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Ana-Marija Markovina: Mendelssohn – Towards the Restoration of Genius
Ana-Marija Markovina: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – Complete Works for Piano [Solo]
Few composers – artistic geniuses at that – have had their entire careers disparaged, their reputation for pure genius never to be restored, not in their lifetimes; not ever – like Felix Mendelssohn. The opera composer and contemporary of Mendelssohn – Giacomo Meyerbeer – came a close second, and a musician as compelling as Gustav Mahler was also similarly denigrated for years, until his friend Bruno Walter worked tirelessly to restore his reputation. The bitter anti-Semitism that plagued Germany and was borne on the wings of Nazism in the early 20th century was responsible for all the negativity surrounding all three men. But it may easily be stated – nay proven – that the harshest, seemingly most subjective judgments were reserved for Mendelssohn.
For instance Hans von Bulow, one of the great conductors of Romantic era Germany and a champion of the work of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner is known to have said of Mendelssohn that began as a genius and ended as a talent. This is, perhaps the mildest slights that Mendelssohn must have suffered. Wagner went even further. The revolutionary creator of opera, in a bitter diatribe accused Mendelssohn [and, more so, Giacomo Meyerbeer] of infecting German music with “Jewish” motifs. For someone of Wagner’s intelligence [stature be damned] this is the least-credible assessment of Mendelssohn’s music. How clearly hateful [and misguided] Wagner was is supported by the fact that both Mendelssohn and Wagner shared a great admiration for Goethe, [the latter] who was even known to have become a “close friend” of Mendelssohn in 1821, after the then 12 year-old genius composed the overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, gaining international recognition in the process.
Wagner’s reaction to Mendelssohn was, in all probability one part pure hatred of the Jews and two parts uncontrolled jealousy. Others in 19th century Germany were also so inclined. According to Alex Ross [in his remarkable book Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music] notes that the composer Johann Christian Lobe became so bitter about this blind hatred that he summarised, in an essay entitled “Jewishness in Music”, dripping with uncontrollable sardonicism that read thus: “I Hate the Jews, I hate and envy Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer; I therefore recommend that all Jews be annihilated.” The extent of the irrationality of 19th century anti-Semitic Germany was legendary. The book that Larry Todd edited and had published in 1991, perhaps the most authoritative on the composer, his times and his work, begins with an essay by Leon Botstein. In it very second paragraph the author dissects Wagner’s “contemptuous view of Mendelssohn”:
“[In Wagner’s essay, “Judaism and Music”]…The success of the contemptuous Wagnerian view of Mendelssohn, the man and his music, and its social cultural influence was profound. [Note: this kind of hatred “began in earnest in 1850.] Wagner’s aesthetics were framed in explicit opposition to Mendelssohn. Wagner even succeeded in obscuring the extent to which he, as a composer, was indebted to Mendelssohn’s musical work.” Wagner was known to be obsessed with Mendelssohn. Outwardly, he seemed to pour scorn on the “Jewish excitability” in Mendelssohn’s expressiveness. But inwardly – when left alone in his salon and even in dreams [as Cosima Liszt records] Mendelssohn was “the authority and the overt object of envy, with whom intimacy was sought. Help with a dangerous task [i.e., composition] was not forthcoming. [In his dream] Wagner belies both his own fear of failure and his perception of Mendelssohn beyond his “Jewishness”, as an authority-figure known for excellence… even going as far as to imagine the composer like that of a quintessential German military hero.
The rise of rampant anti-Semitism in Germany dates back to The Reformation led by Martin Luther whose brimstone and fire went far beyond the pulpit and into his vitriolic pamphlet of 1543, On The Jews and Their Lies, in which he called for burning of synagogues and the razing of Jewish homes. Wagner’s rise to fame [at Mendelssohn’s expense] was rooted in this kind of tradition together with an overarching anti-elite political rhetoric that seemed to obscure aesthetic norms, which lasted throughout the middle- to late-19th century and all the way into the Third Reich. But the Fascist champions were not the only ones jack-booting themselves all over Mendelssohn and his art.
Tragically, it appears that Mendelssohn could not please the Left either – especially, contrarily, in Britain – where he was held in the highest esteem. It seemed that critics – clearly influenced by the socio-political rhetoric of the day – found it hard to penetrate Mendelssohn’s humanity, which anchored his aesthetic. The fact that “beauty” came easily to Mendelssohn became a flaw. The fact that he “worked at” and “refined” his work until it became gem-like was completely ignored. Clumsy attempts to reverse this perception by the Allies after the War didn’t help as they began almost every radio broadcast with, according to Alex Ross, “…having to perform at least one ‘verboten’ work on each program… [This] led to a stereotyped pattern of starting orchestral concerts with a Mendelssohn overture…”
If Mendelssohn’s music was attacked by the Right and the Left, perceived as too easily beautiful, or typecast as a “Jewish” musician what chance could he have stood against the rising tide of hatred combined with music criticism that seemed to lack depth and credibility? Like Mahler much later Mendelssohn needed – and still needs – champions of his extraordinarily beautiful music; champions like Bruno Walter, who [first] made marvelous recordings of Mahler’s mighty symphonic works and helped break down the walls that others had built to unfairly imprison Mahler’s artistry. Mendelssohn had Richard Strauss, who “could not comprehend the banning of [Felix] Mendelssohn.” But it would take much more than merely “speaking up for” Mendelssohn to draw attention to the majesty of his music – whether early or late. It would take someone who understood his virtuosity as a pianist and a violinist to unpack the intricacies of the winding and leaping, the frolicking and rising and falling of his phraseology; his magical poetics and the innate naturalness and humanity of Mendelssohn’s music.
