Bruce Levingston: Citizen
Sono Luminus

Even a single listen to Citizen upholds American Record Guide's characterization of Bruce Levingston as a “pianist's pianist,” the collection showing the New York-based musician using his exquisite command of phrasing, tempo, and dynamics to produce seemingly definitive interpretations. Being his seventh album on Sono Luminus, it's hardly the first time he's done so; the seventy-minute Citizen is, however, one of his most strikingly realized recordings, and a particularly fascinating one for the conceptual foundation upon which it's built.

Citizen developed out of an invitation he received to perform at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, which in turn got him thinking about the history of his own birthplace, Mississippi, not just its cultural history but also its ties to issues of race and poverty. The state is hardly alone in that regard, Levingston noting that other places and peoples are likewise struggling to find ways to live harmoniously. In his view, we “are all citizens of one earth, and in order to survive, we must find ways to respect one another's differences, and strongly uphold each other's right to exist with dignity and freedom.” Consistent with that, he selected works through which such ideas resonate and that promote values of civility and humanity.

Adding to the considerable pleasure of listening to the release is reading his eloquent commentaries in the booklet provided with the CD release. His insights do much to illuminate the pieces and enhance one's appreciation of them. Were the pianist so inclined, he could no doubt distinguish himself as a classical music authority for The New Yorker or some other equally august publication. Levingston is, in fact, a published author whose book Bright Fields: The Mastery of Marie Hull examines the work of the Mississippi artist whose 1936 painting An American Citizen helped inspire the release and is displayed on the CD booklet's back cover.

It's fitting that the recording should commence with American Citizen, the premiere recording of a work by Nolan Gasser (b. 1964) that also draws for inspiration from Hull's portrait of Mississippian John Wesley Washington, who was born into slavery in 1847. Hull aspired in her painting to restore to him the dignity and respect he was denied from birth, qualities emphasized by Gasser in his own ten-minute treatment. The stately piece blends European classicism with early American folk and blues into a complex yet nevertheless mesmerizing statement. There are moments of optimism but melancholy, too, and the poise with which Levingston voices the material is as critical to its impact as the actual writing.

Half its length is the lyrical ballade Summerland by William Grant Still (1895-1978), the first African-American composer to have a work performed by major orchestra. According to his daughter, the 1935 piece symbolizes her father's belief in the afterlife, a paradise where “colours and music are gorgeous and alive with meaning.” Levingston's haunting treatment is also significant for correcting a long-standing wrong: despite being written in the key of G-flat, it was published in 1936 in G major because the initial publishing company told Still black composers had “no business using such complicated keys”; Levingston's recorded version thus honours Still by presenting the work in the original key of G-flat major.

Though including material by Chopin (1810-1849) might seem somewhat anomalous when the focus is on American composers, turmoil was part of Chopin's life, too, the Parisian never losing the sense of patriotism he felt for his homeland, Poland. It's reflected in the mazurka form itself, being a traditional Polish folk dance, three examples of which Levingston performs with customary grace and attention to detail. Ruminative, playful, stately, wistful—Chopin packs multiple moods and gestures into the three pieces, with the one in A minor particularly memorable for its majestic rendering by the pianist. Immediately offsetting that early work is Accumulation of Purpose, a recent David T. Little (b. 1978) tribute to the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who rode interstate buses across the American South in the early ‘60s to protest racial segregation. Ranging from dramatic and declamatory (“Reveille”) to terror-stricken and intense (“Accumulation of Purpose,” “Nocturne”), Little's six-movement construction proves as encompassing as Chopin's mazurkas.

Locations in Time, an intimate setting by Augusta Gross (b. 1944), brings forth some of the recording's most delicate playing. In its concise movements, she merges the refined elegance of classical music with the soulful humanity of jazz: in the opening “Other,” Levingston's voicing of its slow, graceful melodies is immaculate; and his expressions of sadness and unease in parts two (“Elegy”) and three (“Toward Night”) are stirring. Mississippi-born C. Price Walden's (b. 1991) three-movement Sacred Spaces premiered at the opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and was written to celebrate the sacred space the church symbolized for African Americans during the Civil Rights era, a place of sanctuary promising acceptance, love, and safety. On a recording featuring many moments of beauty, Walden's hushed piece is one of the most beautiful, a sustained expression of affirmation executed by Levingston with great sensitivity to pacing and dynamics.

Amazing Grace is, admittedly, a warhorse, but the arrangement by Price Walden that Levingston commissioned for the museum's opening makes for a moving coda to the release. As he indicates, it's inclusion is fitting, seeing as how it speaks to the possibility of redemption (“I once was lost, but now am found”) and acknowledges the struggles endured by the oppressed. That the recording's most moving moments are the slower ones testifies to Levingston's inimitable command. Always placing himself in service to a composer's vision, he eschews indulgent gestures on Citizen, where his sensitive treatment of the material produces nuanced performances of remarkable depth. His interpretations distill these works' essence into physical forms so convincing, one imagines their creators would be stunned by how seamlessly his visions accord with their own.

March 2019