Prelude to Dawn

Pianist Bruce Levingston’s latest release has such a satisfying symmetry, logic, and consistency of tone that makes it hard not to listen all the way through. Levingston programs music by J.S. Bach, Johannes Brahms, and the contemporary German composer Wolfgang Rihm. He also plays chorale preludes of Bach and Brahms transcribed by Busoni, plus Brahms’ arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor, originally for solo violin. It’s that last selection that’s the album’s highlight. Brahms has reimagined the piece for left hand only—just as the violin plays double, triple, and quadruple stops to rough in the harmonic underpinning of the Chaconne, Brahms has his soloist arpeggiate chords with the five fingers seeing action. There’s a necessary focus on melodic line and dramatic shaping and Levingston responds with subtle dynamic contouring and judicious pacing. The two Rihm Preludes are brief early works with movement and momentum, but also a weighty solemnity. Levingston concludes quietly, yet majestically, with Brahms’ Theme and Variations in D Minor, Op.18b. Sono Luminus is an all-around audiophile label but their piano recordings are best—an ideal blend of percussiveness and resonance, with an outstanding sense of the volume and mass of the Steinway Model D.