While many have done so in fits and starts, the pianist Roberto Prosseda was one of the first to dig deep. His epic recording of Mendelssohn’s complete piano music was the stuff of legend – until that is the arrival of this monumental 12-CD box set Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Complete Works for Solo Piano [Hänssler Classic PH18043] by the great pianist and pedagogue Ana-Marija Markovina. Miss Markovina makes it clear, at the very outset in her wonderfully detailed booklet notes, that she owes much to Mr Prosseda, who shared much with her. Miss Markovina goes much further to say: “His generous help gave me valuable insights. His work on the publication of the early [Mendelssohn] sonatas, fugues, studies and other piano pieces has underpinned the completeness of the present complete recording; at the very beginning Roberto Prosseda generously placed all his scores at my disposal,” Miss Markovina says. These [scores] became the starting point of Miss Markovina’s epic Mendelssohnian odyssey.
However being the quintessentially curious artist and meticulous pedagogue didn’t just mean that she pored over the scored and dived deep into Mendelssohn’s works, penetrating the skin and unpacking of their magical beauty, she also arrived at what can easily be seen as a perfect way to trace the maturation of Mendelssohn’s genius by arranging and performing these works for solo piano in chronological order beginning with works from 1820, when Mendelssohn was just 11 years old. Secondly, Miss Markovina has performed everything Mendelssohn wrote and published based on “a system of compilation applied by Dr Ralf Wehner of the Saxony Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig: the Mendelssohn-Werkverzeichnis [MWV catalogue for Mendelssohn’s works].”
And what does she achieve just by this arrangement of the works? This not only emphatically shows astronomical growth as a composer, but from the various fragments that became larger compositions we glean a Mendelssohnian penchant not simply for refining compositions, but working at them with a jeweler’s precision craftsmanship, chipping and cutting, and polishing each piece until its full gem-like brilliance shines through. And so from the Klavierstueck B minor/D minor [MWV U 7], a short piece we are taken at once to another world, unique to Mendelssohn. In three minutes all is revealed: It is at once a world full of glinting lights, mysterious depths, expectations, frustrations, hopes and doubts; humanity viewed in shattered shadows glimpsed by moonlight in a forest. Meanwhile in the sheer depth of characterisation and the exceptional range and refinement of its pianism, how Miss Markovina here imparts a power and tragic stature to this little piece is absolutely astounding.
While every work – however short a fragment it is – and that too, on each of the 12 CDs, is a study in Mendelssohn’s genius, it is the attention that he pays to artistic detail, the element of surprise that makes the notes fly off the staved paper and pirouette in the air of the room is magical. Most of all it is the artistic tribute to humanity that marks Mendelssohn’s work. It appears as if the composer is propelled by imagery and the power of the sublime imagination – something that would certainly have pleased even the most discerning 3rd century Greek critic Cassius Longinus. There is the parallel phenomenon of Miss Markovina’s own inspired reading of everything she encounters – even a tiny 0’37 Allegro con moto A minor, Fragment from 1825 on CD 4. The quality of her playing on this little shard of beauty is altogether exceptional.
Ana-Marija Markovina takes nothing for granted in music. Nor should you in listening to her. If you know how your Bach ‘goes’, if you know how your Chopin ‘goes’ or how anyone else ‘goes’ for that matter then this set might not be for you. Not that she does anything wildly idiosyncratic, let alone iconoclastic, a la Glenn Gould. At the same time she is almost plainly prophetic in terms of unveiling Mendelssohn’s poetics, opening our minds to the enticing opportunity to discover anew Mendelssohn – a composer and piano virtuoso of considerable genius. Everywhere revelations abound. We find this in the sinewy beauty and virtuosity of [the performance] of the A minor Fragment mentioned above, for instance. Elsewhere we find that Miss Markovina captures Mendelssohn’s genius for mood and atmosphere on one of his most famous pieces – the Fugue E minor op 35 no 1[b] [MWV U 66] of June 1827. Here, we also become aware of Miss Markovina’s ability to coordinate colour and structure to a rare degree, and so to reveal the composer’s exceptional versatility and resourcefulness. Clearly this reveals near-volcanic genius of Mendelssohn, who just two years before composed one of the greatest ever chamber work for strings – his String Octet in A minor, Op. 13 [which was followed by the String Octet in Eb major Op.20].
In short order Miss Markovina reveals right out of the gate on CD 7 Mendelssohn’s Andante B major – Allegro di molto B minor [Rondo brilliant] [MWV U 87] of 1831. This is a piece, quite literally with a champagne fizz; it is the disc’s apogee performed by the pianist with apparently effortless distinction between the many filigree lines and its aristocratic elegance. This is also a clear sign that Mendelssohn was never afraid to reveal himself, as being utterly comfortable in the skin to which he was born, unafraid, as it were, to reveal his humanity as if in a prismatic vision of himself. Mendelssohn played the piano, as Ferdinand Hiller once said, “…as a lark soars.” And by the time we get to Miss Markovina’s excursions from CD 8 we begin to encounter the first of the six published books of composer’s iconic Lied ohne Worte [Songs without Words] On this disc, of course there is a mighty precursor to soaring pianistic larks and this flight begins with Miss Markovina’s unraveling of the Etude F minor op 104/2 No. 2 [MWV U 100], which is both magical and mystical. It sets the tone for the Lied ohne Worte to follow.
