Piano Phantoms / Michael Lewin

$9.49
Label
Sono Luminus
Release Date
May 28, 2013
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • COMPOSER
      NIEMANN LYAPUNOV GRIEG TAUS
    • PERFORMER
      Michael Lewin
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      May 28, 2013
    • UPC
      053479216823
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      DSL-92168
    • LABEL
      Sono Luminus
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Instrumental
    Works ⌄

    1. Night on the Fleet

      Composer: Walter Rudolph Niemann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    2. Round of Phantoms

      Composer: Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    3. Slatter (Norwegian Dances), Op. 72: No. 14. The Bridal Procession of the Goblins at Voss

      Composer: Edvard Grieg

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    4. The Ghost Ship, Op. 1

      Composer: Carl Tausig

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    5. 4 Fairy Tales, Op. 34: No. 2 in E Minor, "Leshchiy (Wood Goblin)"

      Composer: Nikolai Medtner

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    6. Poetické nálady (Poetic Tone Pictures), Op. 85, B. 161: No. 8. Goblins' Dance

      Composer: Antonín Dvořák

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    7. Kaleidoscope, Op. 18: VII. A Ghost Story (version for piano)

      Composer: Eugène Goossens

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    8. Ghost Dance of the Zunis

      Composer: Carlos Troyer

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    9. Night Music of the Mountain Goblin

      Composer: Heino Kaski

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    10. Ghosts of Restormel

      Composer: John Vallier

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    11. 3 Ghost Rags: No. 1. The Graceful Ghost

      Composer: William Bolcom

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    12. Some Goblins and Gnomes and Things

      Composer: Eleanor Farjeon

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    13. Goblin and the Mosquito

      Composer: Florence Beatrice Price

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    14. Goblin Dance

      Composer: Edgar Leslie Bainton

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    15. Dance of the Phantoms

      Composer: Wilfried Hiller

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    16. March of the Goblins

      Composer: Julie Rive-King

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    17. Der Geistertanz, D. 15 (1st setting) (arr. S. Heller)

      Composer: Franz Schubert

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    18. Theme: Leise, innig

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    19. Variation 1

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    20. Variation 2: Kanonisch

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    21. Variation 3: Etwas belebter

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    22. Variation 4

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin

    23. Variation 5

      Composer: Robert Schumann

      Performer: Michael Lewin




PIANO PHANTOMS • Michael Lewin (pn) • SONO LUMINUS 92168 (65:56)


NIEMANN Ghosts: Night on the Fleet. LYAPUNOV Round of Phantoms. GRIEG The Goblins’ Wedding Procession at Vossevangen. LAUSIG The Ghost Ship. MEDTNER Wood Goblin. DVO?ÁK Goblins’ Dance. GOOSSENS A Ghost Story. TROYER Ghost Dance of the Zunis. KASKI Night Music of the Mountain Goblin. VALLIER The Ghosts at Restormel. BOLCOM Graceful Ghost Rag. FARJEON Some Goblins and Gnomes and Things. PRICE The Goblin and the Mosquito. BAINTON Goblin Dance. HILLER The Dance of the Phantoms. RIVÉ-KING March of the Goblins. SCHUBERT Spirit Dance (arr. Heller). SCHUMANN Ghost Variations


Theme recordings don’t always work, simply because the gimmick of the theme doesn’t always produce music of outstanding quality, but in this disc pianist Lewin seems to have been inspired by the learning of new pieces and thoroughly enjoyed making the disc. I, for one, also enjoyed listening to it.


A large part of the reason for my enjoyment was the fact that despite this “ghosts and goblins” theme, most of the music is really of a high quality. Little if any of it seems to have been written for effect, but merely to explore unusual melodic or harmonic structure by channeling ghostly titles. A quick glance at the list of composers immediately shows several whose reputations as good composers are undisputable—Niemann, Grieg, Medtner, Dvo?ák, Schubert, and Schumann—yet even the music of such composers as Sergei Lyapunov, Carl Tausig, Eugene Goossens, and Ferdinand Hiller are played here with consummate skill and high artistic commitment. Lewin, who won top honors in the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition and the William Kapell International Competition, is evidently an artist committed to excellence in phrasing and interpretation. Not for him the easy route of empty virtuosity: Lewin brings a fine sense of direction and continuity to everything he plays, and the result is a fascinating recital devoid of music one has heard time and time again.


Indeed, eight of the pieces on this disc (those by Troyer, Kaski, Farjeon, Price, Bainton, Hiller, Rivé-King, and Schubert) are world premiere recordings, and I was particularly delighted to see a piece on this disc by Florence Price, whose Piano Concerto I prize so highly. By giving just as much attention and energy to the music of lesser-known composers, Lewin elevates their music so that it sounds indistinguishable from that of the acknowledged masters. In fact, the “lightest”-sounding work on this program was actually Dvo?ák’s Goblin’s Dance, a nice piece but by no means a great one, and even here Lewin does his level best to raise its quality. (Oddly enough, Goossens’s A Ghost Story was a better piece than Dvo?ák’s!)


Harry Farjeon’s Some Goblins and Gnomes and Things turned out to be an excellent piece, as was Price’s The Goblin and the Mosquito. Hiller’s Dance of the Phantoms is merely an enjoyable little romp, but how Lewin plays it! A real surprise, to me, was the piece by Julie Rivé-King, a native Cincinnatian who studied with Liszt and performed with Carl Reinecke. It is another charming piece, but not as insubstantial as one might imagine in advance of hearing it.


Lewin wraps up his program with Schumann’s Ghost Variations, a work completely unknown to me, written in 1854 when the then-schizophrenic composer had a dream that ghosts and angels dictated this theme to him. His wife Clara was apparently upset by the music’s “other-worldly origins” and refused to allow it to be published; thus it did not appear until 1939. As Lewin points out in the notes, the music is “fragile, gentle and intimate, painfully private,” but really and truly, not “ghostlike” at all. Thus we come to the end of this fascinating and original compilation of offbeat piano pieces. Bravo, Michael Lewin!


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley