PIANIST

Beth Levins Lesarten kommen mit einem Minimum an Pedal aus und vermitteln so eine große Klarheit der Texturen, breiten gleichsam den No- tentext großzügig aus.

Levin, Jahrgang 1950, zu deren Lehrern Marian Filar, Rudolf Serkin und Dorothy Taubman gehörten, legt hier den Live-Mitschnitt einer offenkundig hochkonzentrierten Münchner Aufführung aus dem letzten Jahr vor.

In many respects these last two recordings by Beth Levin – Hammerklavier Live and Phantasmata – may share an allusion to the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, albeit they represent the work of five different composers.

A Sonata for solo piano by Gideon Klein (Terezin, 1943) and Beeethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31, Op. 110 in A-flat Major (1797) closed the concert. Beth Levin is a pianist of rare gifts. Her ability to tease melody from a thick fabric of sound is phenomenal; we witnessed some of the finest imaginable voice leading and musical dialogue among her ten fingers. Gideon Klein wrote his sonata while imprisoned at Terezin.

New York-based pianist Beth Levin has recorded two principal pieces of core Romantic piano repertoire: Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B-minor, followed by Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, on the Aldilà Records label. This pianistic tour de force is titled Phantasmata.