Throughout the rest of the discs we encounter Mendelssohn’s Lied ohne Worte, forty-six miniatures composed from 1830 onwards and published in six cycles. These are also interspersed with other forms of composition – sonatas, caprices and several remarkable Kinderstueck – sketches and musical characterisations of loved ones and those Mendelssohn admires – from his wife Elise Cornelia Benecke to Clara Schumann, and his cousin Cécile. But from CD 8 to 11 these pieces – their fragments and completed ones – are the featured pieces. On disc 8 itself we encounter [amid Lied ohne Worte E flat major op 85 No 3 [MWV U 111] broad hints of what would become the Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s music for Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Combining surface virtuosity with a lyrical sense of line, they are exquisitely constructed and intimate little pieces.
It is impossible not to dazzled by the sheer variety of colour and mood contained in these Lied ohne Worte what with the [Venetianisches Gondolelleid] F sharp minor op 30 No 6, for instance, or the utterly elemental cascading of the Lied ohne Worte C major op 67 No 4 [Spinnerlied]. Throughout Miss Markovina’s bravura is combined with an acute sensitivity over matters of pacing and of light and shade. This latter characteristic in Miss Markovina serves her to great effect on the Variations Sérieuses [MWV U 156]. Within the set of 34 Variations the performance here combines an overall fleetness of tempo and touch there are ‘interludes’ of lush intimacy in which sentimentality is kept firmly at bay. From these Variations to Mendelssohn’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream [music that continues to be held in the public’s affection] one can draw a not so deviating line. The incidental music, composed in 1843, is rarely performed complete, which was a pity as Robert Schumann rightly suggested that it glows with “the bloom of youth”
Innovatively constructed from motifs heard in the majestic Overture – thus for example, the opening chords are used as a basis for entry of Oberon and Titania in the finale – it’s a wonderfully evocative series of musical tableaux. Miss Markovina breathes elemental and theatrical fire and drama into this music as well as tenderness. She regularly wrong-foots clichéd expectations – as great performances are apt to do – with delicate and finely tapered phrases that bring expressive eloquence to Mendelssohn’s motifs. In the end she plays this oh-so-familiar music with the poise, delicacy and the unfailing newness that it deserves. The rest of this extraordinarily studied and enterprising programme on this monumental box set is perfectly matched in performance to Mendelssohn’s real genius for composition and the near-obsessive artistic perfection that drove him throughout his short life.
Throughout Miss Markovina brings effortless Mendelssohnian urbanity and lyricism to all the items included here, which are seductive as they are persuasive, and an object lesson of style. From the [various] Kinderstueck and the Charakterstuek Fugue [Ernst und mit steigender Lebhafttigkeit A major op 7 No 5, for instance each work is played with buoyant aristocratic grace and psychological ambiguity. And like Mendelssohn himself, Miss Markovina is [rightly] almost insolently effortless, bringing debonair virtuosity, studied grace and swagger – especially when it comes to the piano music distillations from Mendelssohn’s orchestral work for Midsummer Night’s Dream.
There comes an especially important lesson in this incidental music once Miss Markovina’s solo piano versions of this music is listened to – say – put on the Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus version conducted by Otto Klemperer. And that less that Miss Markovina teaches us is this: Mendelssohn was an uncommonly great orchestrator – something that even the great Chopin was not. And to think that unnecessarily jaded and jealous composers such as Wagner and critics such as George Bernard Shaw were unable to grasp is pitiable.
Clearly Ana-Marija Markovina’s Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Complete Works for Solo Piano will go a long way in revising the largely anti-Semitic view of Mendelssohn, one that deprived him of his true standing in 19th century music. The ravishingly masterful playing throughout this box set certainly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with The Cleveland Quartet’s touchingly emotional account of Mendelssohn’s String Octet, Jascha Heifetz’s account of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, which is in a class of its own, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s masterful performance of Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, with the great Bryn Terfel’s most powerful Elijah. And it certainly stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the wonderfully judged and sprung cycle of Felix Mendelssohn: Symphonies 1 – 5 by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe with the RAIS Kammerchor and featuring the luminous soprano Karina Gauvin – all directed by the great Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In sum Miss Markovina’s great effort amounts to a bigness that few pianists have achieved – including [rather ironically-speaking] the heroic Mr Prosseda.
The guitar’s ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four-course Renaissance guitar, and of course the baroque guitar, all of which contributed to the development of the modern six-string instrument. Few people in our day have mastered it with such alacrity, with such sage nobility and with such openness to the world of music around us as Sharon Isbin.
I admit to stealing the metaphor of the “small orchestra” from none other from Segovia. As a matter of fact, how ironic that one should have found it while listening to Miss Isbin’s recording of Karen LeFrak’s new works on the album entitled Romántico [Karen LeFrak Recordings, 2025]. Ironic because it is one that Miss Isbin undertook with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Enrico Lopez-Yanez.
Segovia’s stunning metaphor for the guitar also holds equally true of Miss Isbin performer and his characterisation of her musicianship would be spot on for his actual words are “The guitar is as small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a distinct colour, a different voice.”
Indeed, Miss Isbin exploits this characteristic to its fullest in such a seductive manner that she makes this aspect of her playing a truly alluring aspect of her own virtuosity, on this particular album as well as on her other discs, which is even more challenging as we shall soon as we go a little more in depth into the recording of Ms LeFrak’s works.
