This eagerly awaited issue is as moving as it is thought-provoking. In a lengthy and discursive essay, in what the French call 'Une Bavardage,' both soloist and conductor speak of the relative natures of Brahms D minor and B flat Concertos, the intense drama of the former, the relative equanimity of the latter. Yet how intriguing to find Levit writing of 'a vitamin infusion,' or of 'oxygen injected into your veins' with their promise of an edge and brilliance familiar from many of his previous recordings.
Yet what is clear is that both Levit and Thielmann have resisted what they see as an alien flamboyance, a glorying in the extrovert, reminding you that if the D minor Concerto's first listeners were baffled and dismayed by a 'Symphony with piano obligato,' the lack of writing for a necessarily spot-lit soloist, they failed to sense Brahm's intention. Both Concertos demand the ultimate in musical and technical mastery, but they are not virtuoso show pieces ( it is surely significant that Horowitz disliked both Concertos for what he saw as their opacity, with too little opportunity for display. He confessed he only played and recorded them because of his father-in -law's insistence. You did not argue with Toscanini!).
And so, you get from both soloist and conductor a different, characterful but exclusively musicianly view; one to make you think again. True, the B flat Concerto is a monument to lyricism but it is also of an equalled grandeur, and it is Levit's and Thielman's subtle interplay of strength and gentleness that strikes you at every point. Fine shading replaces any possible leaning towards bombast. Working as one-- hand in glove-- Thielman in particular makes you aware of how far he has adapted his interpretation to his soloist, to a pianist radically different to Pollini, his partner in his previous recordings of the Concertos. Brahms may have teasingly described the second movement from the Second Concerto as a ' tiny, wisp of a scherzo'( it is monumental) and, provoked by a less than successful performance of his First Concerto by a woman pianist, vowed that he had written a concerto which no woman could play( it is now in the repertoires of many women pianists) with a suggestion of the bullish, and he would surely have been surprised and gratified by Levit and Thielman's resolving of so many outlandish difficulties into pure music. Allowing the listener their own space to reflect as well as wonder they make you recall Donald Tovey's description of a crucial moment in the first movement of the Second Concerto when you seem to hear 'the beating of mighty wings' also his feeling for 'that great and child-like finale.' From Levit and Thielman the finale has a touch of the playful or elfin; the strength is there as required but so is the sense of relief after the weight and grandeur of the previous movements and also after a no less inward rather than overt view of the D minor Concerto.
And now to Levit's solo disc of late Brahms, music described by William Ritter as 'like the golden lustre of parks in autumn, and the austere black and white of winter walks.' And it is here that Levit proves himself to an even greater extent than in the Concertos an unforgettable poet, his very recognisable clarity never achieved at the expense of warmth or emotional delicacy. He captures all of the unsettling, near minimalism of the Intermezzo No 5 and, again, nothing is played for effect or for more obvious appeal. You may miss something of Julius Katchen's overwhelming bravura in his celebrated Brahms recordings but, equally, happy to miss a sometimes-alien glamour and theatricality. In opus 117 No 1, Brahms 'lullaby to my sorrows' there is a haunting sense of melody and chiming counter melody, while in the Ballade from opus 118 the potentialy opaque texture is refined and clarified. The whirling momentum of the Intermezzo No 4, as if of 'time's swift chariot hurrying by' is as animated as the final Intermezzo, an epic in miniature, is a darkly reflective prophecy of impressionism.
Meticulously observant of the score, Levit transcends it at every level. He is among that elite who can make a single note tell and linger in the mind 'long after it was heard no more.' As an encore he is joined by Thielemann in a four hand arrangement of Brahms A flat Walz, a bonhomie addition.
Bryce Morrison