Musicologist, pianist, professor emeritus at Harvard University, Robert Levin is a well of science on everything related to Mozart. Twenty years after his almost complete concertos with Christopher Hogwood, he delivers a fascinating complete piano sonata, the first recorded on Mozart’s own pianoforte. We discussed it with him.
“Everything comes from the character of Mozart. It is a creative spirit never quiet. He is impatient, has fun, gets annoyed, holds up a mirror to his contemporaries by describing their characters”, insists Robert Levin. Listening to his complete piano sonatas published by ECM, in addition to the marvelous patina of a very well-preserved instrument that once belonged to the composer, what is striking is the incredible vital force that emanates from it.
Another characteristic of the pianist’s playing, the rich ornamentation, because, according to him, the spirit of the composer “manifests itself not only in his melodic style, but also in the accompanying figures. Each time they change, we can see changes in character. By highlighting this bubbling, Robert Levin “tries to take into account the operatic and vocal spirit at the heart of Mozart’s style and to highlight its unpredictability”.
The spirit of reinvention
Ornamentation, the art of adding notes to a musical phrase to embellish it when it is repeated, is usually practiced very little or cautiously with Mozart. It is very difficult to know when and how to operate. However, Robert Levin swims in this universe like a fish in water.
“I had the great good fortune to be among the editors of the new complete works of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach with the mission of editing the Sonatas with covers in variations. We know the Prussian sonatas, württembergeoisesthose ” for connoisseurs and amateurs but the six Sonatas with covers in variations have been neglected. However, CPE Bach writes a capital foreword: “Everyone knows that one must vary the covers of the sonatas, but does not know how. So for people who are neither connoisseurs nor experts, who have no imagination, I offer sample sonatas where, instead of having repeat bars, everything is notated again.” »
For Robert Levin, CPE Bach records here the instructions for ornamentation that apply to Mozart. “Haydn said, ‘Anyone who knows my sonatas knows that I owe my style to CPE Bach.’ In addition, a manuscript copy of the Sonatas with covers in variations was in the Mozart house. Leopold [le père de Mozart] even sent a letter to the publisher Breitkopf in Leipzig saying: “These sonatas are very popular and my son could make you the same.” Mozart then said of CPE Bach: “He is the father, we are his children.” »
“It was a great opportunity for me to edit these sonatas before recording Mozart’s. Otherwise, I would have missed the chance of my life”, judge Robert Levin, who goes further: “Looking at the sonatas of CPE Bach, I saw that the way in which we execute the sonatas of Haydn, Mozart and the Beethoven’s premieres is false, because we have forgotten this spirit of varying and reinventing by substituting a more or less literal reproduction. »
The sclerosis of formation
In practice, tracks on ornamentation in Mozart already appeared in his concertos recorded for the editions of L’Oiseau-Lyre with Christopher Hogwood at the end of the 1990s. But 25 years later, his example has been little followed. Robert Levin gives master classes and sees more and more students ready to improvise or embellish. But he also sees many teachers who have difficulty accepting him.
Robert Levin attributes this reluctance to “a result of musical training as it is taught, and also to the legacy of the concept ofUrtext, in the wake of the teachings of the great musicologist Schenker”. He is referring here to Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), who, in reaction to the excesses of musical interpretation at the end of the 19e century, which allowed itself freedoms deemed unacceptable, advocated a scrupulous return to partition (Urtextor original text).
“The concept of fidelity to the work has discouraged the creative contribution of performers. I remember a conversation with the great Rudolf Serkin. He recorded the Concerto noh 22 of Mozart, and there is a place where Mozart does not indicate the arpeggios broken in sixteenth notes. He simply notates dotted half notes to signal the lowest and highest note. Mozart improvised the arpeggios and did not need to notate them. Serkin made his recording with dotted half notes. It’s inconceivable that Mozart wanted this, but of course, when he was notating the music for himself, he didn’t need to go into detail. For his sister, on the other hand, who was never educated in improvisation, he composed cadenzas. The piano sonatas published during his lifetime have extraordinary ornamentations, such as the 2e movement of the Sonata K.332. These nuances that were missing in the manuscripts were added for the first printed edition, because amateurs needed them. »
Mozart and emotions
In the corpus of Mozart sonatas, an enigma has always tormented us. How come the 2e movement of the Sonata K.280a period in the life of the young Mozart not well known for its dramas, is so dense and emotionally charged?
“We know very little about the biographical states that have conditioned works. An exception, the Sonata in A minor linked to the death of his mother”, analyzes Robert Levin, who goes on to “the doctrine of emotions”, the one “which attaches a state of mind to any tonality. C major is majestic; D majorjubilant; E flat majorregal; F majorpastoral. C minorpathetic ; d minordiabolical; E minorfuneral; F minor, keen. And this Sicilian F minor of the Sonata K.280 is passionate. The Symphony noh 49 from Haydn in F minor is called “The Passion”the sonata Appassionata of Beethoven is in F minor. »
So everyone knew at the time what a tonality expressed, but, in Mozart, as Robert Levin points out, very few things tell us: “He composed that in minor because this or that happened to him. . ” ” Look at the String Quartet in D minor was composed when his children were born. Mozart had a web of emotions linked to his inner life. Imagine that during The Marriage of Figarohilarious music, he composes the pathetic Concerto in C minorbut also the E flat major K. 482 with overwhelming variations and the K.488 with his only movement F sharp minor, tone of despair. Everything happens as if it were necessary that, to arrive at this spirit in The weddinghe puts aside all tragic spirit and kidnaps his emotions so that they play no part in The Marriage of Figaro. »
Risk
The box set published by ECM is therefore the first integral on Mozart’s own piano. “I was, since the 1980s, one of the rare guests to be able to play Mozart’s pianoforte and, over the years, the idea of a complete on this instrument came from the side of the International Mozarteum Foundation. and that I am the pianist who can enjoy the privilege of this honor”, rejoices Robert Levin.
The performer must be willing to take risks to make the music livelier and more unpredictable. On the condition of remaining in the style of the composer, of course. Doing a cadenza with jazz or Stockhausen is something else.
He hopes that his integral will encourage other musicians to take risks in the interpretation of this music. “We live in a time where we try to avoid risk. We work 12 hours a day so nothing happens. In a recording, everything has to be perfect; in an international competition, if you make five faults, you will be behind the one who made three. So people want to avoid the danger of creativity. But that is what makes music alive. If we want to save classical music, we have to revive it. »
For Levin, in Mozart, “the performer must be willing to take risks to make the music livelier and more unpredictable. On the condition of remaining in the style of the composer, of course. Doing a cadenza with jazz or Stockhausen is something else. Britten who, for Richter, wrote for the Concerto noh 22K.482 a cadence that mixes Shostakovich and jazz is very interesting, but in Hollywood they have consultants to make the buildings and the cars look vintage, so why would that be less important in a Mozart concerto than in a film gangsters? »