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Telegraph
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
I listened to 13 hours of live avant-garde music on repeat – here's what happened
The notorious piano work Vexations by the smiling prankster of modern music Erik Satie is aptly named. What could be more vexing than to hear the same solemn procession of chords interspersed with a ghostly melody repeated 840 times, lasting up to 16 hours? More than vexed, I felt some trepidation. I was afraid Satie's ghostly, harmonically wavering piece – which usually takes between one and two minutes to play – would make me want to scream after one hour, let alone 16. I was determined to stick it out to the end, with minimum breaks, but wasn't sure why. Part of me felt I was falling for an elaborate practical joke. Pianist Igor Levit also sees the humour – he joked at one point that he might just round the performance up to a full 1,000 repetitions. Nonetheless he takes it seriously enough to do what no other pianist has ever succeeded in doing – play this piece solo (though teams of a dozen or more have played it many times). I allowed myself several quick tea and food breaks, but Levit is made of sterner stuff. He made two concessions to human frailty. He allowed himself loo-breaks (I counted four, though I may have missed some). And bowls of fruit and bottles of water were placed discreetly near the piano stool. Aside from the sheer physical challenge, there's another motive for tackling the monster. Some say that on the other side of boredom there's a state of spiritual transcendence, which Satie's thin little piece could lead us to. That's certainly the view of the well-known performance artist Marina Abramović, who conceived a theatrical action to accompany Thursday's performance. In the pre-concert chat she gave us a firm talking-to about how we should spiritually prepare ourselves. Don't cross your legs. Don't drink beer. Don't look at your phones. Breathe with me. The Southbank's Queen Elizabeth Hall stage was a dazzling spectacle. The floor area was divided into small white squares, in the middle of which was a raised platform of identically sized gun-metal-coloured cubes. On this sat the grand piano. The whole design was reflected from above in a huge tilted mirror. Levit slipped onstage, flashed us a quick smile, and launched the piece with his typical frowning, concentrated gravity and exquisite touch. Occasionally he would add a touch of pedal or a little crescendo, and later made changes of tempo which in the prevailing glacial calm seemed like high drama. However the performance took a while to settle, thanks to the audience. Free to come and go, and deprived of their phones, many became restive and started to troop out almost immediately – only to return later. I've been in calmer bus terminals. Meanwhile, around Levit a hugely slow ritual action unfolded. Two female 'celebrants' in black-and-white very slowly removed cubes from the edges of the platform and slid them to new positions to form seats. They then accompanied members of the audience to these seats to witness Levit's performance close-up, with that reverent care nurses use with convalescing patients. I was one of them. I was sat right behind Levit, and could see that he was playing repetition 329 out of 840. Discarded sheets of music (one photocopy for each repetition) lay scattered about, as well as grapes and water for the pianist. By then – around 3pm, five hours after it began – Levit's fatigue was showing. He leaned face down on the piano lid, and would occasionally stretch a leg or foot to ward off cramp. Occasionally there was a wrong note. But then he got a second wind, playing the gnomic, angular chord-sequence with an epic gravity for a few renditions, before subsiding back to meditative quiet. Eventually he slipped out for another loo-break. As time wore on, and Levit became wearier, so the tempo of the repetitions increased. Around midnight, as the last of the 13 hours approached, he seemed frankly bored, and the tempo too fast to do justice to the music's strange meandering melancholy. One's interest shifted to Abramović's beautifully realised conception of bringing the audience into the action, performed with tender yet uncanny grace by the two 'celebrants', Sara Maurizi and Jia-Yu Chang Corti. One audience member I met during a tea-break said it made her think of the Fates guiding spirits to the underworld. A very apt image, when given a twist. Instead of finding the god of the underworld, those spirits found a weary Sisyphus of the piano, condemned to repeat a strange, haunted music until the end of time. In all, it was more emotionally suggestive experience than previous performances of Vexations I've attended, though less satisfying musically – this is a piece that really needs a team of pianists. Even so, an hour would have been plenty. After all, mortification of the flesh may lead saints to heaven – but in itself it's no guarantee of a profound musical experience.
