Robert
Levin,
pianist
Dwight
P. Robinson Jr. Professor of the Humanities
Harvard University
Pianist
Robert Levin is one of America's leading keyboard players in the early
instruments movement, but maintains a large repertory in all major
periods and genres of piano music. He is equally at home at the
harpsichord, the fortepiano, and the standard pianoforte, and as a
recitalist, concerto performer, and accompanist. In addition, he is
recognized as an authoritative scholar on the Classical and Baroque
periods.
Robert Levin studied piano with Louis Martin in New York City, and
composition there with Stefan Wolpe. He was invited to study with the
legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in
Fontainebleau, France, and in Paris while still a teenager. He had
additional composition studies with Leon Kirchner, and master classes in
piano with Clifford Curzon and Robert Casadesus when he was still a
junior in high school. His piano teachers in Paris were Jean Casadesus
and Alice Gaultier-Léon.
Robert Levin studied at Harvard University. Upon graduation (magna cum
laude), Rudolf Serkin invited him to join the faculty of the Curtis
Institute of Music in Philadelphia as head of the theory department. He
was then requested by Nadia Boulanger to become the next Resident
Director of the American Conservatory (1979 - 1983). In 1986 he was
professor of piano at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik in Freiburg,
Breisgau, Germany. He resigned this position in 1993 when he was
appointed a professor at Harvard University. He now occupies the chair
of Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at that
institution.
Robert Levin embarked on a highly successful concert and recording
career. He became known as a highly intelligent interpreter, able to
perform virtually any style of classical music. In his curriculum vitae
he states "I learn music extremely rapidly, and...there are few works in
the standard repertoire that I could not play with three weeks'
warning."
Robert Levin has appeared as keyboard player in a wide variety of works.
A list of a few of the composers whose music he has recorded shows his
wide repertory: J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Brehm, Falla,
Hamilton, John Harbison, Paul Hindemith, Charles Ives, Johann Philipp
Kirnberger, Felix Mendelssohn, Messiaen, Mozart, Francis Poulenc, Max
Reger, Robert Schumann, Shifrin, Shostakovich, Georg Philipp Telemann,
Weber, and Wolpe.
Robert Levin is best known as a Mozart pianist and scholar. He has
written cadenzas to many of the master's recordings (including the
piano, violin, and horn concertos), published embellishments of Mozart
solo parts, and written several reconstructions or completions of Mozart
works. His completion of Mozart's Requiem won wide critical acclaim
after its premiere by Helmuth Rilling at the European Music Festival in
Stuttgart in August 1991. His reconstruction of the K. 297b Sinfonia
concertante for four winds and orchestra is now frequently performed. He
has published numerous scholarly studies in musical issues, usually
concerning performing practice and authenticity, including a
world-renowned publication of completions of fragmentary Mozart works.
He has recorded on several labels, notably on Sony Classics' Vivarte
series.
Robert Levin is both a pianist and musicologist, serving in the latter
role as a teacher of composition, Mozart scholar, and writer of numerous
articles on music. As a performer, he is most closely associated with
the compositions of Mozart, which he plays on fortepiano in recordings,
but usually on piano in concert. He has also completed several important
compositions by Mozart, as well, most notably the Requiem. Beethoven has
occupied a significant chunk of his repertory, too, Levin having
recorded all the piano concertos. He has also been an advocate for
modern composers, including John Harbison and Denisov.
Despite his immense keyboard gifts as a child, Robert Levin initially
decided to primarily focus on composition, studying in New York with
composer Stefan Wolpe from the 1957-61. He then took piano instruction
from Louis Martin over the next three years, also in New York City.
Concurrent with this activity, Levin studied composition under Nadia
Boulanger and piano with Alice Gaultier-Léon at the Fontainebleau
Conservatoire Américain in France (1960-64). It is remarkable that all
this advanced training took place while Levin was still in high school.
Levin went on to Harvard and following graduation, was appointed head of
music theory at the Curtis Institute in 1968, upon the recommendation of
Rudolf Serkin. Two years later, he took on a professorship at S.U.N.Y.,
Purchase, which he concurrently held until he departed his Curtis post
in 1973. He would remain at Purchase until 1986, but again take a second
position during his tenure there, this at the Fontainebleau
Conservatoire, from 1979-1983, on the invitation of former teacher Nadia
Boulanger.
While Robert Levin had been making impressive strides in his pedagogical
profession, his keyboard career had advanced only modestly during the
nearly two decades following his graduation from Harvard. He had given
public concerts with reasonable frequency from childhood, but his first
major appearance would not come until his Alice Tully Hall recital in
1987, after which he enjoyed a nearly meteoric rise. Yet Levin was
hardly turning away from his teaching career at this point: he had
accepted a post at the Freiburg Staatliche Hochschule für Musik the year
before, holding the post until 1993. By that time, he had launched his
recording career. The first issue in his highly praised Mozart
fortepiano concerto series, with Christopher Hogwood and The Academy of
Ancient Music, was issued in 1994 on L'oiseau-Lyre. He had appeared in
chamber music recordings as early as 1986 (with Kim Kashkashian on
viola) and in the Mozart Concerto for Three Pianos with his friends
Malcolm Bilson and Melvyn Tan. Levin's eighth release in his own Mozart
concerto series came in early 2001. He has been widely praised for the
performances, particularly for his imaginative, improvised cadenzas, a
once-popular performance practice that some have credited him with
restoring to tradition. Levin has also made a mark with his set of the
five Beethoven piano concertos (also played on fortepiano), which he
recorded between 1996 and 2000. His version of Mozart's Requiem was
premiered in 1991 in Stuttgart at the European Music Festival, conducted
by Helmuth Rilling. Perhaps Levin's most famous Mozart essay was his
1998 Who Wrote the Mozart Four-Wind Concertante? In 1993, Levin left his
post in Freiburg and accepted a professorship at Harvard, where he
served as a Dwight P. Robinson Jr. Professor of the Humanities.
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Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
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中華表演藝術基金會
Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts
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