Igor Levit Fantasia = BACH: Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D (arr. Siloti), BWV 1068; Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903; LISZT: Piano Sonata in B Minor; Der Doppelgänger (after Schubert); BERG: Klavierstücke in B Minor; Piano Sonata, Op. 1; BUSONI: Fantasia Contrappuntistica, BV 256; Nuit de Noel, BV 251 – Igor Levit, piano – Sony 19658811642 (6/22/23) (2 CDs: 105 mins) ****:
“I play pieces all the time that are too big for the piano.” This self-confessed modus operandi of Russian-born pianist – now living in Hanover, Germany – Igor Levit captures the imaginative rubric that binds his “Fantasia” ensemble, recorded February and April 2023. The idea of traversing musical styles from the 18th Century to the 20th Century (1720-1910) to celebrate their polyphonic syntax within a framework of “fantasies,” pieces specifically catering to freedom, the expression of liberated, creative powers, become realized via Levit’s “symphonic” keyboard. Suffice it to say Levit has his own ideas.
Levit opens with disarming simplicity of style, playing Alexander Siloti’s transcription of Bach’s Air (“on the G string”) from the Third Orchestral Suite, an affecting demonstration of lyrical cantabile. Without preliminaries, we are thrust into Bach’s panoply of enlivened colors of the Chromatic Fantasy, with its dramatic starts and stops, rife with arpeggiations and driven trills. Levit maintains a steady pulsation through the Fantasia and the Fugue, eschewing any tendency to slow down for the multi-voiced stretti that soon achieve an organ sonority, mixing the illusion of freedom within the strict confines of formal necessity. The “dancing rocks” (to paraphrase Coleridge) bounce and glimmer in defiance of their intellectual gravity, the lines quite vocal in their assertion of imaginative triumph.
Levit turns to the Gothic mysteries of Franz Liszt’s mighty 1854 Sonata in B Minor, its one-movement structure’s containing four definable “movements” wrought from its initial impulses, after the manner of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy. The demonic element may seem a bit compromised by Levit’s avoidance of sustained pedal effects, though the tissue glows with illumined clarity. Texturally, Levit follows Eugen d’Albert’s example, adhering to certain note preferences in the late part of the score, in order to color the final pages with a delay of the arrival of a major third that will end the long journey through existential darkness. The course of the journey, in the interim, has involved a titanlc struggle of Manichéan proportions, of despair and hope, alternately torrential and deeply introspective. Levit’s tempos tend to be broad, especially lingering in applied rubato and inflection in the Andante sostenuto – Quasi Adagio section that sounds a personal version of a chorale, mixed with Liszt’s penchant for water-pieces. But Levit soon transforms the lyric into a potent, funereal march fraught with unholy lamentation. This, too, shall pass, and we enter the elongated, emotionally many-faceted last section, whose fugato (Allegro energico) has resonated with admirers of recordings of this colossus since Vladimir Horowitz made his presence known over three generations ago. The ardent propulsion of Levit’s interpretation carries us through the polar, even manic, permutations of mood and color with a visceral authority worthy of those select few masters of this most Romantic of keyboard sonatas. Disc 1 concludes with Liszt’s piano rendering of Schubert’s gloomy 1827 lied from Heine, the “Phantom-Double” from Schwanengesang, a haunted lyric in 63 measures that leaves us in the Abyss.
Disc 2 opens with Levti’s remarkably clear accounts of Alban Berg’s minute-long, post Brahms, late Lisztian miniature, Klavierstück in B minor, then segueing directly into the precocious 1908 Sonata in B Minor, Op. 1. Cut from a single cloth, one functional motif, By a process of “developing variation,” the piece engages upon a dark journey, conscientiously detailed by the composer’s performance markings, which leave little flexibility of realization. Intricate, polyphonic, the music proceeds in strict sonata form, with repeated exposition, development section, and a recapitulation. Janus-like, the work bids farewell to the Romantic syntax and likewise looks forward to the 12-tone system about to be initiated by Schoenberg and his school. The opening, with its dotted rhythm and perfect fourth/tritone intervals, followed by falling thirds, announces a serious departure from tradition. A nervous angst permeates the score, occasionally erupting into an emboldened passion. Despite its compressed form, the piece motivated Schoenberg to exclaim, “You’ve said all that needed to be said.”
Some commentators refer to Ferruccio Busoni’s 1912 Fantasia Contrappuntistica as his magnum opus, his homage to the art of counterpoint so brilliantly realized in the music of J.S. Bach, especially in his incomplete The Art of Fugue, in which the No. 14 employs the B-A-C-H motif (B-flat-A-C-B), both in itself and inverted. Busoni sought, as have several others, to “finish” Bach’s project. Busoni begins with a Lisztian chromatic line for a Preludio corale that makes reference to Bach’s Allein Gott. The knotty, hyper-intellectualized work unfolds in four Fugas, the first’s following Bach’s original but with additional entrances, doubled octaves, chromatic passing dissonances, octave transpositions, and the omission of Bach’s measures 87-89. Busoni introduces the first (bitonal) Fuga I subject, somewhat in disguise, out of an opening, from within stretto supported by a bass line. Busoni layers his structures in the manner of Renaissance vocal motets, although he himself often lacks a requisite capacity for the invention of lovely melodies. His music rather represents the victory of architecture over romantic expression. There persist three main ideas in continual application: the BACH motif, allusions to the chorale Allein Gott, and the unfinished Fuga a 3 Soggetti of Contrapunctus 14.
Levit maintains a gently clear, devotional tone through this labyrinthine work, often imbuing Busoni’s thick polyphony with a singing quality we might easily have ascribed to the music of Franck. For 34 minutes we feel obliged to follow Levit through the intricate passageways, perhaps seeking relief in a draught of Amontillado. The plethora of bell tones ring with illumined authority as Busoni pursues his self-proclaimed apotheosis in three variations that follow an audacious Intermezzo in circuitous harmonies. The last fugue ends with apocalyptic stretti in 6-part counterpoint. To conclude, Busoni opts to reintroduce the chorale, with a stretta on what concludes Bach’s Contrapunctus 14. An elongated statement of the first subject of Bach’s incomplete fugue – Busoni’s inspiration – bids farewell. Not for the faint of pianistic heart, this opus.
The Levit recital ends with Busoni’s Christmas Eve, a B minor “sketch” of 1908 marked by French tempo indications! A combination of Liszt and Debussy, the piece reverberates with parallel fourths and fifths in delicate tracery, combining two Christmas carols, and adding militant effects of trumpets and drums under 16th note trills. Marked Andantino, tres calme, the piece shimmers in eerie harmony, an encore of pure phantasm that ends in a paradoxical C major.
–Gary Lemco
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