Igor Levit marks the bicentenary of Beethoven’s death with four recitals of early and middle-period sonatas at Wigmore Hall, from the ‘Waldstein’ to the ‘Appassionata’.
The pianist Igor Levit gives four Beethoven recitals at Wigmore Hall in Marylebone from Saturday 20 to Tuesday 23 February 2027. His recording of all 32 sonatas won a leading classical recording award in 2020.
Levit was born in Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, in 1987 and began the piano at three under his mother. The family moved to Hannover when he was eight. He studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Hannover conservatoire, where he is now a professor.
The cycle came out on Sony Classical in 2019, for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. In spring 2020, as concert halls closed, he streamed house concerts nightly from his home in Berlin.
He played all 32 sonatas at Wigmore Hall a decade ago. This series falls in the bicentenary year of Beethoven’s death. It covers the sonatas he wrote between his mid-twenties and early forties, the years he built his dramatic style.
Each night pairs a landmark with a lesser-heard work. The first runs from Op. 2 No. 1 to the Waldstein, and the second ends on Les Adieux. The third ends on the Appassionata, and the last moves from the Tempest to the Pathétique.