By Lyn Bronson
Well, the flamboyant Robert Levin was in our midst again last night. On this occasion Chamber Music Monterey Bay presented him at Sunset Center in Carmel as a soloist with the New York Philomusica in the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto in a version for piano and string quintet. This newly discovered arrangement contains a reworking of the solo piano part by Beethoven himself (with some startling new passages) and an orchestral reduction for quintet by Franz Alexander Pössinger. Dr. Hans-Werner Küthen, who reconstructed the score of this arrangement from the manuscript, and the Beethoven Haus in Bonn have granted Robert Levin and the Philomusica the rights to its American premiere performances.
The first question you might ask is, did we miss not hearing Beethoven’s glorious orchestration? Was it a little bit like being picked up at the airport in a Volkswagen when you were expecting a Cadillac limo? The answer is no, we didn’t miss the full orchestration, and we also didn’t miss that little man who is always standing out in front waving a stick, either. It was amazing how the quintet, composed of violinists Todd Phillips and Carmit Zori, violists Ah Ling Neu and Kirsten Johnson and cellist Melissa Meell, provided such a rich and satisfying musical ensemble that the integrity and musical purpose of the orchestration sounded new and fresh to our ears.
