Recorded voice of usher: Where to? Carnegie Hall, please.

Okay, here are your tickets. Enjoy the show. Your tickets, please. Follow me.

Jeff Spurgeon: Oh, you hear the sound of the orchestra tuning up at Carnegie Hall. Well, don't be deceived, because on this broadcast from Carnegie Hall Live, you will hear just one instrument in the hall played by just one musician.

Backstage at Carnegie, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside one colleague, John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: Not the one and only, Jeff? Oh, I'm disappointed.

Jeff Spurgeon: The one and only John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: You know, Jeff, we talk in classical music about the three Bs, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms. Well, on this program, we're going to hear a pianist recognized as one of the greatest of his generation playing the legendary three Bs. Bach, Brahms and Beethoven, although the Beethoven comes with an asterisk. We'll get to that in a little bit. The musician is pianist Igor Levit. Alex Ross of the New Yorker calls him a pianist like no other. He's now 37 years old. He was born in Russia, but moved to Germany when he was 8. He's had an amazing career playing concert stages around the world, both in solo recitals like this one and performances with the world's great orchestras. And he's won many prestigious awards, including a silver medal at the 2005 Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, where he was the youngest participant in that competition. He's also the recipient of the Gilmore Award in 2018, which is only given to pianists every four years. And in 2019, he was Gramophone's Artist of the Year.

Jeff Spurgeon: Levit studied at the Hanover Academy of Music in Germany and had the highest academic and performance scores in the history of that institute. And he now teaches at that same school.

During the pandemic, Levit became known for his house concert house concert series. He streamed performances on what used to be Twitter during that time. More than 50 concerts online from his home in Berlin. It became a lifeline for the music community. And Igor Levit says the experience transformed him, too.

Igor Levit: These house concerts really changed my life entirely. I, I really experienced such a close and incredibly precious bond with my audience, which I feel only got stronger.

I experienced a great deal of freedom during this time. I experienced a great deal of honesty during this time. You know, it's like true colors shining. I mean, people show their true character in the time of crisis and it was a time of to a degree, almost like emotional clarity. And so I came out of this time changed, matured, and calmer than I was before.

Although this, the, the, this period of time was really grim and terrible. I look back with a great deal of gratitude for the experience.

John Schaefer: That is pianist Igor Levit talking about the series of house concerts that got him and many of his listeners through the pandemic.

Now, as we mentioned today, he's brought works by the three B's and he'll start us off with the Bach Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor.

Igor Levit: What is so extraordinary about this piece is that how radical and how free and how modern Bach used sort of the musical form. This piece begins as if you would grab the bulb by its horns and just sort of go with it. It's incredibly emotional. The whole first part of this piece is a free improvisation of such radical kind and so brave and so unpredictable harmonically. It is really almost second to none. And then this fantasy is being followed by this towering fugue, which is, again, so archaic and proud. And I have been thinking about playing this for many, many years.

I haven't been playing Bach's pieces for quite a while. Actually, after my Goldberg recording, I haven't really been playing a lot of Bach. But now coming back to it, it's really very, very meaningful to me.

Jeff Spurgeon: Igor Levit talking about the work that will open this Carnegie Hall Live recital this afternoon. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue of J. S. Bach. He hasn't played a lot of Bach since the Goldberg recordings. That was in early 2015, so that's now 10 years ago since he's been really digging into this. But that's where he's going to start. And the work itself has a great deal of Carnegie Hall history, too. The Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue was first played on this stage by Ignacy Jan Paderewski in 1892. He would play it a great deal more over the next 30 years of his career and often open his concerts with that piece. It's also been played here by Ferruccio Busoni, and Claudio Arrau and Gina Bachauer and Angela Hewitt and others. And in a few moments, we're going to hear Igor Levit play it.

He is now backstage, and so we're just waiting for the rest of this sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall to get settled into their seats. And the stage door will open. Get ready to go.

John Schaefer: It is a sold-out matinee performance on a kind of a lovely Sunday afternoon after New York has experienced some of some of the coldest weather of the winter.

Jeff Spurgeon: Right, so far.

John Schaefer: And so a lot of a lot of warm feelings in the building this afternoon for a concert that, as we mentioned, will include music by Bach, brahms and Beethoven. I mentioned earlier, little asterisk next to the Beethoven. We will be hearing a single work in the second half of the program, Jeff. The Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven in a Franz Liszt arrangement.

Jeff Spurgeon: Now I know some people just thought you said a Sonata by Beethoven, and that's not what you said at all, so say it again.

John Schaefer: Did I say sonata?

