Philip Levi
Posted by Jeffrey Lague on July 17, 2023, 5:25 pm
Going through some old reel-to-reel tapes I came across a performance of the Hummel A minor concerto which I recorded from the radio; the pianist was Philip Levi. A little research (and memories of discussing the piece with the music master at school) leads me to the conclusion that this was a Music of the Masters BBC programme given on 30th October 1962 with the BBC Welsh Orchestra conducted by Rae Jenkins. Looking through the old Radio Times listings I find that Philip Levi was a regular BBC broadcaster from the late 1930s into the 1960s; he seems to have been something of a Busoni specialist - indeed I remember listening to a broadcast of the Concerto he gave- but there were also programmes of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and other composers of the standard repertoire. In spite of all this worthy activity -the Hummel concerto shows him to have been a fine pianist- I cannot find a mention of him in books, on the internet (apart from the BBC listings) or anywhere. Do any of the older MWI contributors remember Philip Levi or know anything about him?
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