>> this federal judge's son was murdered, her husband wounded, in a brazen and well-planned attack on her home. "60 minutes" has learned that same gunman had another jurist on his hit list. >> they found another gun, a glock, more ammunition. but the most troubling thing they found was a manila folder with a workup on justice sonia sotomayor. ( ticking )

>> what's going on, lou? >> "60 minutes" has been following elderly participants in a study called 90+. and, as you'll hear tonight, what they're finding out about the science of longevity is evolving and amazing. >> half of all children born today in the united states and europe is going to reach their 103rd or 104th birthday. >> half? >> yes. ( ticking ) ( playing beethoven's piano concerto no. 3 ) >> as concert halls in the u.s. and europe begin slowly to reopen, we bring you the story of pianist igor levit, a 34- year-old classical colossus. ♪ during the pandemic, he told us he has missed his audiences dreadfully. so, tonight, we thought we'd introduce him to ours. ♪ ( ticking ) >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker.

>> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes." ( ticking ) where therere's commititment. ththere's confnfidence. where ththere's teteamwork.. there'e's trust. wherevever there's's hope... we'll be t there to tatake ca. walk i in or schededule your covid-d-19 vaccinene with c cvs pharmacacy at targ. digiororno has seven n delicious s crusts. and d your familily food crirs will ravave. "c"croissant c crust is flfy lalayers of bubuttery blisi" "rising crcrust is fresh-h-baked deliliciousnes" ththere's a fifive-star pipia for evereryone in yoyour famimily to loveve. it's n not deliverery. it's digioiorno. for evereryone in yoyour famimily to loveve. soso you're finallyly supportg his rock s star dream.m... because you know you have a plan to pay it off. buy nonow, pay latater, with plan n it. one ofof the many y things youn expect whehen you're with amam. new prprojects meaeans new w project mamanagers. you needed to hire..

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>> bill whitaker: half the time, someone is unhappy with a judge's ruling. the normal recourse is an appeal, but, in the caustic atmosphere of today's politics, there's a real chance the disgruntled party will threaten the judge. in the last five years, threats of federal judges have jumped 400% to more than 4,000 last

year, many of them death threats sometimes ending in violence. as we first reported earlier this year, judges are breaking with tradition and publicly calling on lawmakers to provide more protection. one of the strongest voices is federal judge esther salas. last july, she was at home in new jersey, in the basement with her son daniel, cleaning up after his 20th birthday party, when a man disguised as a fedex driver pulled up outside. >> esther salas: danny turned arund and he said, "let's keep talking. i love talking to you, mom." and it was at that exact moment that the doorbell rang. and before i could stop him, he just shot up the stairs. the next thing i hear is "boom." it just sounded like a mini bomb. and then i hear "no." and then i hear "boom, boom, boom." and i just screamed, "what is happening?"

when i got upstairs, it was-- it was something no mother should ever see. >> whitaker: daniel, lying bleeding by the door; mark, her husband, on his knees, holding his side. daniel was barely clinging to life. >> salas: i-- i didn't even know what to do. i remember picking up his shirt and seeing the bullet hole. you know, we were screaming," daniel, hold on" and "don't leave us." and then i just-- as i think about that day, i just-- i realize i was watching my only child fade away. >> whitaker: daniel died on the way to the hospital. mark is lucky to be alive. how seriously injured was he? >> salas: mark was shot three times, in the right chest, left abdomen, in the arm. >> whitaker: a close-knit family, they called themselves the three musketeers. judge salas told us daniel, a

college sophomore, was the center of their universe. from his wounds, the f.b.i. said, it appeared daniel had tried to block the gunman. when did you realize that the attack was meant for you? >> salas: it wasn't until the f.b.i. debriefings. they'd looked at this case inside and out, tell me "ma'am, you were the target. he wanted to get you." >> whitaker: the shooter was roy den hollander, a 72-year-old lawyer. he harbored deep hatred for women, and left behind a bitter manifesto. he accused judge salas of being a "lazy latina," dragging her feet on his lawsuit. police found his body the next day. he had shot himself. the f.b.i. discovered he had killed another lawyer a week before. then he went hunting for judge salas. >> salas: he knew where, obviously, where i lived. he knew my routes to work.

