This January, my musical cup runneth over.
Just one day after hearing The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst dismantle symphonies by Mozart (41) and Shostakovich (11), I was back at Carnegie Hall to hear the adventurous pianist Igor Levit in Stern Auditorium. Levit’s concerts, whether solo or with orchestra, walk the line between sublime and showy: copious to the point of overflow, they somehow manage to be both breathless and heartfelt. When I first saw Levit at Carnegie in 2022, he played sonatas by Beethoven and Liszt, a transcription of the overture to Tristan und Isolde, and a new work written for him by jazz pianist Fred Hersch. With Wagner’s Liebestod thrown in for good measure.
Arriving hot on the heels of performing Busoni’s “immense, immoderate” Piano Concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil, Levit’s Carnegie program was no less ambitious, pairing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations with Frederic Rzewski‘s contemporary masterpiece The People United Will Never Be Defeated! Levit recorded these two monumental sets of variations more than a decade ago – when he was all of 28 – on a release that also included Bach’s Goldberg Variations. To hear all three in one sitting would have been way too much, though I’m sure Levit would have been up for it if asked.
Wearing a charcoal Bavarian jacket and loose-fitting slacks, Levit hunched his body low over the keyboard as he played the hour-long Diabelli Variations from memory. Written in between the Missa Solemnis and 9th Symphony, Beethoven squeezes an improbable amount of music out of Diabelli’s simple theme, unfolding over 33 increasingly complex variations. Levit’s playing was fluid and fast, dispatching the Prestos and Vivace’s with extraordinary speed and precision while dramatically delivering the slower movements such as “Grave e maestoso” (“Serious and majestic”) or “Largo, molto espressivo” (“Very slow, with deep expression”). Compared to the previous night’s performance by the Clevelanders, I was floored to hear just a single Steinway hold its own – if not surpass – the sound of a full symphony orchestra.
While the Diabelli would have been a closer for most pianists, for Levit it was just a warm up for the Rzewski, which came after intermission. On the eve of the 50th anniversary of its premiere at the Trump Kennedy Center, The People United Will Never Be Defeated! has cemented its status in the repertoire, in no small thanks to Levit’s advocacy, who first discovered it more than 20 years ago. “When I first listened to a recording,” Levit told the NY Times after Rzewski died in 2021, “it completely blew me away. It was like seeing Star Wars for the first time.” (After Levit performed People in London 11 years ago, Rzewski, who was in the audience and famously provocative, whispered in his ear, “You’re a real motherfucker.” “It was the single best compliment I’ve ever received,” Levit later told Alex Ross.)
Based on a Chilean protest song, People pushes the limits of what seems humanly possible at the piano. Not only does the hour-long work require immense reserves of stamina and strength, with numerous finger-twisting passages, Rzewski calls for any number of extra-musical techniques, such as whistling, slamming the piano cover, and tapping the bottom and sides of the piano body. At the same time, several of the 36 variations contain moments of pulsing, transcendent beauty that are almost minimalist in profile. Despite playing from a score, Levit showed his deep familiarity with the music, completely at ease whether playing at breakneck speed or with tender calm.
Following the last variation, Rzewski gives the performer the option of improvising a cadenza, which – per Rzewski’s directions – Levit used to recap everything that came before with a sort-of grotesque horror – not unlike the masked horror currently taking place on the streets of Minneapolis and other American cities. (Such timeliness, it must be noted, is completely coincidental given that Levit’s program was slated more than a year in advance.) Finally, the melodic theme returns: hopeful, but altered enough to hint that the road ahead won’t be without difficulty.
In short, People is a world unto itself, with an overarching, symphonic narrative that leaves you speechless, overwhelmed and thoroughly sated – especially when Levit is at the keyboard. (Such fullness makes one the question the wisdom of commissioning a gaggle of composers to transcribe People for orchestra, as the NY Phil is doing for a performance this March. But we’ll withhold judgement for now.) I spotted a few walkouts here and there, but the vast majority of the near-capacity audience stuck around til the end in order to give Levit a well-deserved ovation, with several curtain calls. No encore, none needed: after a journey of more than two-and-a-half hours, everyone was more than happy at that point to head home.
More pics on Instagram.