Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
24 Preludes and Fugues Op.87 (1951) [146:26]
Ronald STEVENSON (1928-2015)
Passacaglia on DSCH (1962) [86:15]
Igor Levit (piano)
rec. May 2020, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin (Shostakovich); February 2020, HCC, Leibniz Saal, Hanover
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview. Also available on CD
and vinyl
SONY 19439809212
[3 CDs: 232:41]
Igor Levit’s peculiar and unique combination of the Germanic and Russian
traditions of piano playing makes him the ideal interpreter for both of
these giant peculiar and unique compositions. Some of his piano playing
here is technically terrifying yet there is almost nothing that draws
attention to the performer for his own sake. Levit is a match for any of
the mighty Russian pianists of the past yet his sensibility is tempered by
a very German approach to the structure and craft of the music before all
else. That said, I would imagine that even Schnabel might have baulked at a
programme this severe! But Levit is not a particularly severe
guide. He finds magic in every note that holds the listener spellbound as
these mighty journeys unfold. Such is the intensity of care and love that
the whole 3 hours plus of this recording feels like a single programme. The
two works fit together perfectly. It is just that very few pianists have
what it takes to pull it off. And probably even fewer crazy enough to try!
What we have in the Shostakovich preludes and fugues is the sound of a man
saving his soul. His musical soul at any rate. By withdrawing into a kind
of internal exile, away from the public demands upon his music,
Shostakovich defiantly asserts his own creativity and its right to go where
it wants and not where the Stalinist regime required it to go. What we are
eavesdropping on might be thought of as the composer Shostakovich might
have been, and certainly this set can be seen as opening the way to the
remarkable sequence of late string quartets which, even more than the
symphonies, were his crowning glory.
As a result, what we get is all sorts of versions of the composer. Some of
these are very familiar: the sardonic Chaplinesque clown; the lamenter of
the misery of life; the deliverer of terrifying and grandiose visions. All
of these are here but many others too. Shostakovich the pastoralist is
unexpected, as is Shostakovich the wide eyed innocent. There is even
unbuttoned silliness in the prelude to No.21. More than anything else we
get a sense of the private man, the husband, friend and father. Despite the
conditions which produced it, this is, perhaps defiantly, not a neurotic
outpouring. It is most definitely an outpouring as though all the music
that had to be stifled during the dark years of the Terror came flooding
out.
The interpreter of this towering masterpiece needs to be responsive to this
almost Shakespearean breadth. Each pairing of prelude and fugue must
breathe its own air. Levit is hyper sensitive to this and his phenomenal
command of tonal colour gives him resources few of his rivals, even the
mighty Nikolayeva, can draw on. Sometimes it is almost as if he changes to
a different instrument from one prelude and fugue to the next: wistful and
opalescent in the fugue of No.7 and then brittle and dry as tinder in
No.8’s prelude. Yet Levit’s ferocious intelligence holds the whole thing
together, building to a shattering account of the final fugue which is
truly gut wrenching in its baleful progress. It sounds like a J’accuse against the whole regime which had driven the composer
underground, all the more powerful for the patient way Shostakovich
ratchets up the tension. Levit is imperious here. The chords have a
frightening weight and resonance that never becomes an ugly sound, even at
deafening volume.
Levit is, of course, one of the great Bach pianists and, as for example in
the prelude to No.10, he is sensitive to the resonances of the German
composer in a piece inspired by a performance of the 48 in Leipzig.
Shostakovich is honouring a tradition, not seeking to shatter it. Given the
charges of formalism that were being levelled at him at the time, this is
another quietly radical element of this extraordinary music.
Elsewhere, for example in the next prelude and fugue, No.11, the wunderkind
of the first piano concerto is alive and well, despite all he has been
through. Levit’s fingers seem to have wings here and I can only hope he can
be persuaded to do something as relatively conventional as record the two
piano concertos.
At other points, the music seems almost without precedent, as in the
hair-raising E flat minor prelude (No.14) or the Orthodox chant and bells
of the G major prelude (No.3). Levit terraces the dynamics in this latter
prelude to present a multi-layered soundscape that connects Shostakovich
with an older Russia that was to become increasingly important to him in
the last phase of his career. As for what planet the lovely prelude No.5 in
D major was beamed down from, I have no idea. It is clear from his
refinement and poise in playing it and the kittenish fugue that follows it
that Levit speaks its language fluently.
