Igor Levit, Piano
Part of: Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice
Performers
Igor Levit, Piano
Program
HINDEMITH Suite "1922"
G. MAHLER Adagio from Symphony No. 10 in F-sharp Major (arr. R. Stevenson)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, "Eroica" (arr. Liszt)
Encore:
BRAHMS Intermezzo in E-flat Major, Op. 117, No. 1
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately two hours, including one 20-minute intermission.This Concert in Context
The unfinished nature of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 prompted the creation of a number of arrangements both during and after the Weimar era. Composers like Ernst Krenek—who remain far less known and appreciated today than they were in the 1920s—offered early arrangements, while versions like Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson’s 2010 arrangement for solo piano have appeared closer to our own time.
Musical experimentation and innovation were hallmarks of Weimar culture. Paul Hindemith’s Suite “1922”—with its blend of march, nocturne, and pre-jazz dance music—offers a quintessential example of this tendency. While we today associate the Weimar Republic with modernism in all its various guises, traditional German composers from J. S. Bach and Haydn to Beethoven were regular staples of concert fare.
The year 1927, which marked the centennial of Beethoven’s death, featured festivals dedicated to the composer’s music as various figures from across the political spectrum claimed the composer and his legacy for themselves. His Symphony No. 3, “Eroica,” transcribed for solo piano by Franz Liszt in 1865, offers an illustrative case in point: Beethoven’s initial dedication of the work to Napoleon was cited by the socialist left as evidence of the composer’s revolutionary sympathies. But these cultural battles would not survive beyond 1933 when the Nazis took power, at which point leftist newspapers would be closed down and much of the political opposition forced into exile.
—Brendan Fay, author of Classical Music in Weimar Germany