he knew the church we attended. he had daniel's school. he knew baseball games. just a complete workup on me and my family. >> whitaker: the information that he got, all from legal sources? >> salas: all "open sources," they call it. >> whitaker: we met judge salas outside her home six months after daniel's murder. she told us her husband needed additional surgery. the house has been sold. 20 years of wonderful memories, she told us, and one that's excruciating. >> salas: we're living every parent's worst nightmare, making preparations to bury-- bury our only child, daniel. >> whitaker: last august, in a highly unusual move for a federal judge, judge salas made a personal plea to lawmakers on youtube. >> salas: we may not be able to stop something like this from

happening again, but we can make it hard for those who target us to track us down. >> whitaker: since daniel's funeral, judge salas has become a crusader for federal legislation to scrub judges' personal information from the internet. her mission became more urgent when the f.b.i. discovered a second locker in new jersey belonging to her son's killer. what did they find? what was in the locker? >> salas: they found another gun, a glock, more ammunition. but the most troubling thing they found, was a manila folder with a workup on justice sonia sotomayor. >> whitaker: supreme court justice sotomayor? >> salas: yes. chilling. >> whitaker: what do you think when you find that a supreme court justice was on his list? >> salas: more than on his list, on his sights. they had her favorite restaurants, where she worked out, her friends.

>> whitaker: our report was the first time that plot was revealed. >> salas: who knows what could have happened? but we need to understand that judges are at risk. we need to understand that we put ourselves in great danger every day for doing our jobs. this fact has to wake us up. as the first hispanic woman to serve as a district court judge... >> whitaker: judge salas told us she never dreamed she'd be putting her family in harm's way when she was sworn in in 2011. the last judicial security upgrade was 15 years ago, after chicago judge joan lefkow came home one night and found her husband and mother shot dead by a disgruntled plaintiff. the new legislation, to be taken up by the senate, is seeking more than $250 million for home security and 1,000 more deputy marshals. it would erase a long list of personal data online, such as a home address, driver's license, and property tax records.

you chose to be a judge. and in becoming a public person, don't you have to give up some of your personal details for the sake of accountability? >> salas: you're right. i did choose to become a public servant. and if anyone has a problem with what i've ruled in a particular case, they can appeal. if anyone is upset, th courthouse address, you know, it's known to everyone. come to the courthouse. but why do you need to come to my house? >> whitaker: we can't show you, but u.s. marshals now provide round-the-clock security for judge salas. she told us judges are increasingly threatened online. last year, there were 4,200 threats against federal judges. she read us a few of those. >> salas: "we," quote, "must start killing these corrupt politicians and judges, and their families," end quote. another one: "the judge is a

traitor and has a death sentence." >> whitaker: and this is since the death of daniel? >> salas: this is since daniel's murder in this very house. one other one just in mississippi. quote, "i will kill you. i just want to get the gun, and come down there, and blow all their brains out." >> state of washington versus donald j. trump... >> whitaker: but perhaps no judge in the country has felt the heat of online threats more than senior u.s. district judge james robart. >> no hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here. >> whitaker: emotions were already running high when judge robart temporarily blocked former president trump's first travel ban, barring some muslim travelers. critics posted his home phone and address online. but nothing prepared him for the tsunami of hate when president trump used his twitter bully pulpit to scorn him as a "so-called judge."

