Beth Levin Archive

SCHUMANN: Davidsbuendlertaenze; ELIASSON: Disegno 2; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2 “Funeral March” – Beth Levin, p. – Navona

by Audiophile Audition | Nov 7, 2016 | Classical CD Reviews

Powerful and idiosyncratic, Beth Levin has her own ideas of “Romantic” repertory.   SCHUMANN: Davidsbuendlertaenze, Op. 6; ELIASSON: Disegno 2 for Piano; CHOPIN: Piano Sonata No. 2 in b-flat, Op. 35 “Funeral March” – Beth Levin, p. – Navona NV6016, 63:00 (1/8/16) [Distr. by Parma] ****: Philadelphia-born pianist Beth Levin (b. 1950) continues to perform in a Romantic tradition set by her teachers Milan Filar, Leonard Shure, and Rudolf Serkin.  On this Navona disc (rec. 27 July 2015), Levin approaches two arch Romantics, Schumann and Chopin, as well as an unfamiliar, modern contemporary, Anders Eliasson (1947-2013). The major work, the 1837 Dances of the Davids-League of Robert Schumann, allow Levin to project a variety of touches and colors rife with personality and psychic ecstasies. While commentators usually focus on the personal labyrinths involved with Florestan and Eusebius – Schumann’s extrovert and introvert projections of self – I like to characterize these eighteen “tempi of initiation” as a Rosetta Stone for Schumann’s musical syntax, opening as it does with a quote from a Clara Wieck piece – her own key tends to C Major. Davidsbuendlertaenze appear as two sets of nine dances, with occasionally repeated drooping figures and rhetorical associations. As […]