Igor Levit plays Shostakovich

A master-pianist meets a 20th-century musical landmark that is simultaneously epic and intimate, fiercely intelligent and profoundly emotional.

Shostakovich conceived his 24 Preludes and Fugues as a homage to Bach, but they evolved into one of his most monumental achievements. No living pianist plays them with more insight or power than Igor Levit.

It was Alex Ross of The New Yorker who first pinpointed Levit’s ‘tonal allure, intellectual drive and technical brilliance’ – precisely what’s needed to convey all of Shostakovich’s pain, poetry and wit. The result is a completely absorbing experience: as Bachtrack put it when Levit performed the cycle in 2017, ‘a long, lonely and intensely moving pilgrimage to some of the subtlest landscapes the piano can paint’.