Exhilarating, extrovert and virtuosic
Romántico features a world premiere recording of Ms LeFrak’s seductive Miami Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra. There is every indication that the composer had her heart set on making this record with Miss Isbin. She [the composer] has a deep understanding of the South American – Latin and Brasilian – music and selected her performers with punctilious care. It isn’t surprising that Miss Isbin would be a first choice.
Miss Isbin, in turn returns the favour. Her playing throughout the concerto is exhilarating, extrovert and virtuosic as so it should be. She is, after all, immersed in the realm of the Habanera and the Tango – music and dance forms that came to South America via the erstwhile colonisers from Europe. A deeper dive into the origins of the music lead unequivocally to the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic influences from the African continent.
The guitarist is joined, here, by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Enrico Lopez-Yañez. Ms LeFrak’s Miami Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra pays homage to oceanic musical heritage of Miami with influences from Africa, Europe and Latin America. “Bailamos,” the first movement of the concerto draws on the guaguancó, a dialect of the Cuban rumba, followed by a tango-inspired “Romántico,” and concludes with an energetic “Festivo” in the rhythm of bembé.
The chamber works “Habanera Nights” and “Urban Tango” feature Miss Isbin with Latin percussionists led by Javier Diaz, pianist Peggy Kampmeier, and New York Philharmonic principal cellist Carter Brey. Throughout the concerto and the chamber works Miss Isbin shows immaculate poise and thoughtfulness. She cultivates a beautiful, poetic tone with an orchestral touch offering a unique palette of colour amid riveting, charges interpretation of Ms LeFrak’s music.
Miss Issbin has delicate phrasing, a colourful touch and well thought-through ideas. Her performance is often a white hot volcano of intense expression; it presents formidable challenges, all of which are surmounted with almost insolent virtuosity, the guitarist’s focus resolutely serving the score, not the mechanisms supporting it. Miss Isbin plays with a particularly rewarding sense of rhythm, high sprung, light and incisive and entirely secure, which pays its way throughout all of the works.
But hearing her navigate through the massive cadenzas – de rigeuer on in these works – as if they and their beckoning grandeur were the most natural thing in the world leaves no doubt that this is an artist of the most elite order, to be watched intently, listened to deeply and reckoned with for an exceptionally long time to come. These are qualities of a guitar playing musician who is cast in the same mould as Segovia and the rest of the renowned artists of the instrument.
Luminous tone , natural grace and authority
It is hard to put into word why this recording is so special. Perhaps the principal reason is that one of the finest guitarists has committed to disc, great works that she appears to have ostensibly lived with honing and polishing their subtle romanticism for a considerable length of time. Each movement and chamber work reveals her thoughtful artistry, exemplified by this slim volume. The five varied, but emotionally and [sort of] thematically interrelated pieces have been played with her hallmark luminous tone, natural grace and authority.
From this exquisite recording of Ms LeFrak to works by Leo Brouwer, Tan Dun, and Richard Danielpour, on which the web of charm has been spun by Isabel Leonard’s vocals] to a waltz by Antonio Lauro [in duet with guitarist Colin Davin] – and even a poetic cycle of love be Chris Brubeck which became the title of the recording, Affinity [Zoho Music, 2020] – this American guitarist proves herself to be one of the most versatile musicians playing on stage [and in the studio] today.
This story is even more telling – and enduringly epic – because it catches something more of Miss Isbin’s genius in an incredibly unique way. Anyone who has listened to the range of her recorded performances, on her next two albums – Strings for Peace [Zoho Music, 2020] and Live In Aspen [Zoho Music, 2024] – will discover what it means for Miss Isbin to have a sense of daring and supreme confidence in her innate sense of sublime taste.
The former recording is made up of four North Indian Ragas, once again, all world premieres. Miss Isbin invites the grand sarod master Ustad Amjad Ali Khan on the apogee of the album [“Raga Pilu” alternatively entitled “Romancing Earth”]. Hi son Ameen Ali Bangash appears on “Raga Behag” or “By the Moon” while the performance of the other two ragas, “Raga Mishra Bhairav” or “Love Avalanche” and on “Raga Yaman” or Sacred Evening” are shared with the other son of the maestro, Ayaan Ali Bangash. The renowned tabla player, Amit Kavthekar, appears on all the four ragas.
We are speaking here of Miss Isbin having collaborated with musicians from the upper echelons of Hindustani music. But when it comes to a guitar being heard along with a sarod the first test is a mechanical one. There are obvious differences [between the classical guitar and the sarod] have to do with the fact that the instruments differ in pitch, and the dynamic and dramatic variance in their tonal and colour palettes. Add to that is the fact that both instruments are played pizzicato. This means that that it isn’t only the engineer who must have enormous ears.
Orchestral Gymnasium of the Guitar
The encounters between Miss Isbin and the Ustads of the sarod is quite breathtaking. And it is also here – on their studio and live recordings – that the extent of the technical mastery of each on their respective instruments is superbly demonstrated. The playing by the Ustads provides what in orchestral terms would be a shadowy kind of ground bass simply because of the tonal palette of the sarod makes this possible. And it is this effect that affords the guitarist an empty canvas on which to paint her masterpiece.
