House Concert

Selected as one of Richard Fairman's Best Classical Music Books of 2022 in the Financial Times
 
"Igor Levit is like no other pianist."
Alex Ross, The New Yorker
 
"House Concert captures that risky spirit of serendipity, seriousness and joy that defines Igor Levit's music making."
Fiona Maddocks, The Observer
 
"absorbing and highly readable... House Concert explores what it is to be a professional musician in the 21st century, and charts Levit's career from an unknown young pianist to an internationally-acclaimed performer who plays to sold-out houses around the world."
Interlude
 
"Few musicians are as bold as (Igor Levit) has been in using the concert platform to speak about issues beyond music. In House Concert he is clear about why he felt compelled to do so, careful to reiterate precisely what he has said - and how he has been misreported - and honest in his admission of missteps. Most compellingly, he and Zinnecker relate his political development to his performing career. For the pianist, and his amanuensis, there is no separating the impulse to play... from the compulsion to call-out bigotry and xenophobia."
VoxCarnyx
 
"This absorbing and highly readable book is neither diary nor straightforward artist biography... It not only showcases the remarkable achievements of a charismatic classical musician, it also reveals their anxieties and doubts, strengths and weaknesses, and offers an important snapshot of the difficulties faced by professional musicians in a highly competitive industry riven with convention, power structures and tradition."
The Cross-Eyed Pianist
 
"Igor Levit is an original and valuable musician. He follows no leaders, leads no followers, and it is refreshingly impossible to predict what will interest him next."
Wall Street Journal
 
"a revealing look into the mind of a thoughtful, searching, driven artist navigating a world in which the old rules of performance have lost their validity. Like a Levit musical performance, this book lingers long after the last note is sounded."
Library Journal
 
"revealing,... thought-provoking, unquestionably interesting"
Gramophone