Search - Christoph Willibald Gluck, Franz [Vienna] Schubert, Felix [1] Mendelssohn :: Levitzki: Complete Recordings, Vol. 1

Mischa who? Levitzki, that's who! And worth your money, too.

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 02/14/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mischa Levitzki (1898-1941) was a Russian-born American pianist who died at the unreasonable age of 42. He was born to naturalized American parents while they were visiting in Ukraine. He left only 53 sides of 78rpm records, and Naxos is in the process of reissuing them all. This is the first volume of that effort. And more power to them!This disc contains mostly encores, all but one recorded in the 1920s; the one exception is the brilliant 'Rondo Capriccioso' of Mendelssohn, recorded in 1933. And it includes a couple of Levitzki's own waltzes, both treasurable. There are two versions of the Tausig arrangement of Schubert's 'Marche Militaire', recorded four years apart and very different from each other.Levitzki could never be called one of the most important pianists of the twentieth century (and he didn't make the 'cut' in the great collection from Philips called 'Great Pianists of the 20th Century') but he was extremely popular and well-regarded, especially in this country. He typically played one big piece on a recital and then filled the rest of the program with the kinds of bon-bons heard here. And he played them as well as any. His playing is not wayward or idiosyncratic in any way, but it IS musical, technically brilliant and satisfying.Listen to his Scarlatti sonata, to the Chopin F minor waltz (Op. Posth.) and you'll see why connoisseurs still collect his recordings. I know I'll be acquiring the rest of this series from Naxos, partly because of the brilliant re-engineering done by that wondrous producer, Ward Marston."