Jeff Spurgeon: No, you didn't, you didn't, but people will hear it because this is a remarkable thing.

John Schaefer: Right, the Symphony No. 7. Liszt eventually transcribed all nine of Beethoven's symphonies for solo piano, because in those days if you wanted to hear a Beethoven symphony, you couldn't put on a record, you couldn't turn on the radio. It was really hard to find live orchestral performances, and unless you were a rich person to be able to afford to go to that performance. But solo piano recitals were available to many more people and so Liszt sort of made it his mission to bring these Beethoven symphonies to a wider audience.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, and also, he was a show off, so he knew he could get away with it, and certainly did. I am always stunned, John, to see a single piano on stage at Carnegie Hall. It looks like a couple of different things, you know, it's this rather archaic machine, which makes all this great music. It also looks like a monster. It's, oh, the lid is open and it looks like it's going to swallow up whoever dares walk on stage and yet

Igor Levit: As long as it doesn't swallow up me. [laughter]

Jeff Spurgeon: And and yet it's not going to swallow up (that was Igor Levit), it's not it's not going to swallow him up and it is an amazing medium for the communication of music and human emotion. I think it's just the, one of the most remarkable things we have.

John Schaefer: Well it is also one of the great examples of technology of the 19th century, the grand piano. All of that wood and steel and those wires under tons of tension. I've heard it said that along with the steam engine the grand piano is one of the most technologically advanced achievements of 19th century man.

Jeff Spurgeon: And now comes out a 21st century pianist, Igor Levit, on stage, before a sold out Carnegie Hall audience to open his concert with J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, from Carnegie Hall Live.

MUSIC -  J. S. BACH Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903

 

John Schaefer: Live on stage at Carnegie Hall with the Bach Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor. He popped by our microphones before going out on stage just long enough to tell us that the instrument would not swallow him up, and so indeed it did not.

Jeff Spurgeon: And now, the Brahms Ballades, all four of them. On this continuing recital by Igor Levit from Carnegie Hall Live.

MUSIC - BRAHMS Ballades, Op. 10

Jeff Spurgeon: From Carnegie Hall Live, you've just heard four piano pieces by a young Johannes Brahms. He was just in his early 20s when he wrote these four ballades, his Opus 10, that you've just heard played by Igor Levit. To close the first half of this recital, which opened with a performance of music by Bach.

Back on stage goes Igor Levit. Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon, alongside John Schaefer.

John Schaefer: And Brahms has been an important part of Igor Levit's recent recording career. In October, just a few months ago, at the end of 2024, he released an all Brahms CD with the Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Christian Thielemann. This, of course, a solo piano piece by Brahms. On a program also featuring music by Bach, and still to come, the Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in the Franz Liszt transcription for solo piano. So the three B's in evidence from a pianist who actually has a very wide range of musical taste.

Jeff Spurgeon: Oh yeah.

John Schaefer: From the contemporary to American popular song. But again, Brahms, something special for him.

Jeff Spurgeon: And when we talked to Igor Levit about these pieces, he spoke absolutely glowingly of these ballades.

Igor Levit: The four ballades are really among those musical wonders for me, like, like true miracles. It's the experience for me to play these pieces. I would say it's like if I would stand in an elevator and this elevator would take me one step further down and deeper down into my inner feelings. It's like, it's like you start the first piece and then you go deeper with the second, deeper with the third. And then the step which you take from number three to four is really enormous. Like the, the fourth ballad is truly one of those incredible musical miracles of the piano literature. These four pieces are everything. They are towering. They are deep. They are magisterial in a way. They have an incredible pride in them, right? Like an emotional pride.

Jeff Spurgeon: Igor Levit, speaking of the Opus 10 Ballades of Johannes Brahms, which he just played at this sold-out recital here at Carnegie Hall with one work left on the program after intermission, Franz Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

This is Classical New York, WQXR 105.9 FM in HD, Newark. 90. 3 FM, WQXW, Ossining. And WNYC FM, HD 2, New York.

I'm Jeff Spurgeon, alongside John Schaefer, as we begin this intermission before we hear this amazing Liszt Beethoven creation.

John Schaefer: And as we mentioned earlier, Igor Levit received the prestigious Gilmore Award back in 2018. That's a recognition that only comes every four years, and it goes to a classical pianist following a "rigorous and confidential selection process".

Jeff Spurgeon: Yeah, the artist who wins it has no idea. The jury members never reveal themselves. So these Gilmore Awards are, as you say, every four years, and a complete surprise to the artist.

