If I Were a Bird
Dorian Records

New CD!

Click here to see the track listing and back cover art.

Click here to hear an excerpt in the new "media" section.

Reviews

"I am delighted by this collection of music inspired by our fine feathered friends. One might wonder whether all that chirping and fluttering would begin to pall after a while, but pianist Lewin has carefully selected and assembled this program, and it hardly outstays its welcome. He appears to be a relatively young man, as pianists go. Nevertheless, Lewin seems to have what some might call “an old soul.” Both the repertory and the pianist hearken back to the time when music came on 10- or 12-inch shellac platters, and when pianists, no matter how virtuosic they were, treated music-making as an intimate, unhurried activity. If this is corn, I'm having seconds.

There's quite a stylistic range here, from the French Baroque to works from the century just past. Lewin is sensitive to the differences between Rameau and Messiaen, for example, but he doesn't overplay his hand, and nothing is exaggerated. A piece such as Liszt's transcription of Alabieff's The Nightingale invites the pianist to impress listeners with technique. Lewin aims for something more satisfying, in my opinion, and that is musicianship, the quality that encompasses all other qualities. This pianist or that pianist might have you exclaiming “Wow!” over a particularly dazzling bit of fingerwork. Lewin, on the other hand, leaves you smiling broadly after the CD is done, and for some time after. I have not played the piano in many years. It says something about Lewin's pianism that hearing him play the Siloti transcription of The Swan inspired me to renew its acquaintance. I swear I'll learn this transcription while I still have the energy to move my fingers! The only item on this CD that is less than staggering—albeit in an intimate way—is the “Danse infernale” from The Firebird. It feels a little clunky, but this might have as much to do with the transcription as with Lewin's performance.

This is my first encounter with this pianist, I believe. He has made several discs for Naxos and Centaur, but this appears to be his first mixed recital, and what a charmer it is. Dorian has given it deluxe, book-style packaging and comprehensive booklet notes. (Paintings of many of the birds depicted herein are included too.) The only problem with the packaging is that the envelope provided for the CD is a tight fit, so you might want to protect the CD with an LP-style inner sleeve. It also facilitates removal and replacement.

The engineering is as warm and lovely as the music and the performances. Strike a blow against big, dumb, competition-winning pianism—Lord knows nothing can kill it now anyway—by surrendering yourself to Michael Lewin for 73 minutes. He could have named this CD after a classic Sinatra album: Come Fly With Me."

- Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare Magazine (July, 2010)

"As the recording industry grapples with the reluctance of music lovers to pony up for tunes, one obvious remedy is the production of swanky packaging. And pianist Michael Lewin’s first release with the Dorian Sono Luminus label rewards paying customers with a beauty of an album. Bound as a miniature hardcover book, If I Were a Bird: A Piano Aviary brims with paintings by John J. Audubon as well as the performer’s own program notes for each of these 20 ambrosial vignettes.
The New York native’s adroit voicing and tender touch give these avian-inspired shorts an autumnal quality... At the midpoint of the album, the blackbird of Maurice Ravel’s “Sad Birds” sings forlornly through the emotional centerpiece—arguably Lewin at his most evocative. The Boston Conservatory professor brings an expansiveness to the ostinato blackbird call that leaves the listener in a cloud of melancholy...Lewin’s dexterous keyboard work and affection for this repertoire (not to mention gorgeous packaging) is something fans of the solo piano genre and ornithologists alike will gobble up."

- Doyle Armbrust, Chicago Time Out (May, 2010)

"During this springtime of birdsong, pianist Michael Lewin’s If I Were a Bird is a perfect companion: 23 short classical pieces arranged around the theme of birds and birdsong. Rameau, Ravel, Messiaen, Granados, Grieg, Schumann, and Stravinsky are here, but so are lesser-known composers like Adolf Jensen, Theodor Leschetizky, Cyril Scott, and Louis-Claude Daquin. The CD comes in a beautifully designed mini-book with notes and illustrations. A perfect gift for piano and bird lovers alike."

- Music News: www.politics-prose.com (May 2010, Washington DC)

"Olivier Messiaen once opined that birds were probably the greatest musicians to inhabit our planet, and they have indeed been inspiring many a composer and musician for centuries. With this disc, Michael Lewin pays homage to our feathered muses with a fascinating and entertaining mixture of works for solo piano.

