On DSCH Igor Levit

• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975): 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87:
• 1 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 1 in C Major 02:37
• 2 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 1 in C Major 02:33
• 3 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 2 in A Minor 00:54
• 4 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 2 in A Minor 01:26
• 5 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 3 in G Major 01:50
• 6 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 3 in G Major 01:52
• 7 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 4 in E Minor 02:58
• 8 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 4 in E Minor 04:45
• 9 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 5 in D Major 01:29
• 10 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 5 in D Major 01:49
• 11 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 6 in B Minor 01:55
• 12 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 6 in B Minor 04:58
• 13 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 7 in A Major 01:14
• 14 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 7 in A Major 02:12
• 15 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 8 in F-Sharp Minor 01:12
• 16 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 8 in F-Sharp Minor 07:12
• 17 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 9 in E Major 02:06
• 18 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 9 in E Major 01:37
• 19 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 10 in C-Sharp Minor 02:10
• 20 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 10 in C-Sharp Minor 05:27
• 21 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 11 in B Major 01:05
• 22 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 11 in B Major 02:00
• 23 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 12 in G-Sharp Minor 04:32
• 24 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 12 in G-Sharp Minor 03:45
• 25 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 13 in F-Sharp Major 02:28
• 26 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 13 in F-Sharp Major 04:46
• 27 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 14 in E-Flat Minor 04:08
• 28 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 14 in E-Flat Minor 02:45
• 29 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 15 in D-Flat Major 02:34
• 30 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 15 in D-Flat Major 01:33
• 31 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 16 in B-Flat Minor 02:39
• 32 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 16 in B-Flat Minor 07:29
• 33 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 17 in A-Flat Major 01:39
• 34 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 17 in A-Flat Major 03:40
• 35 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 18 in F Minor 02:10
• 36 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 18 in F Minor 03:03
• 37 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 19 in E-Flat Major 02:16
• 38 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 19 in E-Flat Major 02:26
• 39 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 20 in C Minor 04:04
• 40 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 20 in C Minor 05:13
• 41 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 21 in B-Flat Major 01:17
• 42 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 21 in B-Flat Major 02:43
• 43 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 22 in G Minor 02:01
• 44 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 22 in G Minor 03:13
• 45 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 23 in F Major 02:25
• 46 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 23 in F Major 04:03
• 47 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Prelude No. 24 in D Minor 04:12
• 48 Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Fugue No. 24 in D Minor 09:24
• Ronald Stevenson (1928 - 2015): Passacaglia on DSCH:
• 49 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Sonata allegro 06:38
• 50 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Waltz in rondo-form 02:20
• 51 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Episode 01:10
• 52 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Suite. Prelude - Sarabande - Jig - Sarabande. Minuet - Jig - Gavotte - Polonaise 12:19
• 53 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Pibroch (Lament for the Children) 02:48
• 54 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Episode. Arabesque Variations 00:42
• 55 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Prima: Nocturne 02:00
• 56 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Reverie-Fantasy 05:31
• 57 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Fanfare - Forebodings. Alarm - Glimpse of a War-Vision 02:13
• 58 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Variations on "Peace, Bread & the Land" (1917) 02:08
• 59 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Symphonic March 01:55
• 60 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Episode 00:56
• 61 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Fandango 02:09
• 62 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Pedal-Point. "To emergent Africa" 02:04
• 63 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Central Episode. Études 03:43
• 64 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Altera: Variations in C Minor 03:42
• 65 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Tertia: Adagio. Tribute to Bach 01:58
• 66 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Tertia: Triple Fugue over Ground Bass: Subject I. Andamento 05:19
• 67 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Tertia: Triple Fugue over Ground Bass: Subject II. B A C H 07:03
• 68 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Tertia: Triple Fugue over Ground Bass: Subject III. Dies Irae (In memoriam the six million) 06:34
• 69 Stevenson: Passacaglia on DSCH: Pars Tertia: Final Variations on a Theme Derived from Ground. Adagissimo barocco 12:13
• Total Runtime 03:51:14

Info for On DSCH

The new album "On DSCH" by Igor Levit is a x3 CD discographic tour de force by "one of the essential artists of our time" (The New York Times). That the self-styled "maximalist" enjoys pushing himself to his limits - intellectually and physically - is well known, but the present project - two key cycles of musical modernism - puts all others in the shade. Levit is one of the few pianists who have performed these works live in their entirety. When Levit performed Shostakovich's Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for the first time at the 2017 Salzburg Festival, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described the occasion as a "major event in the musical world". In May 2019, Levit's performance of Stevenson's Passacaglia on DSCH in London's Wigmore Hall prompted the Guardian to opine that it was unlikely that the work "has ever been played better". Completed in 1951, Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues - a summary of all the major and minor tonalities - lasts some two and a half hours in total, while Ronald Stevenson's Passacaglia on DSCH, which he completed in 1963, is an unbroken set of variations lasting nearly an hour and a half. The letters DSCH spell out Shostakovich's musical monogram using their German note names: D-Es-C-H = D-E?-C-B. Levit himself describes the 24 Preludes and Fugues as "a kind of musical diary": "There is something utterly unique", he says, "about this combination of warmth, immediacy and pure loneliness. For me, it is a ritual of self-exploration and self-discovery that deals with the most intimate questions." Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015), was a Scottish composer for whom the DSCH motif provided the basis for a spectacular survey of all manner of pianistic and stylistic possibilities over a span of more than three hundred variations. "The Passacaglia", Levit believes, "is a veritable compendium of life, a kind of music that tells us of our responsibility towards the world as a whole." The album's artwork is specially created by the internationally renowned graphic artist and book designer Christoph Niemann, who regularly illustrates for "The New Yorker" and "The New York Times". His illustration for "On DSCH" offers a playfully abstract counterpart to this musical experience.

Igor Levit, piano

No biography found.

Booklet for On DSCH