LVB250 – IGOR LEVIT ”PATHÉTIQUE”

Igor Levit is one of his generation’s most important pianists (he was born in 1987) and he regularly appears on all of the major concert stages worldwide. He has performed at Konserthuset Stockholm on several occasions, each time with Beethoven on the programme. When he returns for the major Beethoven anniversary, he will do so emphatically – in eight concerts, he will perform all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

In Sweden, Sonata No. 17 in D Minor is known as the “Ghost Sonata” because August Strindberg felt he heard the voices of spirits in the music. Elsewhere in the world it is known as The Tempest because Beethoven is believed to have said in a discussion about the sonata, “Read Shakespeare’s The Tempest.”

Beethoven was able to speak both positively and negatively about his own music, and he was clearly very satisfied with Sonata No. 11 in B Major, for he wrote to his publisher in Leipzig: “This sonata is excellent, dear brother!”

The first movement of Sonata No. 3 in C Major resembles a masterful piano concerto without an orchestra. Indeed, Beethoven had intended to impress the audience of Vienna and here, his charged music is infused with an abundance of shimmering piano.

Alongside Moonlight Sonata and The Appassionata, Pathétique is one of Beethoven’s best-known sonatas. The title Pathétique has been interpreted by some as a political programme associated with the French Revolution. Another interpretation is that the sonata conveys his despair over his impending deafness. That is the assumption. But what we know for certain is that it is one of the few pieces which Beethoven himself actually titled.