The Guardian
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It is trance-like': pianist Igor Levit performs Erik Satie's Vexations 840 times
Given that he was about to start playing the same piano piece 840 times, for no less than 16 unbroken hours, you could have forgiven Igor Levit for appearing panicked as he walked on stage at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall on Thursday morning. But the German pianist, who this morning began a marathon concert in which he would play Erik Satie's Vexations to hundreds of people for hours on end, simply arranged his sheet music, gave a little laugh – maybe at the absurdity of what he had signed up for – and began to play. About 150 people had paid to stay for the duration of the marathon performance, which is a collaboration between Levit and the Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramović. It is thought to be the first time the piece will be played in its entirety by the same person live in the UK. Others opted to pop in for hour-long sessions throughout the day and into the evening, with the last slot beginning at 11pm and lasting until the bitter end. Jacob Povey, a 29-year-old nurse, was in it for the long haul. 'It's such a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,' he said as he waited for doors to open. 'I've managed five hours before at Christian Marclay's film installation, The Clock, so I know I've got something like that in me. I'll be in and out, but hopefully I'm here at the end … whenever it does actually end.' Written in 1893 for keyboard, Vexations is between one and two minutes long when played once. But a note from Satie on the manuscript – 'In order to play this motif 840 times in a row, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, through serious immobilities' – has inspired several artists throughout the years to attempt just that. A marathon performance of the piece in 1963, organised by John Cage and played in shifts by various pianists, including Christian Wolff, lasted 19 hours and was called 'musical history' by the New York Times. Levit, whose first performance of the piece was streamed from his Berlin apartment during the Covid-19 lockdown, has done it before in 15 and a half hours. For many visiting, it was less about the music and more about the performance, which featured pieces of the modular stage being taken apart and turned into sculptural chairs. 'One of the things that struck me was how unmemorable that piece of music was,' said Dave Hallberry, 69, who had come along to the performance with his wife, Noreen, and 18-year-old daughter, Sorcha. 'Even now, I don't think I could sing it to you and I've just been listening to it for an hour. There's something about the combination of notes that makes you want to keep listening to it.' Abramović worked with the lighting designer Urs Schönebaum to create a mirror-like effect above the piano. 'I kept switching my view between the mirror and the stage,' said Clare Maleeny, a 24-year-old film editor. 'It was trance-like.' Ruth Davis, a 69-year-old Alexander teacher, was more familiar with the piece than most. 'They said it was the first time that it's been played live in the UK,' she said. 'Which is not true: I played this piece in front of an audience in 1983 for my second-year performance at Leicester Polytechnic and it lasted 11 hours and 43 minutes. I starved myself for two days before. It's really quite a difficult piece to play!' Luckily, Levit had two onstage helpers nearby to provide him with sustenance and mop his brow. And as for the key question on everyone's mind – how he went to the toilet – a screen was on standby to go up around the piano. Many, though, worried about his comfort and wondered whether he'd go the distance. 'The chair wasn't great,' said Hallberry. 'I thought he'd have some sort of comfy office chair or something.' Speaking to the Guardian earlier this year, Abramović said the chair can turn into a bed, 'so that he can lie next to the piano for 10 or 15 minutes if he needs to'. For the audience, as much as for Levit, it will be a test of endurance. 'I will have to leave for toilet break and eating and so on,' said Nick Manrique, a 26-year-old PhD student. 'But I'm stubborn – I'm quite determined to see it through.' Tickets for Igor Levit's performance of Vexations are still available, and can be bought at the Southbank Centre box office.
South China Morning Post
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Marina Abramovic directs pianist Igor Levit in 16-hour marathon Erik Satie performance
Classical pianist Igor Levit takes to a London stage this week for an epic musical endurance test directed by performance artist Marina Abramovic. Advertisement Levit is aiming to be the first person to solo play Vexations, a single sheet of music repeated 840 times, in a public performance expected to last at least 16 hours. The audience at central London's Queen Elizabeth Hall will witness 'silence, endurance, immobility and contemplation, where time ceases to exist', according to Abramovic on the venue's website. Written by Erik Satie in 1893, Vexations' is described as 'one of classical music's most simple, yet arduous and demanding works'. Pianist Igor Levit. He has live-streamed a solo performance of Eirk Satie's Vexations but will be the first person to do so on a concert stage when he plays it in London this week. Photo: Felix Broede for Sony Classical Satie's manuscript included a composer's note instructing that it should be repeated 840 times, a feat which generally takes between 16-20 hours of continuous playing. Advertisement During the Covid-19 pandemic, Levit live-streamed a Vexations performance from a Berlin studio.
