Igor Levit has adopted a pick-and-mix approach to programming much of his eight-concert journey through Beethoven’s piano sonatas at the Wigmore Hall this season. But he has reserved the last six sonatas for the final pair of recitals; he’ll play the final trilogy in June, while this concert included Opp 90, 101 and the Hammerklavier, Op 106.
Three years ago Levit chose to make his debut on disc with late Beethoven – performances of the last five sonatas, that made a bold artistic statement, and one that suggested he was already a fully mature and searching Beethoven interpreter. Here, however, his playing of the A major Op 101 and the B flat Op 106 was far less convincing. Unlike the recordings, these seemed like interpretations that were still to be finalised, or perhaps were being radically rethought.
In the Hammerklavier especially, parts of the same movement could have come from entirely different approaches to the work. Confrontational, abrasive passages were followed by sections that seemed almost indulgently expansive. The contrasts were startling, but they weren’t always convincing, and it had been clear from the aggressive almost unkempt way in which Levit launched into the E minor Op 90 at the start of the evening that he wasn’t much concerned with beautiful tone; it was the forcefulness of the musical argument that mattered most. Some of what followed was exhilarating, and there were occasional moments of rapt, intense beauty, but it left a puzzling impression.
• The final recital in Igor Levit’s Beethoven series at the Wigmore Hall is on 13 June. Box office: 020-7935 2141.