It is here that Miss Isbin exploits her guitar’s huge vocabulary of sounds and effects combinable to make it sound as big as an ensemble – but which need the player’s [in this excellent case, Miss Isbin’s] to deploy effectively. The evening ragas – Behag’s emotive aspects are daunting ass it is associated with times between 9 o’clock pm and midnight, Yaman is more crepuscular, its emotive aspects being associated with times between 6 and 9 o’clock pm, while Mishra Pilu us usually associated with between the afternoon and early evening.
On both Strings for Peace and Live in Aspen, Miss Isbin’s use of her wonderful instrument is truly eloquent and masterful. Her playing ranges from harmonics and pizzicato to technique exotica such as ‘nut-side,’ ‘nail sizzle’ and/or ‘bi-tone tapping’ [plus she also uses – even extends the battery of percussion possibilities, even entering into polyphonic and polyrhythmic dialogues with the tabla player Pandit Amit Kavthekar.
This spectacular array of harmonic pizzicato playing is also evident on Affinity where the need for the various composers to collaborate closely with Miss Isbin on each of their pieces. It’s complex for the composers to write not only for the instrument, but also for Miss Isbin. But neither of the parties are fazed. Miss Isbin is utterly amazing in this respect, as she has managed through inspiration and sheer persistence t0o wrinkle out from the composers a whole raft of adventurous works, almost independent of the ‘Sergovia tradition,’ but well within the elastic classical continuum.
Instrument as Orchestra – Miss Isbin’s Evolving Palimpsest
While this manipulation of the instrument is available to all masters of it, the players don’t strike pure gold as often as Miss Isbin does. Does she ‘get this’ from Heitor Villa-Lobos? One is willing to hazard a guess as it was the Brasilian composer who first started to treat the guitar as something bigger than it was supposed to be – and he was phenomenally successful as a composer to strike gold with regard to visualising and scoring for the instrument as a small orchestra.
For her part, Miss Isbin dwells constantly in that realm off possibility, continuing to extend the range and scope of the instrument with delicate albeit nervy fingers on gossamer strings. The sensuously liquid and always beckoning performance on LeFrak’s masterful works on Romántico are a cut above almost anything a guitarist has brought to life – this year at any rate.
As with her Bach – as spectacular and as mathematically and emotively as Bach intended his music to be – so also is her foray into Hindustani music [cue Strings for Peace], and contemporary classical music [cue Affinity]. Thus, having carved out a space for herself, non pareil, in the realm where composers have created a legacy for her to explore, she comes across with flying colours. One has only to dive deeply into her work on Affinity and into her Latin-American repertory.
The lyrical – often bittersweet – expressiveness that is intended by both the composers and the culture in which their music was written has enabled Miss Isbin to re-create wonderful soundworlds so big that in doing so she has embraced the richness that her instrument afforded her and [continues to] constantly work at recreating her musical palimpsest as if to say: “I hereby wish that my guitar should not simply respond to a full orchestra, but to become the full orchestra itself.
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. Of course, the fabled Testament belongs to no one but Ludwig van Beethoven. Fabled…? Picture Beethoven as a kind of forerunner of our all-but-mythical Superman, one arm outstretched as he is about to pierce the mystical skin of the music of the skies en route to the Divine. Now picture all of the composers whose works Ms Levin has performed on these two recordings – a proverbial posse of legendary composer-meteors streaking heavenward en route to… the Divine
Indeed, Ms Levin has sojourned with them, practicing all her life as if to superscribe her career path onto that Heiligenstadt Testament. It is as if she were doing what Beethoven is believed to have exhorted every artist to do: “Don’t only practice your art,” he said, “But force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.” And here we have two versions of that Testament representing Ms Levin’s quest to traverse the musical continuum streaking her way – and seemingly uniting it – via disparate parts of the world – through a space-time warp all her own. In doing so, Ms Levin has joined several imaginary dots in the sonic constellation of that heavenly continuum.
Ms Levin is the epitomé of a proverbial, questing artist rooted in the future, often looking back, then forward zig-zagging across the artistic firmament creating astronomical sonic connections that all come together in the end, uniting us – indeed raising us together with herself – to that Zion-like peak of her pianism… to the véritable apogee at the very heart of her musicianship. The beauty of it all is that one is unable to pronounce one better than the other. Rather they ought to be seen a Promethean musical expedition [without the heroic falls to the bas of the mountain of course] en route to its peak. And what incredibly good fortune to be part of this musical journey.
The main event of the 2020 recording – a live performance beautifully captured on record by Alan Wonneberger, at the Linehan Concert Hall, University of Maryland during the 2019 edition of Festival Baltimore – is, of course, Beethoven’s mighty Piano Sonata No 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 ‘Hammerklavier’. On the way to the pinnacle of this recording Ms Levin joins some dots. From Beethoven’s great predecessor, Georg Frideric Handel. Her choice of the repertoire to draw a gossamer-like line from Handel to Beethoven is extremely interesting too, with a piece from a series that recalls his mastery of the keyboard – something his later German acolyte shared with him.
This is Third Suite for Piano in D minor [from 8 Suites de Pieces Clavicin HWV 428. Characteristically this glorious suite also casts Handel in the role of the magnificent successor to J.S. Bach – not only as a keyboardist but also as a composer of enormous wit and invention. This is certainly true of the last movement of the suite – its Air with 5 Variations. Of course, the build up to this grand finale is magnificent to. Handel’s suites lend themselves to being played on the piano as well as on the Baroque keyboard.