>> james robart: when you call someone a "so-called" judge, what you do is you attack the judiciary. you may not even have wanted to convey that message, but that's the message which your 40 million twitter followers took down, which was, you were never authorized to issue this decision. >> whitaker: death threats flooded in. then president trump tweeted again. if i recall, he also said to blame you if there should be a terrorist attack on the country? >> robart: people took that as somehow i was giving permission for their families to be endangered. and then the tone for a number of the messages turned into," you must be stopped." >> whitaker: what did you think about that? when the president attacks you? >> robart: i thought he had a right to attack my decision. i don't think that criticizing a judge is acceptable. i recognize there's a dispute on that. there is no dispute at the point that you start to talk about"

i'm going to kill you" or "i'm going to hurt you," or more importantly to me, "i'm going to hurt your family," that's over the line and can't be tolerated. >> whitaker: judge robart was bombarded with 40,000 messages. 1,100 were serious enough to be investigated. there were so many death threats that u.s. marshals set up camp around the judge's house. >> robart: the idea of needing a you know, bomb-sniffing dog to go into a restaurant before we could have lunch, impacts you. but you just try to, you know, not let that bother you. >> whitaker: that actually happened? >> robart: ( laughs ) yes. if you want to know how to be really unpopular with restaurant owners, show up with your dog, which runs around the restaurant barking, and a number of u.s. marshals, who are noticeable. >> whitaker: you're chuckling now, but i take it that at the time, you didn't see the humor in this? >> robart: ( sighs ) no, i didn't. >> whitaker: then federal

investigators uncovered something more ominous. thousands of threats that looked to be from americans, were actually from russia, part of a long game by vladimir putin to splinter american democracy. >> suzanne spaulding: if putin can undermine a significant segment of the population's willingness to accept a court's decision, then he can cause chaos in this country. >> whitaker: suzanne spaulding ran top cybersecurity operations for both democratic and republican administrations. she told us russia undermines the justice system by fanning some americans' suspicions that judges are partisan. what did judge robart do to put himself in russia's cross hairs? >> spaulding: they attacked him, his decision, as reflecting his personal political preferences, as opposed to following the rule of law. and that leads people to

conclude that it is appropriate to make threats of violence. and as we saw in the tragic case of judge salas, to actually carry out an attack of violence. >> whitaker: how big a threat do you think this is? >> spaulding: you know, i think we got a taste of that on january 6. >> whitaker: spaulding told us, since the siege of the capitol, there's more pressure on law enforcement to determine which online threats might turn into physical attacks. take the example of this alabama man who answered the online call with a truckload of weapons and a hand-scribbled hit list-- second from the top, an indiana judge. so how do you answer people who will say that, what i say online, even if it's aggressive, it's my first amendment right? >> spaulding: so, you do have a first amendment right to express your opinion, even if it's an unpopular opinion. but threats of violence,

incitement to violence, those are things that law enforcement can legitimately look into, particularly when it's against our public servants. >> whitaker: judge salas lives with those threats. and now that the courthouse has reopened after covid, she told us daniel would want her to keep going. will you be concerned when you reenter this courtroom? >> salas: no. we're changed forever. you know, mark and i are-- are different people today, sadly. but as far as what i do on the bench, no, that's not-- i'm-- that's not going to change. i'm not going to let mr. hollander take that away from me-- my integrity, my work ethic, and my pride. no. he won't take that. >> whitaker: despite promises to fast track the new legislation, the senate still has not taken it up.

threats against federal judges have jumped 25% so far this year to over 1,200. ( ticking ) >> why judge esther salas returned to the bench. >> we're not going to tolerate these acts of violence. >> at 60minutesovertime.com these acts of violence. >> at 60minutesovertime.com sponsored by cologuard. for co? bebecause whenen caught inin y stages, , it's more e treatab. i'i'm cologuarard. i'i'm noninvasasive and dedet altered dndna in your r stool to find 9292% of colonon cas even in n early stagag. tell me e more. it's for p people 45 p plus at averagege risk for cocolon cancerer, not t high risk.k. false e positive a and negatie reresults may y occur. ask yourur prescribeber oror an onlinene prescribebr if cologuauard is righght for . i'm m on it. soununds like a a plan.

