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Hanover (dpa) - The pianist Igor Levit endured a lot of criticism in the Corona year - but wants to continue fighting anti-Semitism.
“The hardship has undoubtedly increased,” said the 33-year-old to the editorial network Germany (RND).
"It has changed a lot in my relationship between me and my country," he said to criticism that was anti-Jewish.
He emphasized: “Anyone who declares other people to be second-class people has me as an opponent - on all digital, analog, verbal, democratically legitimized channels.
And that's why I won't stop being active and at the same time a pianist. "
It was legitimate to criticize his work, Levit said in the interview.
«But to claim that I am a fake, that in everything I do, I always pretend - that is not only really violent, that is exactly the criticism that Richard Wagner in his essay" Das Judenthum in der Music "formulated about Jewish composers: namely that they can only imitate and not create culture themselves."
With his house concerts on Twitter in 2020, Levit also reached people who have little access to classical music.
That also helped him: “I am not a Samaritan organization.
The fact that so many people listened to me in the first lockdown also kept me mental. "