Don Isler/ Interview with Beth Levin

Isler's Insights

Interview With Beth Levin

Perhaps the most surprising thing Beth Levin told me in a recent interview was that she still thinks of herself primarily as a chamber musician.

Really?!

Yes, she is a gifted ensemble player. Yet, she played the Beethoven C Minor Concerto at 13 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, later performed the Brahms D Minor, and in recent years has played the last four piano sonatas of Beethoven, and recorded them. Of course, that includes the mighty "Hammerklavier," a recent addition to her performing repertoire.

Her playing is always full of conviction and emotional involvement, not surprising from an artist with a reputation for playing such deep, and serious repertoire. But her personality is far from that of a "high priestess guarding the sacred flame of this lofty music." (!) In conversation she is relaxed, easy-going, and totally unpretentious.

Beth Levin (the last name is pronounced le-VIN) was born in 1950 in Philadelphia. "We had an upright piano in the basement" she says "and I started going down there when I was four. It was 'my place.' The piano bench was filled with music from my father's family. My father was very musical, and I later accompanied him in Lieder. But, early on, a neighbor gave me cardboard sheets which associated notes with colors. Making up music was fun, like a game!"

When she was five, Beth started lessons with Cecille Sharlip, who lived around the corner, had come to Philadelphia to study at the Curtis Institute, and was married to a violinist in the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was "a great teacher!" But when Beth was twelve, and playing a Haydn Concerto, Ms. Sharlip decided that Beth should move on to another teacher. Beth auditioned for several people, then went to study with Marian Filar at the Settlement Music House.

Filar was a wonderful pianist, originally from Poland. He was a particularly fine Chopin interpreter, and a student of Walter Gieseking. A Holocaust survivor who had lost a lot of family, he thought of his students as family. "We had an instant bond when we discovered we had the same birthday" says Levin. "He had a glorious tone" she adds, and he gave her lots of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann to learn. He also played Gieseking recordings for her. His playing was "refined and conservative with everything worked out to a tee." He wrote in lots of fingerings for students, and figured out many details for them. "When you stepped out on stage, you were completely prepared."

Levin could have continued with Filar at Temple University but "I 'strayed' and auditioned for Rudolf Serkin."

She then went to Curtis ("a different world") and worked with Serkin, who was very different from her previous teacher. "He didn't explain a lot, or even talk very much. Serkin did play for me, and would point out what I was doing wrong, or would say 'You have to go home and practice that.'"

It was a tough transition from Filar, who told her how to do everything. But "Serkin's way of making music and his aesthetic would 'seep' into you, and you'd just drink it in."

Beth Levin didn't stay at Curtis to graduate (she did get a degree several years later from Boston University) but left after three years to study in Boston with Leonard Shure, who had offered her a scholarship. She worked with Shure for five years. Although he had a reputation for being demanding, and could be tough in lessons "He was very dear to me all the time." Perhaps it did not hurt that when she first met him "He opened the door and said 'Oh my gosh! You look just like my daughter!'"

Like Serkin, Shure also wanted students to figure things out by themselves. "I was sometimes a bit afraid of lessons, and had a lot of colds. Shure would ask me 'Is it the cold, or the work?!'"

"Shure was a phenomenal chamber music coach! I sometimes got more out of those sessions, and watching other peoples' lessons than from my own lessons. Studying chamber music with Shure, and going to the Marlboro Festival and the Harvard Chamber Music School were the greatest influences on me as a musician. I always expected to have a permanent ensemble, and am still surprised to find myself playing so many recitals now!"

She toured with Music From Marlboro for several years, and said it was very kind of Serkin to accept her for this, after she had left him for Shure.

She later moved to Brooklyn, married, and had two children. Her family is very much involved in the arts. When she met him, her husband was preparing a dissertation on Mozart. Since then, he has worked in Information Technology, but he is now seriously studying organ. Her daughter is a cantor, and her son, a painter.

Despite her family responsibilities, Levin was "intent on keeping everything going" and decided to study with Dorothy Taubman, who lived nearby. Although Taubman was known for teaching technique and had "great solutions for any technical challenges, I didn't have any real problems, and she didn't try to change my playing. 'If it works, that's fine' was her attitude. She mostly wanted to talk with me about the music."

In fact, it was at the Taubman Festival in Amherst, Massachusetts around 1990 that I first heard a recital by Beth Levin.

She performed for many years with the Trio Borealis, which was based in Iceland, and also gave concerts in Spain. She also taught for years at the Brooklyn Conservatory.

In recent years Levin has given concerts, and made recordings in Germany, the result of a Facebook connection. She enjoys making recordings, and has ambitious plans for new projects.

Levin appreciates the association with her manager, Natasha Cherny, who is a dynamo at finding concerts for artists she believes in. Levin is also one of the musicians who has taken an interest in the music of Vladimir Drozdoff, who was Cherny's grandfather.

Beth Levin recently made a recording sponsored by the Roger Shapiro Fund, which promotes modern music. And she's happy to be in touch via Facebook with contemporary composers who send her their music.

But in concerts she likes to combine new works with standard repertoire. At her next concert, on July 3rd at the Barge in Brooklyn, the "big work" will be the Symphonic Etudes of Schumann. Plus, she will play the Mozart D Minor Fantasy and the Brahms intermezzi, Op. 119. And also ---- a new work by Jonathan Dawe which is loosely based on both the Mozart and the Brahms!

Just before Covid, Levin was working with two ensembles. She's looking forward to more chamber music performances as things improve.

Ambitious and industrious, Beth Levin is also modest. "Though I was playing all this chamber music, about ten years ago I performed the Goldberg Variations of Bach at Steinway Hall, and made a CD of them. Then I started to think of myself as a soloist................."

Donald Isler