25-04-2025
Vexations review — Igor Levit's magnificent musical marathon
Is Erik Satie's Vexations an avant-garde work of genius, a practical joke, or the classical music equivalent of watching paint dry? The composer — whose works also include True Flabby Preludes (for a Dog) — wrote the piece in 1893 after his heart had been shredded by his girlfriend, with the deadpan instruction that it should be performed a mind-addling 840 times.
If ever there was a pianist born to investigate the work, billed to run for a minimum of 16 hours at the Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall, it was the intellectually restless, artistically uncompromising Igor Levit. On Thursday morning I joined the crowd — 150 of us had committed to go the whole distance, while more lightweight (or sane?) enthusiasts opted for bitesize
