readings. The "Goldberg" project seems to have arisen from a historical misunderstanding. In an interview printed in the program book, Abramović declares that "classical-music concerts have always been the same for centuries." In fact, as accounts of Liszt's recitals show, they have undergone enormous changes in the past hundred and fifty years. What had been a rather unruly affair, with listeners swooning as musicians swanned about, became an ostentatiously becalmed ritual. Abramović, a performance-art celebrity who has lately been concerned with countering digital-age distractions, did nothing to disrupt this latter-day norm; indeed, she further sacralized the format. Listeners were told to place electronic devices in a locker, take a seat in the Drill Hall, and meditate in silence for more than half an hour while the automated platform containing Levit and his piano glided to the middle of the space. Noise-cancelling headphones were provided for the purpose of "plunging audience members into a sonically neutral and calming state." READ THE FULL The New Yorker ARTICLE

The Sony Classical release of Pianist Igor Levit's third album - Bach, Beethoven, Rzewski includes Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, and Frederic Rzewski's gigantic cycle on the Chilean revolutionary song ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!, which has the reputation of being nearly unplayable. Not content with canonized masterpieces, Levit is equally drawn to the physical challenge of Rzewski's virtuosic tightrope walks. In seven performances from December 7-19 in New York, Levit and iconic visual/performance artist Marina Abramović gave world premiere performances of their collaboration on the Goldberg Variations, which Levit performed live, at the Park Avenue Armory in the Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Abramović re-imagines the concertgoing experience by employing her Abramović Method to explore the relationship between performer and observer, the limits of the body, and the possibilities of the mind. This concentrated durational work reflects upon music, time, space, emptiness, and luminosity, with the audience becoming a part of the work. Levit's Bach, Beethoven, Rzewski is the WCRB: Boston 'CD Of the Week.'

This is one heck of an ambitious program: three of the most compelling and demanding sets of variations ever devised for keyboard players. One could argue that there's no need for any current pianist to record yet another version of the Goldbergs, but Russian-German pianist Igor Levit more than makes his case in this trinity of pianistic expression, ranging from Bach's magisterial masterpiece to the radical virtuosity of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations to a recent monument of the form, American composer Frederic Rzewski's variations on the Chilean nueva cancion classic "El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido." The demands Levit has put on himself - and on his listeners - are manifold, but the effort pays off in spades. He brings uncommon intensity, clarity and strong emotion to all 99 variations.-A.T. SEE THE FULL NPR PAGE

Igor Levit isn't wasting any time in the studio. His remarkable third release for Sony returns to the composers of his first two, Beethoven and Bach - and, to build a three-disc triptych of variations, adds another, Frederic Rzewski.  It's a bold move, placing Mr. Rzewski's 36 variations on "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!" (1975) as an equal partner to Bach's "Goldberg" Variations (1741) and Beethoven's "Diabellis" (1823). Yet this urbane, consuming playing makes the argument persuasive. The Bach and Beethoven are very fine: clean and mature. The Rzewski is inspired. READ THE FULL New York Times REVIEW

Three massive sets of variations on three discs is a lot of music to digest, along with 104 separate tracks. So clear an evening and turn to the third CD first. Be blown away by Frederic Rzewski's mind-boggling sequence of 36 variations on the Chilean song The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, a tune originally written as an anthem for the Allende government. Rzewski's variations were composed in 1975. It's a brilliantly catchy melody, and what Rzewski subjects it to will amaze; several centuries' worth of virtuoso piano technique compressed into an hour. The faster, percussive variations border on the unplayable, but Igor Levit makes everything sound lucid and logical. There's a hefty quote from the Eisler/Brecht Solidarity Song midway. Levit slams the piano lid down, and whistles. Some moments sound like Rachmaninov, others like Ligeti, though the contrapuntal wizardry repeatedly suggests Bach. And, as with the Goldberg Variations, the theme returns to close the work. It's phenomenal, and this performance has to be one of the greatest piano recordings in years.   SEE ALL REVIEWS

