Pianists and Vampires Orchestral Reductions: Igor Levit's Tristan, and Beethoven for Three from Ax, Kavakos and Ma Copper Magazine, issue 175, November 2022 Listen to audio narration here (11 mins) Tristan, Igor Levit (Sony, 2022) EVEN AS THEY SURVEY the widest solo repertoire of all, pianists are always stealing material written for others. They’re not happy with their two bravura Brahms concertos that work both as virtuoso showpieces and on a symphonic scale; they want to play the Brahms Violin Concerto in transcription and pretend they can hold a note as beautifully as any fiddler (pianist Dejan Lazic dared to record his version as “Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 3” (!) after Violin Concerto, Op. 77). Franz Liszt turned all of Beethoven’s symphonies into two- and four-hand piano transcriptions for the sheer joy of playing this music as recreation. As pianos became a piece of furniture throughout the 19th century, before radio and television, it signaled both educated status and a familial orientation.