Music by a rich array of composers is found here, and the diversity works brilliantly. There are whimsical offerings by Hoffman, MacDowell and Jensen; touches of delicate melancholy by Grieg, Granados and Schumann; and Rameau and Daquin are tastefully played on a Steinway concert grand. Transcriptions of Glinka, Saint-Saëns, Alabieff and Stravinsky are included, of which the Danse infernale from Firebird is most grand; and Messiaen himself is exquisitely represented by The Dove, written when he was twenty. Lewin also knocks off an enthusiastic rendition of the Joplinesque Turkey in the Straw and it fits the program to perfection.

The pacing of this ‘piano aviary’ is delightful and Lewin plays to dazzling and touchingly expressive effect. Highlights for me are the Messiaen and Schumann, and his renditions of Ravel’s Sad Birds and Cyril Scott’s Water Wagtail, but I will listen to this entire disc repeatedly with great pleasure. Kudos also to the designer of the booklet in which this CD is housed – the design with its rich colours and elegant illustrations is as impressive as the music within."

- Whole Note Magazine (May 27, 2010, Toronto)

"Lewin plays each of these 22 pieces with charm and delight. Only one who despises our feathered friends might find the contents less than pleasing. Collectors will want this for the many unusual and rarely heard items."     

- American Record Guide (July/August, 2010)

Bamboula!
The Piano Music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Centaur Records CRC2549 | (Click to Buy)

Listen to Ricordati / Listen to Pasquinade

"Everyone in Europe now knows Bamboula, Le Bananier, Le Mancenillier, La Savane and twenty other ingenious fantasies in which the nonchalant graces of tropical melody assuage so agreeably our restless and insatiable passion for novelty."

- Hector Berlioz , 1851

Bamboula! was selected as a 2002 Top 10 CD's pick by Music Critic Keith Powers in the Boston Herald (Dec. 20, 2002). Category: Boston pianists. "Great work from the young."

Reviews

"Michael Lewin's 'Bamboula!' (Centaur) is a selection of the delightful piano music by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, America's first international virtuoso/composer; Lewin has the chops and the charm for these pieces."

- Richard Dyer, Boston Globe (Dec. 2002)

"It would be impossible to talk about the beginning of jazz in America without the name of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, whose music includes a certain flashiness, in addition to an abundance of brilliant passagework, rhythmic embellishments, and the harmonic influence of Creole, Spanish and African folk melodies. Now a new recording, Bamboula! Piano Music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk, includes the composer's popular and lesser-known works performed by Michael Lewin, who is chairman of the Boston Conservatory piano faculty. The recording is outstanding from start to finish; and Lewin's playing is fresh and alive, blazing with energy and rhythmic precision. It is musically conceived with beautifully poised tempos that convey a sense of the dance idiom....this C.D. by Lewin will keep you smiling."

- Leonne Lewis, Clavier Magazine (Jan. 2003)

"Pasquinade has been recorded by everyone who does Gottschalk, but Mr. Lewin stands up to them all quite well. It's a very difficult piece, and even the normally unflappable Pennario sounds clumsy sometimes compared with this recording. Ojos Criollos (Creole Eyes) is also very difficult and can sound labored. Here it sparkles. Sound and articulation are wonderful, and the flow is utterly natural. Lewin need take second place to no one in this piece."

- Donald Vroon, American Record Guide (2002)

"What does the future hold for Gottschalk recordings? A fifth volume from Martin is imminent - and Michael Lewin's recital, technically sturdy, emotionally warm-hearted, and often rhythmically imaginative (try the opening of La Savane), is due out soon from Centaur."

- Peter J. Rabinowitz, Overview of Gottschalk Recordings in International Piano Quarterly (Dec. 2001).

"Michael Lewin, a spectacular Boston-based pianist, makes a most persuasive case for this unusual music. Were it not for Mr. Lewin’s unimpeachable authority and breathtaking virtuosity, the worthier elements of it all might have been lost. In his able hands, for example, The Banjo -- Gottschalk’s most well known work and in some ways the Yankee equivalent of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz -- jumps off the page with gusto and a life all its own. In O, Ma Charmante, Epargnez Moi (O, My Charmer, Spare Me!) Mr. Lewin gives voice to the expressive West Indian dances that inspired it. Ojos Criollos (Creole Eyes) is a Cuban Dance, a kind of tango that ingratiates itself with a certain robust ardency. Both La Bananier (The Banana Tree) and La Savane (named after the Savannah River) are likewise sultry evocations of southern life; in these, Mr. Lewin seems to the manor born, investing them with just the kind of languorous affect they demand. Then there is the eponym of this recording, Bamboula, in which Gottschalk duplicates, in pianistic categories, the sounds of strumming banjoes and African drums. Here Mr. Lewin plays with joy and abandon, to be sure, but also with a steely interpretive and technical discipline that transforms effect into substance. Though an anomaly of sorts in the history of western art music, Gottschalk offered a profound metaphor for the best and worst of American culture. On the surface, the music is brash, ebullient, jaunty, but also technically well crafted and even refined. And yet behind the furious flurry of notes there is something more: a distillation, even a celebration, if you will, of plurality and multi-culturalism. Can anything be more American –or musical - -than that?"