What 28-year old pianist Igor Levit is performing here is a largely unprecedented but altogether brilliant program on disc: Bach's Goldberg Variations, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Rzewski's "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" variations in one disc box. Not to put too fine a point on it but, Wow. Here, to understate heroically, is not something one sees every day – as notater Anselm Cybinski notes "what a triathlon!...Three hours of music, three different periods … these works constitute three of the most demanding cycles in the whole history of music, representing a summation of entire centuries not just pianistically but above all in terms of their compositional universality, functioning as monumental magnets that draw into their force field almost everything their composers were capable of achieving." The shocker here is including Rzewski's variations on the Chilean Protest Song "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" with Beethoven's Diabelli and Bach's Goldberg Variations. The shock isn't its inappropriateness but rather the opposite – its total appropriateness. You could easily argue that Levit's performance of Rzewski's huge work isn't on par with those of Ursula Oppens or Marc-Andre Hamelin's (whose recording of it he heard before learning the piece himself). But it is indeed a great performance of the greatest epic among modern piano works. And there's a noble aptness in putting it into a box with Beethoven's Diabelli Variations in which a truly paltry theme is transformed unimaginably by Beethoven's genius. Bach's Goldberg Variations may always be thought of as the recorded possession of Glenn Gould but Levit performs those brilliantly too. Levit has always avoided it, he says, because his favorite recordings of it have always been by harpsichordists but "at some point the time came when I simply had to do it." About as formidable a box set recital by a young pianist as you're ever likely to find.  SEE ALL REVIEWS ON THE Buffalo News PAGE

Igor Levit's late Beethoven sonatas (11/13) and Bach Partitas (10/14) on Sony Classical have already made bold declarations of his pianistic and artistic prowess. Now he confirms his appetite for the big entrance with three monuments to variation form, each rooted in its own century, yet all united by the harnessing of maximum variety, maximum discipline. Levit will be stuck for some years to come with the epithets ‘young' and ‘Russian-born, German-trained/domiciled'. But the instant he touches the piano such information becomes irrelevant. Certainly he can muster all the athleticism, velocity and finesse of a competition winner ready to burst on to the international scene. But like the rarest of that breed – a Perahia, say – his playing already has a far-seeing quality that raises him to the status of the thinking virtuoso. There is, if you care to rationalise, a Russian depth of sound and eloquence of phrasing, tempered by Germanic intellectual grasp. There is also a sense of exulting in technical prowess and energy. But not once in the course of these three themes and 99 variations did I feel that such qualities were being self-consciously underlined. Levit's musical personality is as integrated and mature as his technique. And both of these are placed at the service of the music's glory rather than his own.  READ THE FULL Gramophone REVIEW

Igor Levit's Southern California debut Tuesday night was a moderately attended recital in Beverly Hills at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1987, Levit has garnered impressive reviews. But with so many fine Russians ever coming down the pipeline, one can get little blasé.  Levit began his mostly conventional program with Bach's First Partita and with exquisite liquidity in his playing, Levit is modern, levitating Bach. He uses the pedal with great finesse to create a subtle lyrical flow, rather than attempt to achieve the effect of harpsichord clarity. He has a magical way with inner lines, which he causes to appear like stunning tropical fish swimming in an exotic, clear blue sea. But he's got rhythm. This was Bach with an almost jazzy character.  

READ THE FULL Los Angeles Times ARTICLE

Many critics, musicologists and music lovers believe Glenn Gould is the supreme interpreter of the Partitas, Goldberg Variations, and other keyboard works of JS Bach. Well, to those who believe Gould was not quite the last word on Bach, this new recording by the brilliant young Igor Levit may be the perfect antidote. Gould generally employed brisk tempos and relatively little legato phrasing. Levit doesn't exactly pour on the legato, but he does give the music a more flowing manner, much like you would hear in a traditional performance of a Beethoven sonata. With a few exceptions his tempos are generally not very fast, yet he never plods or bogs down either. He is a centrist, damning as that description might sound to some. But he is an intelligent, sensitive centrist who delivers this music with consistent feeling and good taste. READ THE FULL Classical.net REVIEW.

Igor Levit is a comparatively new – or at least newly discovered – star in the pianistic firmament, having made his first powerful showing on disc in 2013 with a programme of Beethoven's last five sonatas. Here he turns back to the Baroque for Bach's six Partitas BWV 825-830, and the result is no less riveting. Levit, who was born in Russia in 1987 and now lives in Germany, has already acquired a reputation as a thinker as well as a wizard technician, and you can readily appreciate the thought that has gone into the crafting of the melodic contours and the balance of piano timbres of these six partitas. READ THE FULL Telegraph REVIEW.

