American pianist Beth Levin in  conversation with Max Derrickson on her upcoming recital programme at  Merkin Hall, New York, and new recording of Liszt and Mussorgsky.

[MD]: It’s a pleasure to have the chance to talk with you, Beth!  Thank you. You’re a well-known concert pianist with an extremely  impressive career. Particularly, your musical heritage with some of the  most famous pianists on the 20th Century as your teachers (Marian Filar,  Leonard Shure and Rudolph Serkin) could be plenty enough for an  interview. But if you’ll allow, let’s focus on a specific recital and  recording that you are recently doing (in 2022), which includes two very  important, and extremely difficult, piano works: Liszt’s Sonata in B  minor and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Anyone familiar with  these works likely knows that they are “bears” to perform – technically,  and no less so, musically. And you decided to perform both on one  program. Would you talk about your choice of performing these two  virtuosic works together?

[BL]: Thank you, Max. Lovely to explore the works with you! I think  that the Liszt Sonata was really new territory for me and that appealed  to me. I had learned the Mussorgsky many years ago and am just now  revisiting it. The juxtaposition of the new and the old felt right. Let  me say that I’ll be opening the recital with Portrait Miniatures: Three  Women by Andrew Rudin which is very much a modern work and a wonderful  departure point for the rest of the program. Friends had been urging me  to play the Liszt Sonata for quite some time and up to now I resisted  it. Suddenly the time seemed right to open the music. From the first  read-through I was utterly and completely hooked. Playing through  Pictures had more of a nostalgic feel and a reminder in some ways of my  Russian/Ukrainian roots (my grandparents on both sides are from Odessa).  The music elicits reactions from me as a musician – timing, color,  character – that surprise me and I hope will translate to the listeners.

In terms of the pieces being difficult, I never like to admit to it. I  play for weeks before I realize that I had really better isolate and  practice those octaves!

I recorded the pieces this summer and that was a marvelous education  into the music and into the preparation behind the performances.

[MD]: Roots in Odessa! Odessa’s like the breadbasket of the world  of music! But we can return to that momentarily, as well as to the  recording you made this summer. But before we get there:

Your programs are always, for me, so challenging and thoughtful…  and brave. I have you to thank, actually, for introducing me to Andrew  Rudin’s excellent and modern music. It’s intriguing to me that you’re  beginning with his three Portraits. Each are under three minutes long,  and I gather that they each have a sort of inside joke to them – for  example, his dedication of the second portrait to Rose Moss was written  for her as a parting gift to her after a summer at the MacDowell  artist’s retreat in New Hampshire – and titled To a Wild Moss Rose,  which plays (pun-fully and musically) on one of Edward MacDowell’s most  famous piano miniatures, To a Wild Rose (Edward, of course, the founder  of the MacDowell retreat). How do you see Rudin’s miniatures as  departure points to Liszt and Mussorgsky? And, can you say more about  your history with this fine composer’s music?

[BL]: Originally, I planned to play Andrew’s work in between the  Liszt and the Mussorgsky, and he laughed and said he didn’t mind being  sandwiched in the middle of two giants.

But I think starting with Portraits makes more sense. They can be  likened a bit to the portraits that Mussorgsky paints in Pictures. And I  like that the program will begin here and now and work its way back in  time which will give the program a path to follow. The Liszt by itself  is a vast arc and so the pieces will be arcs within arcs. I simply want  the audience to come on the adventure with me.

I have played and recorded Andrew Rudin’s work over the years and am very honored that his piano sonata was written for me.

[MD]: I really like the arc idea in your programming here – it  sounds like a fun adventure! Regarding the Rudin Portraits, I admire  that you are adding this contemporary piece to fit in with Liszt and  Mussorgsky on your recital at Merkin Hall in October (2022). You also  added a contemporary piece on your last CD, playing Carosello: Disegno  per piano No 3 (2005) by Swedish composer Anders Eliasson, in between  Handel and then Beethoven’s colossal Hammerklavier Sonata. Do you have a  particular philosophy about performing new music? Also, do you have a  particular model, or philosophy, about choosing programs?

[BL]: Sometimes it’s as simple as working on a piece such as the  Hammerklavier or the Liszt Sonata and wanting to experience something  utterly different. The Rudin for instance is a lovely change from the  Liszt when one is practicing and I think it may work that way for  listeners as well. The pieces take over your life for a while and it’s  good if you love the music you are working on. A program has to feel  right and get one excited – but I’m not sure that I have a philosophy  about choosing one.

Finally, I really enjoy playing the works of friends – scores that  arrive in the mail and are fresh and newly printed, a reminder of when  the Liszt and the Mussorgsky were just written.

[MD]: I can completely understand about a piece of music taking  over! And so, your method of balancing that out is to play something  entirely different. But importantly, I think, as you said, the three  short Rudin pieces are a wonderful balance to the weightiness of the  rest of your program for your concert audience.

