“Pure life” is what Beethoven’s music means to star pianist Igor Levit. And he should know – after all, Beethoven is, in a sense, the central theme of his musical life.
His programme in Düsseldorf, too, revolves entirely around the Bonn-born master. When he first heard Beethoven, Igor Levit was still a teenager – and was immediately captivated. The emotional power of the music, its immediacy, the inner struggle: “I felt understood.” He has since recorded all the piano sonatas by the “Titan” and explained them in a highly successful podcast. At Heinersdorff, Levit uses the four sonatas composed between 1801 and 1802 to demonstrate the immense variety that Beethoven drew from the genre: from formal experiments and pianistic capers to the romantic sounds of the Moonlight Sonata. We are looking forward to this evening with one of the most exciting Beethoven interpreters of our time! To mark the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, Igor Levit is presenting all 32 Beethoven sonatas in North Rhine-Westphalia. The patron of this joint project by the Philharmonie Essen, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Heinersdorff Konzerte is Ina Brandes, Minister for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No. 15 in D major, Op. 28 ‘Pastoral’ / Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31/1 / Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27/1 ‘Sonata quasi una fantasia’ / Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27/2, ‘Moonlight Sonata’ (Source: KTK Heinersdorff)
