Levy: Cello Concerto / Symphony No. 3 / A Summer Overture

Description

Frank Ezra Levy (b.1930)Son of the distinguished Swiss composer, pianist, and teacher Ernst Levy, Frank Ezra Levy was born in Paris on15th October, 1930, and came to New York in 1939. He began cello lessons at the age of ten, and at twelve hebegan studies in theory and composition with Hugo Kauder, which continued for nine years. After graduating fromthe High School of Music and Art, Levy attended the Juilliard School of Music and the University of Chicago. Hismajor cello teachers were Leonard Rose and Janos Starker.A former member of the St Louis Symphony and the Feldman Chamber Ensemble, Frank Ezra Levy is still aprofessional cellist, and continues to compose. Large works include a four-act comic opera, a cantata, foursymphonies, several other orchestral pieces, and eight concertos. All the rest of his 88 published works arechamber music, an extraordinary variety of pieces for 1-15 instruments, often in highly unusual combinations.Notable premi?¿res of Frank Levy's music include his Third Symphony at Carnegie Hall (1989), the HolocaustTriptych at Manhattan School of Music (1993), his First Cello Concerto at Lincoln Center (2002) and ApostropheNo. 3 for 15 solo strings, at Music Festival of the Hamptons (2004). Currently available among his recorded worksare the Fourth Symphony and First Cello Concerto. LP recordings include the Violin Duo, Sonata for Clarinet andPiano, Suite for Horn and Piano, Adagio and Rondo for Two Clarinets and Bass Clarinet, and the Brass Quintet.A Summer Overture Cello Concerto No. 2 Rondo Tarantella Symphony No. 3I wrote my first piece, a setting of William ErnestHenley's Invictus, at the age of ten, when I was goingthrough an 'opera period'. A subscription to theMetropolitan Opera was my birthday present that year,and Wagner was my idol, so that song was undoubtedlyinfluenced by his music. Some years later, wheneverything I had composed through high school wasaccidentally thrown out, I was devastated until I foundthat anything of real value was still in my memory: mylittle Invictus was not.Wagner was soon replaced, when I was twelve andbegan studying theory at a small music school run bytwo Viennese refugees in Manhattan. My teacher wasHugo Kauder, a brilliant composer whose own musicaltraining had emphasized an intense study ofRenaissance masters. Strict, demanding, unreasonable,Kauder taught me species counterpoint for years withlittle or no praise, while squashing my creative efforts.Only many years later I learned that he considered mehis prize student. As part of my studies I participated inweekly chamber music sessions at his apartment: theplaying was often quite dreadful, but the music, mostlyKauder's own, intrigued me. It still does. I wasfascinated and moved by it, and in fact can still recall aparticularly haunting pentatonic melody in his settingof a Chinese drama. I was so much influenced by hisstyle that some characteristics, a concern with themelodic and rhythmic integrity of individual parts, forinsta