Raymond Lewenthal, a colourful and imaginative explorer of forgotten Romantic piano repertory, died of a heart attack Monday night. He was 62 years old and lived in Hudson, N.Y.Mr. Lewenthal is especially remembered for helping to revive the difficult and arcane piano music of Charles-Valentin Alkan, but his restorative efforts were also devoted to other 19th-century composers – Busoni, Reinecke, Field, Henselt, Scharwenka, Thalberg and Anton Rubinstein. The pianist was known for his strong technique and grand manner – crowd-pleasing qualities he applied often to his public performances of Liszt. Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times, wrote of a 1976 performance of Alkan’s ”Funeral March for a Parrot” that when Mr. Lewenthal, ”cadaverous, tall and saturnine, came out wearing black and a black silk topper decorated with a mourning band, and led a procession of four singers and four desperately squealing oboists . . . that was the Romantic revival.” A critic for The Times of London considered Mr. Lewenthal’s Liszt performances ”in the big Romantic manner such as we now associate with a vanished age.”Mr. Lewenthal was born in San Antonio of Russian-French parentage and grew up in Hollywood where he was a child actor in films until the age of 15. His piano education was both bicoastal and international, including stops in New York and Paris under teachers like Alfred Cortot, Lydia Cherkassky, Olga Samaroff and Guido Agosti. His career was interrupted and nearly ended in 1953 when he was assaulted in Central Park and suffered broken arms and hands. He stopped playing, traveled to Europe, studied there for three years and subsequently went to South America where he lived, often hand-to-mouth, for seven years. In 1964, he returned to the United States and resumed his career.Mr. Lewenthal’s last major appearances were his concerts – five in five days – with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center in 1982. He was troubled by heart problems in later years and devoted much of his time to finishing and seeking a publisher for a large biography of his hero, Alkan. It is said to have occupied him for 25 years, and remains unpublished.

All this to introduce  the two extraordinary figures  of Mark Viner and Tyler Hay who have appeared recently on the concert scene with the same curiosity for a bygone age.

“The Golden Age of the Piano Virtuosi”was a programme late at night on the radio in which the newly discovered piano rolls of the great virtuosi of the past were shared with an enthusiastic audience of which I was one in a late night programme on the BBC introduced by Deryck Cooke .They had been found in the Brentford Piano Museum created by a charmingly eccentric personality, Frank Holland .His unique collection of player pianos and such like( he was an engineer and not a musician at all) were housed in a derelict church overlooking the Thames.We listened unbelievingly to feats of virtuosity from pianists we had only read about.Moritz Rosenthal,Leopold Godowsky,Mischa Levitzki.The seed was sown for me .

My old piano professor Sidney Harrison was chairman of the Museum and we would make regular visits to see Frank and his instruments.We even played some pieces in a benefit concert for sixteen hands on eight pianos.Irene Kohler,Eric Harrison,Sidney Harrison,Graham Johnson,Linn Hendry,Katherine Still and me all took part as we marvelled at this  Alladin’s cave.

I even wrote to Cziffra and had a long correspondence with him about his piano transcriptions.I sought out the Chopin Studies by Godowsky in the Library at Senate House. Then out of nowhere appeard this romantic figure of Raymond Lewenthal who took London by storm with his performances of Liszt and Alkan.

I remember in particular his performance of the Hexameron.Princess Belgiojoso conceived the piece in 1837 and persuaded Franz Liszt to assemble a set of variations of the march along with five of his pianist-friends. Liszt composed the introduction, second variation, connecting sections and finale, and integrated the piece into an artistic unity. Five well-known composer-performers each contributed one variation:  Chopin,Czerny,Herz,Pixis and Thalberg.

Princess Belgiojoso commissioned Hexaméron for a benefit concert for the poor on 31 March 1837 at the princess’s salon in Paris. The musicians did not complete the piece on time, but the concert was held as scheduled. The concert’s highlight was a piano “duel” between Thalberg and Liszt for the title of “greatest pianist in the world.” Princess Belgiojoso announced her diplomatic judgment: “Thalberg is the first pianist in the world–Liszt is unique.”

This winter I ventured to Naples to visit the tomb of Thalberg who had amassed vast wealth from his piano tours in America  and elsewhere and had practically taken over a large part of Naples in his retirement.

https://christopheraxworthymusiccommentary.wordpress.com/2020/01/04/a-la-recherche-de-thalberg/

 It is a fascinating world of a bygone age and it is Mark Viner with  already seven CD’s of Alkan,Thalberg,Chaminade together with Tyler Hay who are bringing this world back to life.

These works were written by virtuoso pianists for their own performances.To astonish,ravish and seduce.Their model was of course Paganini.But they are works that need a transcendental technique together with a sense of style colour and the stamina to sustain the truly diabolical demands that are required to bring these works back to life.Both Tyler Hay and Mark Viner have these qualities in abundance thanks to their early training with Tessa Nicholson at the Purcell School  and later with Niel Immelman at the Royal College.

I have written many times about their performances but am glad now in this time of confinement to receive Tyler’s latest CD of an almost completely forgotten piano virtuoso.A contemporary of Chopin and Liszt of whom Chopin wrote on his arrival in Paris:”Herz,Liszt and Hiller are all zeros next to Kalkbrenner”He dedicated his Concerto op 11 to him and wanted lessons but the arrogant Kalkbrenner would not teach him for less than three years!

So it is with great trepidation that I await to discover who is Kalkbrenner from the  hands of Tyler Hay.

This is what I wrote in my appraisal a few months ago “Kitten on the Keys” when Tyler played the’ Variations Brillantes sur une Mazourka de Chopin’  op 120 at St James’s Piccadilly: