2024-09-24 10:20:30
In the new Vox series “The Piano”, players can compete to play the piano everywhere in Germany – in shopping centers, in train stations. Marc Forster and pianist Igor Levit are the panelists. And a small miracle happened.
Autumn is coming – and it’s always time for new things from Igor Levit. Not that Germany now probably the famous pianist would have otherwise disappeared. Even if your presence is beyond the podium in concert halls very small and quiet. The actor, who moved to Germany from Russia at the age of eight and does not consider what is now warlike Russia as his real home, commits to this, making himself even more social.
The more silence there was around him after October 7th about the Hamas crime against the people of Israel, and the more he noticed growing anti-Semitism, the stronger his spirit of resistance became against the supposedly progressive milieu in Germany and and against the present Israel. government.
But he now lives it out differently than he used to in his comments on all kinds of things in his character, green-flirting “I will explain the world to you” Twitter manager. This earned him the job titles “pianist” and “political activist” on Wikipedia. And because, unlike most of his group, he opened his mouth.
After all, since the beginning of the Ukraine war and the attack of Hamas, some other classical actors have also taken a stand. But Igor Levit offers benefit concerts, again with friends from all camps and musical corners: one of the Elbphilharmonie “Against silence. Against anti-Semitism”simply as a “plea to humanity”. And he played his piano again, around the world, with continued success.
And now it’s autumn again – and there are two or four, depending on how you read, news from Igor Levit. Either way, Sony is releasing one of its popular, carefully crafted, sometimes surprising items on October 4th. Rotary Boxsets.
But before that, it will be in prime time every Tuesday at 8:15 pm for five weeks starting September 24th Vox show up for ninety minutes. The format is called “The Piano”. The always cheerful producer Anika Lau carefully avoids using the word “piano” in her mouth – we at Vox, it might sound bourgeois.
But what is it about. “Pianos” is a music format adopted from England, a type of “Germany is looking for a keyboard player”. Not quite as bright and easy to see, but much more emphasis and memory. In train stations and shopping centers in Germany (starting with the Wilhelminian style hall of what was once Europe’s largest train station in Leipzig), people playing the piano every day -age allowed to perform in public and try five minutes of popular TV.
What they don’t know: Sitting three levels above them, listening to life as a boarder at the train station, not only Igor Levit, but also, for the chapter, Mark Forster (41), husband of Lena Meyer-Landrut, of he filled stadiums as a singer-songwriter. And both of them should choose one of the 16 candidates for an event that touches them and inspires them, that is original and really good, and that will be shown with them at the wonderful festival Wuppertal Stadthalle in the sixth week.
Life is played out at the piano
And so there are ten-year-olds and eighty-year-olds, professionals and professionals. Little Luise will lead Mendelssohn. The old pianist of the sea in the evolving Bach / Brubeck. A man in a suit with a bow tie is doing a boogie-woogie that Igor could never do. A lot of life is spent on the piano, it works as a voice and another person. The blind and the wheelchair user compete.
There’s Brahms, Chopin and lots of personal music. A refugee from Iran, after the toughest child labor in Turkey, found a piano in a youth club in Germany and could not leave it. Marlon from Bochum is not only a Grönemeyer imitator, he also has his own ballads. Others escape the discomfort of pre-written buildings in their music, strumming the feeling of a bubble or simply enjoy living in harmony with Ludovico Einaudi.
Forster and Levit commented, talked, joked, always had a kind word, and hugged everyone. They are not embarrassing and avoid any pitfalls that lead to sharp criticism or caustic irony. It should be a cuddly format. And at the end of the show they made the right choice.
Forster took some classic mistakes, Levit once a T-shirt from Backstreet Boys. And the people below play the music of their life, truth, freedom, the piano gives them support and joy. Good message. And good music, rarely on TV. One exception.
The sudden close friendship between Igor Levit and Christian Thielemann is still unexpected, but it has already been witnessed in a few concerts. They may not always be united politically, but music by Beethoven or, in the present case, Johannes Brahms brings them together inextricably. And so it is now, Levit is always good for the traditional dramatic route, with both and as a luxurious, warm sound base with the Vienna Philharmonic – two piano concerts by Johannes Brahms.
Two keyboard war horses, very sedate and explored with a slow enthusiasm, but flowing in unison, with strong accents and bathed in light, red gold colors. There is no new interpreter area broken, but the performance of live concerts also allows for an upper-average, high, yet beautiful interpretation.
And after these two CDs comes another solo disc by Igor Levit, filled with late Brahms fantasies such as Intermezzi. Sometimes they sound raw, clanging, sometimes cold and deep melancholy. The old Brahms, analytical but also attentively listened to, played cautiously but powerfully. Igor Levit is completely with himself, focusing on technique, emphasis, expression. You sound awake, serious, excited, but not hysterical, anxious, overstimulated. For Leviti, the all-forgiving, calm, drifting style of Brahms is still comforting – like their music to the train station attendants.
And at the very end of the third CD, there is even a minute of graceful, not too difficult A special waltz, op 39, no 15, was announced for four hands with the former Thielemann rehearsal. Even two very different people find themselves united in music: cheesy, but true. And somehow comfortable. Autumn is almost here.
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