eNCA
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- eNCA
Pianist to perform London musical marathon
LONDON - Classical Russian-German pianist Igor Levit takes to a London stage this week for an epic musical endurance test directed by the world-famous Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic. Levit is aiming to be the first person to solo play "Vexations", a single sheet of music repeated 840 times, in a public performance expected to last at least 16 hours. The audience at central London's Queen Elizabeth Hall will witness "silence, endurance, immobility and contemplation, where time ceases to exist", according to Abramovic on the venue's website. Written by Erik Satie in 1893, "Vexations" is described as "one of classical music's most simple, yet arduous and demanding works". Satie's manuscript included a composer's note instructing that it should be repeated 840 times, a feat which generally takes between 16-20 hours of continuous playing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Levit livestreamed a "Vexations" performance from a Berlin studio. He also streamed dozens of "concerts" from his flat in the German city to highlight the challenges faced by artists during lockdown. Although numerous pianists playing in succession have succeeded in performing "Vexations" over the years, it has rarely been completed in its entirety by a single musician. Tickets have been priced from £32 for a one hour slot with others available for the full-length performance. Levit, who is a professor at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, has released a dozen albums of classical works including Beethoven's complete piano sonatas and concertos by Brahms. Levit told The Guardian daily he'd "never tell an audience" what they should hope to experience. "But I would encourage people to just literally let it go. There is no agenda in this piece. There is no meaning to it," he said. "It's just empty space, so just dive into that and let go. That would be the dream," he added. Abramovic, 78, an art world icon, has earned worldwide acclaim for her work that has frequently tested her own physical and mental endurance. In one of her best known early works Rhythm O, Abramovic invited audiences to interact with her in any way they chose which resulted in a loaded gun being held to her head.
The Guardian
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘He will not leave the stage. Ever': Marina Abramović and Igor Levit on their marathon 16-hour concerty
Amid the experiments and cross-genre collaborations in this year's Multitudes festival is one event that will challenge its performer as much as its audience – and the only one where specially appointed brow-moppers will be on hand. At 10am on 24 April in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, pianist Igor Levit will begin a performance of a single piece, Erik Satie's Vexations, in a concert that will last at least 16 hours. A few tickets (for the full duration or one-hour slots) are still available for this extreme pianist endurance event. What should the audience expect to get out of it? 'I'd never tell an audience what they should experience,' says Levit. 'But I would encourage people to just literally let it go. There is no agenda in this piece. There is no meaning to it. It's just empty space, so just dive into that and let go. That would be the dream.' In May 2020, Levit found in the Covid lockdown, and the series of solo concerts he livestreamed from his Berlin apartment, an excuse to fulfil his dream of tackling this pianistic challenge. His first performance of Vexations was streamed from an empty room; it lasted 15 hours and 29 minutes. Satie's slight piece, a simple phrase that alone is perhaps 1-2 minutes long, was written in 1893 for keyboard (Satie didn't specify the exact instrument). The manuscript included the composer's note to potential performers: 'In order to play this motif 840 times in a row, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, through serious immobilities.' There's no evidence that Satie intended the piece to be performed in this manner, but over the years, artists such as John Cage have organised marathons at which the feat of repeating the piece 840 times has been accomplished by a succession of different pianists. It has rarely been played in its entirety by the same person, and never before live in the UK. During his 2020 meditations, Levit says he kept returning to the work of his friend, the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović. 'I thought, this is the musical embodiment of what Marina has been doing all these years,' he says, citing her method of counting individual grains of rice over hours to experience the benefits of self-discipline and mindfulness. 