In classical circles, a performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations by a rising-star pianist like Igor Levit would be enough to compel attention. After all, Levit’s new recording of the Bach touchstone – on a three-CD set that also includes visionary, variation-style opuses by Beethoven and Frederic Rzewski – has already attracted favorable press notices.  Yet this week, at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory, Levit’s live performances will be surrounded by an additional artistic program that is meant to complement the presentation of Bach’s enduringly popular piano work. For these dates, Levit is collaborating with artist Marina Abramović on an installation environment, intended to deliver the audience into a collective state of purer listening.  Upon entering the Armory, ticket-holders will be presented with numbered keys, which will lead to individual lockers installed in the venue’s spacious foyer. Inside a specific locker, each audience member will find an initial round of instructions (to surrender their cellphones, watches, computers, and other trappings of the distracted self). Then, in the Armory’s massive Drill Hall space, attendees will be given noise-canceling headphones before choosing one of the reclining deck chair-style seats (arranged in the round).  At first, there will be nothing at all in the auditorium’s makeshift center. And for 30 minutes, listeners will be required to wait, in silence and near-darkness. Meantime, at the rear of the hall, a raised, moving platform will slowly drag Levit closer to the audience. When the centimeter-by-centimeter approach of the musician and his instrument is complete, listeners will remove their headphones after a gong has signalled the appropriate time.  Only then will the Goldberg Variations begin.  Think of it as the application of “the Abramović method” – her performance-art exercises meant to increase mindfulness – to appreciation of the western classical canon.  Interviewed together at the Armory last week, before rehearsals, both Abramović and Levit stressed that there will be no trace of installation-style performance alongside the presentation of Bach’s music. “Only under one condition can this work out,” Levit remembered saying during his first discussions with Abramović. “There is no installation for Goldberg. From the moment the first note of the Goldberg is there, anything else is out.”  “There is lighting. But there is no performance on top of Goldberg. There is no performance to ‘lift up’ … You can’t lift up the Goldbergs. There is music where you can argue, ‘Is it music or is it not?’ Is 4’33” music? Is Vexations music? Or is it something more? … Here, you can create a space, you can create an atmosphere, but you can’t re-create a new piece. And you shouldn’t create a new piece.”  Abramović said her role was restricted to providing Levit with “a different public” than he would normally find in a concert hall. “I never went into the classical music territory [before]. It’s completely new and fresh for me,” the artist said. Observing that her most famous work “is always about me”, she added that she is currently relishing her background role on this project.  “Finally, I’m serving something else. And that’s a really good feeling. You really have to deal with your ego in a completely different way … It’s really important to prepare the audience to listen to Bach in the best possible condition.”  Abramović said her interest in this project was spurred by her reading some of the (many) press reviews of concerts that have been interrupted by cellphone activity. “It was really interesting because it was just on my line, you know? … Today, in the 21st century, we don’t have the capacity to listen to classical music in a form that was done before.” She includes herself in this diagnosis, as well. “We are trapped in technology because we are so unbelievably impressed by technology … Technology is not the problem, our approach to technology is the problem. Like kids, fascinated, we spend days on these fucking phones.” She dug in her bag and presented two devices for my review. “I have two phones now, not one. And then just this idea that you’re constantly being in contact. That’s why I am making this Abramović method – for myself, too.”  A few seconds later, one of Abramović’s phones rang, and she briefly excused herself from the room. Levit, who clearly enjoys a humorous rapport with the performance artist, looked at me with a mischievous air and said: “She hates technology, right?”  Asked how he planned to approach these performances of the Goldberg Variations – after his own nightly, half-hour immersion in silence – he demurred a bit. “I can’t really say. I’m not afraid of the word interpretation.” This in-the-moment approach is encouraged by Abramović. Discussing the pianist’s engagement with her method, she said: “We never rehearse the full time. Yesterday we rehearsed only ten minutes. I don’t want him to rehearse 30 minutes [of silence]. Why? Because from my performance experience, I realize that you absolutely have to rely on the energy of the public. If you just sit [in] the empty space for the 30-minute rehearsal, this is pure torture.”  The pianist added: “I strongly believe it’s the people who make the hall. It’s not the hall that makes the people.” Referring again to Rzewski (with whom he has studied), Levit observed that the composer-pianist “gave an extraordinary concert in April. There are excerpts of it on YouTube, where he plays The People United Will Never Be Defeated in a fish market, in Pittsburgh ... and in this moment it is the most perfect space of them all.”  “Therefore, I really think that I need to rehearse – I need to work on the piece – but it will be the audience who are making the space.”
The artist is collaborating with pianist Igor Levit to fully immerse audiences in the Goldberg Variations – an effort that involves sitting in extended silence before the performance