Washington Classical Review

Pianist Igor Levit performed Sunday night at Sixth and I for Washington Performing Arts. Photo: Josh Brick

The celebration of America’s 250th birthday is getting an early start this year. While the semiquincentennial will receive one kind of fireworks show on the National Mall later this summer, Igor Levit brought his own pyrotechnics to his recital Sunday evening. Washington Performing Arts, which last presented the Russian-German pianist at the Kennedy Center in 2022, hosted this performance instead in the historic synagogue at Sixth and I.

Levit lobbed an American bombshell, Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, on the second half. A massive set of thirty-six variations on a Chilean protest song, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” by Sergio Ortega and Quilapayún, the piece had its world premiere on February 7, 1976. Pianist Ursula Oppens played the work, commissioned by Washington Performing Arts Society, as part of the Bi-Centennial Piano Series in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

The background of the song is significant, sung as it was in Chile during the tumultuous years leading up to the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in 1973. Rzewski, whose music often deals with political issues, meant his virtuosic take on the song as a tribute to the Chilean people’s fight against the dictatorial rule of Augusto Pinochet, who turned the Chilean secret police against his own countrymen.

Levit gave the theme a forceful but legato feel, typical of the way it is usually sung, with one climactic section featuring rhythmic chanting of the title line. The variations succeeded one another with insistence, a multiplicity of ideas considered and reconsidered. Unusual effects stood out, like the fifth variation’s staccato chords, overtones of which are caught with the sustaining pedal, an eerie sonic effect that can only be appreciated live.

Outrageous technical demands also impressed, like the antic leaps about the keyboard in the seventh variation; the funeral march of the ninth variation, with its drum-like strokes in the left hand; and the reckless glissandi of the tenth variation. Levit incorporated the percussive strikes on the keyboard lid, marked as optional in the score, and the whistled snippets of the tune layered over the piano part.

Beginning with Variation 13, the sounds of jazz and popular music infiltrated the piece, which Levit played idiomatically, with a hint of Thelonious Monk-style unpredictability. Rzewski also quoted the Italian socialist song “Bandiera Rossa” (Red Flag), high in the treble register, played by Levit like a distant memory. Variation 19 opened the toccata section of the piece, featuring some of Levit’s most virtuosic panache. At the end of this section, Levit took his time with the tremolo on high A, played with both hands, drawing attention to the work’s final third.

In the remaining variations came the march-like quotation of Hanns Eisler’s “Solidaritätslied,” as well as the long cadenza at the end of Variation 27. The tune returned frantically in different keys from Variation 30 onward, finally coming to rest toward the end of Variation 36. At that point, Rzewski gave the performer the chance to improvise another cadenza. Levit alluded to some of the major themes in his improvisation, punctuated with more percussive strikes on the keyboard lid.

At the climax of his improvisation, Levit imparted a powerful message by weaving in the barely heard strains of a familiar tune, Samuel Ward’s “America the Beautiful.” The melody became recognizable only after a few bars, at first difficult to recognize because it had been transposed from major to minor. After this forlorn allusion, the work’s main theme returned, now triumphantly in D minor, for a bombastic conclusion.

The first half of this marathon recital consisted of a quirky rendition of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, perhaps the greatest variation set in music history. Where Rzewski emphasized vociferous rage, Beethoven went for wry wit and with greater textural and musical variety. Levit’s interpretation tended to exaggerate the contrasts, heightening the composer’s range of varied styles. With an eye toward more fireworks, Levit pushed the fast tempos to the edge, resulting in occasional misses like the wrong note in the final chord of the Theme.

Levit’s best playing generally came on the soft side of the dynamic spectrum, where he can bring a consummate control of touch and articulation to bear. The sequence of tragic movements set in C minor, Variations 29 to 31, proved a highlight in this sense. He also brought out Beethoven’s abundant humor with sure comic timing, from the confused bass rumble inserted into Variation 3 to the tongue-in-cheek citation from Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Variation 22, where the harmonic pattern of one of Leporello’s lines matched that of the waltz subject.

By juxtaposing Beethoven and Rzewski in this program, Levit drew attention to this moment, where Leporello, Don Giovanni’s oppressed servant, says he is tired of catering to and being abused by his master. “I want to be a gentleman,” he goes on to sing, “and I don’t want to serve anymore.” To drive the point home, Levit supercharged the fugue of Variation 32, on its absurd subject of repeated notes recalling the Theme’s accompanying figure. With a wink, Beethoven added a thirty-third variation, a somewhat pompous and aristocratic Minuet (curiously not listed in the program). In both halves of the concert, revolution was in the air.

Bass-baritone Davóne Tines and the early music ensemble Ruckus perform music by Handel, Eastman, and others 7:30 p.m. January 28 at Sixth and I. washingtonperformingarts.org