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>> lesley stahl: we're a nation living longer and longer. over the next 30 years, the number of americans aged 90 and above is expected to triple, and an n.i.h.-funded research study called 90+ at the university of california irvine is trying to learn all it can right now from a group of men and women who've already managed to get there. in 2014, we reported on their

first set of findings, factors that are associated with longer life: exercise; moderate drinking of alcohol and caffeine' social engagement; and our favorite, putting on a few pounds as we age. the 90+ study's focus is now on memory and dementia. what they've learned, and what they haven't, drew us back last fall, as did the 90+ers. take a quick look at when we first met them in 2014. >> ted rosenbaum: my birthday is february 7, 1918. >> lou tirado: i was born on august 25, 1920, and i'm 93-plus. >> ruthy stahl: june 15, 1918, and it was, i'm sure, a lovely day. ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: the men and women we met six years ago had all agreed to be checked out by the 90-plus study team, top to

bottom, every six months. >> tester: big smile. >> lesley stahl: their facial muscles... >> tester: excellent. >> lesley stahl: ...how they walk, how fast they can stand up and sit down... >> tester: fantastic. >> lesley stahl: ...and critically, how they think. >> tester: now spell "world" backwards. >> jane whistler: d-l-r-o-w. >> lesley stahl: they were an impressive and active group: a b-17 gunner in world war ii. a fellow world war ii vet who drove a convertible. a 95-year-old speed walker. ballroom dancers. >> henry tornell: i asked them, "aren't you going to ask us any questions about our sex life?" and they said no. >> ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: and sadly, some who had begun to struggle with dementia. >> tester: what is today's date? >> rosenbaum: today's date? >> tester: uh-huh. >> rosenbaum: ( sighs ) today's date?

>> lesley stahl: what's the oldest person you have seen? >> claudia kawas: i have seen several 116-year-olds. >> lesley stahl: neurologist claudia kawas, the 90-plus study's lead investigator, says studying the oldest old is increasingly important. >> kawas: half of all children born today in the united states and europe is going to reach their 103rd or 104th birthday. >> lesley stahl: half? >> kawas: yes. >> lesley stahl: half the children t-- born today, are going to live to 100? >> kawas: to 103 or 104. >> helen weil: you know, i don't feel a day older than i was yesterday. ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: they invited us back six years later, and we found some study participants, like helen weil, the ballroom dancer, thriving. >> weil: then i do like so, ten times-- >> lesley stahl: now 99, helen showed us how she exercises in her chair. >> weil: stuff like that. >> tirado: how you doing, jeff? >> what's going on, lou? >> lesley stahl: lou tirado, the world war ii gunner, turned 100

in august. lou is using zoom. when he was a kid, most homes didn't have a radio. do you have an iphone? >> tirado: i have an iphone. >> lesley stahl: are you on facebook? >> tirado: yes. >> lesley stahl: do you use siri? >> weil: yeah, i tell her every evening, "wake me up at t-- 6:30 tomorrow morning." >> lesley stahl: and she does? >> weil: yeah. yes. ( laughs ) >> colette: who is our current president? >> tirado: president is trump. >> colette: who was the president before trump? >> tirado: obama. >> lesley stahl: because of covid-19, the 90-plus study is doing cognitive tests by phone. >> colette: subtract 7 from 100. >> lesley stahl: lou and helen aced them. >> colette: and keep subtracting seven. >> weil: 93, 86, 79... >> kawas: her memory is better than mine. ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: but one of our favorite 90+ers from six years ago, ruthy stahl, is not so lucky.

back then, at 95, she was zipping around in her lime green bug. >> ruthy stahl: i am flying all over the place. >> lesley stahl: but today, at 102, she didn't remember our having met. >> ruthy stahl: and what is your first name? >> lesley stahl: lesley. >> ruthy stahl: that's a nice name. >> lesley stahl: thank you. ( laughter ) ruthy is as charming and upbeat as ever, but her memory is failing. >> colette: the current president, or the president before him, i'll take either. >> ruthy stahl: no, i can't. >> lesley stahl: do you remember your parents? >> ruthy stahl: no. >> lesley stahl: no? oh, my. >> ruthy stahl: that's funny i don't remember them. >> lesley stahl: is it frustrating when you can't remember? >> ruthy stahl: no. >> lesley stahl: no? >> ruthy stahl: it just passes on to something else. ( laughter ) >> lesley stahl: dr. kawas says most people-- probably even most

