OSCAR LEVANT
American pianist (1906 - 1972)

Oscar Levant studied piano with Sigismond Stojowski and composition with Arnold Schoenberg.  He performed under the batons of Toscanini, Beecham, Mitropoulos, Reiner, Monteux, and Ormandy, the leading conductors of his day.  He was a supremely accomplished pianist and a first rate musician.  In the 1940s he was the top earning concert pianist in America and one of the top sellers of Columbia Records roster. Yet today, aside from a few Gershwin records - works of genius in my opinion - he is almost exclusively known as a comedic actor and broadcast personality. 

Oscar Levant's Gershwin is second to none. The performance of the Three Preludes is simply amazing.  Those of you who know this site will appreciate how unusual it is for me to say this, but aside from the pure joy of playing this music oneself on the piano, tere is really no earthly reason for anyone else to record it.  Levant gave the first concert performance of the Rhapsody.  His 1927 and 1945 recordings are both splendid.

He knew Gershwin well and, like Gershwin, was very successful as a writer of songs and music for theatrical productions.  But unlike Gershwin, he did ot take himself seriously as a composer of serious music, inspite of praise from the likes of Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Irving Kolodin, Gershwin himself, and Schoenberg. Oscar Levant composed string quartets, Orchestral works, with and without piano, and even an opera. And though very little of this output is available to be heard, I include him as one of the great pianist composers because I believe he belongs to that august fraternity.

There are some wonderful surprises here.  His Chopin, Brahms and Liszt are exquisite.  The recording of the original version of the Albeniz Tango has made all others redundant.  His Debussy is wonderful, as are the two dances from de Falla.

At the very end is a gem of a recording of the Oscar Levant transcription of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance as played by Moiseiwitsch.

Chopin  Études,  Op 10

recorded in 1946

4 in C♯ minor