Mendelssohn Alkan Lieder Ohne Worte CD

Release Date: January 26, 2024

CD Edition

Igor Levit releases a new album as a personal artistic reaction to the October 7 attacks on Israel and the current rise in antisemitism worldwide. The album features his selection of Felix Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" and concludes with a Prelude by French Romantic composer Charles-Valentin Alkan. Igor Levit and his team have donated their time free of charge, and all proceeds will be donated to two German organizations fighting antisemitism: the Counseling Center for Antisemitic Violence and Discrimination OFEK and the Kreuzberg Initiative Against Antisemitism.

Igor Levit explains: "I made this recording out of a very, very strong inner need. I spent the first four or five weeks after the October 7 attack in a mixture of speechlessness and complete paralysis. And at some point, it became clear that I had no other tools than to react as an artist. I have the piano. I have my music. And so, the idea came to me to record these works, the "Songs Without Words" and donate the proceeds of this recording to two wonderful organizations that work in my hometown, here in Berlin, to help people who are victims of antisemitism and to help young people avoid falling into the clutches of antisemitism. It is my artistic reaction, as a person, as a musician, as a Jew, to what I have felt in recent weeks and months. Or to be more precise, it is one of many reactions that came to me."

The album contributes to Igor Levit's fight against rising antisemitism. He has recently spoken about its alarming escalation in many prominent German media outlets and discussed its impact on Jews today with the German Vice Chancellor on the 85^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a video of which was released online. In November, he also traveled to Tel Aviv to play for the families of Israeli hostages and, more recently, organized a solidarity concert with numerous prominent German musicians, authors, and presenters, as well as Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer, with proceeds donated to the same two organizations as the album. He plans to organize similar solidarity concerts in more countries in due course.