John Schaefer: Very much in the style of the MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called Genius Awards. Anyway, after Igor Levit received the Gilmore Award, he came to WQXR's Greene Space, our ground floor performance venue in Lower Manhattan, where he played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Let's hear a little bit of that performance now.

MUSIC – BEETHOVEN MOONLIGHT SONATA EXCERPT

Jeff Spurgeon: The sound of moonbeams on the water in Lake Lucerne. Or so called a critic about this particular sonata of Beethoven. That's how it got the name, Moonlight, a performance that took place in New York City in 2018. Igor Levit, who's performing a concert that we're bringing you from Carnegie Hall Live. That performance from 2018.

And we'll turn to Beethoven in a more serious way in just a few minutes as we continue our way through this intermission.

John Schaefer: We are going to hear Igor Levit playing the Franz Liszt transcription of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Liszt actually transcribed all nine of Beethoven's symphonies. And Igor Levit told us about his love hate relationship with these transcriptions.

Igor Levit: I believe these are the greatest piano transcriptions ever written. All nine. An incredible act of humanism. And still having said that they are so bloody difficult that I just want to strangle him every time I, I learn a new one. I have been dreaming about playing these transcriptions. I don't know for how many years. I have done the number three, the Eroica. I'm now playing number seven. The next I will, I will learn will be number five. And so step by step I will learn the whole cycle and play the whole cycle and I cannot wait until I can actually present the whole thing.

John Schaefer: So more love than hate in that love-hate relationship between pianist Igor Levit and these Franz List transcriptions.

Liszt began this project in 1838, transcribing the symphonies five, six, and seven, but it would take him almost another 30 years to complete the next six and the most difficult of the series as you might imagine is the final movement, the choral movement, the Ode to Joy from the Symphony No. 9. We asked Levit if these piano versions maybe bring out elements of the symphonies that you might not initially hear.

Igor Levit: It's like you would see a skeleton of the symphony, right? So the piano being a very transparent instrument, if you treat it well, really makes you hear and makes you realize certain things maybe an orchestra won't let you experience.

On the other hand, things the orchestra can do, the pianist cannot. And so, you have to sort of debate with yourself, you know, which side is more important to you. Is it the tempo? Is it the transparency? Is it so, what can you actually achieve with the piano, which you cannot achieve with the orchestra? And vice versa. Few pieces in my life have been so exciting for me, in terms of learning and playing than these symphonies.

Igor Levit with more of the enthusiasm that he has for all of the works on this program, but speaking here particularly of the Beethoven Symphony No. 7 transcription we'll hear in a few minutes.

Liszt is the gold standard for these transcriptions, but that's not to say that other people haven't taken a turn at seeing what they can do with the Symphony No. 7 of Beethoven. And so we have a few samples to share with you now, starting with a work written by the American composer, John Corigliano. His work was called the, Fantasia on an Ostinato, based on the repeating theme from the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Here's a recording of the work, which was originally a piano piece. We're going to hear the orchestral version of the work, the St. Louis Symphony, conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Listen, and I think you'll be able to hear the Beethoven references here.

MUSIC – CORIGLIANO Fantasia on an Ostinato EXCERPT

John Schaefer: Some music from American composer John Corigliano. His Fantasia on an Ostinato was originally a piano piece written for the Van Cliburn competition. Every competitor who reached a certain stage had to be able to play this piece. But we've just heard a little bit of the orchestral version with the St. Louis Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin. Built on, and actually quoting from, the second movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony.

Jeff Spurgeon: And I think that theme is much more familiar to the public now, thanks to the film The King's Speech. It had such a big role in that film of, now, 15 years ago is when that movie first appeared. And was a piece of classical music so effectively used in that movie. And, and so we hear it, and it has those meanings too. But that's not all we have to share with you.

John Schaefer: Right here's another take on Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. This one from the New York composer Michael Gordon, who is one of the three founding composers of Bang on a Can, the New York organization that presents and commissions and composes new music.

Michael Gordon was commissioned by the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Germany, to write a piece. And he came up with a piece that he calls quite simply and appropriately, Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

Michael Gordon: When I started to think about the first movement and those incredible chords that open the symphony and you hear those chords so much and they're so, they kind of mean classical music, they kind of mean Beethoven, they, I thought also about how loud those chords must have been back then before amplification and just before trucks and planes and, and machines, he must've been trying to make a terrifying sound. So I just, I just took those chords, basically, and, and started building, building music from, from that.

In the second movement, that melody is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written at any time, anywhere.

And I was able to, through some little trick, turn the melody around so that when it got to the end of the melody, it ended up harmonically one half step higher than where it started.

