Igor Levit, Haus Für Mozart

Last night was the Igor Levit concert in the smaller and older hall next to the Grosses Festspielhaus. Salzburg has a lot of concert venues. This one, also used for opera, is quite vertical and my seat was way back in the second balcony.

Here is the exterior:

Both this and the Grosses Festspielhaus back right on the little mountain that the Hohensalzburg castle sits on:

Just across town is another little mountain, but I forget the name:

And here is the crowd, gathered for refreshments before the concert:

Click to enlarge any of these photos

Now for the concert. Mostly Beethoven, and Evgeny Kissin's concert tomorrow will be all Beethoven. In between the Bagatelles op. 126 and the Diabelli Variations was the Adagio from Mahler's incomplete Symphony No. 10. I really enjoyed both the Beethoven opuses, but can't say the same for the Mahler. Of course I am not a Mahler fan to begin with, and he seems even less interesting on piano. Levit had two basic modes in this concert: in the Beethoven he was angular, capricious and dynamic, but in the Mahler and the encore, Peace Piece by Bill Evans, he becomes lethargic and self-indulgent to a fault. The Mahler, especially the long, drawn-out ending, seemed simply interminable, with very, very little going on. Now obviously this is a matter of taste as the audience, full of Levit fans, seemed very pleased with the concert. It could simply be a demographic thing. I am from an older generation and it seems incongruous to see a pianist of Levit's stature perform in a long-sleeved t-shirt. And a lot of the slow-moving lingering might appear, and be, to the younger people, profound feeling.

So those are my impressions. Today is quite full with two concerts: at noon the generalprobe of Handel's Alcina with Cecilia Bartoli and this evening, the Vienna Phiharmonic playing Wagner, Richard Strauss and Shostakovich, the rarely heard Symphony No. 14.