Certainly, Ms Levin plays the entire suite eloquently. And so, when the playing is this good – as it is with the piano-caressing fingers of Ms Levin – it’s hard to imagine anyone playing them better than her. She brings a quality to this music which is both mellow and incisive. Above all, her playing emphasizes the brilliance of the music rather than the brilliance of her own playing. This too is portentous as Ms Levin swerves through her space-time continuum towards Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ via a 21st century piece – Anders Eliasson’s pianistically ingenious carousel. The detour is almost providential as it augurs well for the main event. The big ECG-like consonances and dissonances, its liquid glissandos and broad arpeggios take us to quite another world – as if reflected in a shattered mirror, in a forest, like a Mendelssohnian scherzo. All of which leads up to Ms Levin’s Beethoven.
The pianist’s technically astonishing performance should take its rightful place among the great performances of the epic sonata – with Pollini’s performance of Beethoven’s Late Sonatas. But, more especially to the point, Ms Levin’s ‘Hammerklavier’ is evocative of that most definitive performance by Solomon. And yet Ms Levin’s [performance is unsurpassable in its delicacy – especially in the brilliant Largo – Allegro risoluto movement.
Moreover, where the ‘Hammerklavier’ demands it she ensures that it gets the full powerhouse treatment – both at the beginning and at the end. This is surely how the composer must have imagined the music – both in terms that recall his Heiligenstadt Testament as well as in terms of the way the music is conceived – as being profound and intense in that quintessentially grand Beethovenian manner.
She follows that seminal recording up with another brilliant one – this time with concept both similar – yet vastly different – to the live performance. This recording – like the title of the album itself – is [also] purposeful wandering through ‘a garden of delights’ reminiscent of a work by the great Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges. Thus, and indeed appropriately, the album is entitled Phantasma. Here we are beckoned by the pianist like that fabled mesmeric piper of Hamelin – through the Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky.
This time, the grand lead in – even before the seductive Promenade – is via an exposition of another big work by arguably the greatest pianist of his [and many-an-era then or now] Franz Liszt, whose monumental work, the Sonata in B minor it is that leads us from one great hall in the museum of the sky into another great hall housing the Pictures at an Exhibition with which Mussorgsky paid homage to his friend – the architect and painter Victor Hartmann who died in 1873.
We are gently ushered – at times de rigueur commandeered – by the prodigiously-gifted pianist to Mussorgsky via the grand architecture of Liszt’s Sonata in B minor. It too has a homage – this one to Robert Schumann and is cast, like Schumann’s Fantasie in C, in three movements that are played without a pause. And it’s most appropriately played – as befits the vast work that it is – underlaid by a series of themes and motifs that grow, fuse and eventually expire. Three of the main motifs are stated in the opening bars: a softly ominous descending phrase, a wildly animated one, and a low growl of repeated notes.
Liszt weaves these together and drives these along a whirl of furious semi-quavers, exploring a kaleidoscopic range of thematic transformations. The first motif is escalated into a ‘big tune’ of grandiose dimensions; another becomes a lyric melodic line of great tenderness. The second movement ushers in a mood of subdued, even spiritual solemnity. Finally, although there is no tangible evidence indicating a representation of Goethe’s Faust, its difficult not to project a Faustian subtext, especially as Liszt does projects a demonic fury onto its last movement.
Many pianists treat the Sonata in B minor either as a barnstorming melodrama or as a rather unwieldly successor to Beethoven’s late sonatas. In Beth Levin’s hands the music’s visionary dimension stands out, but it feels as if every phrase has been carefully thought out in terms of weight and colour; the work’s undoubted histrionic quality is tempered by moments of iridescent delicacy and calm.
Again, the high drama if the Liszt sonata is a perfect build-up to second ‘main’ event – Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Ms Levin leads us through the great hall of paintings, leading us in with the ubiquitous Promenade – the recurring theme representing “the viewer’s” walking between the Romantic and often fantastical pictures. There are ten pictures in all, each one a superbly atmospheric miniature that utilises the piano’s expressive potential in a way that suggests the influence of Liszt but reveals greater psychological insight.
A wide range of moods is depicted, from the sinister melancholy of – and mimicking the kind of dramatic short-legged walking tempi – of the Gnomus, through the playfulness of Les Tuileries [appearing to presage Claude Debussy], to the grand triumphalism of The Great Gate of Kiev. Although this is an epic suite for the piano it is almost always recalled in its version orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922, and – in more recent times – by the rock version which the keyboardist Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer played on his great bank of electronic synthesizers [including a giant Moog].
Beth Levin gives us perhaps the most authentically grand version, a strong reading of the original piano suite, with bold and dramatic playing that makes one think that the orchestration didn’t really add anything substantial to the work. In sheer colour and variety [cue Promenade], in the depth of its characterisation and the exceptional range and refinement of its pianism, Ms Levin imparts a power and dramatic stature to the ambience of this suite which no amount of orchestral bigness can – or has – achieved.
With buoyant, aristocratic grace and psychological ambiguity, Ms Levin brings an almost insolent virtuosity and swagger to the piano works on both recordings. This is the world of piano evoked as few practitioners could even hope to try and emulate.