Igor Levit has received international acclaim since he appeared as the youngest artist ever at the Artur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2005, where he won four awards. Born in Russia, Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He is a graduate of the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover. Following his landmark recording of late piano sonatas by Beethoven, Levit is again tackling another complex and difficult body of work, J.S. Bach's six partitas. Igor Levit - Bach: Keyboard Partitas on Sony Classical is the WFMT - Chicago / NEW RELEASE OF THE WEEK. Featuring - Bach: Partita No 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825   

Each week KDFC - San Francisco member can download a free mp3 from some of the biggest releases in the world of Classical music, Igor Levit has recorded the Partitas by this incommensurable Bach, BWV 825-830: it's the second release by the 27-year-old pianist, whom many regard as the greatest talent of his time. With his début album, featuring the late Beethoven sonatas, Levit already enjoyed great success and international critical acclaim: the album rose to no. 46 in Germany's Top 100 album charts. Download a free mp3 of Levit performing the overture from Bach's Partita #4 in D, BWV 828

Because Beethoven's last five piano sonatas still carry a kind of valedictory air, it's often thought that one needs to reach a certain age before taking them on publicly. The Russian-born pianist Igor Levit, born in 1987, makes a hash of that claim with these brilliant and insightful recordings, among the most highly touted performances of this well-worn territory in recent memory. Levit obviously has the technique for these complex works - witness the gloriously even trills in the E-major Sonata, Op. 109, and the clarity he brings to the famously taxing fugue that ends the "Hammerklavier" Sonata, Op. 106. But it's in his probing, insightful approach to the music that he makes such a deep impression. Listen to the natural way he shapes the opening movement of the A-major Sonata, Op. 101, shifting seamlessly between the breath of individual phrases and the span of longer paragraphs. And the pleasures are not all cerebral: His headlong tempos in the opening of the "Hammerklavier" are straight-up thrilling. You will probably not agree with everything Levit does - I found some moments in Opp. 101 and 110 too martial for my taste - but that is in the nature of a recording that breaks new ground. Hear the spiritual depth of the last movements of the E-major and C-minor Sonatas, as well as much else here, and you will be hard-pressed to deny that Levit does just that. -David Weininger

If you drew up a checklist of the world's most brilliant young pianists, Igor Levit would be near the top. This Russian-born, German-domiciled pianist is undoubtedly young – he's only 26. And anyone who's heard him play Beethoven's Diabelli Variations will know he has pianistic brilliance in spades. But Levit has something else, which for me and many others puts him in a class of his own. I saw and heard that quality only a few months ago, when he played Beethoven's Triple Concerto at the Barbican with Maxim Vengerov and Antonia Meneses. The other two were wonderful in their way, but it was Levit who really riveted me. He nurtured and caressed every phrase, in a way that seemed to stamp the music with its ideal shape. The same is true of his debut recording of Beethoven sonatas. Everything has that special clarity and freshness the world has when the sun comes out after rain. And mingled with this is another quality, a tact which humanises the clash of ideas in Beethoven's music. It's like a conversation where at first one person asserts himself, and the other one gives way – but later on they swap roles. All this gives a feeling of profound insight, which is a long way from the impetuousness of youth. In fact when I meet Igor Levit just before the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards (where he carried off the Young Artist Prize), he bristles at the suggestion that his youth has any bearing on anything. READ THE FULL Telegraph INTERVIEW.

Igor Levit is one of the classical world's hottest rising stars, recent winner of BBC Music Magazine's 2014 newcomer award, and on the strength of his radically fresh, unpretentious approach to what's something of a concerto warhorse, you could see what all the fuss is about. It was a remarkably gentle, wide-eyed performance, never lacking inner strength but unafraid to linger as if discovering melodies for the first time, and played with touching sincerity and utter conviction. The bombast and bravado so often forced upon the Concerto were nowhere to be found – in Levit's hands, for instance, the opening's famously pounding chords were calmly placed with quiet assurance – and his singing tone and beautifully balanced phrasing were truly exceptional. It might have been a touch too reserved for some – and admittedly, the finale never really caught fire – but after Levit's transformative account, you'd never hear the piece in the same way again. The RSNO gave beautifully subtle, nuanced support, but elsewhere, under young US conductor James Feddeck standing in for an indisposed Santtu-Matias Rouvali, things were a bit more hit and miss. The concert opened with a punchy, characterful Stravinsky Circus Polka, but Feddeck's account of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony felt too weighty to truly sparkle, and Stravinsky's Divertimento from The Fairy's Kiss made a rather unconvincingly understated climax.

