The pianist Igor Levit is a person of big, ambitious ideas — both at the keyboard and away from it.
In 2013, he made his audacious recording debut at 26 with the final five Beethoven piano sonatas, a mammoth task. (Promise made, and promise kept: He went on to record all 32 of them in a widely praised complete cycle.) He is a politically outspoken presence onstage and off. He takes on surprising juxtapositions, such as staging a traversal of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations with the performance artist Marina Abramovic. He is a restless spirit, seeming to be more comfortable with intensity than temperance.
Now, he’s taking another big risk. In a time when many musicians have come to think of recording as more of a merch opportunity than a career pillar, and when Spotify and other streaming platforms are increasingly stacked with slop generated by artificial intelligence, Levit announced on Friday that he would found a new recording imprint called No Silence, in partnership with his longtime label, Sony.
Levit said in a recent interview that he would retain control over all the label’s creative decisions, while Sony handled distribution. He is introducing No Silence this fall with three albums: one featuring him in music by Beethoven (arranged by Liszt) and Schoenberg; another of him performing Satie’s “Vexations”; and the recording debut of a young pianist, Lukas Sternath, playing music by Schubert and Liszt.
In the interview, Levit — voluble, quick-witted and peppering his remarks with vulgarities — explained why he wanted to build his own creative domain and how he envisions it as just one tent pole in an even larger project. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Tell me a little bit about the catalyst for starting a record label. Why a label, and why now?
Now, because finally all the pieces came into place. But this has been an ongoing thought project for at least five to six years. There was no real catalyst for it, other than my entrepreneurial energy. I always wanted to build my own house, in a way. I’ve always been thinking about institutionalizing all my activities — as an artist, but also as a teacher, as a mentor, as a political person, as someone who writes occasionally.
Right, but it’s a very different landscape these days than it was in years past.
Obviously, the whole ballgame has changed over the last few years. I’m not doing this for myself alone. I would like to sign artists. Now, I know full well that times have changed. The whole economics of recording have changed. The label is only the beginning. No Silence is the roof, and under the roof, there are several houses I would like to build.
There are no limits to the genre. It begins as a label with two classical musicians. But I can’t say whom I will encounter next.
So, you’re starting the house with the record label within this No Silence complex, so to speak. And then what?
I envision a foundation, an academy, a festival, maybe a publishing platform, and inviting great minds, from journalists to thinkers, politicians, artists, etc., in the best tradition. I know it sounds vague and big, but I’m making a stance for what I am for. It is the stance for beauty, for curiosity, for resistance. With the label, I would simply like to meet the greatest, most exciting artists, and help them become artistic thermonuclear bombs in the world.
Why did you name it No Silence?
After Oct. 7 [the Hamas-led attack on Israel], I organized the event Against Silence, Against Antisemitism. It was a very beautiful, meaningful event to me. Some colleagues and friends came and performed, classical musicians, rock bands, actors, actresses, and rappers. During this time, I had emotional problems. I could hardly speak. For a couple of months, I would just stop in the middle of a sentence. I broke several holy rules of my life back then, one of them being that I never drink alone. Well, I sure broke that rule in the months between October and March. Anyway, on the bus ride home from the event, I thought: no silence.
So tell me more specifically about the first few releases, which will all be out this fall.
There are two of mine, and one of a young artist I’ve signed. One of mine is the first release in a new project of mine. I’ve recorded the third Beethoven symphony, the “Eroica,” in a transcription by Franz Liszt, and I combined it with Arnold Schoenberg’s “Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte.” They’re both pieces of resistance, where the soul of “no silence” is central. In the Schoenberg, there’s also Yiddishkeit, which means a lot to me. One by one, I will record all nine Beethoven symphonies in the Liszt transcriptions.
The second recording I did, that was a fun one. I walked into the recording studio, my engineer pushed the “record” button, and in one go, I played through Erik Satie’s “Vexations”: 840 repeats, and it took me around 16 hours. There are no edits. It’s kind of bonkers to do that, but it was really great fun. It’s also a gesture, to show that there is no artistic limit under the roof of No Silence.
The third release is the debut album of an extraordinary young pianist, Lukas Sternath, who came into my life with force six and a half years ago. When he first played for me, it was clear to me even then that he is someone who will become an essential artist of our time. He’s my friend. He’s also my student, but I can’t teach him piano playing anymore. He’s recorded Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy, and Liszt’s “Dante” Sonata and some Schubert songs in transcriptions by Liszt.
What do you see lacking in the current structures of the label world?
It’s not about what I see lacking. I think there can never be enough of these spaces. I have the network to do it, I want to broaden my network, and I want to help young musicians find their voices. There can never be enough artistic interventions, let’s put it that way. There cannot be enough in this world of artistic voices exploding, of making the world more beautiful. So little makes sense today, and this makes sense.
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