IGOR LEVIT
Fantasia: Works by Bach, Berg, Busoni, Liszt Sony Classical 19658811642 (2CDs)
Strap yourselves in: it’s time for Levit’s annual release, as ever a project of high intellectual as much as musical ambition, self-evidently years in the preparation. Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia falls on the ear in cascades, the mechanics of the instrument transcended – as Brendel achieved from time to time – to become the poet’s voice. The voice of the following Fugue begins bravely in a whisper, and the Sonata of Liszt is then plotted on a much larger scale with the same irrefutable logic. Levit presents the B comes as a necessary act of healing and features some of the simplest and most sheerly beautiful playing on the album.