'You have this weird piece, a minute and a half long, which doesn't make any sense, which is neither beautiful or not, it's just there. And Satie didn't even say 'play it 840 times'; all he says is 'in order to do so, you should do X, Y and Z'. I thought Marina would love that.' He started talking to Abramović about the piece about two years ago, and the resulting collaboration has its world premiere next week, when the 38-year-old Russian-German pianist will perform Vexations in full without leaving the stage – and this time in front of an actual audience. Levit calls it 'chapter two' in his artistic collaboration with Abramović. The pair first blended their talents in 2015, for a production of the Goldberg Variations at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, an idea they hatched in London over an evening of Slavic soup and jokes. For this event the audience were prepared by having their mobile phones locked away and sitting in silence for 30 minutes as the piano slowly glided around and down the onstage runway. The duo's affection and mutual respect is evident as we speak on a video call. Levit, in Berlin, is munching on peanuts. Abramović, in New York, emerges on screen and scolds her 'genius boy'. 'You shouldn't eat peanuts because they can collect mould,' she says crossly. 'Since when do I listen to you?' he retorts, and so their playful banter continues. No one except Abramović, who has been plotting the QEH show these past months at her New York studio, knows quite what to expect from it. The performance, she explains, will shape and shift over the hours. The podium on which the piano sits is detachable and its different parts will fragment, like the pieces of a puzzle. 'We are creating some kind of sculptural element on the stage,' she says. Renowned lighting designer Urs Schönebaum is working with her to create mirror-like effects. The set will reflect back on itself, she explains. 'Everything you see down, you can see up.' The audience will be steeped in the Abramović method (the idea of using meditative repetition to enhance one's consciousness, applied this time to classical music). The Southbank Centre has warned of 'adult content', though Abramović insists this has nothing to do with her plans, and is likely 'British over-caution', based on her previous, often risque exploits. Even Levit seems unaware of what she has in store. 'I cannot say what will happen, except you can expect me to be there and start playing,' he says. 'Maybe it's going to be dreadful. Maybe I will realise that I can only do it alone. And maybe it's going to be the most fantastic thing ever. Who knows?' And what if he needs to pee? 'I have a screen which goes up around the area of the piano,' says Abramović. 'And his seat can turn into a bed, so that he can lie next to the piano for 10 or 15 minutes if he needs to. There will be two assistants, one each side of the stage, who can wipe his brow or bring him food and drink. If they get any sign from him that he needs anything, they'll be there. But Igor will never leave the stage, ever,' she says firmly. She describes the performance as a study in being in the present. 'If you start talking about how much time has passed, and how much time is in the future, you've lost the concept. Igor has to be there now, in the space where there is no time, and the public has to go into that space. It is the same thing that happens when you count rice. 'You're going to go completely to another level of time, consciousness and experience.' Will she be on stage? 'I'm introducing the piece, and then I'll be in the public, but I will not be babysitting him.' Born in the Russian city of Gorki in 1987, Levit grew up in Hanover, northern Germany. His intensity and doughtiness as a performer and as an often outspoken political campaigner have earned him global acclaim and respect, but he has pulled back from social media in recent years after death threats and many antisemitic attacks. He says he's no less passionate about the issues that move him (refugees, Ukraine, Israel) but feels the necessity to concentrate on piano playing. 'The darker the world gets, the more I'd like to be the pianist that I am, and the more art we should create, the more music we should make. It is literally a tool of mental and emotional survival. For me, at least, I can say it becomes more and more existential.' 'In my world, which is pushing down keys in black and white, creating sound, creating noise, playing melodies and sharing this with other people, there is no war, no cynicism, no power games – at least not in a bad way. There is, in the best case, transcendence, so there's a reason to live in my world, and I would like to share this.' Abramović agrees. 'If you spend your time looking at television, listening to the news, this horrible, ugly face of Donald Trump all the time, [or with] the diarrhoea of social media, you're really lost. You have to create your own sense of peace in yourself.' But why is Levit prepared to put himself through such a potentially gruelling experience for a piece of music that he admits it is hard to be passionate about? 'It's not about reaching a goal. I've never cared for goals. I am a process person,' he says. 'And so my answer, from the bottom of my heart, is because I can, and because I want to, and because I need it. I have the chance to do it with this beautiful lady, and we have been given the space. The main answer is just because. Full stop. That's it.' Vexations is at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London on 24-25 April