- The St.Petersburg Times, John Bell Young (March 2003)

Click to Buy

Domenico Scarlatti: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 2
Naxos 8.553771 | (Click for Excerpts and to Buy)

Reviews

"No sooner does Naxos commence one immense project (the complete piano music of Liszt, for example) than it starts another. Volume 2 in its complete Scarlatti sonata cycle is played by Michael Lewin, an American pianist as dexterous and assured as he is audacious. Here there is no sense of 'studio' caution but only of liberating and dazzling music-making, live and on the wing. K.492 in D could hardly provide a more brilliant curtain-raiser, and in K.3 in A minor (the one where Scarlatti's impish humour offers the musical equivalent of someone slipping on a banana skin) Lewin's playing positively brims over with high spirits.

The D major Sonata, K.33, is all thrumbing guitars and bursts of sunlight and in K.141, with its cascades of repeated notes, Lewin even gives Martha Argerich (whose performance - never officially released - is of legendary status) a run for her money. There is a no less appealing balm and musical quality in the more restrained numbers such as K.32 in D minor and K.208 in A, though the recital comes to a suitably ebullient conclusion with K.517 in D minor which, from Lewin, is like a river in full spate.

The New York-based recordings are suitably lively (by all accounts more successful than in Vol 1) and not even the most persistent lover of Scarlatti on the harpsichord could accuse Michael Lewin of heaviness, of an absence of the necessary glitter, panache and stylistic awareness."

- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone Magazine (February, 2000)

"Domenico Scarlatti's approximately 550 keyboard sonatas are models of expressive brevity. Unlike Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, which takes nearly an hour to play, Scarlatti's longest sonatas last just seven or eight minutes. This kind of economy makes it possible for Michael Lewin to fit nearly two dozen of them on a splendid new Naxos recording, Domenico Scarlatti, Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Volume 2.

Instead of the tiptoeing-on-eggs variety of Scarlatti interpretations, Lewin realizes the sonatas for what they are: audacious character pieces. Remarkable for their unabashed vigor, his crisply articulated performances preserve the musical declamation at the heart of baroque convention. While fully cognizant of the idiosyncratic style of the sonatas, Lewin does not try to reproduce the plucked sound and articulation of a harpsichord on a modern piano; he makes the most of the instrument's sonorities. He neither sentimentalizes nor romanticizes these sonatas, preferring to illuminate their bold harmonic structures and tightly woven forms.

This kind of clearheaded but simple approach to Scarlatti serves the music well. Lewin's more masculine readings may surprise those accustomed to Horowitz's elaborately embroidered and sometimes fussy interpretations of Scarlatti. Lewin is, however, no less adept at conveying Scarlatti's effects such as double thirds, hand crossings, and widely spaced leaps.

The Naples-born Scarlatti may have derived some of these when he moved to Spain in 1729. In the two D major sonatas, K.492 and K.33, evocations of guitars and flamenco dancing liven up the implicit decorum of the form. Lewin emphasizes the music's festive, even wild character, making no apologies for its exuberance and rhythmic vivacity.

Even in more familiar works such as the docile K.322 in A major or the wistful K. 109 in A minor, Lewin brings to light the dance elements without sacrificing their appealing melodies. This he manages admirably and with gusto."

- John Bell Young, Clavier Magazine (March, 2000)

Piano Music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes
Vol. 1
Naxos American Classics (8.559023) | (Click for Excerpts and to Buy)
Marco Polo 8.223850 (all countries other than Canada and the U.S.)

Reviews

"This splendid recording is a welcome addition to an all-too-small Griffes discography. Michael Lewin, a crackerjack pianist with a larger-than-life command of these ferociously complex works, turns in pristinely detailed, passionate, big-boned readings of affective and intonational precision. Lewin belongs to a new pianistic elite that includes Marc Andre Hamelin, Roberto Capello, and Sergei Babayan. This is the first installment of two of Griffes's complete piano works in Naxos's new American Classics Series.

