LEVIN'S MAGIC FLUTE

Literature and Arts B-54, Prof. Robert Levin's course on chamber music from Mozart to Ravel, is fast becoming a Harvard classic. Less than two weeks after the first lecture, a frontpage article in this newspaper spoke of B-54's extraordinary oversubscription, its engaging concert/lecture format and the inspired pedagogue at its healm. All of which begs the question: what is Levin doing right?

For one, he entertains. Levin plays the piano with the ease of a Gov-jock ranting about Enlightened Realism. And that's not all--he explicates the music as he plays, voice-over style, with such lucidity and grace that it appears his words are somehow part of the score.

But that's not even half the story. Levin employs a technique more powerful than his raw virtuosity in teaching packed houses in Paine Hall--Eros. Levin unabashedly uncovers the erotic content of the music being studied. His lectures are peppered with overt references to sex and seduction, affairs and adultery.

Some might argue that in the academy in 1994, talking about these matters is hardly novel. Didn't we all have Sex Fd in sixth grade? Yes, but Levin is neither the scientist interested in reducing Fros to its bio-mechanics nor the campus activist who attempts to equate Fros with a slogan. Levin doesn't purport to master this force, only to channel it. By invoking seduction, Levin's lectures become seductions unto themselves.

Not every professor can break into Bach in the middle of lecture. But more might strive to enliven their pedagogy with this most potent of forces.