Wigmore Hall
Piano Sonata no.2 in A major,
op.2 no.2
Piano Sonata no.7 in D major,
op.10 no.3Piano Sonata no.6 in F major, op.10 no.2
Piano Sonata no.18 in E-flat major, op.31 no.3
Igor Levit (piano)
I found myself torn. Should I
actually have been attending the march to Downing Street against Donald Trump
and his enabler, Theresa May? There is more than one way to resist, though: of
that I am certain. Listen, for instance, to Furtwängler’s wartime recordings.
(I have just been listening, on Schubert’s birthday, to the 1942 Great C major Symphony.
The anger is still more palpable in Beethoven Ninth’s from the same year. And
so, of course, is the power of Beethoven’s music to resist.) And whilst all
great art, all great human endeavour, will have something to offer in that
respect, Beethoven lays claim to a very special place. Sceptics can rail all
they like, try to cut his music down to size, deny Beethoven’s art its heroism;
they will never succeed. We know that a performance of Fidelio from Daniel Barenboim and young musicians,
many of whom would now be denied entry to the United States, has something very
important to tell us. Just as we know that Beethoven from the Palestine Youth Orchestra, two of its members cruelly denied ‘permission’ by an enthusiastic
Trump ally to leave Gaza, will speak of a musical necessity of which we can
barely conceive, yet in a sense need just as keenly. To hear Beethoven piano
sonatas, then, from an artist whose steadfast opposition to fascism (click here,
for instance, for his statement to a Brussels audience following Trump’s
election) is not the least admirable of his humanist qualities, and to engage with
that performance as an audience member in, I hope, an active rather than a
passive sense, had its merits too.
We began in the eighteenth
century, with the second of the thirty-two sonatas, the A major, op.2 no.2. The
opening phrase sounded fresh, still, just about, of that world; the answering
phrase already showed Beethoven flexing his muscles in the direction of things
to come. Great care over articulation and phrasing contributed to the urgency
of the performance: nothing was rushed; everything counted. Accents and
sforzandi mattered in a sense far beyond ‘mere’ expression: their structural
function and thus their meaning too seemed almost to speak of a world we might
have thought opened up by Webern and his successors. The first movement’s
development section offered proper intensification, as if taking after the
symphonic Beethoven still to come, and the recapitulation proved as much a
second development as a return, motivic working key here. That said,
proportions still spoke, quite rightly, of Classical perfection. (A question I
often set first-year undergraduates relates to whether we should consider Beethoven
to be a Classical or a Romantic composer. The longer I think about it, the more
difficult, yet necessary, a question it is. Should it prove to be question to
which just a few of them return throughout their lives, that would make me
happy indeed.) With hushed dignity, the Largo
appassionato was constructed before our ears. Architecture came to the
fore, without compromise to the quasi-vocal ornamentalism so typical of much
early Beethoven. Alas, it took the most full-blooded tone for Igor Levit to
mask, if only briefly, an all too zealous contribution from quadrophonic
bronchial activists. The Scherzo was characterised by graceful insouciance, as
if trying to recapture a Mozartian world that would ever remain just beyond it,
tantalisingly so. Its trio, both in legato and vivid drama, seems also to speak
of Mozart. If I have heard the finale more overtly loved – often loved to
death, I fear – this performance intrigued in laying bare Beethoven’s musical
processes. Not that it was short on drama, far from it, but it showed, in
modernistic fashion, that those processes are not only its motor but perhaps
even, at least in part, its subject matter. Tonal surprises registered, if
anything, all the more strongly.
At the opening of the D major
Sonata, op.10 no.2, we heard a related, yet unquestionably different, tonality.
One might say the same of much else too, of course, but it was that indefinable
‘character’ of key – even if Beethoven might use D major differently somewhere
else – that immediately struck me. A dizzying array of themes was thoroughly
integrated in a performance that knew exactly where it was heading. It was very
fast – Beethoven marks its ‘Presto’, after all – yet never too fast, never
breathless. Rockets soared, especially in the development, yet their trail
never lacked grace. Again, the sheer difference
of the recapitulation registered strongly, thrillingly. There was no mistaking,
even from the first bar, the Romantic gravity of the slow movement, quite
distinct from anything we had yet heard; and yet, that vocal, quasi-operatic
quality remained to be heard too, transformed, even transfigured. Imbued with a
meaning that could never be reduced to words, Levit showed us that, if all Beethoven
matters enormously, some matters still more. Even the starkest dynamic
contrasts could not disrupt the musico-dramatic line; they strengthened it:
perhaps there is a message there for us beyond the concert hall too. After
that, the Menuetto sounded with charm; disruptions, or apparent disruptions, in
the bass, showed a different variety of charm and more than a little
Beethovenian humour. Both quizzical and furious, the finale burst forth as a
riot of Haydnesque invention that could never have been written by Haydn. Beethoven
had learned his lessons far too well to be mistaken for another. The particular
integrative impulse was very much Beethoven’s own – and, of course, that of the
pianist.
The first movement of op.10
no.2, in F major, sounded initially not so distant from it’s a major
counterpart in approach. The devil, or perhaps the angel, proved to be in the detail.
Beethoven’s good nature shone through: more than good nature, profound
humanity. Levit conveyed a fine sense of deep mystery to the development, which
proved ‘surprising’, even if one flattered oneself one knew it. There was
protean mystery to the central Allegretto
too. Heard as if in a single breath, it revealed such an array of incident when
one truly listened – and how could one not? The Presto finale was despatched with a virtuosity permitting of both
fury and levity (no pun intended). Counterpoint was relished, proving
generative of a well-nigh neo-Mozartian host of ‘characters’ plying their trade
upon our aural stage.
With the E-flat major Sonata,
op.31 no.3, we found ourselves in a very different world. What a work this is;
how much more often we ought to hear it! The tonal centre emerged gracefully,
yet not too easily, from that extraordinary first-movement introduction. (It is
as much a joy to play as to hear!) And yet, despite the differences in scale,
maturity, and so much else, there was again a sense of a host of characters treading
the aural boards before us, Beethoven’s neo-Mozartian flirtations now at
greater distance and perhaps even possessed of still greater affection. Rhythm,
harmony, and melody formed an indissoluble whole, conveyed with exquisite
voicing that yet never remotely seemed an end in itself. Above all, quite
rightly, this was a drama. The second movement is, quite frankly, a bastard to
play, but you would never have known it from this performance, in which
lightness of touch and great boldness were revealed as two sides of the same
coin. It was more boisterous than Mendelssohn but perhaps gestured more than a
little in his direction. That sense of longing for an age to which Beethoven –
perhaps all of us – would like to return, yet could not, imbued the third
movement, played with tender luxuriance. All too often it is rushed, but not
here, the richness of Beethoven’s harmonies present for all to hear. A skittish
contrast was announced with the finale, whose mood changes proved just as
protean as anything in the preceding sonata. It was every inch a finale, every inch
a Beethoven finale: just what was required.
To quote Hans Werner Henze, in an article entitled 'Does Music have to be Political?': 'Beethoven regarded his whole enterprise as a contribution to human progress.' Let us do so too.
To quote Hans Werner Henze, in an article entitled 'Does Music have to be Political?': 'Beethoven regarded his whole enterprise as a contribution to human progress.' Let us do so too.
