California Premiere for a Beethoven Piano Concerto

A premiere by Beethoven? Oddly enough, that is what pianist Robert Levin and five of his colleagues of the ensemble New York Philomusica gave Wednesday, thanks to the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College. This was the California premiere, the third U.S. hearing and only the fifth performance in this century of the chamber version of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto.

It took place in the attractive--if, on this occasion, refrigerated--Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, a regular venue for the Da Camera Society’s Chamber Music in Historic Sites series. The program also offered Brahms’ Trio, Opus 114, and another irresistible work by Mendelssohn, the String Quintet in B flat, Opus 87.

But the focus of interest fell on Beethoven’s solo-with-string-quintet arrangement of the G-major Concerto. In the solo part, it is a thrilling expansion of the original text, with stunning double trills, added arpeggiations and some rewritten passages. Having heard this version, played with virtuosic panache by the charismatic Levin--truly a pianist’s pianist--one hesitates to go back to the more familiar original.

This was altogether an evening of admirable overplaying--the concerto performance was way over the top in terms of energy and intensity. The Brahms work, a beloved but moody wallflower in the repertory, was resuscitated--by Levin, clarinetist David Krakauer and cellist Melissa Meell--and became an articulate and witty extrovert.

The Mendelssohn was overstated but charming and, despite stridencies, beautifully limned by violinists Carmit Zori and Todd Phillips, violists Ah Ling Neu and Kirsten Johnson and cellist Meell.