Mr. Lewin's intensity never lets so much as a contrapuntal hair drag or falter. His chilling account of the Night Winds is riveting for its canny textural transparency, but also for its singularity of purpose. In his hands, its restless wash of arpeggios discloses the unsettling, atmospheric registration with compelling logic and gusto... As Mr. Lewin plays it, the lush, Liszt-like Rhapsody in B minor wraps its massive but fluttering sonorities around the listener like giant wings..... Rhetorical declamation is second nature to him; there's an attractive, stentorian quality about his playing that refuses to get bogged down by the exotic colors as it burns off the fog that usually burdens unimaginative readings. Mr. Lewin thoughtfully embraces the structural dimensions of these works, sculpting them with a kind of visceral intensity and unimpeachable authority.

The sound is clear, bold, and exceptionally clean. I look forward to Volume 2...."

- John Bell Young, American Record Guide (February, 1999)

"A fine collection and well worth acquiring at any price let alone bargain price."

- Rob Barnett, MUSICWEB (January, 2000)

"The wild Griffes Piano Sonata opens this program -- one of the most original American piano sonatas ever. The Roman Sketches, probably his best-known works, are in this first volume, as are several short works and arrangements in their first recordings. Lewin shines in his presentation of this American original, and the piano sonics are superior to previous versions of the works."

- John Sunier, Audiophile Audition | Feb.2000

Piano Music of Charles Tomlinson Griffes
Vol. 2
Naxos American Classics 8.559046 | (Click for Excerpts and to Buy)

Reviews

"Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was one of our most original native-born talents. The New York-based Griffes knew his calling early in life and went to Germany at age 19 to further his musical education. Among his composition teachers was Engelbert Humperdinck. His music was of such quality that he won premieres from the likes of Walter Damrosch in New York, Pierre Monteux in Boston , and Leopold Stowkowski in Philadelphia. He had the rare gift of absorbing the musical idioms of his time and incorporating into his compositions a magical amalgam of styles and colors. But genius that he was, nothing appeared derivative.

That Griffes was an accomplished pianist shows in his magnificent and imaginative writing for the instrument. The most familiar original work here is The Pleasure Dome of Kuble-Khan in its original piano version (unpublished until 1993!) It sounds vivid and colorful even without its brilliant orchestral dress. The Three Fantasy Pieces offer a stylistic kaleidoscope, the Nocturne evoking the impressionism that often caused the composer to be falsely linked to that French school. Yet listen to the jazz elements so clearly evident in the Dance in A minor or the Gershwinesque qualities in the Piece in D minor and you will see how foolish it is to tack labels onto artistic genuis.

The two-piano version of the Hansel and Gretel overture is said to have pleased Humperdinck- not surprising, given the idiomatic sound of the transcription. A further exercise in Wagnerian romanticism can be found in the rich-textured Symphonic Fantasy for two pianos- a work truly grand in scope. Both are first recordings.

Michael Lewin offers superb readings and has a marvelous partner in Janice Weber fot the two-piano works. The engineering is first rate, as is the pianist's annotation. Another valuable addition to the label's American Music Series."

- Allen Linkowki, American Record Guide (July/August, 2000)

"This interesting bit of Americana takes a new look at Charles Tomlinson Griffes, whose full potential was never realized. He died in 1920 at 35. Griffes was a romantic whose late work was partially influenced by the French impressionists and who achieved wide recognition only near the end of this life.

The music on this album is quite pleasing. It opens with the original piano version of "The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan," which as an orchestral piece made Griffes' reputation, and concludes with a couple of two-piano works, including the powerfully effective "Symphonische Phantasie." Between are a group of brief compositions, all from late in his career and all attractive.

Michael Lewin gives evocative performances, assisted by the excellent Janice Weber in the two-piano works."

- Olin Chism, The Dallas Morning News (July, 2000)

"Charles Tomlinson Griffes, whose career was tragically cut short at the age of 36 in 1920, was one of the first American composers of real genius and originality. He wrote half a dozen important piano works, including his
masterpiece, the 1917 Sonata. The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan, perhaps his most famous work, is quite a virtuosic production.

Lewin's highly sympathetic performances, in warm, bright sound, are generally preferable to those of James Tocco, who provides a not quite so complete collection of Griffes's solo works on Gasparo Records."

