Igor Levit's New Double Album Fantasia to be released on Sony Classical September 29
Igor Levit’s New Double Album Fantasia
to be Released by Sony Classical on September 20, 2023
Preorder HERE
Features a Wide Range of Works from Various Periods, Showcasing Key Compositions by Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Alban Berg
New York, NY - On his new Sony Classical double album, Fantasia, arriving September 29 and available now for preorder, IGOR LEVIT performs four paradigmatic works spanning a period of almost two centuries from 1720 to 1910. For Igor Levit, these works “have something incredibly expansive about them, their frequent intimacy notwithstanding. They are not only emotional but also instrumental.”
The starting point of all four works is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which for Igor Levit represents “maximal freedom and imagination and at the same time great rigour”. Igor Levit has chosen Bach’s exceptional Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor and combined it with Liszt’s B minor Sonata, a highly charged piece that at the time of its composition looked far ahead into the future (which Igor Levit is currently performing to great acclaim all over the world), together with Busoni’s Fantasia contrappuntistica, in which Busoni perpetuated the Bach tradition, and Alban Berg’s only Piano Sonata.
These four major works are complemented by four shorter pieces that for Igor Levit provide “lead-ins that I feel intuitively are right”. These four shorter pieces are Alexander Siloti’s arrangement of the famous Air from Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite, Liszt’s transcription of Schubert’s song Der Doppelgänger, Busoni’s Nuit de Noël and an early piano piece in B minor by Alban Berg.
Igor Levit’s Fantasia will be released by Sony Classical on September 29, 2023 both as double CD and in digital formats and is available now for preorder.
IGOR LEVIT: FANTASIA
Track List:
CD 1
Johann Sebastian Bach 1685–1750
1 Suite for String Orchestra No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068: Air (Arr. for piano by A. Siloti)
2-3 Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor BWV 903
Franz Liszt 1811–1886
4–6 Piano Sonata in B minor S 178
7 Der Doppelgänger S 560/12
CD 2
Alban Berg 1885–1935
1 Klavierstück in B minor
2 Piano Sonata op. 1
Ferruccio Busoni 1866–1924
3 Fantasia contrappuntistica BV 256
4 Nuit de Noël BV 251
Igor Levit piano
Sony Music Masterworks comprises Masterworks, Sony Classical, Milan Records, XXIM Records, and Masterworks Broadway imprints.