Encounter Mozart with latest Humanitas Professor

The renowned pianist, conductor and musicologist, Robert Levin, arrives in Cambridge this week, where he will give a series of lectures and recitals that take us behind the scenes of performing Mozart.

Levin is the latest holder of a Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Chamber Music at the University’s Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). During his tenure, he will give a series of public lecture-recitals on the theme of “Encountering Mozart” at the Faculty of Music, as well as an open rehearsal and concert with performers from the Academy of Ancient Music this Wednesday, 31 October.

The latter rekindles a working relationship with the Academy which began in the 1990s, when Levin collaborated with Academy performers to deliver an acclaimed cycle of Mozart piano concertos. Their performance this week will feature chamber and solo works, including both Mozart’s and Beethoven’s quintets for piano and winds.

Levin’s first public lecture, “Improvising Mozart”, will consider how idiomatic embellishments and cadenzas (virtuoso solo passages) can be introduced into Mozart's music, using facsimiles of manuscripts as well as free fantasies. The lecture will conclude with Levin performing a free fantasy improvised on Classical period themes suggested by the audience.

In his second lecture-recital, “Composing Mozart”, Levin will discuss the various completions that he has provided to a wide range of Mozart fragments, from small piano pieces to concerto movements and the Requiem and C minor Mass.

The Humanitas Chair in Chamber Music aims to bring world-renowned performers to Cambridge to share insights into both the character and challenges of musical performance, explaining how they approach various musical masterpieces and how their interpretative choices impact on listeners. The first post-holder, in 2011, was Alfred Brendel, who during an illustrious 60-year career became the first pianist to record Beethoven’s complete piano works.

As a pianist and conductor, Robert Levin has been heard throughout the United States, Australia, Europe and Asia with such conductors as Semyon Bychkov, James Conlon and Sir Simon Rattle. Well-known for his improvised embellishments and cadenzas in Classical period repertoire, he has made numerous recordings, and his completions of Mozart fragments have been widely published, recorded and performed throughout the world.

Chairman of the Faculty Board of Music, Professor Iain Fenlon, said: “Robert Levin, one of the foremost performers of keyboard music on period instruments, is renowned for a style of playing that represents the perfect intelligent fusion of musicology and musical execution.”

The Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Chamber Music 2012 has been made possible by the generous support of Mr Lawrence Saper. The Humanitas Chair in Chamber Music is hosted by Peterhouse and the Faculty of Music.

For full details of the lecture-recital series please visit www.crassh.cam.ac.uk. Concert tickets, priced £15, £13 or £3, can be purchased via www.aam.co.uk/#/concerts/2012/12-10-31.aspx or by calling 01223 357851.