Expertly Constructed Beth Levin plays Chopin, Eliasson and Schumann - heard by TIARA ATAII '... brilliantly articulated ...'

'A rare star sighted late at night', Schumann once described Chopin, and what two Romantic composers would be better suited to top and tail an album dedicated to dramaturgic music of the piano. Personae, American pianist Beth Levin's second album of 2016, is expertly constructed, moving from tug-of-war playfulness in Schumann's Davidsbündlertanze, to the contemplation of Anders Eliasson's Second Disegno, only to find a grave destination in Chopin's sonata in B-flat minor, whose third movement is the infamous funeral march.

Schumann's Davidsbündlertanze are perhaps the most explicitly representative of the album, each movement marked as Eusebius, Florestan, or both. Interestingly, Schumann only reveals this at the end of the movement, much like Debussy in his Preludes, perhaps so that we first and foremost listen with our hearts, and without any prejudgements...

FRYDERYCK CHOPIN

ROBERT SCHUMANN

PIANO MUSIC

NAVONA RECORDS

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA