This was the first time I have heard Igor Levit. They say “he is the future” (LA Times), however, to my ears, he sounded 2000 and late.

The Bach gave a basic impression – the D Major opening didn’t seem particularly triumphant or festive. The runs that some might consider brilliant were about as blurry as the background image on the cover of the program notes. The sublime Allemande, with all of Mr. Levit’s tempo changes, fell apart into pieces. The most exciting thing was the brief memory slip in the left hand during the B section. Toward the end, there was a spark of energy in the Gigue, but the tempo was too brisk to hear any definition in the individual lines. Perhaps Mr. Levit wanted to present an intimate Bach – but it was simply quiet, like looking at a 1:144 model airplane instead of the real thing.

What always amazes me about Schubert is the omnipresence of the vocal aspect in the music. Mr. Levit’s interpretation reminded me of Meek Mill’s attempt to vocalize and publish a diss track aimed at Drake last Fall. What did he mean to say? Perhaps he was thinking along the lines of Alfred Hitchcock (“messages are for the Western Union”). I certainly didn’t get a message. Maybe that’s a good thing. The silence Mr. Levit held after the final piece was dramatic, but seemed more like awkward theatre given the circumstances.

The Beethoven started with an extreme pianissimo – an effect that Mr. Levit revisited several times during the piece, and paid a high price for in the Recitative – the extreme effect backfired and he lost two notes to complete silence before the return of the allegro, the return of which was not in tempo and needed to accelerate back to the original pace.

Mr. Levit took the movement out of the second movement. It was either so bad it was good, or so good it was bad, I’m not sure. In the third beat of measure 6, I’m pretty sure there is a b natural in the left hand instead of the b flat we heard tonight.

The allegretto was more of an allegro con brio. But who cares about tempo? The painful sighs at bar 42 were played harshly, and the primary motif enunciated with careful attention to the sixteenth note rests – Mr. Levit was true to the score and clearly serving the music and composer. Would Beethoven have been proud of that?

Prokofiev gave a larger sense of scale of sound, and showed a peek of the dimension Mr. Levit was missing up until this point in the program. But this too left more to desire – the loud sections peaked quickly, and the finale came to an end before I realized there was a build up.

Mr. Levit received several ovations, and the Polka encore deserved a C for contrast given that earlier in the evening we were supposed to live through Beethoven’s only Sonata in D minor (that’s a big deal), and Bach’s D Major – happiness that can only be felt after having lost everything.

I guess the only question left is – do we really need another recital series endowed in perpetuity? Or do we need to find an Artist for whom we would break down doors to come see and who would sell out the hall within 10 minutes of the announcement?

#whatatimetobealive.