Igor Levit - Fantasia (2CD)

"On his new double album "Fantasia", Igor Levit plays four paradigmatic works from a period of almost two centuries, from 1720 to 1910. "Freedom and simultaneous rigour" are characteristic for him in the unusual "Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue" by Bach, the far-sighted, suspense-filled B minor Sonata by Liszt (with whose performance Igor Levit is enjoying worldwide success in recent months), Busoni's Bach continuation "Fantasia contrappuntistica" as well as Alban Berg's only sonata. "These are works that deal with ultimate things because they use the piano as a medium - and not just as a piano. For me, this recording of the Fantasia contrappuntistica is something like the conclusion of my repertoire path of the last few years. That was what was missing from my list." The Fantasia contrappuntistica is considered Busoni's brilliant opus summum. Several attempts and several versions were made between 1909 and 1912. The plan was to create an orchestral work with an introduction based on the chorale prelude "Meine Seele bangt und hoffe zu Dir". This then became the Preludio corale, with variations. The first version was written in just two months in New York and was published under the title "Grosse Fuge, contrapuntal fantasia on Johann Sebastian Bach's last unfinished work". The conflict between freedom and rule, inspiration and progression, fantasy and fugue is captured in the title. The last twelve-part version is notated for piano. But performance markings such as "Quasi trombe dolci" or "quasi arpa" refer back to the basic orchestral idea. The structure is complex, the tonality expanded. Busoni's Fantasia is one of what Igor Levit calls "larger-than-life pieces": charismatic future music, such as the Hammerklavier Sonata or the Goldberg Variations. Pianistic challenges, such as Frederic Rzewski's "People United" or Ronald Stevenson's "Passacaglia". Or: Franz Liszt's B minor Sonata. The counterpart to the Busoni Fantasia, completed in 1854 and dedicated to Robert Schumann, who by this time had already disappeared behind the walls of the Endenich institution, it is one of the pinnacle works of pianistic brilliance, which ultimately use the piano "as a medium" for "final things". This does not mean that the sonata, as Liszt's critics have repeatedly suspected, conveys a secret program, quite the opposite. It is a work beyond the imagination, a one-movement “fantasy sonata” or “sonata-fantasy”, with an audibly clear internal structure in three or four individual movements, as is also the case with Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy or Robert Schumann’s C major Fantasy. Alban Berg's piano sonata op.1 is also in the key of B minor, and also has one movement. However, unlike the aforementioned hybrids of sonata-fantasies or fantasy-sonatas, it does not contain any hidden multi-movement structure. Rather, this piano piece is "only" the first movement of a sonata. In academically defined sonata form, with da capo repeated exposition, development and recapitulation, developed almost school-like from "minimal motif material". Written around 1907/1908, after several sketchy attempts, this sonata owes its origins to composition lessons with Arnold Schoenberg. Igor Levit appreciates this sonata precisely for its laconicism, but also for its uncompromising expressiveness. He says: "Unlike Liszt, Berg does not find his way out of the blackness of B minor at the end." However, there is no room for improvisation in the sheer abundance of Mahlerian playing instructions: "Yes, I stick to them as best I can. But of course I still have my freedom. I play forte, but it is my forte: on this day, in this room, in this context!" It begins with a masterpiece in D minor which, in its perfect convergence of subjective idea and formal regularity, became a spur and model for all boundary-crossings by future musicians: the Chromatic Fantasy BWV 903 by Johann Sebastian Bach. There is no autograph copy of it. This fantasy is a notated improvisation. A particular challenge for today's interpreters: how binding is this musical text? Igor Levit laughs; in this respect he again agrees with Busoni: "That is one of my favourite images from his 'Aesthetics': 'Writing down notes is already a transcription of what has been thought." How can I, as an interpreter, believe that these black dots are the last word? From the first note you react to what is given. It's like serving in tennis, as Fred Hersch once said. The beginning of the Chromatic Fantasy, this wild improvisation, almost atonal, reminds me of the beginning of Erroll Garner's "Concert by The Sea" in Carmel in 1955. You take the bull by the horns and go at a hundred miles an hour." The programme is complemented by four smaller pieces which, for Igor Levit, "show approaches that I intuitively think are right", as he says. These are Alexander Siloti's arrangement of Bach's popular Air from the Third Orchestral Suite, Liszt's arrangement of Schubert's song "The Double", Busoni's "Nuit de Noël" (which may have been inspired by a macabre French silent film of the same name) and an early piano work, in B minor of course, by Alban Berg."