And what I, what I did is I just repeated the melody and as it repeated more and more, instruments start playing it in canon. So at the end there, there are like 15 or 20 part canon going on all one 16th note apart. So it builds into this kind of wash of. of sound. And with each repetition it's slowly creeping up higher and higher.

The third movement was, was really, you know, beautiful. I basically took the, the harmonic outline that is running underneath the movement and with the fourth movement I just took the melody and went to town with it. That was the process, it was really quite fun, actually. I'm ready to do another one.

Jeff Spurgeon: Composer Michael Gordon on his piece, as John said, titled very simply and appropriately, Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

Well, the work that we are going to hear is not, is not a rewriting. That's not what Igor Levit is going to play. He's going to play a transcription. But when you learn that the transcriber is Liszt, you might be in the mood for some virtuosic finger work, and some, well, we're going to find out. These are not works that are frequently played or recorded.

John Schaefer: Right. However, before we get to Igor Levit, we have yet another remake of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, and this is from yet another American composer, Joachim Horsley. Horsley studied in Cuba. And you will hear the influence of Cuban music in his piece called simply Beethoven in Havana.

MUSIC – HORSLEY “BEETHOVEN IN HAVANA” EXCERPT

A little bit of Beethoven in Havana by Joaquim Horsley, pianist, percussionist, composer, and his sunny, Cuban inflected take on Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. And Jeff, we've spent intermission listening to a a couple of very different takes on that favorite piece by Beethoven.

Jeff Spurgeon: Yeah, it's clearly been an inspiration to a, to a number of composers.

And we wanted to find out, because Igor Levit is championing these works, really, to present this in a piano recital is quite something. In a few minutes we're going to hear Levit play Franz Liszt's transcription of the Beethoven 7. And so we asked Levit why he thinks Liszt wanted to make piano versions of these things in the first place.

Igor Levit: It's the process of one great artist, one great composer, looking back at another great composer. And let's just start with that. So it's a sign of admiration. Probably the greatest pianist who has ever lived, took up the work to transcribe the greatest symphonies ever written for his instrument. The instrument he, Franz Liszt, was able to play like nobody else before him and probably nobody else after him.

Number two, don't forget Liszt's time. It was not usual. It was not easy. It was nearly impossible for the normal human being to actually experience a symphony, to actually hear an orchestra play. It was nearly impossible. It was a thing of the elite. It was incredibly expensive. And so Liszt, by transcribing these pieces, actually made, gave many, many, many people the chance to listen to these masterpieces for the first time. To a degree, almost a democratic act.

Jeff Spurgeon: Igor Levit talking about perhaps some of the motivations Liszt had for making transcriptions of all nine of the Beethoven symphonies. It took him a lot of years to do it. And we're going to hear the seventh in just a couple of, of moments from pianist Igor Levit.

The crowd is (RINGING SOUND) well, you hear the announcement to tell people to turn off their cell phones. And so the lights are down in the house. And backstage, Igor Levit is giving himself a good stretch, ready to go out and bring four movements of a Beethoven symphony to a Carnegie Hall crowd.

 Igor Levit (off microphone): a good stretch.

Jeff Spurgeon: It looked like a good stretch. We're looking forward to it. Thank you.

John Schaefer: You know, that clip not only gave us a little insight into Liszt's, you know thoughts about doing these transcriptions, but also Igor Levit's thought in bringing these transcriptions. Because as you mentioned, Jeff. We don't hear these a lot.

Jeff Spurgeon: That's right.

Igor Levit: Don't forget stretching.

Jeff Spurgeon: Okay (laughing).

John Schaefer: Don't forget stretching. We've limbered up our vocal cords sufficiently to now get out of the way. And there he goes back on stage, Igor Levit. Ready to bring you this great four movement work, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in the transcription by Franz Liszt from Carnegie Hall Live.

MUSIC - BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 7 (arr. Liszt)

John Schaefer: Pianist Igor Levit, live center stage at the piano here at Carnegie Hall. With Franz Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. Liszt transcribed all nine of Beethoven's symphonies for piano. And three of them are now in Igor Levit's repertoire. He clearly enjoys playing these pieces. And boy, that last movement especially sounded like a man with someplace to go.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, and it sounded very much like Liszt. There was a great deal of Liszt in that final movement. All of that incredible virtuosity, all 20 of Igor Levit's fingers on the keyboard at one time and this audience on its feet at the end of that work and they're on their feet now offering cheers for this pianist, giving his fourth recital at Carnegie Hall on the Ronald O. Perelman stage here in Isaac Stern Auditorium.

And you know, this is only the second time that that this work has been played at Carnegie Hall. And the first time was 170 years after Liszt made the transcription.

