A pianist puts his star on a record sleeve
NewsThe German-Russian pianist Igor Levit has broken a prolonged silence with a rushed release of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words.
He says: ‘I made this recording out of a very, very strong inner necessity. I spent the first four or five weeks after the attack on October 7th in a mixture of speechlessness and total paralysis. And at some point, it became clear that I had no other tools than to react as an artist. I have the piano. I have my music. And so, the idea came to me to record these works, the “Songs without Words” and to donate my proceeds from this recording to two wonderful organizations that work in my hometown here in Berlin (@ofek_beratung and
@KIgA_eV) to help people who experience anti-Semitism and to help young people avoid falling into the clutches of anti-Semitism. It is my artistic reaction, as a person, as a musician, as a Jew, to what I have felt in the last few weeks and months. Or to put it more precisely, it is one of many reactions that came to mind.’
The record cover says it all.
The label, unfortunately, cannot produce CDs for sale or review until the New Year.
For more on Mendelssohn’s Jewish identity, see chapter one of my book, Genius and Anxiety.
Oh great. MORE politics.
He could’ve just called it ‘Igor Levit plays Songs Without Words’. But ohh no. There just has to be some political twist added to it, with the ultimate aim to try and appeal to the public to inevitably boost sales.
All a conspiracy. Ultimately, your record will do absolutely nothing to stop the genocide going on, so stop acting like you’re making a huge difference.
The same goes for anyone virtue signalling about the Ukraine war.
what a load of cobblers.
Sounds like a well thought through, sensitive observation. Well I guess the Jews have been traditionally ‘cobblers’ but not sure that’s what your insult is supposed to convey?
It may well not stop Hamas’s (and other groups’) genocidal attempts to kill Jews (as specified in their founding charter), but his gesture against the rampant anti-Semitism in the world is much appreciated.
Sure, when a Jew is fighting anti-Semitism he does it only for money.
It would sound more natural in German.
Poor choice of words. I think the rest of the world is speechless with regards to Israel’s response and its general treatment of Palestinians. I think the Berlin Phil’s benefit concert next week addresses the two-sidedness of the issue better.
The rest of the world should be impressed by Israel’s attempts to avoid loss of civilian lives in Gaza (not always successful, unavoidably, as in any such war, but far better than in most comparable conflicts and going further than, say, the US would as attested to by the US government this week) in the wake of the unprovoked massacre, mass rape and mass kidnappings of October 7th (including babies), Hamas’s solemn vows to do it ‘again and again and again’, the continual daily attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian elements in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen (and daily attacks still from Hamas of course), and the forced displacement of 300,000 Israelis from their homes. This is an existential war for Israel. If the UK, US or any other country faced such an invasion and ongoing threat right on its doorstep, their response would care far less about civilian casualties.
Espacially after October 7, Israel has every right to destroy Hamas whatever is necessary to fulfill this job. If the Palestines can´t manage to get rid of these terrorists – like the Germans didn´t manage to get rid of Hitler and the Nazis – Israel has to do the job for them and the Palestines should be thankful for that like Germany was thankful for the job of the Allies. And by the way, the Hamas terrorists are so coward that they hide behind their people. Coward, more coward, Hamas…
First report by a western journalist in Gaza. Maybe Igor should listen to it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=SdIZmZr29L0
Was the world less speechless with the brutal terrorist attack of Hamas? Why are there support parades for Palestinians, protest parades against Israel, and no protest parades against Hamas? Why are there no protest parades against Russia? Or China? Or Iran? Some confusion about values, it seems.
It’s not two-sided when one side votes for terrorism and the other is a democracy. The Jews just aren’t the right kind of victims in the Left’s byzantine code of victimhood.
You speak for “the rest of the world”, do you, May? Spare us the self-righteousness, you self-appointed moral arbiter of all that’s good and holy. Jews long ago decided they didn’t need the “rest of the world’s” permission to defend themselves, especially when the “rest of the world” did nothing when the Jews of the world were nearly wiped out. We’ll take the sanctimonious outrage and ineffectual hatred of people like you over our “treatment” of the poor, peace-loving Palestinians any day over being pittied and dead.
This was so predictable.
Whenever there is some moral high ground that the German government and the important media decide to support, there will be Igor Levit very publicly stating his allegiance to the issue at hand. And he will subsequently be lauded by the media for his “courageous” words and oh so humanitarian stance.
I just never heard of anything he supported when government and media did not do so … how come?
(Also, I have to say — only look at October 7th. Not at anything that happened before, not at anything that happens since; nothing to see there, please move along.)
No, let’s look – let’s look at how Israel pulled out all of its citizens from Gaza (and four settlements from the West Bank as a further sign of goodwill and intention) and then how Hamas moved in and immediately started attacking Israel, attacks that have never stopped since. Let’s look at immediately before October 7th, when for the past couple of years Israel has been facilitating the passage of enormous sums of money to help the Gazan economy to encourage Hamas to normalise, and allowing increasing numbers of Gazans into Israel to work every day – where they could earn higher wages and Israelis and Gazans could get to know each other (up to 17,000 a day by Oct 7th) – and how Hamas used that time and those funds to prepare its plans in conjunction with Hezbollah and others, and how those civilians who came into Israel gathered info and passed it back to Hamas so that they had detailed maps of the kibbutzim they were going to massacre. And let’s look at since October 7th, where Hamas has not stopped shooting missiles and rockets into Israel, and how (Iranian proxy army) Hezbollah have not stopped firing missiles and anti-tank armaments from Lebanon, and how the Houthis have been shooting ballistic missiles from Yemen. And how Hamas leaders have attested that Oct 7th was “just a rehearsal” and that they will carry out October 7th “a second time and a third and a fourth”. And how Israel has been providing humanitarian safe routes – and guarding them against Hamas attacks – and how they’ve been helping evacuate hospitals under which Hamas have had their military facilities; and how Israel has facilitated aid coming in from Egypt and even now is repairing the crossing from Israel that Hamas themselves destroyed to facilitate more aid. And let’s look at the more than one hundred hostages that Hamas still hold and won’t even Red Cross allow access to – including a 10-month-old baby. Israel has no choice but to destroy Hamas – and the other Iranian proxy groups are watching, probing for signs of weakness, and waiting for their chance to destroy this tiny country that’s the size of Wales (while Iran is four times the size of Germany). Israel has been fighting this war as well as anyone could have fought it, in every respect, and had no choice but to fight this war that Hamas – not Israel – started with the worst terrorist attack in modern history.
