Michael Lewin brought forth a pianistic panoply primarily of 20th-century composers for the Foundation of Chinese Performing Arts Series at Williams Hall on Thursday. Lewin has performed in over 30 countries with a repertoire of 40 piano concertos and has soloed in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue over 50 times. He began with a brief verbal introduction of the first two compositions of the concert. The all-B minor/major first half would end with the iconic Liszt Sonata.
Lewin described Arvo Pärt’s minimalistic Für Alina as a benediction. In the meditative and ethereal interpretation, held pedal and carefully crafted intervals produced reverberations that resembled pealing of bells, yet we hear only two notes played at any one time, in unison, with a low octave pedal point held throughout. The structure places a short note followed by a long note, then two short notes and a long, continue the pattern to seven short notes followed by a long note; then the process reverses. To the deeply religious Pärt, the number seven represents God, perfection, as it took seven days to create the earth. One can think of Für Alina as a minimalist representation of Genesis. In past centuries, key signatures held spiritual significance, and B minor represented patience, or calmly awaiting one’s fate while submitting to divine dispensation. Lewin enchanted us with exquisite touch and beautiful line shaping.
While Pärt lived in Estonia, the Soviet regime banned his Credo due to its clear religious context. His Berliner Messe (Berlin Mass) was commissioned in the west in 1990, after the fall of the Soviet regime. The BSO will perform his Tabula Rasa in 2025, alongside Mozart’s Requiem.
Lewin next took us from the ethereal to the corporeal in Charles Griffes’s 1915 Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan (the first emperor of the Chinese Yuan Dynasty). Its very exotic far-east flavor begins with wandering LH low notes, punctuated eventually by chords in the RH, then growing into sweeping arpeggios. Lewin evoked a flowing river with fluid arpeggios, his voicing of the exotic melody was exquisite. Griffes often took inspiration from literary ideas; he based this one on a sensual poem by Coleridge. Busoni suggested that Griffes orchestrate the Pleasure Dome, and the BSO premiered the piece to instant acclaim two years before Griffes died. As much as we relished Lewin’s take, it can’t match the orchestral colors produced by woodwinds, harps and strings.
Born in New York, Griffes moved to Berlin to study music, where he absorbed German romanticism, French impressionism and Russian composers, and is said to be the first American impressionistic composer. He died at 35 in the Spanish flu epidemic. Lewin has recorded all of Griffes’s piano music on two CDs.
After our descent from Pärt’s heaven to Griffes’s earth, the Liszt Sonata B Minor took us further down to the edge of hell. Two low staccato notes knock, and slowly the door to the abyss opens in what has to be the most ominous beginning of any major piano piece. Liszt finished the sonata in 1853 and dedicated it to Robert Schumann. The sonata introduced many novel concepts, and it took a while for the public to embrace the composition. Many theories have been put forth about the origins of its inspiration; some have found embedded numerology while others have imagined Trinitarian references. It proved the perfect showcase of Lewin’s lightning speed, accuracy of octaves and vast dynamic range. Used to playing in large venues, he flooded the small hall with tremendous fortissimos. As is the custom nowadays, Lewin’s staccatos were clipped and abrupt, making dramatic exclamation marks, and the tempos fairly strict, avoiding fuzzy sentimentality. For a contrasting performance of what was in vogue in an earlier era, consider Cortot’s 1926 rendition HERE.
Gian Carlo Menotti based his 1953 Ricercare and Toccata on The Old Maid and the Thief, his first opera in English. In two movements, the first is lyrical and contrapuntal, and the second humorous with a steady 16th-note-perpetual-motion motif. Here again, Lewin demonstrated his gift for lightning-quick fingerwork.
Next Lewin played three Debussy Preludes: Bruyères (Heather) has a lovely melody, reminiscent of the “Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” Général Lavine – eccentric is a cakewalk. Feux d’artifice, the final and technically most challenging of the Preludes, depicts Paris Fireworks over the Seine. Lewin astounded us with his brilliance; his fingers flew over the keyboard, shaping tremolos, arpeggios and even double glissandos in aural pyrotechnics which gradually dissolved into dying embers that drift into darkness. He certainly ignited a fire under the seats of the listeners.
Moritz Moszkowski was a German-Polish composer who lived in Berlin. His Caprice Espagnol began with many repeated notes, reminiscent of the Scarlatti K141, and turned into a lighthearted musical sponge cake; very fast and virtuosic, with a flirtatious center filling, it closed the concert deliciously.
A number of local pianists in attendance included Sergey Schepkin, Yukiko Sekino and Victor Rosenbaum. Lewin received a standing ovation from the appreciative audience and his encore was the deeply moving Bach-Vivaldi Sicilienne (from the concerto in D Minor). He encored again with Venezuelan Evencio Castellanos’s Mañanita Caraqueña (early morning in Caracas); sunny smiles became general.