Sprinting across all 88 Keys

excerpt from The New York Times
by Bernard Holland 2002

The list of nice things to say about Bruce Levingston begins with his good taste. What a lineup at Monday night's piano recital in Alice Tully Hall: the two Brahms items from Op. 116, (the E-Major Intermezzo may be the most subtle keyboard piece Brahms ever wrote), the Webern Variations for piano, Debussy's delicious ''Arpeggio'' Étude, and the Four Études by Curtis Curtis-Smith that follow in its spiritual wake.

One could also admire Mr. Levingston's sensitivity to the isolated musical moment and his loving ear for sensuous sound.... In the Intermezzo, it allowed the ear to dwell on lovely detail.... Romanticizing Webern's pinpoint attacks and silences was a viable idea.

Mr. Curtis-Smith takes up where Debussy's lonely, bleakly beautiful last music ends. Yet these four pieces have a voice of their own. One hears ideas at work and a momentum that carries thoughts coherently and convincingly from first note to last. Here as elsewhere, Mr. Levingston was a thoughtful pianist addressing difficult pieces...