- International Piano Quarterly (Winter, 2001)

"Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the tantalising might-have-been figures dotting the musical landscape. What he might have achieved had he not succumbed to illness as a result of overwork at the early age of 35 we will never know. But in his short composing life he had begun as a practitioner of orthodox romantic music (he was a pupil of Engelbert Humperdinck), then moved to impressionism, and, in his last years, began to toy with atonality and free form.

All three phases of his stylistic evolution are covered by this disc. The pieces for piano duo are the earliest. The Humperdinck transcription is brilliantly done (it is said to have won the master's approval), catching the orchestral colours of the original to a remarkable degree. The Symphonische Fantasie is a transcription of Griffes' own orchestral original (it would have been interesting if the disc had included the work in that form, as indeed is the case with his later and best-known piece The Pleasure Dome of Kubla-Khan which is also a piano transcription of an original orchestral work). It is a big essay in unashamed late romanticism. The Three Preludes of 1919 were his last compositions for piano and remain unpublished. Sparse in texture and enigmatic in mood, none of them contains any tempo indications, dynamics, pedal markings or key signature; the third is notable for one of the experimental scales which he had already begun to explore in his Piano Sonata (1918). The remaining pieces are mostly concise miniatures and hover between romantic and impressionist idioms (Debussy's language and Scriabin's pianism are notable influences). Larger in scale are the Three Fantasy Pieces, all displaying a vivid mastery of piano-writing and a creative mind of distinction. Performance and recording standards are of the highest. Griffes is a little-known composer who, unlike some others in the massive Marco Polo and Naxos surveys of American music, certainly merits a revival."

- Adrian Smith, MUSICWEB (June, 2001)

A Russian Piano Recital
Centaur Records CRC 2134 | (Click for Excerpts and to Buy)

Reviews

"Lewin is a different kind of pianist than Paik, and his Scriabin has a different spin - more forthright and less improvisatory, with sharper differentiation in its timbres, sharper contours in its phrasing, more affirmation in its rhythms. There's plenty of intimacy, notable in particular for its control of chordal balances and of inner lines... Lewin's Balakirev and Glazunov are similarly firm. His Islamey, for instance, is refreshingly modernist, discarding the corny lushness of the "orientalisms" in favor of the tight spring of the rhythms; The Lark more sharply angled than curved, strives less for legato lines than for clarity of textures and sparkling filigree; the rarely-heard turn-of-the-century Toccata dances on with a heady sense of rhythm; and the tough traversal of Glazunov's potentially gummy variations resists the music's underlying sentimentality. Centaur's sound, too, is impressively solid and immediate. Warmly recommended.

- Peter J. Rabinowitz, Fanfare Magazine

"Who says the Romantics are dead? One is alive and living in Boston, and he has been recorded awfully well, with real plummy sound. There is enthusiasm and joy, tempered with discipline, in Lewin's playing that makes his work infectious.

- Bert Wechsler, High Performance Review

"Michael Lewin is a musician's musician, and his big-boned performance of the Second Sonata is at once austere and authoritative. His Nocturne for the Left Hand exfoliates logically and with handsome results that pay tribute to the tension underlying its otherwise lyrical surfaces."

- John Bell Young, in "Scriabin on Disc, Overview" - MV Daily (2001)

Michael Lewin Plays Liszt (Debut Recording)
Centaur Records (CRC 2066) | (Click to Buy)

Program:

Hungarian Rhapsody No.8 Transcendental Etude No.10 Sonnambula Fantasy Four Song Transcriptions Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen Variations

Reviews

"Lewin reveals slowly - almost slyly - that he has all the technical resources he needs, graced with gratifying tonal finesse. One finds oneself suddenly overtaken and suavely moved by an ineffable alchemy of sheer expressive power. The "Sonnambula" Fantasy is a melodic sunburst, while the song transcriptions are possessed by an almost speaking, certainly confiding and ultimately telling lyricism. In this art concealing art there is an astonishing maturity suffused with youthful ardor - a winning combination. Indeed, this is an important debut marking Lewin as an artist to be attended closely. Enthusiastically recommended."

- Adrian Corleonis, Fanfare Magazine

"There is great warmth and sensitivity in all the performances... All the works are played superlatively and Lewin also has a touch of loneliness in this playing, a quality I particularly like in pianists."

- Bert Wechsler, High Performance Review

"....beautiful, unhackneyed playing. Michael Lewin proves himself a polished pianist on this debut recording. He feels this music naturally, profoundly and appealingly."

- Dean Elder, Clavier Magazine