Igor Markevitch Tschaikovsky

Igor Levit - the recent recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s “Instrumentalist of the Year”- has now completed the recording of all 32 sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. In September 2019 this mammoth studio-recording project will finally be released and leads the way for important new releases on Sony Classical for Beethoven’s 250-year anniversary.

The Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2021, conducted by Daniel Harding with Igor Levit as soloist, was recorded again this year by Sony Classical. The Summer Night Concert, which took place on June 18, 2021, is an outdoor concert held annually since 2008, following the "Concert for Europe" held from 2004 to 2007. The baroque park of Schönbrunn Palace provides an enchanting backdrop for the concert. Among the illustrious conductors who have conducted the Vienna Philharmonic's Summer Night Concert in recent years are Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov and Gustavo Dudamel.

This is the best playing of Bach keyboard music on original instruments in the catalog. The way Igor Kipnis plays the English Suite is easily worth the price of the disc, as he gives every movement a character of its own, thrills us with his virtuosity, and displays his imagination with his embellished repeats. The Italian Concerto doesn't offer the same opportunities for repeats, but Kipnis still gives us imagination and great sensitivity. The remaining pieces are played on the soft-voiced clavichord, an instrument that normally can't be heard across a small room. Don't turn the volume up, just save this music for late nights in the country and let it whisper to you.

After Igor Levit, Christian Thielemann, and the Vienna Philharmonic performed Brahms’ First Piano Concerto at Vienna’s famous Musikverein in April 2024 the Viennese newspaper The Standard wrote: “During these fifty minutes, an irresistible dose of emotion was conveyed – but at the same time the sophisticated structure of Brahms’ masterpiece remained crystal clear.” Four months earlier after their performance of the Second Piano Concerto, the Austrian newspaper Die Presse had declared that “Igor Levit sets a new gold standard for Brahms.”