Unlimited Streaming
Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps
Start my trial period and start listening to this albumEnjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription
SubscribeEnjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription
Digital Download
Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.
On this double album “Tristan” Igor Levit explores nocturnal themes of love and death, fear, ecstasy, loneliness & redemption in the music of Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler and Hans Werner Henze. It includes Levit’s first concerto recording with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Franz Welser-Möst with the album’s central work Henze’s Tristan for piano, electronic tapes and orchestra.
The five works, including Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 and Harmonies du soir, as well as transcriptions of Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan und Isolde and Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony No. 10, span a period of 135 years (1837 to 1973) and represent very different genres. Only one of these works was originally conceived for piano solo, but Igor Levit’s exploration of borderline experiences in our lives – death in "Life" (2018), spirituality in "Encounter" (2020) and now, with "Tristan", the link between love, death and our need for redemption – inevitably means that it is not just masterpieces for the piano that are central to his concern but, above all, compositions in which certain thematic associations find their most personal expression.
Levit’s own thoughts revolve less around the themes of love and death as such than around the experience of night and of the nocturnal as a dark alternative to our conscious actions by day. "Night has so many faces. It can signal a place of refuge or the loss of control, it signifies love and death, and it is the place where we feel our deepest, most paranoid fears”, says Levit. "The Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth Symphony contains a famous outburst of pain in the form of a dissonant chord, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is all about a kind of emotional nuclear meltdown. All of the piece’s essential actions take place at night. In his reminiscences, Hans Werner Henze likewise recalled his work on Tristan as a time of nightmares and of dreamlike hallucinations”.
Hans Werner Henze’s Tristan – described by the composer as a set of “Preludes for piano, tape and orchestra” – is a raptly refined hybrid work comprising passages for solo piano and electronics and is a concerto, a symphony and a piece of music theatre all wrapped into one. The present recording of this work was made during the concerts that were given in Leipzig in November 2019.
Liszt’s nocturne in A-flat major – his Liebestraum No. 3 – derives from a setting of melancholic lines by Ferdinand Freiligrath: "Oh, love as long as you can love! / Oh, love as long as you could crave! / That hour is fast approaching when / You’ll stand and weep beside the grave!" The same sense of nocturnal despair is also found with Mahler, who in late July 1910 was working on the opening movement of his Tenth Symphony when he discovered that his wife was having an affair. Igor Levit performs this Adagio in a little-known piano transcription by the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson, whose great Passacaglia on DSCH he has done so much recently to promote.
Only in Harmonies du soir, the eleventh of Liszt’s twelve Études d’exécution transcendante, is there any sense of reconciliation, a peaceful counterweight to the ecstasies and nightmares experienced by those Wagnerian and Mahlerian figures who in Wagner’s own words are “devoted to the night”. © Sony Classical
You are currently listening to samples.
Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.
Listen to this playlist and more than 100 million songs with our unlimited streaming plans.
From 12,49€/month
Franz Liszt, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Tristan (Hans Werner Henze)
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor - Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestra - Markus Heiland, Recording Engineer - Hans Werner Henze, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
DISC 2
Richard Wagner, Composer - Zoltán Kocsis, Arranger - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Gustav Mahler, Composer - Ronald Stevenson, Arranger - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Franz Liszt, Composer - Igor Levit, Piano, MainArtist - Andreas Neubronner, Producer
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Albumbeschreibung
On this double album “Tristan” Igor Levit explores nocturnal themes of love and death, fear, ecstasy, loneliness & redemption in the music of Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Gustav Mahler and Hans Werner Henze. It includes Levit’s first concerto recording with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under Franz Welser-Möst with the album’s central work Henze’s Tristan for piano, electronic tapes and orchestra.
The five works, including Liszt’s Liebestraum No. 3 and Harmonies du soir, as well as transcriptions of Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan und Isolde and Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony No. 10, span a period of 135 years (1837 to 1973) and represent very different genres. Only one of these works was originally conceived for piano solo, but Igor Levit’s exploration of borderline experiences in our lives – death in "Life" (2018), spirituality in "Encounter" (2020) and now, with "Tristan", the link between love, death and our need for redemption – inevitably means that it is not just masterpieces for the piano that are central to his concern but, above all, compositions in which certain thematic associations find their most personal expression.
Levit’s own thoughts revolve less around the themes of love and death as such than around the experience of night and of the nocturnal as a dark alternative to our conscious actions by day. "Night has so many faces. It can signal a place of refuge or the loss of control, it signifies love and death, and it is the place where we feel our deepest, most paranoid fears”, says Levit. "The Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth Symphony contains a famous outburst of pain in the form of a dissonant chord, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is all about a kind of emotional nuclear meltdown. All of the piece’s essential actions take place at night. In his reminiscences, Hans Werner Henze likewise recalled his work on Tristan as a time of nightmares and of dreamlike hallucinations”.
Hans Werner Henze’s Tristan – described by the composer as a set of “Preludes for piano, tape and orchestra” – is a raptly refined hybrid work comprising passages for solo piano and electronics and is a concerto, a symphony and a piece of music theatre all wrapped into one. The present recording of this work was made during the concerts that were given in Leipzig in November 2019.
Liszt’s nocturne in A-flat major – his Liebestraum No. 3 – derives from a setting of melancholic lines by Ferdinand Freiligrath: "Oh, love as long as you can love! / Oh, love as long as you could crave! / That hour is fast approaching when / You’ll stand and weep beside the grave!" The same sense of nocturnal despair is also found with Mahler, who in late July 1910 was working on the opening movement of his Tenth Symphony when he discovered that his wife was having an affair. Igor Levit performs this Adagio in a little-known piano transcription by the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson, whose great Passacaglia on DSCH he has done so much recently to promote.
Only in Harmonies du soir, the eleventh of Liszt’s twelve Études d’exécution transcendante, is there any sense of reconciliation, a peaceful counterweight to the ecstasies and nightmares experienced by those Wagnerian and Mahlerian figures who in Wagner’s own words are “devoted to the night”. © Sony Classical
About the album
- 2 disc(s) - 10 track(s)
- Total length: 01:41:52
- 1 Digital booklet
- Main artists: Igor Levit
- Composer: Various Composers
- Label: Sony Classical
- Genre: Klassiek
(P) 2022 Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment
Improve album informationWhy buy on Qobuz...
-
Stream or download your music
Buy an album or an individual track. Or listen to our entire catalogue with our high-quality unlimited streaming subscriptions.
-
Zero DRM
The downloaded files belong to you, without any usage limit. You can download them as many times as you like.
-
Choose the format best suited for you
Download your purchases in a wide variety of formats (FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF...) depending on your needs.
-
Listen to your purchases on our apps
Download the Qobuz apps for smartphones, tablets and computers, and listen to your purchases wherever you go.