doctors-- would assume ruthy's memory problems stem from alzheimer's disease, but scientists are finding out more and more about the complexities of what causes dementia. you hear people say, "she got alzheimer's, he has alzheimer's," when they really should say dementia. >> kawas: that's exactly right. dementia is a loss of thinking abilities that affects your memory, your language. it's a syndrome. it's a syndrome kind of like headache is a syndrome. you can have a headache because you've got a brain tumor, or you can have one because you drank too much, and it's the same with dementia. >> lesley stahl: we were sad to learn that some of the 90-plus participants we met in 2014 have passed away. but by donating their brains, as ted rosenbaum did, they are very much still part of the study, contributing some of its most fascinating, and confounding, results. after a participant dies, the 90-plus team gathers to review

mounds of data. now, because of covid, they gather on zoom. >> zara: videos from visit two. >> tester: so tell me what you're going to do when you go home today. >> lesley stahl: ted's test results showed years of memory problems, as we had seen six years ago. >> rosenbaum: give me a hint? >> lesley stahl: the 90-plus team concluded that ted probably had alzheimer's disease, but then awaited results from their collaborators, a team of pathologists at stanford university, who independently examined ted's brain. >> kawas: they don't know anything except the brain they've got in front of them. >> lesley stahl: and then you come together. >> kawas: and then we come together, and it's like a reveal party. >> lesley stahl: the definition of alzheimer's disease is having the proteins amyloid and tau-- often called plaques and tangles-- in the brain. >> syed: okay the home stretch. >> lesley stahl: but when the stanford team made their report,

ted's brain didn't have either. >> syed: as you may see without even zooming in, the section is clear, it's clean. we're negative for beta amyloid here. >> claudia: it actually looks awfully good. >> syed: it actually does, yes. >> lesley stahl: you sit around, you look at that-- what do you conclude? >> kawas: the only pathology we found in his head actually was t.d.p.-43. >> lesley stahl: t.d.p.-43. a breakthrough. it's a newly-identified cause of dementia-- a protein originally found in a.l.s. patients, that kawas now believes accounts for up to one in five cases of dementia in people over 90. can you find out if you have t.d.p.-43 while you're alive? >> kawas: not yet. >> lesley stahl: and you can't find out if you have two other dementia-causing conditions either: tiny strokes called microinfarcts that damage brain tissue; and hippocampal sclerosis-- a shrinking and scarring of part of the brain.

so it's likely that many people in their 90s who are diagnosed with alzheimer's-- >> ruthy stahl: what year? oh... >> lesley stahl: --may actually have something else. >> kawas: there's a whole lot of stuff that goes on in the brain, that we have no way of diagnosing during life. so, we get a lot of those surprises, but we also get surprises where people have an awful lot of pathology in their brain, a lot of alzheimer's disease, a lot of t.d.p. disease. and they still turn out to be normal. >> tornell: let me hold the chair for you. >> lesley stahl: that's what happened with henry tornell, helen weil's ballroom dancing partner who joked about studying sex over 90. henry died at 100 of cancer, mentally sharp as ever. >> claudia: we should all be so lucky. >> lesley stahl: but his brain told a different story. >> syed: beta amyloid, i don't even have to zoom in. florid. very positive. positive as well. >> lesley stahl: the stanford

team found the highest level of plaques and tangles, and t.d.p.- 43. >> syed: t.d.p.-43. >> lesley stahl: especially stunning since more than one pathology typically means more severe dementia. so, he was a huge surprise. >> kawas: he was one of our surprising 90-year-olds who managed to have good cognition in the face of things in their brain that should cause dementia. >> lesley stahl: it used to be that when a person like henry with clear thinking was found to have plaques and tangles, scientists assumed dementia was just a matter of time. but now, they're thinking about it in a new way-- that maybe certain people have protection against dementia, a phenomenon they're calling "resilience." to prove it, though, they need to follow people who are still alive. enter convertible-driving sid shero from our story in 2014. >> technician: let's see. >> lesley stahl: sid had a pet scan back then for the study, which revealed significant

