Isserlis can turn a single note into a smile or a lament.

—The Guardian (UK)

Steven Isserlis Plays Schumann at the 92nd Street Y

Program

BEETHOVEN:
May 19
Variations on a Theme from Judas Maccabeus; Cello Sonata in F Major; 12 Variations in F on "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen" from Die Zauberflöte; Horn Sonata (transcribed for cello); Cello Sonata in A Major
May 20:
7 Variations on "Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen" from Die Zauberflöte; Cello Sonata in G minor; Cello Sonata in C Major; Cello Sonata in D Major

About This Performance

No better pairing than Isserlis and Levin could scale the heights of Beethoven’s rapturous Romanticism and probe the depths of his brooding darkness. Both artists bring substance and intellect to the enterprise while connecting to audiences as performers full of insights, intensity and humor.

Artist Biography

Steven Isserlis
Highlights of recent seasons have included concerto performances with the Berlin Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Washington National Symphony with Iván Fischer, the Philharmonia Orchestra with Vladimir Ashkenazy, and a European tour with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Philippe Herreweghe; an all-Haydn play-direct project with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall with Thomas Adès and Olli Mustonen; chamber music concerts at the Salzburg Festival, Carnegie Hall, BBC Proms and Aldeburgh Festival with collaborators including Joshua Bell, Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, Emily Beynon, Anthony Marwood and Denes Várjon; recitals in Washington, San Francisco, Vancouver and Milan; an Australian recital tour with Denes Várjon; and a series of concerts specially devised for the 2010 Cheltenham Festival to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Schumann’s birth.

2010–11 includes appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra and Ton Koopman, NHK Symphony and Tadaaki Otaka, the Philharmonia Orchestra and András Schiff, Vienna Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard, Swedish Radio Symphony and Daniel Harding, Washington National Symphony and Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic and Philippe Herreweghe; the world premiere of the surviving fragment of Vaughan Williams’s Cello Concerto in a completion by David Matthews at the BBC Proms; an Italian recital tour with Olli Mustonen; recitals in London and Warsaw with Stephen Hough; a U.K. tour playing the Brahms Double Concerto with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Joshua Bell; and chamber music concerts in Amsterdam, Budapest and Frankfurt. In addition he will be artist-in-residence at the Wigmore Hall and will take part in a number of concerts throughout the season as chamber musician and recitalist, as well as leading a series of educational events.

Isserlis takes a strong interest in authentic performance and has played with many of the foremost period instrument orchestras including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Simon Rattle, and Philharmonia Baroque with Nicholas McGegan. In 2010/11 he will tour with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr. He is also a keen exponent of contemporary music, and has worked with many composers on new commissions since giving the world premiere of John Tavener’s The Protecting Veil at the BBC Proms in 1989. In 2006 he gave the world première of Wolfgang Rihm’s Cello Concerto at the Salzburg Festival, and at the 2009 Aldeburgh Festival he premiered Thomas Adès's new work for cello and piano, Lieux retrouvés, together with the composer.

Writing and playing for children is another major interest. Isserlis's books for children about the lives of the great composers—Why Beethoven Threw the Stew and its sequel, Why Handel Waggled his Wig—are published by Faber and Faber, and both books have been translated into many languages. He has recorded a CD for BIS with Stephen Hough entitled Children's Cello, and with composer Anne Dudley he has written three musical stories for children which are published by Universal Edition. As an educator, Isserlis gives frequent masterclasses all around the world, and for the past thirteen years he has been Artistic Director of the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove in Cornwall.

With an award-winning discography, Isserlis’s recordings reflect his diverse interests in repertoire. His recording of the complete Solo Cello Suites by Bach for Hyperion met with the highest critical acclaim, and was Gramophone magazine’s Instrumental Disc of the Year and Critic’s Choice at the Classical Brits. Other recent releases include an all-Schumann disc for Hyperion with Denes Várjon, and a recording of works for cello and chamber orchestra entitled reVisions, for BIS.

The recipient of many honours, Isserlis was awarded a CBE in 1998 in recognition of his services to music, and in 2000 he received the Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau. Isserlis plays the Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius of 1726, kindly loaned to him by the Royal Academy of Music.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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, 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 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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