I can imagine your glee over getting fresh copy in the mail…  there’s something really very delightful about that. Opening the  package, feeling the score, first glances and first impressions, and all  that wonderful stuff. Do you recall your first impressions of Pictures  at an Exhibition? Of Liszt’s Sonata?

[BL]: I do remember opening the score to the Liszt Sonata in January  and feeling many emotions at once. It was as if the whole work had been  in the back of my mind for years just waiting to move to the center.

I had to talk to a close musical friend about it and I remember  making immediate plans to play it. I had never performed much of his  piano music and barely knew anything about the sonata. But I was  instantly committed to learning it.

Pictures at an Exhibition had been sitting on my shelf for years – I  went to it mainly questioning how it would feel to work on it again.

I’m surprised at how differently I seem to be approaching the  portraits. A kind friend who has heard both versions said he thought I  was taking more time now and going deeper into the character.

With both the Liszt and the Mussorgsky there is the chance to explore  so many artistic facets and create a musical world. But some days I  just stare at all the octave passages and technical high jinks! haha.

[MD]: Looking at the score of the Liszt, and seeing those  technical high jinks, some might faint, I think! Perhaps in another  interview, we can talk more about relationships with pieces of music –  they become such a part of the performer’s life at a certain time – the  performer devotes so much heart and psyche to a work, and the score  becomes a sort of whiteboard for notes and suggestions, and a reflection  of our relationship to the music. Life can get tangled up in a piece of  music. We can explore some of that, too, when we talk more about your  revisiting Mussorgsky.

In the meantime, though, considering those challenging parts of  any piece of music, how do you approach conquering them? What’s a  typical practice/routine response for you? How have you been tackling  the Liszt?

[BL]: The desire to simply play is so strong perhaps because of the  extreme expressiveness of the Liszt Sonata. I start out playing a page  or so extremely slowly but then the musical sweep takes over and I just  have to ride the waves. But in many passages first I practice slowly,  evenly, and within a strict context. Speed often comes on its own – you  can’t really push. In the octaves I worked out the shapes inherent in  the writing and those also seemed to come at their own pace.

I worked on the Liszt this morning and it was just that combination  of how I will ultimately perform the work with a few moments of “Whoa  Nellie!”

Having the recording as a deadline was very helpful, I think. Playing  for friends was crucial as well – their suggestions and the mere act of  playing through.

[MD]: I think Liszt would have appreciated hearing some “Whoa  Nellies!” along the line. And … I can only imagine how delightful it  must be to be the friend who gets to listen to your putting one of these  masterpieces together.

Some deeper specifics about the Liszt: Liszt dedicated his Sonata to Robert Schumann  as a thank you in reciprocation for Schumann’s dedication of his solo  piano work Fantasie in C major, Op. 17 (1839) to Liszt. Liszt completed  his Sonata in B minor (in 1853-4), however, after Schumann had been  committed to a mental asylum following his attempted suicide. It thus  arrived at the Schumann household sans Robert, and finding Clara  Schumann and Johannes Brahms, both virtuoso pianists. As Brahms played  through Liszt’s Sonata for Clara, she famously found it rather awful,  lamenting that she had “to thank him for that!” – but we should report  that it didn’t take long for the Sonata to find its place as one of the  great, and one of the most unique, solo piano works of the 19th Century.  Nonetheless, it’s considered a thorny piece in several regards. Besides  its technical challenges, another of those thorns is its rather  difficult-to-categorize, some say genius, hybridization of structural  form – somewhere between a true Classical sonata and a Liszt-ian tone  poem. How do you approach this structural uniqueness/ambiguity? Does the  arc of the piece let the Sonata dictate its own path?

[BL]: I lean more to the idea of the work as a tone poem and yet I  can see how he structured it as a sonata within a sonata. The “Andante  sostenuto” can be read as the slow movement. Apparently, Liszt said very  little about the new form of his Sonata but it certainly influenced  composers far into the future. His exquisite themes flow so perfectly  and inevitably into one another that you almost feel like he’s taking  your hand and saying “just follow me.” I think one can be very free and  expressive in one’s interpretation exactly because the structure is so  solid. I know that he transcribed Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy for piano  and orchestra and may have been very influenced by that same idea of  freedom and fantasy within four movements … sort of a Garden of Eden  within marble walls.

[MD]: I really do love your description … and it makes sense to  me, that Liszt sort of left the mystery out of the mix…. clever and  again by half…. yet his Sonata carries you along the way, whatever the  overall form is. The Garden of Eden within marble walls is a lovely  metaphor. I think, too, that inside the Garden also lives a serpent…

About Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition: You mentioned above  that your “grandparents on both sides are from Odessa.” We won’t  confuse Ukraine with Russia, though to be sure, there are connections.  Nonetheless, did you feel, and, or do you feel now, that you “hear” the  Mussorgsky a little more deeply? And were your grandparents musicians,  may I ask?