amounts of amyloid in his brain. the question was, would dementia be around the corner, or might sid somehow be "resilient?" ♪ happy birthday to you ♪ >> sid shero: thank you. >> lesley stahl: sid turned 99 this summer. how old do you feel? >> sid shero: i always say 69. >> lesley stahl: sid has circulation problems that affect his breathing. but his memory? well, he told us about buying his first car 80 years ago, for $18, in a pool hall. >> shero: a '31 chevy convertible with a rumble seat. >> lesley stahl: a rumble seat! >> shero: and i didn't know how to drive. >> lesley stahl: you won it in a pool hall. did you win it on a bet? >> shero: i didn't win it. i bought it-- >> lesley stahl: you bought it? >> shero: i gave him $18. >> lesley stahl: who sold a car for $18? >> shero: he needed the money to shoot pool.

>> kawas: so i know he's got at least two pathologies in his head. i know he's got, you know, probably high amounts of alzheimer's, and i know he's got some vascular disease. and we tested him just a couple of weeks ago, and-- >> shero: good morning. >> kawas: --he did great. >> farah: please tell me how many nickels in a dollar? >> shero: 20. >> farah: how many quarters in $6.75. >> shero: 27. >> farah: wow, you are quick! >> lesley stahl: so, is that resilience? >> kawas: i think that is definitely resilience. sid might be what resilience is all about. >> lesley stahl: could it be a gene? >> kawas: it absolutely could be. or maybe even more likely, multiple genes or combinations of genes. >> lesley stahl: here's my observation. >> kawas: okay. >> lesley stahl: you knew more six years ago-- ( laughter ) than you do now. >> kawas: ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: there are just so many questions that we don't know the answers to. more questions. >> kawas: that is really a brilliant observation. >> lesley stahl: and what science is all about.

for every new answer, two new questions. for every new discovery, like t.d.p.-43 dementia, and especially resilience-- new mysteries to solve. so, like its participants, the 90-plus study is keeping at it, trying to help the rest of us make it to age 102 with ruthy's spirit, but memory intact. >> ruthy stahl: it's a shame. >> lesley stahl: it's a shame. >> ruthy stahl: because there's a lot i could remember. ( laughs ) >> lesley stahl: and i'll bet you had a wonderful life. >> ruthy stahl: oh, i have. it's still going on. ( laughs ) thank goodness. ( laughter ) >> stahl: we're sad to report that she passed away in january, six months shy of his 100th birthday, still cognitively sharp. the 90+ team will review his >> i bet you've had a wonderful life. >> i have. it's still going on. thank goodness. >> we're sad to report that sid siro passed away six months shy of his hundredth birtd day, still?[3 cog 95ative sharp. the 90 plus team years of data in their quest to

understand what resilience like sid's may mean for the rest of us. ( ticking )

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automamation can s solve that by takaking on repepetitive tasks fofor us. unleash h your potenential. uipapath. rebootot work. ( ticking ) >> jon wertheim: when the german pianist igor levit was featured as the soloist at the nobel prize ceremony last december, it marked yet another grace note in a career that's quickly grown filled with awards and honors. levit is 34 and already among the brightest stars in the classical music cosmos. but as the pandemic muted and muffled so much music, levit's performances with some of the world's greatest orchestras have been mostly streamed without a live audience; others have been solo recitals over twitter from his berlin living room. as we reported in january, while

igor levit plays in a new way to a new audience, he's reached a conclusion: music is not an extravagance, but a life necessity. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ igor levit is, to mix musical genres, a rock star. ♪ ♪ ♪ here he is inside london's royal albert hall for the opening at the proms in 2017, one of the oldest and most anticipated festivals on the concert calendar. ♪ ♪ ♪ a typically glowing review described the performance as" fiery," "magical," and" "elegant."

