Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Liszt (ed. Busoni): Fantasy on Themes from Mozart’s ‘Figaro’ , S 697
Mozart: Piano Sonata in B-flat major, KV 570
Mozart: Piano Sonata in C minor, KV 457
Liszt: Réminiscences de Don Juan de Mozart, S 418
Igor Levit (piano)
Igor Levit’s contribution to this year’s Festtage offered us Mozart, both ‘as himself’ and through a Lisztian lens. First was Liszt’s rarely heard Fantasy on Themes from Mozart’s ‘Figaro’, properly the Fantasy on Themes from Mozart’s ‘Figaro’ and ‘Don Giovanni’, albeit in Busoni’s performing version, considerably truncated, it loses the Don Giovanni material entirely. Its skittish opening, particularly as performed here, put me slightly in mind—doubtless arbitrarily—of Henze’s ‘Three miniatures for piano’, Cherubino. (Someone, perhaps Levit, should perform them together some time.) Soon, however, a grander contagion spread, from composer and pianist alike, to the entire keyboard, exhibiting a clarity that can come only from transcendental virtuosity. In such music, essentially a slightly more permanent snapshot of Liszt improvising, one can fancy one hears the seeds of other, original Liszt pieces. Perhaps one does, but it is more likely simply to be the stock pianistic material on which Liszt drew. It was fascinating also to hear the junctures at which Liszt seems to prepare the way for music from Don Giovanni, only to swerve—or rather, via Busoni, to be swerved—in a different direction. Levit had the piano sing in all registers; a piano can do so, of course, be imitating the human voice, whereas our Western voices at least are more limited in range. Around that, all manner of pianistic adornment was spun. Levit’s command of Lisztian rhetoric, again as if improvising, though unquestionably faithful, proved second to none. He was not afraid, either, of a little vulgarity: something positively demanded by Liszt and yet to which some pianists find it difficult, even impossible, to accede.
Mozart’s late B-flat major Sonata, KV 570, offers a very different kind of difficulty. Its spareness offers nowhere to hide, even by Mozart’s usual standards. I remained unsure about Levit’s way with the opening Allegro, very fast indeed, but it was clear and directed, with a proper sense of the development opening up a new harmonic world. The other two movements, to my ears, worked better, the Adagio sustained by a fine sense of line and scrupulous, yet never pedantic, articulation. The minor-mode section benefited from an understated yet clearly felt pathos. Here, Mozart’s cruel, achingly honest spareness was beautifully, meaningfully realised. So too was it in the finale, whose fast tempo did not preclude space to savour the composer’s clever imitation of solo and orchestral tutti. (B-flat major seems to have been one of his favoured keys for doing this, as witnessed by the ‘concerto’ finale to KV 333/315c.) Disorienting chromaticism was taken in the pianist’s stride.
Levit thrived on the mood-swings of the C minor Sonata, KV 457, both as a whole and of its first movement in particular. The crucial thing, here admirably accomplished, was to have them cohere into a whole. If its dialectics looked forward to Beethoven, so they should; this was a motivically determined performance in the best sense. The concision of Mozart’s development section astounded, as it must. Levit had the tragic measure of his turn to the tonic minor in the recapitulation, as well as its ghostly coda. A spacious ‘Adagio’ followed, confirming Levit as one of the least ideological of musicians. His tempi, whether one agrees or not, are clearly born of his own understanding and vision for the music, not some absurd conception of ‘correctness’. Scrupulous with Mozart’s markings, he ensured this great aria was sung by a great piano-singer, blessed by no mean accompanist. The richness of Mozart’s modulations was fully savoured and conveyed. Even a telephone intervention was treated with good humour and incorporated into the particularity of good performance. Perhaps that incited the tragic intensity of the finale; more likely, it would have been there anyway. At any rate, this extraordinary conclusion to an extraordinary work, was unleashed rightly, with a C minor daemon to rival that of Beethoven.
Levit relished, unsurprisingly,
the Stone Guest opening to Réminiscences
de Don Juan, putting it, crucially, to pianistic, dramatic, and more
broadly musical work. If Daniel Barenboim were in the audience, I should like
to think he would have approved (likewise his hero, Furtwängler). Liszt’s work
emerged as the masterpiece it is (with due regard to the Figaro Fantasy). Transitions, as finely judged as they sounded
spontaneous, were of the greatest importance here. So too was Levit’s mastery
in having the piano once again sing—and, in ‘Là ci darem la mano’, seductively
at that. All manner of technical strengths and achievements were present and
correct, but one barely noticed them in themselves, which is just as it should
be, Lisztian virtuosity being ultimately a musical tool to vanquish mere virtuosity.
Common ground between Mozart’s and Liszt’s major-minor dialectics was
heightened to properly diabolical effect. The quiet dignity and resolve of
Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s Chorale Prelude, Nun komm’ der Heiden Heiland, made for a perfect encore.