[BL]: Do you mean was there something in the borscht that gives me the inside track into Pictures at an Exhibition?

Seriously, I know that my parents grew up in households where  everyone either played the violin, sang or played the piano. Music was a  strong element in the lives of my parents and grandparents. But I  realize that doesn’t make me an expert on Mussorgsky. I do feel certain  instincts for Pictures and I try to be careful about assuming that every  instinct is a correct one. I do employ rubato, color, timing and  phrasing in ways that I think match and enhance the music and I hope  that others will enjoy my interpretation.

[MD]: I think borscht can do a lot of things… but I appreciate  the wisdom, and humility, regarding your instincts. Mussorgsky feels, to  me, powerful and raw and immensely musical. And so, I’m not sure that  one can get too far afield from his intentions once immersed in a  performance, do you know what I mean?

About the piano version: I (and probably most listeners) have  been mesmerized by Pictures since I first heard them … first in Ravel’s  orchestral version. It was surprising to me, when I first heard the  original piano version, how exceptionally well they still sound without  all the bells and colors of an orchestra. The music is extremely hardy!

Now that you’ve been close to the piano version twice around, do  you think Mussorgsky had an orchestration in mind when he was writing  Pictures – or do you feel he was truly thinking of the colors of the  piano? Are there any really favorite moments for you?

[BL]: A bit of background: one of Modest Mussorgsky’s best friends  was Viktor Hartmann, an artist who tragically died of an aneurism in  1873 at the age of 39. Two weeks after Hartmann’s death his friends and  supporters organized a major exhibition of his works at the Imperial  Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. About a year later Mussorgsky  composed Pictures at an Exhibition. Completed in only twenty days,  Pictures was originally a set of short pieces for piano in which  Mussorgsky depicted himself walking through the exhibition and  contemplating Hartmann’s works.

I think Mussorgsky was writing a piano piece – period. He was  thinking of the piano as an orchestra at times – complete with bells.  But I don’t think he was thinking of orchestration. He knew that the  piano is a great chameleon and can recreate almost any vision.

One of my favorite “pictures” is “Il Vecchio Castello”” based on an  architectural sketch by Hartmann. The melody is so expressive and the  rhythmic underpinning so graceful. Also, I appreciate the way that each  “Promenade” is so different from one another. “Tuileries” was inspired  by a now lost crayon drawing of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. It is so  delicate and I love playing it. “The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” is  another favorite – my only desire is not to leave too many feathers on  the ground!

The weightier movements such as “Gnome” or “Samuel Goldenberg and  Schmuyle” require the power of a huge sound. I enjoy how Mussorgsky will  contrast heaviness with something frothy in the following piece – from  an oxcart to a tulle tutu.

A favorite arrival point for me is the “Sepulcrum Romanium  Catacombs.” After much activity this piece is slow, austere and as  cavernous as a tomb. It may have been an expression of Mussorgsky’s  feeling of loss for his friend Hartmann. The music is exhaled in long  breaths and marks the point at which “Baba Yaga” and “The Great Gate of  Kiev” take over and end the work.

[MD]: When one hears a fine performance of this work, I think  it’s easy to hear that Mussorgsky was treating the piano like an  orchestra at times – which serves to remind us of the extraordinary  talent and intellect that Mussorgsky possessed.

I love your image of stray notes falling off the keyboard like  little chick feathers! And I think it illustrates part of the work’s  true genius – it’s ability to evoke emotions and images. Each “picture”  is a little masterpiece. “The Old Castle”… what a beautifully expressive  tune. And I completely agree that the balancing of heavy and  light, the pacing, and the overall direction of Pictures is really a  masterful compositional achievement.

There are, as we know, only a few of Hartmann’s artworks left to  see from that exhibition. And only several of the one’s that Mussorgsky  immortalized still exist. I think I’d really love to see the Polish  Oxcart and The Old Castle. Which would you really love to see? And do  you think seeing them would inform your performance differently?

And… do you ever get lost in there… in the Exhibition? That you  just want to linger a little while longer at a particular “picture”?

[BL]: I’d also love to see the Polish Oxcart and The Old Castle. Not  seeing the images isn’t necessarily a bad thing and can allow your own  imagination to flourish. It reminds me of haiku – better to simply let  the words paint a picture … in this case let the music describe the art.  

Mussorgsky’s great skill as you said becomes so apparent exactly  because he is a master at bringing Hartmann’s portraits to life. I think  he even goes beyond that and creates an aura, a world in which the art  can exist.

I think that I do linger here and there in the music when it seems  right. I would love the audience to get lost inside the music.