Alongside this broad range of styles and moods, the set contains many
deeply confessional reflections and Levit has the emotional as well as the
technical range to respond. The magnificent B minor Fugue (No.6) is
electrifying in Levit’s hands. This is a much more familiar Shostakovich,
closer to the symphonies and concertos, but somehow the impact is increased
by a context of such diversity. This is a very fine example of Levit’s
ability to mutter and groan and whisper as well as to howl and roar.
This review would reach tedious length if I were to try and itemise every
felicity of Levit’s performance. On the other hand, listing its weaknesses
would be brief indeed, as there are none that I can perceive. The obvious
comparison is with the now legendary 1981 version by the piece’s dedicatee
and inspiration Tatiana Nikolayeva on Hyperion (CDA66441/3). This remains
the benchmark and Nikolayeva’s unflinching spirit and indefatigable
intelligence bring unique insights. But her approach is much more severe
than Levit’s and the new recording shows us a different way with this
masterpiece. Nikolayeva gives us a much more familiar picture of
Shostakovich where Levit finds greater light and shade; his Shostakovich
even smiles and not just in a sarcastic grimace. Nikolayeva’s humour is
flatter and more caustic. The two sets complement each beautifully, yet I
imagine Levit’s will win over more listeners new to the music. Ideally, I
would say any listener needs to hear both but if pushed to choose just one,
it would be Levit.
The Stevenson could have been written for Levit, the composer’s own
recordings notwithstanding. He just seems to have something extra in terms
of intensity, timbre, poetry and just plain fury that sets him above all
rivals. Like a great Bruckner conductor, his pacing of this enormous canvas
is faultless.
It is to be hoped that the advocacy of a superstar pianist like Levit can
finally move Stevenson’s homage to the older Soviet composer out of its
current niche status into the mainstream. This is not a curio but a
masterpiece more than equal to the Shostakovich preludes and fugues. It is
based on the musical transcription of Shostakovich’s initials, DSCH, into
the notes D, E flat, C and B and they are used as the basis for a
cornucopia of variations, fugues and just about every way of making music
at a piano including playing directly on the piano strings with one hand.
There is a parallel in Levit’s conception of the work with his approach to
the Shostakovich. Despite the huge amount of musical terrain he has to
cover, or perhaps because of it, Levit is in no hurry. He makes no apology
for the great length of either work and every note gets its due. Both
works, in other hands, have a tendency to sound a little grey as though,
particularly in the Stevenson, pianists are too busy getting their hands
and heads round the notes for anything as frivolous as colour. As an
intellectual feat, Levit’s care and precision with the voicing of every
chord (and there a lot of them) is staggering. As a listening experience,
it means that nothing is average or taken for granted but jumps vividly to
life.
There is something absolutely obsessive about this music, as indeed there
is in the passacaglias and chaconnes of Bach, Shostakovich and Britten,
though Stevenson takes matters to a completely different level. The
performer needs to bring that obsession to their performance and Levit, who
I suspect to be more than a little obsessive in nature, is absolutely the
right man for the job. The four-note ground bass must ring out again and
again and again with total conviction if the piece is to make its full
impact and this is precisely what Levit does without the slightest hint of
fatigue or hesitation. When I first started listening to this recording, I
found myself becoming obsessed with it. It’s that kind of record!
The very last section of the Passacaglia evokes Yuri Gargarin in space and
it seems the logical destination for such a comprehensive piece of music,
in that it is intended to be literally out of this world! Levit makes it
the culmination of the whole album by finding all sorts of parallels to the
Shostakovich, which seems like a very long time ago by the time we get to
the end of Stevenson. Levit catches the strangeness of the opening of this
closing section with an eery disembodied calm before finding the resources
for one final climax before the bass motto that we have heard so many
times in the previous hour and a quarter shuffles off into the darkness and
silence follows. It is a disturbing ending to a disruptive and unsettling
piece of music and for Levit this is clearly no studio indulgence but a
work he has lived with and performed. Despite numerous noble efforts at
recording the Passacaglia, Levit’s version eclipses all others. It is like
something previously slightly out of focus coming into sharp relief.
This is a landmark recording, a work of serious artistry, inspired
programming and a spark of creative invention that lifts some performances
into a very rare category indeed. Even if the repertoire doesn’t appeal,
this is a set that transcends normal considerations.
David McDade
