Metamorphoses and transcendence: Igor Levit at Carnegie Hall

A member of an exceptionally talented generation of pianists, now around thirty, Igor Levit demonstrated again what sets him apart from everybody else: an extraordinary musicianship, pairing an intellectual approach with a formidable technique. When he entered the stage, unassuming, meek, casually dressed, with an iPad in his hand, somebody who hadn’t heard him before would have barely imagined that, from the first note, this astonishing pianist could generate such a glowing, Apollonian aura that would gradually envelop everyone.

The evening’s program was strongly related to Levit’s recently released album, “Life”, a tribute to his close friend – artist Hannes Malte Mahler – who died in an accident in 2016. It was only outwardly a disparate selection of works: in fact, they were linked on multiple levels. Several are transcriptions (Brahms, Busoni, Liszt), the long-established musical technique of variations predominant overall. The transformations involved a change of instrument: Bach’s Chaconne was originally composed for violin, Liszt’s Fantasia and Fugue on "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" for organ, the "Solemn March to the Holy Grail" from Parsifal for a full orchestra. Multiple metamorphoses were more or less touching on a spiritual release from pain and suffering (Liszt/Wagner) or composed at moments of maximal distress: Schumann’s last piano work, the Geistervariationen in E flat major was conceived days before he attempted suicide by jumping into the Rhine. The single encore, "A Mensch", a segment from Rzewski’s Dreams, was written in 2012 in memory of one of the composer’s departed friends. Putting together this unconventional program and replacing large pauses between works with just caesurae, basking the entire evening into his idiosyncratic pianistic style, Levit transfigured one more time the musical material in a sort of new, life-affirming way. As long as we can change, life is going on – he seems to say.

For a program under the double sign of Bach and Busoni, it was kind of surprising that Levit didn’t select the latter’s version of Bach’s Chaconne from the Violin Partita no. 2 in D minor but Brahms’ more faithful and less flamboyant transcription for the left hand. The pianist’s approach to melody and rhythm was transfixing. Connections were such that listeners had the sensation of bowing. At the same time, the evenness and clarity of sounds seemed out of this world.

Levit didn’t hide at all – on the contrary – the unexpected chromatic excursions that dominate Busoni’s Fantasia after J. S. Bach. He masterly reigned all potentially exaggerated emotions. There were a few moments when the use of the sustaining pedal was excessive, but, overall, the pianist treated the effusions with the kind of understatement that brings forward the almost hypnotic quality of Busoni’s music and his extraordinary gift for color. 

I’m not convinced that the apparently Cartesian Igor Levit is the right interpreter for Schumann’s music, with its constant shifts and vacillations. But, the rarely played Variations are not typical Schumann. Levit delved with great sympathy into the composition’s meanders. The original theme – that Schumann didn’t remember composing himself and thought came from an angel – was rendered with the supreme calm and confidence of a Bachian hymn of praise.

Like Busoni later, Franz Liszt had an uncanny talent for absorbing the work of others and making it his own. His transcription of the "Solemn March to the Holy Grail" from Parsifal was played by Levit with unbelievable control. One could almost see a sound cathedral being erected. The interspersed invocations of the “durch Mitleid Wissend” leitmotiv were heart-wrenching. 

The program ended with a double transcription: Busoni’s piano adaptation of a Liszt organ piece which was, in turn, inspired by a theme from Meyerbeer’s Le prophète. The Fantasia and Fugue on “ad nos, ad salutarem undam,” is a score so technically difficult that it is rarely played in public. Levit dispatched all the challenges with majestic ease, and, maybe, with a hint of mischievousness. Climaxes were measured, Liszt’s overheated imagination kept in check. The central section had a true spacial quality while the fugue was handled devilishly. Perhaps the second half of the recital had less of the meditative quality permeating the first, but was definitely as impressive. 

As difficult to guess what the next steps in Levit’s career will be, one thing is certain enough. Whatever the most recent recipient of the Gilmore Artist Award (arguably, the greatest prize for a pianist) decides to play, one should not miss the opportunity to witness his performance.