[MD]: Are there any “pictures” that you find particularly daunting to play?

[BL]: The final two, “The Hut of the Baba Yaga” and “The Great Gate  of Kiev” have a few thorny places and they occur in great speed. Speed  often magnifies difficulty but what would great music be without  challenges?

[MD]: I completely agree with your assessment about Mussorgsky  creating a world beyond the art – thinking of the “Unhatched Chicks,”  for example … in Mussorgsky’s wildly wonderful music for that, it rather  looks as though Hartmann’s illustration was created secondly, for the  music, not the other way around.

Regarding the challenges of the last two “pictures,” now I’m  feeling a little guilty … I think you mentioned that you never like to  admit something is difficult … did I just trick you into that?

But speaking of challenges, what about the Liszt Sonata? Are there any particular passages that you find really tough?

And, though the Sonata is a work that really shows off  virtuosity, it also really shines with radiant poetry. Which passages do  you find breath-taking?

[BL]: Haha – that’s what makes you a wonderful interviewer! No, I  think that dwelling on technical issues such as virtuoso octaves can be  insignificant.

The genuine task is to present the work as a whole, get inside it,  portray what Liszt had in mind, and give a performance. If I miss a few  notes or octaves, so be it – that pales in comparison to the actual  fulfilment of the work. On the other hand, you need an expressive,  flexible and physical technique, but more as a tool, not as an end all.  That is probably true for any art. When I’m confronted with a few  difficult passages I do laugh at myself knowing that they are merely  reminders of imperfection on a path to art.

If I get swept away in the Sonata it is where the music melts into  pianississimo. For all its grandeur, the poetic passages are truly the  ravishing moments in the music. The final “Andante Sostenuto” is so  moving and the final three chords are like a prayer.

I hope that the audience feels the emotion of the piece and that I simply express what is there.

[MD]: I hear you well on that, Maestra. I think we all have heard  when a performance is flawless, technically, but at the cost of being  soulless. I’ve never heard any of your performances suffer from that,  Beth! And I guess the only thing I can respond to about those beautiful  moments, and those last three, heart-stoppingly blissful chords is,  “Amen.”

Before we start wrapping up our lovely conversation, could you  tell us a little more about the recording session that you had for the  Mussorgsky and Liszt? And do you know when the CD might be issued?

[BL]: I recorded with old friends Philip Valera (audio engineer) and  Mark Peterson (producer) whom I knew at Boston University when I was  studying with Leonard Shure and they were both budding organists. We had  an easy rapport and were able to kid around when we weren’t doing the  more serious work of recording Liszt and Mussorgsky. But I think that is  so important when you begin a recording session – the ability to laugh  creates a relaxed atmosphere for everyone. There were a few snags: the  microphones were nowhere to be found when we first met at ten in the  morning on a Wednesday in late May. And the weather in Wilson, North  Carolina was extremely humid. The Steinway was freshly tuned but the  piano keys were actually damp in Kennedy Hall at Barton College. Not to  mention my hair!

I don’t yet have a release date for the recording by Aldilà Records.  They produced my last CD of the Hammerklavier sonata, Handel and Anders  Eliasson and I was so happy with their dedication to detail. Through the  years I guess I’ve learned: if a conductor calls, call back. If a  record label wants your mastered CD, just be grateful.

[MD]: The recording engineers that I’ve known are a band of very  lovely, smart, laid-back and capable people… and funny. That has to help  the recipe in cooking a recording! But … damp keys?? What on earth do  you do about that? (Let’s not even touch the hair subject.)

Adilà Records has produced some really great recordings! I hope we see yours very, very soon.

Allow me, now, to pull way back, and ask you: you have a few  years of an illustrious career informing your approach to performing –  how might you characterize your playing of these great pieces today, in  comparison to when you were, let’s say, in your twenties?

[BL]: I think that I rehearse differently now which affects performance – slower, more thoughtfully.

I have always tended to be a bit wild at the piano but after years of  playing I have more control of things. Coaching with the conductor  Christoph Schluren influenced my playing – as it relates to phrasing,  mostly.

I think the wisdom from my teachers sort of synthesized for me at  some point and now when I look at a score I bring to it more than I did.

I wish I could say, “I’m much smarter now.” Haha – I can only hope.

[MD]: It’s a wonderful realization to recognize your own personal  musicianship as a monument to the other great musicians, friends and  teachers who shared their talents in the service of the expression of  art. Of course, their expertise is wrapped in the gold leaf of your  great talents, too. Thanks for that beautiful sentiment, Beth.

And thank you for your time and generosity of soul that you’ve  shared with me in this interview. Good luck with your recital, and I  can’t wait to hear your CD!

[BL]: Thank you so much, Max, for your wise questions. I have enjoyed  looking at aspects of the Liszt and the Mussorgsky with you as a guide!