Life / Igor Levit
Label: SONY CLASSICAL Catalog: 88985424452 Format: CD Igor LevitIgor Levit’s new album LIFE, one that is highly personal for him, is an imaginary recital with a vast emotional range - from tender intimacy (Schumann’s “Ghost” Variations, Bill Evans’s “Peace Piece”) to the sublime and monumental (Liszt-Busoni’s “Ad nos”). This celebrated pianist and impassioned intellectual poses as a spirited yet profound guide to regions of music that ask the big questions of human existence – questions about meaning and permanence, inner peace, memory and redemption. On LIFE, Levit reflects at the keyboard on the experience of loss, hovering between grief and despair, resignation and solace. He has chosen works whose bleak grandeur and melancholy beauty have occupied him for years. Each of them is a tribute to the virtuosic potential of the piano. Poetic moments of quiet contemplation confront life-affirming, highly sensual music of immediate spellbinding physicality.Levit’s deliberately subjective selection extends from 1720 to 2012, from Bach to Frederic Rzewski. LIFE effortlessly crosses borders between eras, styles and genres, offering a multitude of new discoveries. More than ever before, you appreciate the individuality and immense curiosity of an artist who has already set standards with some of the supreme masterpieces of Bach and Beethoven.The vaulting artistic ambitions of Russo-German pianist Igor Levit were already proclaimed by his first three albums. The response from the international media was as broad as it was universally ecstatic. Alex Ross of The New Yorker proclaimed, “After a few minutes, I was transfixed. He was playing with technical brilliance, tonal allure and intellectual drive.” Today, after a few years on the international scene, this acclaimed artist has emerged as one of the leading pianists of our time, combining supreme interpretative earnestness with sparkling technique and extraordinary versatility.Disc 1 1. Fantasia after J. S. Bach, BV 253 2. Chaconne from Partita for Solo Violin No. 2, BWV 1004 (Transcription for Piano) 3. Variations in E-Flat Major on an Original Theme "Ghost Variations", WoO 24 4. Dreams, Pt. 1: III. A MenschDisc 2 1. Solemn March to the Holy Grail from Parsifal, S 450 (Transcription for Piano) 2. Fantasia and Fugue on the Chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", S 259 (Transcription for Piano); I. Fantasia 3. Fantasia and Fugue on the Chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", S 259 (Transcription for Piano); II. Adagio 4. Fantasia and Fugue on the Chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", S 259 (Transcription for Piano); III. Fuga 5. Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, S 447 (Transcription for Piano) 6. Elegies BV 249: VII. Berceuse 7. Peace Piece Price: $29.98 |