Robert David Levin (born October 13, 1947) is an American classical pianist, musicologist and composer, and served as the artistic director of the

Sarasota Music Festival Sarasota Music Festival is an American classical music festival held annually during the month of June in Sarasota, Florida, under the sponsorship of the Sarasota Orchestra. The festival was founded in 1965 by conductor Paul Wolfe, who remained dire ...

from 2007 to 2017.

Education

Born in Brooklyn, Levin attended the

Brooklyn Friends School Brooklyn Friends School is a school at 375 Pearl Street in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) is an independent, college preparatory Quaker school serving a culturally diverse educational community of approximately 90 ...

and Andrew Jackson High School, and spent his junior year studying music with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He attended

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' in 1968 with a thesis entitled ''The Unfinished Works of W. A. Mozart''. Levin took private lessons at Chatham Square Music School, Conservatoire National de Musique and the Fontainebleau School of Music in: * piano, with Jan Gorbaty, Louis Martin, Alice Gaultier-Léon, Jean Casadesus,

Clifford Curzon Sir Clifford Michael Curzon CBE (né Siegenberg; 18 May 19071 September 1982) was an English classical pianist. Curzon studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and subsequently with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and Wanda Landowska and Nad ...

and Robert Casadesus * organ, with Nadia Boulanger * solfège, with

Seymour Bernstein Seymour Bernstein (born April 24, 1927) is an American pianist, composer, and teacher. He is the subject of the documentary '' Seymour: An Introduction'' directed by the actor Ethan Hawke. Hawke describes Bernstein as a mentor figure. Biography ...

, Louis Martin and Annette Dieudonné *

counterpoint In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...

, with Suzanne Bloch and Nadia Boulanger * composition, with Stefan Wolpe * conducting, with Eleazar de Carvalho

Academic career

After graduating from Harvard, Levin was named head of the theory department at the Curtis Institute of Music. He was subsequently appointed associate professor of music and coordinator of theory instruction at the State University of New York at Purchase, SUNY Purchase, and full professor in 1975. From 1986 to 1993, he served as professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in Germany. In 1993 he became professor of music at his alma mater, Harvard University, where he remains Professor Emeritus. In 1994 he was made Dwight P. Robinson Jr Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, and was a head tutor from 1998 to 2004. In 2012, as Humanitas Programme, Humanitas Visiting Professor of chamber music at Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, he gave two lectures, Improvising Mozart and Composing Mozart and a concert with Academy of Ancient Music. Levin's academic career has included teaching and tutoring performance practice (especially involving keyboard instruments and conducting, with an emphasis on the Classical period) in addition to music history and theory. He currently holds the position of Hogwood Fellow with the Academy of Ancient Music.

Contributions to composition

Levin has completed or reconstructed a number of eighteenth-century works, especially Unfinished creative work#Classical music, unfinished compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach. His completions of several unfinished Mozart works, including the Requiem (Mozart), Requiem in D minor and ''Great Mass in C minor, K. 427, Great Mass in C minor'', are considered his most important achievements. In the Mozart Requiem, he reconstructed an "Amen" fugue from Mozart's own sketches. John Eliot Gardiner commissioned him to write missing orchestral parts to five movements of cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, such as ''Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, BWV 162, Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe''. As a performer, he is best known as soloist in Classical-era piano concertos in general, and those of Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven in particular, in which he robustly re-creates performance practice of the composers' time such as by improvising cadenzas and shorter embellishments in the composers' style. Levin has composed several works, including the following: * Two clarinet sonatas (1961; 1967–68) * Two Short Piano Pieces (1966–67) * Bassoon Sonata (1965–66) * Woodwind Quintet (1965) * Piano Quartet (1964–65) * Piano Sonata (1962)

Awards

* Prix Lili Boulanger in 1966 and 1971 * Bach Medal (2018)

Completions and reconstructions of fragments by Mozart

* Requiem (Mozart), Requiem in D minor K. 626 (also historically completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr) * Great Mass in C minor, K. 427, Mass in C minor ("The Great") K. 427 * Larghetto and Allegro in E-flat major for two pianos K. deest (also historically completed by Maximilian Stadler and Paul Badura-Skoda) * Rondo in A major for basset clarinet and string quartet, K. 581a * Allegro in B-flat major for basset clarinet and string quartet, K. 516c * Allegro in B-flat major for keyboard, K. 400 (also historically completed by Maximilian Stadler) * Allegro in G minor for keyboard, K. 312 (also historically completed by an unknown composer) * Suite in C major for keyboard, K. 399: Sarabande * Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Orchestra (Mozart), Concerto for Violin and Piano K. Anh. 56/315f * Horn Concerto No. 1 (Mozart), Horn Concerto in D major, K. 412 (also historically completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr) * Rondo for horn and orchestra in E-flat major K. 371 * Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds, Sinfonia Concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon K. 297b (reconstruction of possible original version for flute, oboe, horn, and bassoon)

Recordings

* Ludwig van Beethoven. Cello Sonatas. Robert Levin with Steven Isserlis. Hyperion Records Limited * Ludwig van Beethoven. Piano Concertos. Robert Levin with Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner. Archiv Produktion * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Piano Concertos K271 & K414. Robert Levin with The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood. Played on a Anton Walter, Walter fortepiano replica by Paul McNulty. Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Piano Concertos K453 & K466. Robert Levin with The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood. Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Piano Concertos K456 & K459. Robert Levin with The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood. Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Piano Sonatas. Robert Levin. Played on Mozart's own piano by Anton Walter. ECM New Series. * Franz Joseph Haydn. The Last 4 Piano Trios: H 15 no 27-30. Robert Levin with Vera Beths and Anner Bylsma. SC Vivarte Series 53120 * Henri Dutilleux. D'ombre et de silence (Piano Sonata, Preludes, etc.). ECM New Series 2105 *Johann Sebastian Bach. Keyboard Works. Robert Levin, Trevor Pinnock, Robert Hill, Peter Watchorn, Edward Aldwell, Evgeni Koroliov. Played on an antique harpsichord and organ. Label: Hanssler Classic. *Franz Schubert. Piano Sonatas. Robert Levin. Played on Johann Fritz (piano maker), Johann Fritz 1825 fortepiano. Sony Classical. *Franz Schubert. Complete Piano Trios. Noah Bendix-Balgley (violin), Peter Wiley (cello). Le Palais des Dégustateurs

References

External links

"Musician with a Mission"
by Janet Tassel, ''Harvard Magazine'' May–June 1995, pp. 32–39
Profile
Rayfield Allied
The Improvisational Brain
''Seed (magazine), Seed'' article about improvisation, heavily featuring Levin *Derek Bailey's documentary ''On The Edge – Improvisation in Music'' (1991), , , Levin and Christopher Hogwood {{DEFAULTSORT:Levin, Robert 1947 births Living people Musicians from Brooklyn Classical musicians from New York (state) Brooklyn Friends School alumni Harvard College alumni Curtis Institute of Music faculty State University of New York at Purchase faculty Hochschule für Musik Freiburg faculty American classical pianists Male classical pianists American male pianists 20th-century American pianists 21st-century American pianists Fortepianists American musicologists Jewish musicologists Mozart scholars 20th-century classical composers 20th-century American composers Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni