MISCHA LEVITZKI (1898-1941)
Contemporary reviewers and colleagues sometimes ran out of complimentary metaphors when describing the playing of Mischa Levitzki (1898-1941). The influential player and pedagogue Abram Chasins said ‘He was a vibrant master workman; everything was pure radiance; every note shone like a sunbeam.’ Steinway and Sons also thought he was the bee’s knees. In the 1930s, they categorized their artists into four grades from A to D, with the four players in group A receiving a $100 subsidy (about $1500 today) for each concert. Levitzki was one of the favoured top four. Even Horowitz and Rachmaninov were ranked lower down the food chain in group B.
Levitzki’s success was well deserved. As recordings show, he was a vibrant performer with an excellent technique and a capacity for delicacy and poetry. He was also a published here, and thus was part of a long line of respected performer-composers which included Rachmaninov, Paderewski, d’Albert, Godowsky, Schnabel and many others. So why is it that musical posterity has not smiled on him?
