Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BRILLIANT!, April 11, 2003
Recently went to hear an orchestral concert which had a work by Todd Levin on the program. Couldn't believe how terrific the piece was, so I bought this disc. The disc is even better. I totally agree with the amazon.com editorial review - this is highly recommended. It's completely unlike anything I've ever heard before in classical music.... more to the point, it smashes through whatever preconceived notions or boundaries I thought were construed to be "classical." It's the first truly contemporary classical music I've ever heard in my lifetime, and by this I don't mean contemporary in its actual sound, but rather in its conceptual stance. The third piece on the disc, titled "Todd Levin," is the real centerpiece, a self portrait of the composer as a young man. Everybody should listen to this piece once - it'll be sure to polarize and exhaust people, but you'll definitely never forget it. Powerful, powerful stuff...
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Original work that deserves more exposure., July 27, 2002
I purchased "DeLuxe" about five years ago and never tire of its clever juxposition of biting wit with "easy listening" music that really is anything but. I hope Todd Levin produces more works of this caliber. The London Symphony (well known for its ability to meld pop with classical) was superb on this recording. I highly recommend this highly original work.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Everything and the Kitchen Sink, August 13, 2008
This is quite a strange and interesting album. I bought it at a thrift store, and couldn't draw any conclusions from the packaging. Having heard it, I think that's part of the point. It's Deutsche Grammophon, so it's obviously some kind of art music, but there's no bio of the composer, almost no other information at all. The cover seems kind of 90s pop art, and you honestly have to look at the track list carefully to discern that there is a track 3, and that it's called Todd Levin. It's the centerpiece of the album, by the way, that track 3; it's more than a half an hour long, and contains what amounts to a personal artistic manifesto, a thumb in the eye of modernist music and 20th century conservatory training. He also quotes bad reviews of other pieces that are on this CD, pop culture references, and what sounds like a list of questions from a grant form. The whole spoken section is mixed at a level where you can't distinguish it all the time from the barrage of what's going on in the orchestra, so it's hard to say exactly. I imagine he wants it that way. That whole 3rd track keeps coming back to an annoying question for composers, "What kind of music do you write", a question he answers without really answering it, or validating it being asked. It's all very po-mo.
The music is, how shall I put it?, Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, John Adams relentless rhythm, disco, '70s film and television soundtracks, techno, house, John Zorn, and what sounds like a nod to Steve Reich's tape processes all mashed up, with quotations from Tschaikovsky and the Dies Irae thrown in for good measure. A sort of neurotic hi-hat disco beat is omnipresent, which may account for the fact that all the tracks are labeled remixes. (remixed from what? I guess that's part of the semantic game)
There's something about this music that sounds as though it was written without human performers in mind. Adams and Reich write repetitive patterns, but performers can get into them. This music, particularly the brass stuff sounds like a lip-buster, it doesn't really breathe.
The London Philharmonic sounds a little under-rehearsed and slap-dash recorded here. There are some ensemble issues and some sloppy playing that is probably partly due to the relentless writing, and partly because it was recorded quickly, without a lot of retakes. (I'm guessing here)
Who IS this guy, though? The album is screaming "Notice Me! I have ideas!" and at the same time saying, "I'm playing games. Stop taking me seriously" And to have this much effort put into such an obviously carefully assembled product and then have the composer/auteur disappear entirely off the face of the earth (excepting a page on facebook asking the same question I'm posing right now) is bizarre.
If you're interested in minimalism, or post-modern music, or pop-art, or Berio, or crossover pieces, or house music, you gotta check this out. If your idea of classical music is anything from Josquin to Schoenberg, this may not be your thing.
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by Todd Levin 
