Levant Plays Gershwin
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Free Music Notes for Levant Plays Gershwin
Free Music Review: The most heavenly earthly music
Hit: 5 Stars
Two excellent Amazon reviews , one by A. Burns, and another by Mr. Pardo tell more about this recording than I know. What I have to say is that the music of Gershwin , especially 'Rhapsody in Blue' has taken my mind and heart to a certain place that no other music does. There is a kind of inspiring sophistication, a kind of Manhattan glamour in the music which always moves this small- town soul. Levant is by all accounts one of the major interpreters of Gershwin and as Mr. Burns says by the end of the forties he was the 'representative of Gershwin on earth'.
This is the most heavenly earthly music imaginable.
Free Music Review: Excellent
Hit: 5 Stars
This not only presents the best version of all of the Gershwin works on the disk, but also contains the best recorded sound I have ever heard for any works recorded before 1950. Free Music Review: Gershwin's Second Self
Hit: 5 Stars
Will there ever again be a Gershwin interpreter like Oscar Levant?
I doubt it. A close acquaintance of the composer, Levant had Gershwin's music in his veins--and he also had the verve and the personality to bring it to life. In the late 1940s, when these recordings were made, Levant was something like the late composer's representative on earth.
This disc belongs in the collections of every Gershwin fan and every fan of American concert music. Yes, the sound on these recordings is not ideal by contemporary standards, and the performance of the famous Rhapsody in Blue is less than definitive because of cuts in the score amounting to about three minutes of music. But the rhythmic flair exhibited in certain passages makes this recording essential, even if it should be supplemented by an uncut performance with modern sound (I'd recommended Michael Tilson Thomas's version, which also resurrects Ferde Grofe's original jazz band orchestration--it's Grofe's orchestral version that Levant plays).
These performances of the Second Rhapsody and the "I Got Rhythm" Variations (neither usually regarded quite a first-rank Gershwin work) benefit from the presence of another legendary figure in American music, composer/conductor Morton Gould. But it's the matchless interpretations of the Piano Concerto in F and the Three Preludes that, for me at least, place this disc among the truly outstanding recordings of American music. The Concerto--an inspired work and the first one orchestrated by Gershwin himself--is thrillingly projected and overshadows all competition I've yet heard, both on recordings and live. Likewise, Levant's interpretation of the Preludes is so convincing and so deeply impressed on my consciousness that all other pianists' tempi, dynamics, and attacks seem "wrong" to me. What a great little suite these preludes make (fast-slow blues-fast), almost like a perfect little sonatina.
Endnote: Interestingly enough, Gershwin once contemplated writing a whole set of 24 preludes, a la Chopin, to be called The Melting Pot. Too bad he never completed this project. Two of the unpublished preludes, however, were combined by Samuel Dushkin into a piece called Short Story, which has been recorded for piano solo by Tilson Thomas on the same disc I mentioned above.
Free Music Review: A tribute to New York City !
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is fundamental in your collection . Forget Gershwin in his tuxedo formalism . Imagine you are placed in the 52th floor of the NBC building in a May Saturday evening ; you are excellently accompanied and New York is under your gaze .
Levant plays with such level of conviction allowing the music elevates by itself in the sky of Manhattan without fireworks or any other ornament .
Ormandy and the Philadelphia strings giving a tour de force performance with Rhapsody in blue so sincere and so free that you hardly will find another exquisite version in the market .
You may argue the Earl Wild recording , the Jesus Maria San Roma and Eugene List recordings as supreme rivals and these really are giants readings too ; who can deny it? , but this set owns a Bacchic mood and wide imaginative rapture that will engage you from the first bars and will involve you and this charm will be in your soul for ever .
The Second Rhapsody is played with such nostalgic poetry and feeling as you never heard it before .
But when you listen the Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra you will kiss the sky .
The variations "I got rhythm" are tastefully played and the three Preludes for Piano are simply overwhelming .
May be this is the masterpiece album of Oscar Levant .
Free Music Review: George and Oscar: Bliss
Hit: 5 Stars
No matter how many times I hear Mr.Levant play "Concerto in F," I get goosebumps.No one can play it like Mr.Levant. Somehow,knowing that his frail mental stability was always a factor in everything he did in life, makes his recording of the Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue even more breathtaking.Just listen to the passion and fire he put into his playing,all the while chasing his demons.This (lp) never left the turntable for a day when I was a little kid,and I loved watching him on the Tonight Show. I loved him.I love his talent and bravery.There will never be another Oscar.
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