Just in: Igor Levit plays in Israeli hospital
NewsThe German-Russian pianist has flown into Israel.
One of his first acts of solidarity was to play the lobby piano at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where Hamas rockets are still falling.
Tomorrow, he’s giving a masterclass at the Buchmann-Mehta School and a gala event for the Israel Philharmonic.
Great duet with Noa! Someone with a moral spine in this madness.
I’m getting some Spielberg vibes here.
Think I’ve had enough of images of musicians playing in rubble. Oh wait, that was the Palestinian girl with a cello. Generally speaking, isn’t it a bit cliché now, musicians playing in war zones?
I’m as tired of war zones as you but still fond of music. So, yes, I would also rather have no war zones with musicians, but if there must be war zones there might as well be musicians there for the music.
People dying in hospitals and in critical ill condition. What do they need to heal? That’s right, some music.
How appropriate in terms of timing (not).
Possibly Levit’s competence is in music rather than medicine. If indeed so, this makes sense and is honourable of him to do. To have a particularly big need of something doesn’t make the fulfilment of other needs worthless.
What better way to leave this world?
Patients usually have families, and they most likely enjoyed some stress relief.
Maybe after this, he can head to Al-shifa hospital in Gaza and play to all the premature babies who no longer have access to oxygen due to Israel’s unceasing bombardment.
Maybe Hamas can play for those premature babies? After all, it is Hamas who butchered families in Israel on October 7, raped, burned, and kidnapped kids and elderly to Gaza. Then the brave ‘freedom fighters’ ran home and hid behind their own women’s skirts, behind their own babies and underneath their own sick… I hope that in addition to being schooled in hate and monstrosity, they have piano skills and could play for those babies quite well. Better yet, they could have released all Israeli hostages, like… 30 days ago…thus avoiding any bombardment for their own people.
In Gaza ” hospital” is the name given to a place under which Hamas tunneled in arms and fighting man, and hold hostages.
As Levitte has a jewish name he will be killed if Hamas gets him.
He’ll be safe. Not to worry.
Yehudi Menuhin and Benjamin Britten playing at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Would the dissenters to Igor playing in Israel be prepared to add their mean little comments to these two also?
In 1945 we consumed media and arts totally different. Nowadays, the image/sound of music in war zones has been abused by Spielberg, Polanski, and latest by Garry Keane (“Gaza”, google the poster, please). I’m sick and tired of having feelings shoved down my throat like a French goose. Igor can play piano on the Golan heights if he wants, I don’t care, it’s still a tired cliché.
Guys, why are you downvoting me? I know a Jewish karate coach and my mom’s best friend was a Jewish woman, whose family died in the camps. Please relax, I just hate Netanyahu, Hamas, and the theme from Schindler’s List.
Since when has Levit been ” a master” ?
Igor Levit; putting meat on his ideological bones in support of the people of Israel. Good on him for putting his beliefs into practice. He has gone up hugely in my estimation.
#IstandwithIsrael.
I stand with Israel too. It does not need the support of the Trumpian far right that you represent.
Norman, your one sided commentary is getting a bit old. Terrible atrocities are being committed by both sides. Yes, Hamas rockets are still falling in Tel Aviv, and Levit may feel the need to show ‘solidarity’- but across the way in Gaza thousands of people are being massacred and hospitals are not functioning at all.
Nobody is going to achieve success by bombing or fighting their way to peace: the only long-term solution is a ceasefire and difficult negotiations leading to a sustainable two state solution.
You’re right, we should sit down and have a nice cup of tea with Hamas and ask them to please give us back the baby hostages. Yep, that would work! Just in case, that was sarcasm. A sustainable two state solution is only possible if both parties agree to 2 states. Read the Hamas charter and get back to us. The only hope for negotiations is if moderate Muslims will dominate, and unfortunately they are also victims of violent oppression by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. You see, things might not be so simple and clear-cut after all. Thank you to Igor Levit (and many others) who do get it.
Please make defending Israel your full-time job, Igor. Sincerely, you are much better at this than playing the piano. Don’t let your talents get wasted!
Would his piano playing be OK if he played at the Rantisi hospital (where, as was most recently revealed, Hamas’ humanitarians kept some of their prey captive)? Or is it only defending Israel that automatically drags dot Igor Levit’s pianistic standing?
I mean exactly what I said. Igor Levit got famous for his politics, not piano playing, which is mediocre at best. He is a much better politician than he is a pianist.
Why on earth would you say that? it’s quite possible to dislike someone’s style withour casting aspersions on an astonishing mastery.
Here’s a fact that may come as a surprise to some in our sheltered, self-aggrandising world.
No musician anywhere is of the slightest relevance to two countries at war.
more interesting perhaps are Levit’s comments this past week that he feels “unsafe” and “abandoned” in Germany because there isn’t uniform solidarity with Israel, particularly in cultural circles. he asks people why they aren’t protesting on the streets like when the Ukraine war started and he said they replied “well, Israel-Palestine” is very complex. Presumably because these people recognise that both sides have been committing horrendous crimes for decades in an endless cycle and taking one side only is to delegitimise the suffering of the other side. But no, for Levit it’s clearly due to antisemitism. This is exactly the kind of black and white, good versus evil thinking he constantly engages in and which makes him an absolutely useless political commentator, though he gets endless attention in Germany and elsewhere. I like Levit as a pianist, but when it comes to politics, Barenboim is far more nuanced and enlightened and actually makes an effort to foster cross-cultural understanding.