Robert Levin

“Levin lives Mozart throughout his entire body, and for every second of the score… he plays the music as if he’s writing it himself – for the first time.” – Hilary Finch, The Times Robert Levin belongs among the most highly regarded researches and performers of the music of Mozart and has collaborated with some of the most esteemed orchestras in renowned venues across the globe. He is one of the earliest artists to feature on ECM’s New Series, appearing both on the first Edition Lockenhaus entry (1985) as well as alongside Kim Kashkashian, on their acclaimed duo recordings Elegies (1986) and the Sonatas for viola and piano and viola alone by Paul Hindemith (1988). The pianist returned on Kashkashian albums several times over: on the recording of music of Shostakovich, Paul Chihara and Linda Bouchard (1991) with Robyn Schulkowsky, on the 1995 programme juxtaposing Kurtág and Schubert (Hommage à R. Sch.,) with Eduard Brunner as well as with the Brahms Sonatas for viola and piano (1997), which won the Edison award. The duo returned with a folk-infused Spanish programme a decade later. Levin presented a programme of works by Henri Dutilleux on 2010’s D’ombre et de silence, a performance “all the more impressive for the unbridled energy and clarity with which it puts the music’s distinctive argumentative character across” (Gramophone). His most recent ECM recording is a 7-CD boxed set comprising the first complete recording of W.A. Mozart’s piano sonatas on the composer’s own fortepiano (Anton Walter, 1782). It also includes unfinished Mozart fragments, completed by Levin in consideration of Mozart’s idioms and the compositional mannerisms of his era. In an extensive review of the Mozart recordings, The Sunday Times noted: “If anybody is shocked by the audacity with which a distinguished professor, after a lifetime’s experience in this field, can create such a fresh and joyous magic, that’s just tough. Listening to him, you could almost imagine that you’re hearing Mozart himself.”