take a look at how levit curls over his instrument. at odds with every piano teacher's demand for perfect posture, it's almost as if levit is physically becoming part of the music he is conjuring. ♪ ♪ ♪ we sometimes think of musicians as-- they don't mind the isolation. they can be disengaged. i get the feeling you need that connection with an audience. >> igor levit: i couldn't live without that. since my very childhood, what i care about are people-- >> wertheim: always. >> levit: always. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: even in this vast and venerable concert hall, this german musician has a way of creating an intimacy with his audience. ♪ ♪ ♪ then, when the pandemic hit, his tour dates cancelled. that intimacy evaporated. ( applause ) in many ways, the lockdown

turned your world on its head. >> levit: it's a disaster-- >> wertheim: technicians and the lighting-- >> levit: a disaster. agents, managers. >> wertheim: what happens? >> levit: they lose everything, from one day to the other. the loss is-- by 100%. it's a total disaster. >> wertheim: it could have been a disaster for levit, a hipster, suddenly grounded at home in an edgy pocket of berlin. >> levit: i can't just make music for myself. it's just not-- not the-- not the way i operate. i can't, emotionally. so, i had this idea to bring one of the most classic ways of music making, which is the house concert, to bring it-- to try to bring it into the 21st century. so, how do i do it? so i invite the people into my living room in the only way possible, which is through social media. >> wertheim: first, he tweeted out an invitation to his followers. >> levit: like that's it. >> wertheim: next, he rushed out to buy a cheap camera stand, hastily rigged his iphone, self- administered a tutorial in live- streaming, and then, it was

showtime. (♪ "moonlight sonata" ♪) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the first house concert drew a virtual crowd of 350,000. sounds kind of liberating. >> levit: it's completely transformed me, who i am, how i see the world. >> wertheim: that would seem to dramatically change the boundaries between a performer and the audience. >> levit: it-- yeah, it was just me, no hall, no questions about acoustics, no questions about an instrument, no questions about, you know, pre-printed programs, nothing. no boundaries, just-- just myself and the people. (♪ "rhapsody in blue" ♪) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: he had his classical repertoire, but added soul and jazz and rock. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ for 52 consecutive nights of live concerts, his followers joined from all over the world, unbothered by the tinny sound of

his piano when it lapsed out of tune. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ they kept coming; he kept playing. >> levit: because of the pandemic. and so, what usually must be right was wrong, and it didn't matter. because just-- just the fact that there was music, no matter how it sounded, just the fact that there was some kind of togetherness. just-- just this was enough for people to feel better. it was enough for me to feel better. >> wertheim: so much better, he next streamed what was less a challenge to his musical talents than to his musical stamina. the "vexations" is not exactly a reliable crowd-pleaser. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> levit: the "vexations," which is a very odd, very weird-- kind of non-music piece. it doesn't really make sense. starts with one hand alone, and you play a weird variation. then you play it-- same thing again. one hand alone, then you play another variation. (♪ "vexations" ♪)

>> wertheim: french surrealist composer erik satie intended this piece to be played through 840 times. the repetition can be almost hypnotic, known to cause performers to hallucinate. one complained of seeing bugs crawling between the keys. levit played this piece for 16 hours straight. igor, that sounds like torture, not music. >> levit: well-- "vexations," right? ( laughs ) i rest my case. and so, i thought, "wow, that's the perfect match for this time." (♪ "vexations" ♪) and i could focus with this performance on the emotional and mental state of mind of my world, of the performance world which is hopelessness, confusion, and give, like, a silent scream, like the end of the third part of "the godfather." >> wertheim: you survived? >> levit: i not only survive, i was high as a monkey afterwards. imean, i was-- i was just flying.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: levit took flight early, p playing beeeethoven's "sonata nunumber 2," winning a prestigious rubinstein prize as a teenager. he was born in nizhny novgorod, russia. that's where he played his first concert with a full orchestra. when he was eight, he and his family moved to germany as jewish refugees. his mother was a piano teacher, but paired her talented son with a taskmaster who demanded levit practice that same beethoven's "sonata number 2" for years on end. levivit says he wawas an angry d unhappy adolescent who flirted with quitttting piano. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> levit: i was a 15-year-old boy. like, i-- you know, i wanted to do all kinds of things, but not play the same piece over and over and over and over and over again. ( ♪ eminem's "the way i am" ♪ ) >> wertheim: so, how does a burned-out piano prodigy get his mojo back? channeling eminem, and his

