Seventy-one minutes of music making is all that has
survived of Josef Lhevinne, one of the greatest of all pianists - a
commonplace claim these days but one handsomely borne out in these incontestably
magnificent recordings. Lhevinne was born near Moscow in 1874 and studied
with Vassily Safonov before coming under Anton Rubinstein’s spell. Rosina,
whom Lhevinne married in 1898, graduated, as did her husband, from the
Moscow Conservatoire and they were later to form a formidable team,
some evidence of which exists on this disc. Lhevinne met and impressed
Tchaikovsky sufficiently for the composer to entrust him with the manuscript
of the Eighteen Pieces for Piano Op 72 (but Tchaikovsky died before
he could hear Lhevinne play them). Having moved to Berlin the Lhevinnes
were interned during the First World War and moved to New York, where
Josef made his first recordings for Pathé in 1920 or 21 (the
precise date seems to be uncertain).
Ward Marston’s transfers of these Pathés are
a considerable improvement on the boxy Novello issue of the Complete
Recordings, issued over a decade ago. We can better appreciate his exquisite
pianism. His Tchaikovsky is deliciously vivacious, though the copy used
is unfortunately a poor one, badly centred or warped, it’s still important
to listen through it to hear the pianist’s fantastic control at a breathtaking
tempo. His Schumann displays increasing rhythmic intensity, the Beethoven
Ecossaises effortlessly balanced. The bulk of Lhevinne’s recordings
date from 1935-37 though one of his speciality pieces, the Strauss Blue
Danube Waltz, in Schulz-Evler’s ridiculous but intoxicating arrangement,
was recorded in 1928. The Mozart Sonata for two hands was in fact never
issued on 78 – the Lhevinnes refused to allow its release though it’s
difficult to see why. This is true con spirito playing - vibrant, vivacious,
and convulsively witty. In the first movement full weight is given to
the fugal entry points – emphatic and clear – and phrases are built
at a relatively quick tempo. In the slow movement there is no over–romanticisation
at the warm and lively tempo chosen. The tone is balanced with not too
many crescendos and decrescendos, the line being kept superbly intact.
And in the finale, with not much pedal, there is some tremendous bass
and a lively and increasingly incendiary conclusion is the result. A
marvellous, life-affirming performance. They are equally good in the
Debussy, thriving on momentum, rhythm and the orchestrally tonal colouration
of Ravel’s arrangement. Lhevinne’s solo recordings from the mid-thirties
are by now part of the fabric of great solo performances. The Schumann
Toccata may surprise those who don’t know Lhevinne’s way with it; perhaps
anticipating combustion they will instead find playing entirely musical
in orientation, with subsumed virtuosity. This is certainly not as hell-for-leather
as other less intelligent and nuanced readings and its contrastive properties
are colossally imaginative. The Chopin discs are equally memorable.
The inhuman speed and accuracy of the G sharp minor Etude has to be
heard to be believed; the almost daemonic but calibrated fervour of
the B Minor is another jaw-dropping moment – once heard, never forgotten.
And yet Lhevinne’s aesthetic was aristocratic; there is never the feeling
that virtuosity is being paraded or velocity advanced as a means to
an end – with Lhevinne you always feel the humanity behind the notes.
He has an elegance and a sophistication and traces the moods and trajectories
of Chopin with lightening reflexes and in the Preludes he fuses together
elements of his pianistic instincts to form a kind of incendiary aristocracy
of address. He had all the qualities – passionate engagement, delicate
refinement, an acute musical ear, a sense of grace, a technique of the
utmost sophistication; it may be a small legacy but these are among
the greatest seventy-one minutes you will spend with a pianist.
Jonathan Woolf
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Josef Lhevinne, piano