So well said, A. G. Levit is precisely the kind of “intellectual” Chomsky was criticizing in The Responsibility of Intellectuals. A self-important (and self-serving) moral coward. Screw him and his bland, mechanical playing. He makes me ashamed to be a pianist, a musician and a Jew
In the old time of the Cold War, people like Levit would be accurately described as mouthpieces of the regime propaganda. He has an associate embedded in the US media, of course: a modern day Nicolas Nabokov, prominent new music promoter.
Igor Levit has worn that Star of David as a ring in performances for a while (not just after October 7). Can’t we grant him his sense of identity and his sorrow? Reactions in comments (oh dear, he’s political, unlike me) are quite disingenuous.
Unfortunately many apparently have problems with Jews when they defend themselves against mass murder, mass rapes, mutilations (in some instances literally during the act of rape), burnings-alive, abductions – and the active threat of future attempts by multiple armies to destroy the world’s only Jewish state and all the Jews (as well as Muslims, Christians and the rest) living in it.
I have no problem with it – and Oct 7 was an unspeakable atrocity. It’s just very disconcerting that he never speaks a single word about the tragedy of the war. Surely we can grieve for both?
Now he is exploiting Israeli misery to sell a product…?! And has he mentioned Palestinian suffering even once? For Mendelssohn just listen to Perahia instead, a far finer (jewish) pianist than Levit will ever be.
I’m getting sick of this. We pay to hear your music, not your political preferences. If apparently that’s all it is about quit music and go into politics, for god’s sake!
A Man for All Seasons Inc.
Great pianist, but such a pompous, preening narcissist.
By the way, Mendelssohn was not a Jewish composer’ who wrote ‘Jewish music’. If Levit needs to feel that he is Jewish, that is entirely irrelevant. Also he has nothing to do with what is happening in the Middle East. He is living in Europe playing the piano.
If Mendelssohn was not a Jewish composer who wrote Jewish music, I wonder why the Nazis painted over his name on the walls of the Concertgebouw auditorium?
Are you trying to suggest we should leave it to Nazis to determine whether someone is Jewish or not?
Because the nazis were wrong, that is why. As they were wrong in everything else.
By the way, Norman’s book ‘Genius and Anxiety’ is a brilliant and widely-researched compendium of the spirit of pioneering Europeans from Jewish descent, with amazing and gripping stories. So much that you don’t know, even if you know a lot about European Jewishness.
Mensch
With you all the way, Igor.
Good for him. To those who don’t like his full-throated and unapologetic pro-Israel stance, don’t listen, don’t buy. Simple.
Well said (and done) Maestro. Thank you!
Good that he plays “Songs without words” because he himself has more than enough words.
Funny this one…… the choice is by way of grave compensation. One wonders if there are enough of those songs.
Thank you for this very moving article. Let’s hope that more people will understand the suffering which happened. Non mai piú. Never again.
His gut reaction, as a Jew in particular, to 7.10 is kosher. His aim, in the release and its proceeds, is to fight antisemitism in Germany, not to support Israeli aggression in Gaza. Hopefully, young Germans will catch the kinship of antisemitism and Islamophobia, too. He’s only one person. His goal is limited in scope, but realistic in attainment.
It’s refreshing to hear that Mendelssohn touches people so deeply.
7th October saw 1200+ murdered, abducted, raped, burnt alive, mutilated, tortured, etc. There is no context to justify it, whatever your opinions on Israel.
I don’t know Levit but he did do a new yorker interview a while back in which he spoke about anti semitism, and the 7th October pogrom is a massive trigger for anyone Jewish. I look forward to seeing him in Tel Aviv with the IPO in a few days, he obviously feels his identification strong enough to come here and perform.
If you use the word ‘pogrom’, for these poor 1200 souls, then what word do you plan to use for the death of more than 10,000 innocent Palestinian children? The sword, alas, also cuts both ways…
Igor, as a human being (albeit with a high public profile) has a perfect right to express himself exactly as he wishes. He is a highly principled man, devoid of self-aggrandising and courageously has decided not to remain neutral in matters of politics and social issues. He can’t keep his head down and why should he? To those on this thread who object to this, the solution is simple…don’t purchase his recordings. You speak/write as if his passion for such things is a commercial ploy. Shame on you! So keep going to your concerts to hear the anonymous (except in name) beat their way through a Beethoven concerto (or whatever) not knowing (or caring) about the personality behind the creative process. Ultimately you are denying yourselves the benefit of an encounter with an extraordinary musician, an extraordinary man. The loss is yours. Try to understand him – not so difficult.
Heartbreakingly beautiful!
He should give the money to the families of the 60+ journalists likely deliberately targeted and killed by the IDF.
This cover is very problematic, because protestant Mendelssohn was a Jew only according to the Nuremberg laws. “Jewishness” is not an identity, it’s a religion.