Igor Levit Quotes

I have one guy that I really have to talk to once a day, and if I don't talk to him once a day, I really feel like something is not completed. This is, like, an attraction story.

I'm much better at saying something on the answering machine than texting.

The most unique thing about music making is sharing.

When I play, what I see are people who mean something to me, both positively and negatively. It's my private life, in a way, what I see, and this is what I share.

I always talk about the hierarchy of art, and I always put music on the top of everything, because it's so immaterial.

People can text with two hands and are so fast and I am not... I just have that one person I want to talk to.

There are no musically untalented people.

You never know what you're going to share. I can play, I know what is written - the marks, the things the composer tells me to do - and I do it, but it will still sound different each day.

If an artist tells you "this is an oak tree," then it better be an oak tree. It's how you proclaim things; if you say "the silence is the music," then it's the music.

I'm not good at texting because I'm an older generation, old school. And nobody ever listens to the answering machine anymore. It's terrible.

Musical talent is maybe something, but there are no unmusical people. You're moved by music. It's total rubbish to say, "Oh, I'm unmusical." It doesn't exist; it's ridiculous.

When you have humor, you have a base for collaboration. It is very important.

I think after music is performance because it is also an immaterial form of art, and then there's everything else.