Vexations
Igor Levit has recorded Erik Satie’s radical landmark work Vexations, which will be released as a special limited edition of 840 copies, featuring an NFC chip and a signed sheet from the recording session. “840 repetitions of the same motif. 16 hours. Until silence becomes impossible,” the pianist describes. “Over the past few years I have performed this piece three times in its entirety. The recording was the toughest hurdle so far. Unlike the first and second times, I didn’t feel like I was playing for an audience. The energy was directed inwards rather than outwards. For the first time, it really felt like an ordeal.”
Lukas Sternath plays Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt
This is the debut album of young pianist Lukas Sternath, a student of Levit and described by him as “an extraordinary artist”. The programme will consist of works by Liszt and Schubert. Levit says: “The Dante Sonata is a musical inferno – Liszt pushing the limits of what is possible. The Wanderer Fantasy: Schubert forcing the piano to be an orchestra. Everything becomes bigger than it ought to be. Everything breaks open. This is no debut. This is an arrival.”
Schönberg and Beethoven
On this album Igor Levit is performing Beethoven’s Eroica in Liszt’s piano arrangement alongside Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon. Levit says, “Beethoven, who first admired Napoleon and then rejected him because he understood what power does to people. Schoenberg, who wrote about tyrants while living in exile because he could not remain silent.” Dörte Lyssewski is the reciter, and Antonello Manacorda conducts the Kammerakademie Potsdam.
Gymnopédie (Single)
Release date: June 19, 2026
Vexations (Single)
Coming soon