Deo Gratis…
Beth Levin: Hammerklavier Live
Music – 1. Georg Friedrich Handel – Third Suite for Piano in D minor [from 8 Suites de Pieces Clavicin HWV 428, first collection, 1720] – i. Praelüdium. Presto, ii. Allegro, iii. Allemande, iv. Courante, v. Air with 5 Variations, vi. Presto. 2. Anders Eliasson – vii. Carosello [Designo No. 3 for piano, 2005]. Ludwig van Beethoven – Piano Sonata No 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 ‘Hammerklavier’ viii. Allegro, ix. Scherzo. Assai vivace, x. Adagio sostenuto. Appassionato e con molto sentimento, xi. Largo – Allegro risoluto [1817 – 1818].
Musician – Beth Levin: piano
Released: 2020
Label: Aldilá Records ARCD011
[aldilarecords.de]
Runtime: 1:12:21
Beth Levin: Phantasmata
Music – Franz Liszt: i. Sonata in B minor [1853]. Modest Mussorgsky – Bilder einer Ausstellung [1874] – ii. Promenade, iii. Bydlo, iv. Promenade, v. Il veccio castelo, vi. Promenade, vii. Tuileries [Despute d’enfants apres jeux], viii. Bydlo [Heavy ox-cart], ix. Promenade. x. Ballet of the Unhatched chicks in their Eggs, xi. Samuel Goldenberg & Schmuyle, xii. Promenade, xiii. Limoges. Le Marche, xvi. Catacombae [Sepulchurm Romanum], xv. Cum Mortuis in lingua mortua, xvi. Baba Yaga. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs, xvii. The Great Gate of Kiev.
Musician – Beth Levin: piano
Released: 2024
Label: Aldilá Records ARCD024
[aldilarecords.de]
Runtime: 1:12:08
The days when pianist and pedagogue Orli Shaham “played” the proverbial younger sibling to her more famous brother, the celebrated violinist Gil Shaham are over. With her monumental box-set Mozart – The Complete Piano Sonatas now in the rearview mirror, it’s also time to survey a Mozartian road, somewhat well-travelled. Admittedly, ‘comparisons are – quite literally – odious’ albeit Ms Shaham’s Mozart sits high atop – if not at the very top – of a list of 10 superlative compendia such as this Mozart one; certainly, Mozart – The Complete Sonatas and Variations [EMI, 2000] by Daniel Barenboim comes to mind, and, of course, Glenn Gould’s…
But, Mr Barenboim’s set includes three discs containing the Variations, which leaves Gould’s by virtue of it being similar in scope to Ms Shaham’s. One comparison does beg mention for more than one reason, apart from the fact that both sets are a sort parallel-road-travelled. Both Ms Shaham and Mr Gould are prodigious pianists who penetrate the wonderful world of Mozart’s genius. Both are highly acclaimed pedagogues – Mr Gould [courtesy of two epic recordings of The Goldberg Variations [Columbia/Sony, 1955 and 1981] – more highly regarded as an interpreter of Johann Sebastian Bach, and both are [were, in the case of Mr Gould] successful broadcasters.
There is, however, one major caveat: matters inevitably and unalterably sunk Mr Gould [after he aired his views on Mozart]. His first self-inflicted wound came on April 28th, 1968, when he produced a two-part radio broadcast, which was aired on PBS. The broadcast was entitled How Mozart Became a Bad Composer in Mr Gould went as far as to disparage the ingenious composer as a better writer of the inter-office memo than a composer. He was referring to Mozart’s late work – one sonata, to be precise – and although some have made light of the comment the pianist-turned-‘opinionated broadcaster’ was unlikely to have been joking.
The programme was never re-broadcast, and the comment remained hidden – and forgotten – until the New-York-based documentary filmmaker Laura Carra unearthed it forty-eight years later. Many [especially those from the Glenn Gould Foundation] had glossed over the comment referring to the programme and the Mozart comment as a revelation of “the comic side of his persona on television.” I’m not so sure. Moreover, Mr Gould was referring to Mozart’s Sonata No. 13 in B-flat Major, K. 333, otherwise known as The “Linz” Sonata.
Mr Gould had a reputation for being a naysayer. Remember his famous public ‘quarrel’ with Leonard Bernstein over the interpretation of Johannes Brahms‘ First Piano Concerto at a New York Philharmonic concert on April 6, 1962? At any rate he may have inadvertently shot himself in the foot again when he released Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas, Volumes I and II [Columbia Masterworks, 1979]. There were, of course, no liner noted disparaging comments this time. He just played that fine sonata quite superbly. And it certainly was no inter-office memo…
Back to Ms Shaham’s Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas, which is certainly more beckoning than Mr Gould’s – more, that is, in the masterly realm of the interpretations recorded by Mr Barenboim…
The quality of her playing throughout her epic survey of Mozart’s sonatas. Ms Shaham takes nothing for granted in these works – indeed, in music as a whole. Nor should we in listening to her. If you know how your Mozart goes, certainly in his eternal penchant for lyricism goes, or his genius for the greater harmonic ingenuity and melodic richness displayed in his later sonatas, for that matter. Which is not to say that she does anything wildly idiosyncratic, let alone provocatively iconoclastic, a la Glenn Gould. At the same time, she digs deeper into each miniature, the very minutiae of everyday life, so to speak – especially Mozart’s relationship to each character and story evoked therein.
Nor does the pianist, blessed with prodigious musicianship, show any signs of being a budding [Mozartian] prophet. Rather, she plainly understands that every interpretation is just one possibility, and she offers us a very enticing opportunity to open our minds, especially in familiar works burdened by tradition – in this case the interpretations which, in the wrong hands, have tended to sound uninteresting, even formulaic. Perhaps this is what Mr Gould ought to have looked at rather Mozart’s playful and quick-witted compositional approach, both of which Ms Shaham brings out in masterly fashion.
