In a pre-release review, Vienna’s Peter Kislinger wrote:
A real hammer
with Peter Kislinger. The American pianist Beth Levin with Handel, Eliasson and Beethoven's hammer piano sonata.
Born in Philadelphia in 1950, she made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of twelve. The child prodigy was not interested in the usual pianist career. There had been some live recordings of her concerts, but on CDs not available in Europe, before her CD "Inward voice" was released on a German label with music by Schumann, Schubert and Eliasson. One critic spoke of a "great success", piano magazines rank them under "the greatest of their craft." Paul Badura-Skoda was "deeply impressed and touched" when he heard her.
If a work has a great and really expressive quality, and at the same time is technically demanding, expressivity has to prevail, according to the credo of the artist, who apprenticed with Marian Filar, Rudolf Serkin and Leonard Shure. Her most recent CD, a concert recording made in Baltimore in 2019, is characterized by a mixture of tenderness, gripping energy, power, yes, force, and a seemingly improvisational freedom that primarily benefits the "exotic aspect" of the hammer piano sonata says Beth Levin, who "can only be implemented in the concert hall." To get to grips with the mighty sonata, one shouldn't be afraid of "icy slow" or "impossibly fast", The selection of works on the CD that lead up to the hammer piano sonata is also clever and original: the D minor suite by Beethoven's great idol, Georg Friedrich Handel, and "Carosello" by Anders Eliasson (1946 - 2013). Levin has already released the first two of the Swedish composer's "Disegno" series on CD.
Current recording: HAMMERKLAVIER LIVE | BETH LEVIN Handel | Eliasson | Beethoven Beth Levin, piano Aldilà Records (Gramola CD 98011)
The original review, in German: Peter Kislinger writes about Beth Levin's new CD | Vienna, Austria
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