How classical musicians are adapting to coronavirus lockdowns

The German-Russian pianist Igor Levit live-streamed Erik Satie’s 20-hour-long piece ‘Vexations’ last week in an act of solidarity with out-of-work musicians, writes Michael Church

Marathon man: Levit performs the work via live video stream (Getty)

Running into jazz pianist Nikki Yeoh in the street, I ask if she’s streaming like almost every other pianist in the business during the coronavirus pandemic. She replies that of all the possible performing modes, home streaming is her least favourite. Lighting and sound engineers, a proper acoustic, and an audience are essential, she says, for a satisfying experience.

She’s right, of course, but nonetheless there are some bravely shining pianistic lights amid the gloom. Llyr Williams should have been playing his Beethoven sonata cycle at the Festival de Mayo in Mexico, but instead, we get him playing to us from his soft-lit drawing room in Wales. And with this naturally rather withdrawn person, the intimacy of the performance – aided by veteran sound recordist Mike Hatch for Signum Records – is every bit as satisfying as it would have been in the Wigmore Hall. There’s a sweet calmness in the adagio of Sonata No 5 and controlled aggression in the warlike first movement of Opus 22; Llyr is clearly playing for his own pleasure, and this is contagious.

From Iceland comes something even more surprising, as Vikingur Olafsson makes up for his failure to appear at the Bergen International Festival. He is playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto live in an empty hall in Reykjavik, where a giant video shows the Bergen Philharmonic accompanying him live, under Edward Gardner’s direction, a thousand miles away in Bergen. When the cameras pan around the orchestra, they also show Olafsson as a ghostly presence on another giant screen. The orchestra are scrupulously observing social distancing rules, and the soloists and conductor wear earpieces to keep them in sync when they are not playing together, but, as Gardner observes afterwards, the set-up allows them unusual freedom, as though they were playing chamber music. And it’s a fine performance.