single "the way i am." ♪ ♪ ♪ >> levit: i am who i am. and i am. and the way i am, just-- deal with it. and sort it out for yourself. so, i would listen to the song, like, nonstop. walkman. ( clap ) ( laughs ) in my hand. it was, like, in a loop, the rhythmical-- ( clap ) persistence, the-- the-- the lyrical persistence. it's so-- it's so beethovian, you know, in a way. >> wertheim: slim shady's helping you understand beethoven? >> levit: slim shady-- understanding myself, yeah. >> wertheim: beethoven obviously means a great deal to you. you said he's-- he's around you. he's in practically everything you do. >> levit: in-- in a weird way, beethoven's music is my safe zone. it's music which gives me, which gives the audience, the feeling of participation. at some point, you-- you get this feeling like, "oh, this is about me. this is about me." like, you know. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ right. >> wertheim: that's how you feel? >> levit: this feeling of "s.o.s., help, what is happening here?" ( laughs ) both for me as a player and for the listener. so, i'm not trying to explain something to you. i want to encourage you to understand. ( snap ) hey, whatever you feel, it's-- it's you. it's your music. it's your piece. and so-- beethoven-- beethoven's music kind of creates this link between the player, the music, the audience. this triangle is enormously intense. >> wertheim: and yet, you could've played a different piece with that same triangle and a completely different range of emotions. >> levit: completely. i could, you know, anything, you know? >> wertheim: what about sadness? >> levit: well, that's a wide topic. i mean, what kind of sadness? >> wertheim: say, mournful sadness?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: in a part of the world that knows a bit about musical genius, levit may be consumed by a composer born 250 years ago, but he is also the quintessential creature of the present. levit doesn't drive, but in between lockdowns in october, we tooled around with him on one of his many bikes. when did you feel like a german here? you came when you were eight years old. immediately? >> levit: when i felt like a german? >> wertheim: i don't know, when did you feel-- >> levit: oh, wow, that's-- >> wertheim: ( speaking german ) >> levit: that, mr. wertheim, is a very german question. >> wertheim: levit takes his citizenship seriously. at a protest in december against the destruction of this forest, levit bundled up and played in solidaririty. the environment is one of his

many causes. he's a adamant, as h he puts itt to b be the guy whwho just pushs piano keys. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ when a neo-nazi carried out a deadly attack outside a synagogue in the german city of halle in 2019, levit used his appearance at germany's most prestigious music award ceremony to speak out against right-wing extremism and anti-semitism. levit has been told to his face that he has no right to be in germany. more alarmingly, before the pandemic, he received online death threats, forcing him to take the stage under armed police guard. his activist politics have provoked attacks on multiple fronts. as a jew, you were an outsider. >> levit: correct. "i will find you on that day in wiesbaden and will kill you while you're on stage." both of them take a rubber and

try to erase you from-- from mother earth, both of them. one of them intellectually, the other one physically. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: the sedate cocoon of classical music isn't accustomed to death threats and talks of erasure. but then again, igor levit cuts a singular figure, and, in the days of soaring covid rates and depleting concert dates, he played on. in munich, we caught up with him for a rare performance that wasn't cancelled. there was no hum of anticipation in the lobby, no bustling coat check, and the audience-- it was restricted to just 50 people. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ mozart was on the menu. a canopy of notes, sharply performance that wasn't canceled. >> there was nothing in the lobby. no bustling coat check. and the audience was restricted to just 50 people. >> mozart was on the menu. a canopy rendered, filled the air. a measure of comfort in these

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>> whitaker: i'm bill whitaker. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

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