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The unusual combination of two pianists, playing a highly
unorthodox program of solo and duo works, presented a 21/2-hour
marathon Wednesday at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale.
The event marked the first concert of this year's International
Piano Festival of Discovery, Masters Series (an ungainly festival
name). The pianists were Kemal Gekic, a Croatian now living
in South Florida, and the Italian Francesco Libetta.
The program started with soft, underplayed pieces and gradually
built to blockbuster showcases with thousands of notes per
square inch, octaves and chords flying all over the place
and incredibly rapid scales. But it was very lightweight in
musical terms, the piece of the greatest depth being a Chopin
Nocturne. Light music is fine for pops concerts, but this
was not billed as such.
The evening began with Liszt's Orpheus, a soft and mystical
two-piano work played with persuasive colors by the two artists.
The final piece of the evening, also for piano duo, was Lutoslawsky's
scintillating Paganini Variations. While some of the composition's
brilliance was realized by the "team," their task was insurmountable.
A two-piano ensemble cannot be created in a few short rehearsals,
which seemed to be the case here. Attacks were inaccurate,
chords weren't always together, and the give and take of an
experienced duo was missing.
Gekic played the first solo selections. Two gentle Scarlatti
sonatas were generally well-interpreted except for occasional
little explosions of inner voices. The great C minor Nocturne
of Chopin was simply not affecting -- the soulfulness and
depth of the work were missing. The middle section got off
to an impressive start, however, with lovely, well-voiced
chords emanating magically from the lower registers. The two
feathery Chopin etudes which followed were played with fluency
and good taste.
Libetta began his solo portion with the Chopin Minute Waltz.
It laid a three-minute egg. Played in the slowest possible
tempo, with all kinds of added, inappropriate configurations,
it was a painful performance of this old war pony. Libetta
continued with a winning performance of a Faure nocturne.
This was followed by a cartoon piece, the Pizzicato by Delibes.
Meant to be cute, it was just silly.
Following intermission, things heated up. Gekic gave a performance
of Liszt's La Campanella that was dazzling in spite of some
missed notes. Libetta answered with a stock rendition of another
cartoon piece, the Second Hungarian Dance by Liszt, in this
contest of dueling pianists.
Gekic's final solo was Rossini's William Tell Overture, arranged
to the teeth by Liszt. This was virtuoso playing which can
rank with some of the top technicians of the last century.
His recording of this work is becoming legendary, and deservedly
so.
But the idea of having two pianists, playing one after the
other, presenting a program of predominantly virtuoso music
(some of it surface-deep), just didn't work all that well.
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