Igor Levit’s On DSCH is an achievement of monumental proportions – an intellectual and physical marathon, as the Russian-German pianist reveals to Rebecca Franks
AWARDS 2022 WINNERS!
Recording of the Year and Instrumental Award
Igor Levit
On DSCH
Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues; R Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH
Igor Levit (piano)
Sony Classical 19439809212 Igor Levit is no stranger to the BBC Music Magazine Awards. In 2014, he was named Newcomer of the Year for his debut recording of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas, which our critic described as ‘perfection’. Several highly praised discs later, the Russian-German pianist has struck gold again, with an unmissable recording of Shostakovich and Ronald Stevenson titled On DSCH. Not only has it scooped Levit the Instrumental Award in the public vote, but the jury has also given him the top gong: Recording of the Year. It is ‘a huge personal honour’ to win, says Levit. ‘Thank you so much.’
And it matters to Levit that the awards are for this album, as it features two composers close to his heart. The starting point is Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, which the Soviet composer wrote in the early 1950s. Without doubt, this is Shostakovich’s most important work for piano, says Levit, a kind of musical diary written in the grip of censorship. ‘There is something unique about this combination of warmth and immediacy on the one side and pure loneliness on the other,’ he reflects. ‘For me, it is a ritual of self-exploration and self-discovery that deals with very intimate questions.
‘A very special aspect is that you have the 23 highly individual preludes and fugues, almost like encountering 23 different human beings, each with their own unique story to tell,’ continues Levit. ‘Then at the very end, once you arrive at number 24, this is the piece that creates the idea of togetherness, of communion.’ As a result, it has always made sense to Levit to play the cycle, all two-and-a-half hours of it, in its entirety.
If the stylistic language of the Preludes and Fugues is pure Shostakovich, its musical model dates from centuries earlier. In this work, the composer pays homage to Bach, offering a modern counterpoint to The Well-Tempered Clavier. And there are other connections between the two composers. Both wrote their own monograms into their music, spelling out BACH and DSCH in notes. Shostakovich’s motif became the basis for the second work on Levit’s album, Stevenson’s Passac
