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Boris Berezovsky and Konstantin Lifschitz, Russian-born pianists
better known in Europe, made sizzling South Florida debuts
at the Lincoln Theatre over the weekend during the first Festival
of Discovery - an event co-sponsored by Community Concerts,
New York's Taubman Piano Institute and Patrons of Exceptional
Artists, new local group promoting young talent.
Berezovsky, whose brilliant Teldec CDs brought out the piano-philes,
proved to be an even more interesting artist in person Saturday
night. He possesses extraordinary agility. When he cuts loose
in the sort of thing he does best - say the Rimsky-Korsakov
version of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain or Balakirev's
Islamey - his playing is a physical phenomenon.
It was the speed of a machine gun, with runs and octave
passages of literally hair-raising brilliance. There is also
a perceptive sense of proportion about his playing; most of
what he touches takes on exceptional structural lucidity.
And even though he obviously likes to stun audiences into
submission in bravura passagework, he can be acutely sensitive
to dynamic shading.
In the Rimsky-Korsakov, the loud-soft contrasts were quite
striking and poetic. But Berezovsky has so much rapid facility
he tends to get ahead of the music and sound a little slap-dash.
What he lacked in the six Medtner Fairy Tales and Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition is exactly what Lifschitz possessed
absolute control and a tone of Horowitzian luminosity.
Some have compared Lifschitz to Evgeny Kissin because of
his sensitivity, and he didn't disappoint. Both Schubert's
Sonata Op. 122 and Chopin;s Third were extraordinary. Lifschitz
not only has the freshness of tone to tap the inner sources
of music, he has a mind that sees the familiar without clichés.
In the widely spaced Schubert Sonata, phrases sparkled as
if newly minted.
And in the Chopin B minor Sonata, creative fire also blazed
from within. Hearing Lifschitz's linking of each movement
inexorable to the next, and the hushed suspense with which
he made the transition to the grand, nobly announced finale
- well, it was the sort of playing you want to hear again
- and again. The audience, in fact, only let Lifschitz go
after four encores.
Thursday night, Gabriela Montero, the Venezuelan-born pianist
who snared a bronze medal in the 1995 Chopin Competition at
Warsaw, demonstrated a good many admirable qualities, too:
a shining tone, impressive speed in virtuoso passages and
a basically healthy musicality in scores ranging from Albeniz's
Suite Espanola to Liszt's B minor Sonata.
But Montero wasn't fully in command. There were lapses, not
only of memory, but also of technical and musical control,
especially in the Chopin Fantasie and Liszt Sonata. After
extended sections of clarity and fluency, suddenly a passage
would be haywire with balky fingers. Accompanying rhythmic
figures in the Liszt at one point, for example, became oddly
indistinct - poorly projected. Montero needs to work at making
her playing more consistent.
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