Hot on the heels of his BBC Music Magazine award for Best Newcomer, pianist Igor Levit has been nominated for The Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award.  The nominations were announced live during BBC Radio 3 In Tune by presenter Sean Rafferty on 15th April, 2014. The Royal Philharmonic Society [RPS] Music Awards, presented in association with BBC Radio 3, are the highest recognition for live classical music and musical excellence in the United Kingdom.
 
Awards in 13 categories are chosen by eminent independent juries from the music profession and are unique in the breadth of musical achievement they span – from performers, composers and inspirational arts organisations to learning, participation and engagement.  The list of winners since 1989 reads as a roll call of the finest living musicians. This year's awards are for achievement in the UK during 2013.  Winners will be announced at the RPS Music Awards ceremony on Tuesday May 13th with a special RPS Music Awards programme broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Sunday May 18th at 10pm.

For the last three years, Igor Levit's name has been the first to be mentioned whenever there has been talk of the most exciting of the younger generation of pianists. What is so surprising about Levit is not only the maturity of his interpretations, but his boundless appetite for new repertoire of works as difficult and demanding as possible.  For his long awaited debut album, the twenty-six-year-old Levit has chosen some of the most challenging repertoire ever written for piano: Beethoven's last five piano sonatas. On his two-CD debut set, Levit is not just another young aspiring pianist releasing his debut album, but rather an outstanding artist who meets the exceptionally high demands of this extraordinary music. Levit's technical and artististic command in the difficult "Hammerklaviersonate" op. 106 is sure to be recognized as one of the most astounding accomplishments in recent history of Beethoven recordings. Pick up this week's 'New Yorker' to read the Alex Ross article.

The 'Newcomer Award' for the BBC Music Magazine Awards went to pianist Igor Levit for his breath-taking debut account of Beethoven's late piano sonatas that, according to the jury, "stands comparison with the greatest in the catalogue." See the full list of BBC Music Magazine Award winners

Each month, WCLV: Cleveland Program Director Bill O'Connell selects a series of special CDs to be featured on the air throughout the month. Igor Levit's Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas - Nos. 28-32 on Sony Classical features on Thu 4/3, Mon 4/14, Wed 4/23. "All of the positive attention and high praise that 26-year-old pianist Igor Levit has garnered in Europe is thoroughly justified by his Sony Classical debut release encompassing Beethoven's last five sonatas. Levit's affinity for the composer's essentially linear style and intense expressivity borders on clairvoyance… This is Beethoven playing of the highest distinction, not to be missed." Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com. Listen to Mr. Levit's conversation with WCLV's Angela Schmidt. 

"Unlike those technically brilliant young pianists who dazzle briefly and disappear, Levit is pre-eminently a real musician who seems built to last." - The Guardian 

For the last three years, Igor Levit's name has been the first to be mentioned whenever there has been talk of the most exciting of the younger generation of pianists. He sat down with WCLV: Cleveland - Angela Schmidt to talk about his new recording of The Beethoven Late Piano Sonatas.  What is so surprising about Levit is not only the maturity of his interpretations, but his boundless appetite for new repertoire of works as difficult and demanding as possible.  For his long awaited debut album, the twenty-six-year-old Levit has chosen some of the most challenging repertoire ever written for piano: Beethoven's last five piano sonatas. On his two-CD debut set, Levit is not just another young aspiring pianist releasing his debut album, but rather an outstanding artist who meets the exceptionally high demands of this extraordinary music. Levit's technical and artististic command in the difficult "Hammerklaviersonate" op. 106 is sure to be recognized as one of the most astounding accomplishments in recent history of Beethoven recordings.  Igor Levit has received international acclaim since he appeared as the youngest artist ever at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2005, where he won four awards.  Born in Russia, Levit moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight.  He is a graduate of the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover, where he achieved the highest grades in the academy's history.  

Each week, KDFC (San Francisco CA) eNotes newsletter recipiants can Download a free mp3 from some of the biggest releases in the world of Classical music, only at KDFC.com. This week's pick is Igor Levit performing the Scherzo from Hammerklavier Sonata from his new Sony Classical disc; Beethoven - The Late Piano Sonatas. For the last three years, Igor Levit's name has been the first to be mentioned whenever there has been talk of the most exciting of the younger generation of pianists. For his long-awaited debut album, the twenty-six-year-old Levit has chosen some of the most challenging repertoire ever written for piano: Beethoven's last five piano sonatas. On his two-CD debut set, Levit is not just another young aspiring pianist releasing his debut album, but rather an outstanding artist who meets the exceptionally high demands of this extraordinary music.