Wigmore Hall
Piano Sonata no.17 in D minor,
op.31 no.2, ‘The Tempest’
Piano Sonata no.11 in B-flat
major, op.22Piano Sonata no.3 in C major, op.2 no.3
Piano Sonata no.8 in C minor, op.13, ‘Pathétique’
Igor Levit (piano)
You could probably write this
yourselves now: well, the essential thrust, with a good few purple adjectives
tastefully discarded. Contrarians would find something ‘different’ to say for
the sake of it, but 2016 has had quite enough of contrarians, thank you.
Suffice it to say that this was another outstanding Beethoven recital from Igor
Levit, with a good few challenges to any preconceptions, whether concerning
work or pianist, not least in the comparatively neglected op.22 Sonata.
The Tempest, though, opened in surprising fashion too. It always sounds
exploratory, or at least always should. I am always put in mind – I think I
have probably quoted this before – of Carl Dahlhaus’s Nineteenth-Century Music contrast with a melody from Les Huguenots:
By the criteria of Italo-French
music, Beethoven’s movement does not have the slightest claim to a musical idea
worthy of the name. What his work is based on is not a thematic — much less
melodic — ‘inspiration’ so much as a formal concept: the arpeggiated triad …
The opening, seemingly an introduction, can be viewed in retrospect as an
exposition. … If one extreme of music is the melodic ‘inspiration’ [to
exemplify which, he quotes that Meyerbeer
melody], limited to a few measures and with the form functioning merely as
an arrangement, the other would seem to be the almost disembodied formal
process emerging from a void.
So it
mysteriously did here, a world created before our ears, ex nihilo, with that creation ongoing, continual. Telling rubato,
almost improvisatory in quality, was of course anything but arbitrary, ever
grounded in Beethoven’s harmony. Levit’s playing was wondrously clear, without
the slightest loss to ‘atmosphere’. (Think, perhaps, of Boulez’s conducting. If
you do not know his Beethoven Fifth, greatly admired by Sviatoslav Richter
amongst others, do rectify that omission!) Rhetoric formed structure, and all
the while that arpeggio, those arpeggios acted as Prospero (perhaps Caliban too
on occasion?) Recitative took us into the world of late Beethoven, every note
impregnated with meaning, seeming almost to prepare for, as well as to contrast
with, the post-Mozartian arioso of the slow movement. Relished, even adored,
quite rightly, creation of melody was hard work, yet not without fancy, even
fantasy. It was almost, at times, a Bagatelle writ-large, and not necessarily
an early one. This, I thought, was an undeniably modernist Beethoven, after which,
will-o’-the-wisp Romanticism came with the finale as another welcome contrast;
so too, did a vehemence that seemed to hint at Chopin and Liszt. Beethoven
sounded possessed, increasingly so, with all his trademark obstinacy. The end
was almost a void: perhaps a return, yet not quite.
The B-flat
Sonata, op.22, opened in dazzling, insistent fashion, with an air of detachment
I found unsettling. It is an odd piece, but I am not sure I have heard it sound
– let alone thought of it – quite so odd before. Haydn on acid? How, though,
I wish I could play a single bar of the left-hand part like that! The first-movement
development was mysterious, the recapitulation quite the agōn. I was quite unsure what to make of the whole, but am sure
that I shall never think of it quite the same way again. The slow movement sang
with all the joy and regret of a valiant attempt to recapture the lost world of
Mozart – until, that is, it did something different, when once again I felt a
whole world of nineteenth-century music stretching out before me. It was increasingly
ecstatic, as those two tendencies combined, interwove, all with unbroken line.
The minuet was more capricious than one often hears, full of (ambiguous)
character, its trio more furious, almost frighteningly so. The (faux-)naïveté
of the finale’s post-Mozartian stance was itself played with, rendering the
movement all the more mysterious. Contrast, when it came, registered with
properly Beethovenian shock, almost as if I had never heard it before. Was
there reconciliation? Almost, but not quite: if we are honest, modernity,
Beethoven’s as well as ours, no longer permits that.
Almost
nonchalant, whimsical even, the opening of the C major Sonata, op.2 no.3,
announced its debt to Haydn, before announcing its Beethovenian ingratitude:
such sforzandi! A little Mozartian
glee completed the trinity, with Mozart also clearly the progenitor of the
minor-mode material. The particular variety of humanism was of course Beethoven’s
– and his interpreter’s – own, even at this early stage. Ripe lyricism was
relished; harmonic muscles were flexed, a whole tonal universe lying in front
of us. This was unquestionably a young man’s music, yet the development gave a
taste of things to come, not least rhythmically. Harmonic direction was
confirmed here, intensified in the recapitulation. Likewise humour. I was
struck by the Schubertian (I suppose I should say ‘proto-Schubertian’)
characteristics, melodic and harmonic, of the slow movement, characteristics I
do not think I had noticed before. Much, of course, is a common debt to Mozart,
but even so… And then, once again, echt-Beethovenian
shock: shock in sublimity and humanity. We heard a strikingly mature variety of
Beethovenian gruff humour in the scherzo, wryness too. The piano articulation
so necessary to convey that was almost, yet not quite, a joy in itself. The
finale was not dissimilar, yet possessed of its own particular ‘character’ – an
idea to which I returned again and again, throughout the recital. The music
responded to Mozart, yes, but was never to be mistaken for another’s writing.
Imagining the music under one’s own fingers, however incompetent, it ‘felt’
like Beethoven. It was wonderfully playful, and playful in its sense of wonder.
How to make
the Pathétique sound new? Not by
doing things to it, but by playing it
with burning belief. (The same goes, I might add, for listening to it, reading
it, thinking about it.) The music was sculpted with a fine sense of musical
drama, Michelangelesque, even: Il
penseroso? After which, the exposition ‘proper’ – but is it? – came as
release, albeit intensification too. The development sounded, felt, as if
another rocket, its tonality ensuring the flames were of a different hue. It
was a miracle, or so it seemed, how quickly we returned: such is art. And the
recapitulation proved, quite rightly, to be a second development. The slow
movement was imbued with simple songfulness, or so it seemed, for nothing is
ever quite so simple as that, whatever Winckelmann might have had us believe
about the Greeks. A heightened sense of the special quality to this material
reminded us why it has long been so loved. Music is often, if not always,
celebrated for a good reason. The finale blew in like an icy wind, which never
failed to take us by surprise, however much we might thought we ‘knew’ it. C
minor was always going to win, but there were other worlds to survey, even to
enjoy. The brusqueness of the conclusion, neither too much nor too little, was
spot on. Onwards, then, and upwards…
