Something I’m delighted to offer this weekend from an artist who has been a long time supporter of Past Daily by a composer whose works have gone unjustifiably absent from the public view in recent years.
Elegia by Vladimir Drozdoff given during a concert at The National Opera Center of America, Marc A. Scorca Hall on October 13, 2016.
From Wikibin:
Vladimir Nikolaevich Drozdoff (May 25, 1882-March 10, 1960) was a Russian pianist, composer, and teacher. Born in Saratov, Russia, May 25, 1882 to Olga A. Balmasheva and Nikolai V. Drozdoff, and was the eldest brother of Anatoly N. Drozdoff, a noted teacher of music theory himself, and Valerian N. Drozdoff, a violinist. All three boys were students of their mother, who taught at the Saratov Music School (which in September 1912 became the Saratov Conservatory).
Vladimir Drozdoff was the uncontested winner of the Gold Medal and the coveted Rubinstein Prize as a student of Anna Essipova at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. After several European tours, during which the critics compared him with the two acknowledged masters, Reisenaur and Busoni, he returned to the St Petersburg Conservatory as a professor of piano under the directorship of Alexander Glazounov. In that capacity, he was a colleague of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff, Anatoly Lyadoff (a/k/a Liadov), Nikolai Tcherepnin, Leopold Auer, and Anna Essipova.
Vladimir Drozdoff met and married a fellow student from the Conservatory, Anna Schweiger. They had two children, Paul and Nathalie. Drozdoff and his wife fled Russia in 1920, living for the next three years in Istanbul (Constantinople) before relocating to the United States in 1923 under the sponsorship of the Red Cross.
Drozdoff made his American debut in 1926 with the Detroit Symphony under Ossip Gabrilovitch. A year later, he and Anna opened a piano studio in New York City, where he resided until his retirement in 1957. He appeared frequently on the New York concert stage, and at least once a year, he appeared in concert with his children Paul and Nathalie, who had by now achieved distinguished careers as musicians themselves.
Drozdoff was also a composer for voice and piano. His American publishers were John Markert & Co., Carl Fischer, Inc., and Omega Music Edition.
Brooklyn-based pianist Beth Levin is celebrated as a bold interpreter of challenging works, from the Romantic canon to leading modernist composers. The New York Times praised her “fire and originality,” while The New Yorker called her playing “revelatory.” Fanfare described Levin’s artistry as “fierce in its power,” with “a huge range of colors.”
Debuting as a child prodigy with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age twelve, Levin was subsequently taught and guided by legendary pianists such as Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Shure and Dorothy Taubman. Another of her teachers, Paul Badura-Skoda, praised Levin as “a pianist of rare qualities and the highest professional caliber.” Her deep well of experience allows an intuitive connection to the great pianistic traditions, to Bach, to Mozart, to Beethoven.
Critics hail the immediacy of her performances. “Levin plays with a rare percussive audacity, making notes and phrases that usually rush by in the background stand out in high relief,” writes Richard Brody in The New Yorker.
Beth has a new album out, Phantasmata featuring the Liszt Sonata in B Minor and Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition. It’s issued on Aldilà Records out of Munich. Grab one. She will also be on tour throughout Europe this year, starting in Berlin on March 12.
In the meantime, settle back and end your Sunday on an enchanting and sublime note from a brilliant and astounding artist.
Magnificent interpretation of Vladimir Drozdoff’s gorgeous Elegia by Beth Levin – a tremendously gifted Concert Pianist – highly experienced and acclaimed for her wide range of repertoire from exquisitely sweet to fiercely passionate, brilliant interpretations always meticulously prepared for performance. Brava !!