Riccardo Minasi | Igor Levit

Riccardo Minasi | Igor Levit

Over the last few weeks Igor Levit, one of the great Beethoven pianists of our era, explained and played all 32 Beethoven sonatas on BR-KLASSIK. Now he’s the BRSO’s artist-in-residence for the 2020–21 season! Levit has already thrilled audiences by playing four Beethoven piano concertos with the same orchestra, most recently the Second, with his idiosyncratic blend of stylistic fidelity and spirit of adventure. All that’s missing is the First, op. 15, which now stands on the programme to complete the cycle. At the head of the orchestra is Riccardo Minasi, the principal conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra and a champion of period performance practice. He’s giving his début with “Viennese classics”: Beethoven will be followed by Haydn’s Symphony no. 88, a French-inspired work that enchants us with its expressive Largo and its lilting dance movements, whether gruff in the Minuet or elegant in the Finale.

Riccardo Minasi | Igor Levit

Over the last few weeks Igor Levit, one of the great Beethoven pianists of our era, explained and played all 32 Beethoven sonatas on BR-KLASSIK. Now he’s the BRSO’s artist-in-residence for the 2020–21 season! Levit has already thrilled audiences by playing four Beethoven piano concertos with the same orchestra, most recently the Second, with his idiosyncratic blend of stylistic fidelity and spirit of adventure. All that’s missing is the First, op. 15, which now stands on the programme to complete the cycle. At the head of the orchestra is Riccardo Minasi, the principal conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra and a champion of period performance practice. He’s giving his début with “Viennese classics”: Beethoven will be followed by Haydn’s Symphony no. 88, a French-inspired work that enchants us with its expressive Largo and its lilting dance movements, whether gruff in the Minuet or elegant in the Finale.

Riccardo Minasi | Igor Levit

Over the last few weeks Igor Levit, one of the great Beethoven pianists of our era, explained and played all 32 Beethoven sonatas on BR-KLASSIK. Now he’s the BRSO’s artist-in-residence for the 2020–21 season! Levit has already thrilled audiences by playing four Beethoven piano concertos with the same orchestra, most recently the Second, with his idiosyncratic blend of stylistic fidelity and spirit of adventure. All that’s missing is the First, op. 15, which now stands on the programme to complete the cycle. At the head of the orchestra is Riccardo Minasi, the principal conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra and a champion of period performance practice. He’s giving his début with “Viennese classics”: Beethoven will be followed by Haydn’s Symphony no. 88, a French-inspired work that enchants us with its expressive Largo and its lilting dance movements, whether gruff in the Minuet or elegant in the Finale.

Igor Levit

Igor Levit

Igor Levit is one of the most significant pianists of his generation (born in 1987) and regularly performs on all the major stages worldwide. He has appeared at Konserthuset Stockholm on several occasions, including during the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth, when he performed all of Beethoven's piano sonatas in a series of live-streamed concerts (due to the pandemic).Beethoven is also featured on the program for this concert: the third symphony – Eroica – in Franz Liszt's famous arrangement. The program as a whole consists of what is often referred to as the three great Bs of classical music history: Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and begins with Bach's chromatic fantasy and fugue. It was acclaimed and regarded as a masterpiece even during Bach's lifetime, filled with advanced voice leading and lightning-fast runs.Between Bach and Beethoven, Levit has placed Brahms' atmospheric and youthfully explosive ballades; he was only 21 years old when he wrote them. They are designed as short musical narratives. We know that the first one is based on an old Scottish ballad about Edward, who returns home with blood on his sword. The atmosphere is dark and ominous. However, no source material for the other three has been preserved.

Igor Levit

Every pianist and soloist takes a risk with Franz Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. Few have dared to tackle this pianistic chunk, which demands everything at once: power, virtuosity, a sense of the piece's architecture, and a keen ear for detail. Igor Levit takes on this task. Liszt has long been a favorite in his repertoire. For a TV documentary, he already traced the composer's footsteps around 15 years ago. Levit's program for the Essen Philharmonic is brilliant: First, he takes us back to the starting point of all romantic piano virtuosity, Bach's "Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue".

Igor Levit

In the 19th century, piano arrangements played a crucial role in disseminating symphonic works, with Franz Liszt's arrangements of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies considered the pinnacle. Igor Levit takes on this challenge. He performs Liszt's piano version, a feat that demands everything from a pianist. Levit also presents music by Johann Sebastian Bach and late piano pieces by Johannes Brahms.

Manfred Honeck & Igor Levit

“An orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices”: thus Robert Schumann described the piano playing of Johannes Brahms. Now Igor Levit, last season’s artist-in-residence, returns to the BRSO with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, the very work with which the composer forged his path from chamber music to the symphony. Here the “voices” of the solo instrument and the orchestra blend into an intensive dialogue. Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony radiates the relaxed and cheerful holiday mood of the little village of Vysoká. “The melodies just drop into my lap”, the composer enthused, and indeed the symphony seems to “emerge directly from Bohemia’s natural surroundings and the Czech people”, to quote Dvořák’s enraptured biographer Otakar šourek. With this symphony Manfred Honeck conducts one of Dvořák’s most popular works, revealing him to be a Czech national composer to the very core.

Manfred Honeck & Igor Levit

“An orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices”: thus Robert Schumann described the piano playing of Johannes Brahms. Now Igor Levit, last season’s artist-in-residence, returns to the BRSO with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, the very work with which the composer forged his path from chamber music to the symphony. Here the “voices” of the solo instrument and the orchestra blend into an intensive dialogue. Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony radiates the relaxed and cheerful holiday mood of the little village of Vysoká. “The melodies just drop into my lap”, the composer enthused, and indeed the symphony seems to “emerge directly from Bohemia’s natural surroundings and the Czech people”, to quote Dvořák’s enraptured biographer Otakar šourek. With this symphony Manfred Honeck conducts one of Dvořák’s most popular works, revealing him to be a Czech national composer to the very core.

Manfred Honeck & Igor Levit

“An orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices”: thus Robert Schumann described the piano playing of Johannes Brahms. Now Igor Levit, last season’s artist-in-residence, returns to the BRSO with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, the very work with which the composer forged his path from chamber music to the symphony. Here the “voices” of the solo instrument and the orchestra blend into an intensive dialogue. Dvořák’s Eighth Symphony radiates the relaxed and cheerful holiday mood of the little village of Vysoká. “The melodies just drop into my lap”, the composer enthused, and indeed the symphony seems to “emerge directly from Bohemia’s natural surroundings and the Czech people”, to quote Dvořák’s enraptured biographer Otakar šourek. With this symphony Manfred Honeck conducts one of Dvořák’s most popular works, revealing him to be a Czech national composer to the very core.