Her delicate phrasing creates a feeling of innocent melodiousness, yet each movement is intelligently worked out, and her subtle manipulation of timing conveys a keen sense of that playfulness and quick-witted character that Mozart always exudes. In each case, across the grandeur of the 6-discc set, Ms Shaham’s reading are fresh and spacious – and in the case of Sonata No. 11, the A-major, “Alla turca” K. 331 [disc 3], Ms Shaham shows off Mozart’s true genius not simply for the form, but his puckish sense of surprise right from the first movement onwards.
It begins, not with the customary fast movement but with a gentle, almost folk-song like lullaby which goes through a series of sprightly, if conventional variations. The ensuing Minuet and Trio leads without a break into the infectiously animated Rondo “Alla turca” – a whirling dance which, like the fifth violin concerto, reflects the fashion for all things all things Turkish. And then there is the Sonata No. 14 in C-minor K. 457 [disc 6], written in 1784, which could hardly be more different than anything he’d written hitherto.
This is Mozart’s grandest solo work: terse, pithy and inward-looking in a way that seems to anticipate Beethoven. [Seven moths after completing it, Mozart wrote an introduction to the sonata in the form of a Fantasia. The sonata – with or without it – remains a studious and intense work, with a startling range of moods, and in Ms Shaham’s delicate hands it provides a most vivid portrait of Mozart the brilliant keyboard player.
In a quote from the liner notes Ms Shaham tells us: “It was the one sonata of the eighteen I needed to think about more… {I was] eager to put all of the emotional content out there to be judged. I’m all about vulnerability,” she concluded. All of this shows immediately. Ms Shaham takes us into another world. It is a world full of glinting lights, mysterious depths, expectations, frustrations, doubts and hopes, like a late-quasi Mozartian scherzo, glimpsed by moonlight in a forest.
Even if she recorded nothing but the No 14, Ms Shaham’s genius for Mozart would have been reflected through her interpretation of this sonata alone. In sheer colour and variety, in the depth of characterisation and the exceptional range and refinement of its pianism, Ms Shaham here imparts a power and stature to this sonata, which no amount of ‘bigness’ [the usual route taken by pianists] can achieve. Her delicate lyrical, and intent to ‘let it all hang out’ is perfectly suited to the work.
In conclusion one might add the following observation after surveying each of the sonatas as they were releases on one or two discs at a time, over a period of time, [and now as a comely box-set]: Ms Shaham brings out all of these sonatas myriad delights… always with a degree of grit beneath the filigree surface, perhaps, yet overall they are everything you expect from both the genius who is Mozart as well as everything that the definition of a sonata was meant to be: To hark back to the works of Arcangelo Corelli and his contemporaries, a form first described by Sébastien de Brossard in his Dictionaire de musique [Amsterdam, ca. 1710]? literally, a piece played as opposed to a cantata [in Latin cantare, ‘to sing’]; a piece sung.
In these Mozart sonatas are indeed – to coin a new compound epithet that describes them perfectly both sonate-cantare. Orli Shaham brings effortless Mozartian urbanity and lyricism to all the items, which are as seductive as they are persuasive, an object lesson in the very essence of style. Each is played with buoyant, aristocratic grace and psychological ambiguity. And she is [rightly] almost insolently effortless in bringing debonnaire virtuosity, even sassy swagger to each of the pieces. A fitting tribute to the icon who is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. All in all, a dazzling world of Mozartian sonatas evoked as few would even dare to try.
Sharon Isbin: A Small Orchestra on Gossamer Wings
Remembering Putumayo founder Dan Storper
Zafarán: Celebrating Mediterranean Traditions and Borderless Musical Vision
Beth Levin: Heiligenstadt… En route to The Divine.
Orli Shaham Serves Champagne, Fizz and Finesse with her Mozart: The Complete Piano Sonatas
Frederick Block: Chamber Works
Barbara Hannigan: The Art of Divining… through Divination
Noémie Raymond | Zhenni Li-Cohen: Dialogues
Barbican Quartet: Worthy 1st Prize Winners of ARD International Music Competition
Heloísa Fernandes: Quintessentially Brasilian
Inna Faliks: The Art of the Sublime
9 Horses: Strum
Banda Magda Presents: Yerakina
Isabel Bayrakdarian – Ravel, Sayat-Nova & Kradjian: Troubadour and the Nightingale
Interview with Paul Bender & Perrin Moss of “Hiatus Kaiyote”
Conversation with Chris McKhool from Sultans of String
A Fascination With “Bombay”: Richard Bennett; Bombay Dub Orchestra
Conversation with Paraguayan Guitarist Extraordinaire Berta Rojas
Badi Assad – Between Love and Luck
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) : The Art of Fugue
Fatoumata Diawara – Fatou
Ludovico Einaudi: Taranta Project
Henry Cole & The Afrobeat Collective: Roots Before Branches
Clarice Assad: Imaginarium
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Albums12 years agoBanda Magda Presents: Yerakina
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Albums13 years agoIsabel Bayrakdarian – Ravel, Sayat-Nova & Kradjian: Troubadour and the Nightingale
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Interviews13 years agoInterview with Paul Bender & Perrin Moss of “Hiatus Kaiyote”
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Interviews13 years agoConversation with Chris McKhool from Sultans of String