On DSCH is a new release from Sony of Igor Levit’s account of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues op 87 coupled with Stevenson’s Passacaglia on DSCH. Spread over 3 CD’s, it’s a big listen which will take some time to absorb, not least since the Stevenson, being entirely new to me, is a huge work spanning some 85 minutes. The set is handsomely presented in a compact cardboard fold-out slipcase with rather garish but strikingly colourful artwork, reminiscent of Mondrian’s Broadway Boogie Woogie. It’s a tangible and nice object to have.
Shostakovich is a composer with whom I fail to click in almost all his output, but the 24 is an exception to that rule. It’s a work I find endlessly fascinating and, importantly, entirely satisfying in the right hands. And having listened a few times, so too is Levit’s interpretation. The touchstone in this piece for me is D Major Prelude. Seemingly a lightweight counterbalance to the massive G Major fugue that precedes it, its gentle (and here precisely clipped) flow is abruptly arrested in its final moments, like a backward all-seeing and searing glance that can stop the heart, and Levit achieves that all too rare feat. Comparisons will inevitably be made with Nikolayeva’s various recordings, but Levit makes these his own, from massive resonant chords through delicate dexterous filigree to quite introspection. Importantly, there is a sense of wholeness as one progresses through the set. It was recorded at the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin, which gives a spacious acoustic that contains rather than confines the work. A fine and satisfying addition to the discography of this piece.
Thoughts on the Stevenson will follow, once I become better acquainted with it.
Levit discusses the release with Tom Service on Music Matters this Saturday
Shostakovich is a composer with whom I fail to click in almost all his output, but the 24 is an exception to that rule. It’s a work I find endlessly fascinating and, importantly, entirely satisfying in the right hands. And having listened a few times, so too is Levit’s interpretation. The touchstone in this piece for me is D Major Prelude. Seemingly a lightweight counterbalance to the massive G Major fugue that precedes it, its gentle (and here precisely clipped) flow is abruptly arrested in its final moments, like a backward all-seeing and searing glance that can stop the heart, and Levit achieves that all too rare feat. Comparisons will inevitably be made with Nikolayeva’s various recordings, but Levit makes these his own, from massive resonant chords through delicate dexterous filigree to quite introspection. Importantly, there is a sense of wholeness as one progresses through the set. It was recorded at the Jesus-Christus-Kirche in Berlin, which gives a spacious acoustic that contains rather than confines the work. A fine and satisfying addition to the discography of this piece.
Thoughts on the Stevenson will follow, once I become better acquainted with it.
Levit discusses the release with Tom Service on Music Matters this Saturday
Comment