Previous volumes in the Levy series:-
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/Ernst_Levy.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Nov02/Ernst_Levy2.htm
It’s best to read this
review in the light of my previous examinations
of the Levy Phenomenon, already documented
in the first two volumes issued by Marston.
His biographical story and his intellectual
and musical horizons are noted there.
Levy is one of those musicians for whom
a Health Warning is necessary on the
back of the jewel case; in this case:
His performances are not for the
faint of heart. Everything I’ve
heard leads me to second that judgement
with the corollary that his recordings
are of such personalised power that
they demand a hearing.
Beethoven, Schumann
and Brahms constitute the heavyweight
programme in recitals given in 1954,
1955 (the bulk) and 1959. Sound quality
obviously varies though it never falls
beneath the serviceable and is often
very good such as the Op.10 No.3 sonata
performance. This certainly opens at
a Presto - and no mistake – but is then
subjected to so many ramifications of
rubati, agogics and tempo fluctuations
that it soon leads to a kind of phrasal
compaction. Levy’s avoidance of a regular
tempo is part of an almost mathematical
extremism, his continual surge and release
of phrases part of a larger emotive
swelling. Similarly the Largo is heroically
slow and italicised, not unlike Tureck’s
later Bach recordings in its microscopic
analytical schema. The non-legato approach,
fused with a deliberate lack of sustain
or warmth or indeed pedal, adds its
own ominous chill. There is a lengthy
analysis in the notes of what Levy does
in the Minuet, or maybe to the
Minuet. I must say here that the lifeless
corpse of this movement, so drained
of rhythm, or anything approaching motion,
has its own horrible fascination. And
the weird, sectional, non-linear Rondo
finale – replete with staccati and perfectly
non-legato – has its own abrupt sound
world that will be far removed from
most people’s experience. And in the
Waldstein one hears the same
battery of idiosyncrasies – of articulation,
tempo, and phrasing. One never goes
more than a few bars without incursions
of this kind and the result is a bewildering
sense of dislocation and otherness,
of re-sculpting and re-aligning the
music in the light of a powerful sense
of the unresolved tension and drama
engendered by Levy.
The Appassionata
was recorded in 1955 and the sound is
a touch more subterranean but it’s still
acceptable. Here the Dionysian seems
to gain the upper hand; this is disruptive,
dangerous playing that seems to ride
roughshod over bar lines, metre and
any semblance of normalcy in Beethovenian
pianism. The way Levy highlights or
picks at notes and phrases with such
unexpected determination in the slow
movement is another example of his remorseless
examination of the otherness of these
canonic works. If one thinks this playing
off-kilter and absurd – and there’s
clearly a case to be made that it is
– one should note that behind the apparent
caprice Levy had an acute and penetrating
mind; his decisions are not random.
I’d be repeating myself
too much to run through his Schumann
with a fine-toothed comb. Objections
– yes, certainly. A non-narrative sense
of discursiveness, too much pedal, some
forcing through the tone, holding chords
too long, a frantic aspect, confused
voicings (variation VII) and textual
lack of clarity; finally a heroic approach
to the (non) establishment of a tempo
– in the finale – and wildly exaggerated
accelerandos and decellerandos. And
in its favour? More difficult to say
- maybe a sense of the wildness of the
music, its unpredictability. It won’t
do as a corrective - because what is
it supposed to be correcting? - but
it’s remarkable to hear. On a technical
note I should add that there’s quite
a deal of hiss. The same objections
to the playing are not true of the Brahms-Handel
to such an extent but it’s the kind
of playing that had me scurrying to
Solomon’s recording anyway. How odd
then to find that the 1954 Brahms recordings
are so very different from the Schumann.
Difficult to believe it’s the same pianist,
really.
The notes are once
again strongly reflective of pro-Levy
feeling and rightly so, of course, given
the nature of the performances and the
bewildered response they will generate
in most quarters (and of course equally
they will engender iconoclast support
in others). Specialists and those strong
of heart will snap up volume 3. If you
want to know where a pianist can take
the Symphonic Etudes or the Op.10 No.3
Sonata I suggest you beg or borrow this
disc and prepare to be appalled, shocked,
horrified, amazed, stunned, bewildered,
elated, confused or just plain pole-axed.
Jonathan Woolf
Ernst Levy (piano) 
