'Loved but not lost': Piano ensemble presents new classical music restored

Once in a while, new startling and exciting discoveries filter through even in this data-drenched Internet-accelerated world. The classical music community was surprised and thrilled around a year and a half or so ago when a long-lost score by Felix Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles, which came to light in 2009 after a hiatus of close to 200 years, was restored to its former glory and unveiled to the public.

Internationally renowned pianist Tomer Lev and his MultiPiano Ensemble are now proffering the work to local audiences, with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) in tow.

The four-date series kicks off at the Charles Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv tonight, April 3 (7 p.m.), followed by two further concerts there on April 4 and 6 (8 p.m. and 9 p.m. respectively), closing at the Jerusalem Theatre on April 7 (8 p.m.).

The Fantasy and Variations on a Theme by Weber (aka Fantasia and Variations) has a fascinating subtext and will be featured in forthcoming concerts. The program also includes an intriguing and now highly poignant work from 2012 by Israeli composer Arie Levanon, who died on October 31 at 91, called Land of Four Languages.

The full lineup includes Orawa by Polish composer Wojciech Kilar, who died in 2013, Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, with Vadim Gluzman as soloist.

Fantasia and Variations had the perfect marketing springboard regarding the performing artists, debut set, and the hit parade of the time. The original ivory ticklers were its composers Mendelssohn and Moscheles, with whom Mendelssohn studied for a while.

Lev says the venture was destined to get the ticket offices rolling from the off. “The work is based on a theme by Weber,” Lev explains. The score in question was riding high in the popularity stakes of the day. “It is quite a story. In 1833, Mendelssohn was enjoying the best stage of his career. He was a superstar in England. That was the country where he was most admired.”

THAT PUBLIC profile led to an offer that was too good to refuse. “His teacher, Ignaz Moscheles, lived in London. Both were of German Jewish origin and the most idolized piano virtuosi in England and Europe. They were the two great Jewish virtuosos.”

That was also recognized in lofty societal circles. “They were invited to be the key performers in a charity event under the aegis of the royal palace in London. It was a high-brow charity event,” Lev notes.The organizers sought something that would do justice to the occasion and wow the audience. They chose a proven product and asked the artists to run with it. 

“They went for the two biggest musical celebrities. Each performed parts of a recital, but the event's highlight was when they were asked to jointly prepare something based on one of the hit numbers at that time: Gypsy March, written by Weber for a musical theater production called Preciosa. Everyone was mad about Gypsy March.”

Back in the early 19th century, classical composers and musicians frequently allowed themselves to stray from the compositional straight and narrow. That suited Mendelssohn and Moscheles down to the ground. “They were asked to improvise variations on this theme, the Gypsy March,” says Lev.

“They were both excellent improvisers and played like in a jam session; you take a tune with a chords chart and improvise.”That comes across in Fantasia and Variations. “You have one piano playing something elaborate while the other plays more in line with the charts, and then they switch. It was an open approach.”

It worked well. “The event was an amazing success, and they asked them to do it again,” Lev remarks, noting that it was not just a matter of reprising the crowd-pleaser.

"They had more time to plan it for the second event. They were both so busy. They decided to turn the improvisations into a written composition. They also added an orchestra.” Hence, the format for this week’s Tel Aviv and Jerusalem concerts.

NOT THAT Mendelssohn and Moscheles were exactly scratching around for work at the time, but, presumably, the response to their efforts must have had them rubbing their hands with anticipation of thrilling audiences elsewhere. However, as with all good yarns, there was a dramatic twist. ‘Shortly after the second concert, the sheet music disappeared, and it was forgotten.”

There was more drama when Mendelssohn died 14 years after the charity event doubleheader, at only 38. Undeterred, his partner in box office success decided to make some hay while the sun still filtered through before the memory of the triumph lingered.

“Moscheles tried to restore the sheet music,” says Lev. That, it transpired, was easier said than done. “In fact, he came up with a different composition. He didn’t really manage to restore the original work.”

Nevertheless, as they say in certain commercial quarters, you can regain your public profile if you hang around long enough. “Suddenly, they discovered the original manuscript in archives in Saint Petersburg, of all places,” Lev chuckles. That proved to be a game changer.

Plenty of elbow grease had to be invested before the work could become a practical proposition for public performance. 

That is precisely what Lev and his MultiPiano counterparts – Berenika Glixman, Nimrod Meity-Haftel, and Lior Lifshitz – have done in the past year or so, in London and Berlin and, a couple of weeks ago, at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Sheet music was languishing in the archives, and it was deplorable, just as the international classical community began gearing up for the bicentennial of Mendelssohn’s birth in 2009. It was a mess. “There were many things scribbled on the pages and many things added, and the paper was in a bad state,” Lev advises. 

“They took experts from the state conservatory in Moscow, with experts in ink and paper. Eventually, they had a good copy of the original work 1833.” All’s well, and that ends well. When Lev got wind of the developments, he invited the chief restorer of the sheet music to come to Israel to give a talk about the whole process. Much to the quartet leader’s surprise and pleasure, the lecturer gave him the score after the lecture.

Lev was determined to grace the work with commensurate respect and revive public interest. That led to the aforementioned concerts worldwide, with the Berlin date filmed and recorded, the recording due out soon on the Hyperion label, and a rendition of an intriguing composition by Moscheles.

“We are one of the only ensembles in the world to have a copy of the sheet music and to perform it,” Lev notes proudly.

Lev: thrilled to play the original work in Israel

Lev says he is thrilled to be able to play the original work here. “The concerts with the IPO close a lovely circle, after concerts in London, Berlin, Carnegie Hall in New York, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. You could see this is a sort of resurrection of the work, bringing it back to the surface. The audiences have responded amazingly so far. We have had standing ovations everywhere.”

There is, surely, more rapturous applause due for the ensemble and IPO when they present Fantasia and Variations here. And Levanon should rightly be well received, too. His composition feeds off the sounds, rhythms, and sensibilities of four cultures that the Romanian-born composer considered to be core to the State of Israel—Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, and Ladino.

Levanon wrote the piece for MultiPiano, which performs works on two pianos for four, six, or eight hands, with or without an orchestra.

Lev believes the time is particularly ripe for the work to resound from the concert halls and, hopefully, change mindsets – and possibly make some difference to the dismal state of regional affairs.

“When we started touring internationally with MultiPiano, we saw that people don’t know about Israel’s multiculturalism. So we decided we wanted to perform something that would reflect the pluralist face of this country.”

Levanon was up for that. “He composed Land of Four Languages. He chose four traditional tunes in different languages. His message was that if the four can live together harmoniously, in the score, maybe they will learn to live together in the real world.”

The composition has been well received thus far, but in the wake of October 7, Lev feels the cross-cultural creation has taken on added significance. “After Levanon’s passing, and after everything Israel has been through in the past few months, the value and message of this work are more relevant than ever.”

For tickets and more information: https://www.ipo.co.il/en/