John Schaefer: Right.

Jeff Spurgeon: An Italian pianist named Pasquale Iannone. Iannone, yeah.

John Schaefer: Back in 2008.

Jeff Spurgeon: And that was the first time that this work had been heard.

John Schaefer: Now, if you were wondering what happened between the second and third movements to occasion the laughter and the clapping, Igor Levit was playing the audience as much as he was playing the piano and after the second movement ended there was a burst of coughing from the audience and Igor made a churning movement with his arm as if to say, all right, get it out of your system. Everybody laughed, and then applauded him, and then he launched into that that brilliant third movement which is marked presto, and which is supposed to be very fast.

Jeff Spurgeon: And the fourth movement, allegro con brio, lots of brio in that allegro for sure.

John Schaefer: Absolutely, and it's unlikely that a symphony orchestra playing at that speed could keep it all together.

Jeff Spurgeon: That's right, that was one of the thrilling things about it that you would not likely have heard from an orchestra in a performance of this work.

So out in front of the audience once again, Igor Levit, and yes, back to the keyboard he goes.

John Schaefer: And we will have an encore from Carnegie Hall Live.

Igor Levit: (unintelligible) Walking the wrong way. Would be, though, an exciting performance to see the piano leave (audience laughter).

Thank you very, very much. I'd like to play an encore, which is a choral prelude by Bach in a transcription by Ferruccio Busoni. And I would like to dedicate this encore because I believe a minute of silence after this piece wouldn't help anyone.

But I'd like to dedicate this choral prelude to the people, to our fellow friends, I'm sure we all have some there. To the people of Los Angeles and Southern California, and especially, not just to the ones who are in incredible pain and devastation, with no end in sight, but to the incredible first responders.

I just came back from there. And, well, I came to New York from Los Angeles and to see the solidarity among the people. And this devastating time was really heartbreaking. And so, I'd like to call on all of us and all of you, whoever is in this hall, whoever is listening on radio, hello. It only takes a click or a push on the button to donate and to help the people in Los Angeles.

(sound of cell phone notification).

See, it's easy (audience laughter).

I love impatient people. Fantastic. And with them in mind, this piece and this choral prelude is for them.

MUSIC - J. S. BACH Chorale Prelude on "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland," BWV 659 (arr. Busoni)

Jeff Spurgeon: An encore by pianist Igor Levit after a recital of Bach and Brahms and Beethoven in a Liszt transcription. A Busoni transcription of a chorale prelude of J. S. Bach. A Martin Luther hymn, "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland" Number 659 in the Bach Works catalogue in Busoni's arrangement.

Backstage at Carnegie Hall, I'm Jeff Spurgeon alongside John Schaefer and, Igor Levit just back from Los Angeles, as he said, and so he made the dedication of that work to all of the people and particularly to the first responders who are still in the midst of an astonishing, apocalyptic event in the city of Los Angeles.

John Schaefer: And just a, a, a beautiful way to conclude this program which has featured the three Bs, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and another B, Ferruccio Busoni with his transcription of that Bach chorale prelude, number three, "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland", "Come Now Savior of the Gentiles", Martin Luther hymn. Bach's chorale arrangement and Busoni's transcription of that.

Jeff Spurgeon: So, B's all the way. Not just the three named composers on the program. Well, I guess we do have the asterisk for Liszt. Yes. In this, in this recital program by pianist Igor Levit here at Carnegie Hall with one of Liszt's great transcriptions and a very touching moment enjoyed entirely by this audience who, as we mentioned, also participated in the recital with their own variations on an infectious winter theme in the midst of that Beethoven symphony performance.

John Schaefer: And at the beginning of the Brahms, you may have noticed a long pause again, in which late seaters, seaters, late arrivals were being seated. There was another round of coughing. And Igor Levit sat at the piano, faced the audience, waited till they were settled, and only then put put fingers to the keys.

Jeff Spurgeon: Well, it's just as simple as that. Tis the season.

John Schaefer: That wraps up this broadcast of Carnegie Hall Live. Our thanks to Clive Gillinson and the staff of Carnegie Hall. WQXR's team includes engineers George Wellington, Irene Trudel, Chase Culpon, Duke Marcos and Noriko Okabe. Our production team, Eileen Delahunty, Laura Boyman and Dominic Hall-Thomas.

Our project director, our project director is Christine Herskovits. Aimée Buchanan is our digital producer. I'm John Schaefer.

Jeff Spurgeon: And I'm Jeff Spurgeon. Carnegie Hall Live is a co production of Carnegie Hall and WQXR in New York.

 

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