Wigmore Hall
Piano Sonata no.16 in G major,
op.31 no.1
Piano Sonata no.15 in D major,
op.28, ‘Pastoral’Piano Sonata no.13 in E-flat major, op.27 no.1, ‘Quasi una fantasia’
Piano Sonata no.14 in C-sharp minor, op.27 no.2, ‘Moonlight’
Igor Levit (piano)
Six down: two to go. Alas, I am
unlikely to be able to hear the final two programmes in Igor Levit’s Beethoven
series, but there were on this occasion perhaps a few intimations of the late(r)
sonatas I shall miss (nos 27-32). Not that there was any one generic aesthetic
applied to the works: the richness of their variety was celebrated, each sonata
clearly considered in its own right.
From the op.31 set, we heard
the first, in G major. Levit immediately showed himself to be a fine communicator
of contrast, humorous and otherwise. Its first movement was fast, insistent, even
obsessive. Work and performance made me smile; they also made me nervous.
Oscillation between major and minor registered full of potentiality. Both the
fury and the concision of the development were fully apparent, with the
recapitulation seemingly as full of something new as something old. Beethoven’s
games in the coda were properly relished. Humour remained to the fore in the
slow movement, its almost absurdly ornate neo-Classicism speaking for itself.
That certainly did not preclude subtlety; the ability to surprise arose
seemingly naturally, however problematic that idea, from command of line. In
the finale, intimations of a later Romanticism and indeed a later modernity
still had no need to be underlined; they spoke nevertheless, as playful as
Beethoven’s reckoning with his own inheritance.
The Pastoral Sonata is a more overtly seraphic, indeed sublime work,
and so it sounded. What a wealth of music, in the strongest sense, there was to
be heard in sequences, in repeated scales. Always werden, never sein: the
essence of Romanticism. Beethoven’s radicalism sounded most pronounced in the
first movement’s development, peering forward to the fractures of his late
self. The moment of return brought due consolation. The sublimity of insistency
in the onward trudge of the ensuing march quite rightly sounded close to
Schubert, without ever sounding quite ‘like’ his music. Line again was key, but
so was variegation. The whimsical central section sounded as if from a
different world – or did it? At any rate, the return of the march material
seemed transfigured by the experience. An urgent, even impetuous scherzo – its trio
too – was over in the twinkling of an eye, drawing comfort in the opening bars
of the finale. Whilst that comfort was certainly not illusory, there were
battles yet to be fought and won. That victory proved both hard-won and
elegant.
In the second half, we heard
the two op.27 sonatas. I am not sure how much sense, even as metaphor, it makes
to speak of a velvety touch, yet that was how the opening of the first movement
registered to me – in tandem with irreproachable clarity. Holy ground was never
confused with false piety. The shock of the contrasting material was
communicated with authentic Beethovenian brusqueness. A scherzo that balanced
fury and humour glanced back to Haydn without any sacrifice to the impression
that it might have been written yesterday. Nobility of utterance in the
developing variation of the Adagio con
espressione section was unmistakeable: Beethoven and his interpreter
reached for the stars, and came very close indeed to them. This certainly
sounded as one of those intimations of the late master, as did the transition
to the finale, whose fantastical brilliance relished both Beethoven’s humour
and his prodigality of invention. Once again, we were reminded that this was a
pupil of Haydn.
The hushed anticipation to the
very opening of the Moonlight Sonata –
it may be a silly nickname, but it is probably not worth contesting it – seemed
somehow to condense an entire symphonic introduction into the simplest of
choral progressions and piano figurations. Again, it developed – and reminded
us of what an extraordinary, indeed astoundingly original piece of music this
is, quite unlike anything else. The dignity with which the first movement
unfolded was quite spellbinding. Imbued with a proper sense of nostalgia,
although certainly not sentimentality, the Allegretto
suggested Mozart slightly overgrown, its trio very much in the line of the
explorations we had heard earlier in the Pastoral.
There was nothing backward looking there – save perhaps for a fond glance back
to the chromatic sliding of the Jupiter
Symphony’s Minuet. The finale proved startling, as it must, its excitement
visceral, yes, but above all musical. Structure and detail combined to create
not only form but meaning.
