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Pianomania, which you might define simply as ``a craze for
the piano and pianists,'' is gripping South Florida again,
and among its prominent creators is The Miami International
Piano Festival of Discovery, about to open its fourth season.
Monday through Feb. 9, the festival will present five recitals
by young pianists from Russia, the United States and Italy
in what has become an annual rite of passage for pianists
from around the globe. This time, Russia's Denis Burstein,
Italy's Pietro De Maria and Francesco Libetta, plus Americans
Adam Neiman and Nicholas Angelich will perform an unusual
repertory, from sonatas by Clementi and Miaskovsky to showpieces
by Liszt and Hummel.
Two recitals were staged last week by the festival at Broward
Center as a kind of preview of its mission of acquainting
audiences with acclaimed new talent. In case you missed the
pianists -- Kemal Gekic, Libetta, Ilya Itin and Piotr Anderszewski
-- you can hear them on a new CD of highlights from last year's
festival, or in a VHS video produced and recently aired by
WLRN-PBS 17. Both the CD and video are available through the
festival.
The CD spotlights Anderszewski, Burstein, Gekic, Itin and
Libetta in playing that varies from humdrum to dazzling. Anderszewski's
14 Bartok Bagatelles fell in the former. They sound crystalline,
spotless, but over-refined and a bit tedious, all played at
the same temperature. The pianist makes you feel fastidious
polish is more important than musical penetration.
Burstein, in contrast, is willing to push things, occasionally
to the brink, and past it. The video even shows him botching
passages in Stravinsky's Petrouchka, probably from nervousness.
Couldn't that segment have been re-taped? But on the CD you
get Burstein's terrific live performance of Rachmaninoff's
transcription of Kreisler's Liebesfreud, as well as three
darkly brooding Medtner Fairy Tales, seething Scriabin Preludes,
plus an angularly fascinating Tanayev Prelude and Fugue.
Burstein, 23, incidentally, was the youngest pianist ever
to be appointed to the faculty of Moscow's renowned Gnessin
School for musically gifted children. He'll open the festival
Monday night.
Gekic, on the faculty of Florida International University,
has become a familiar South Florida figure. His playing can
be perversely idiosyncratic, but his festival recital last
season was superbly cogent. You could quibble with his wide
spacing of the bell-like tones of the Liszt-Paganini Campanella,
but his Rachmaninoff First Sonata is both probing and virtuosic
-- and it's on both the CD and video. Itin's Rachmaninoff
Preludes may not have great dazzle, but they're dreamy, rhapsodic
and nostalgic. Only one of them was taped for the video; you
get six on the CD along with a Polka and Vocalise.
As for Libetta, it should be interesting to hear him again.
Last year he played frothy Chopin-Godowsky Etudes and boneless
Debussy. But listening to/or watching Saint-Saens' Etude in
the form of a Waltz, which I missed as an encore last season,
it's every bit as breathtaking as friends told me. Libetta's
remarkable facility also makes the first movement of Alkan's
Grand Sonata a case of virtuosity for virtuosity's sake that's
worth hearing. But the Chopin-Godowsky Etudes are not as phenomenally
encompassing or clearly articulated as Marc-Andre Hamelin's
on a recent CD.
The piano sound on this Festival of Discovery CD, by the
way, sparkles. The video, containing less music and some surprisingly
shallow -- almost gratuitous -- comments by the artists, seems
to have been shot simply to display the pianists in action,
without any sort of visual trickery. I'd recommend buying
the CD first. Both it and the video cost $25 each and are
available by calling 305-935-5115 or by ordering from www.miamipianofest.com
online.
Meanwhile, here's a schedule of this week's festival events
at the Lincoln Theatre, 541 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach.
Monday: 6:30 p.m. Gala Opening; 8:15 p.m. Denis Burstein
plays his own piece dubbed Mr. Lifschitz Himself (Ground with
Variations), plus Miaskovsky's Fourth Piano Sonata, Chopin's
Polonaise-Fantasie. three Debussy and three Gershwin Preludes
and four pieces by Manuel de Falla.
Tuesday: 6:45 p.m. Lecture by Frank Cooper of the University
of Miami; 8:15 p.m. Pietro De Maria plays Scarlatti: Four
Sonatas; Clementi's Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 5;
Schubert's Wanderer Fantasie D. 76; Liszt's Sonetti del Pet
rarca and Don Juan Fantasy.
Feb. 7: 6:45 p.m. Lecture by Richard Dyer, music critic of
The Boston Globe; 8:15 p.m. Adam Neiman plays Rachmaninoff's
Sonata No. 1 in D minor; Beethoven's Sonata Op. 110; Chopin's
Barcarolle, Winter Wind Etude, Nocturne in F major and Polonaise
in A-flat major, Op. 53
Feb. 8: 4 p.m. Lecture-recital by Edna Golansky of the Taubman
Institute; 6:45 p.m.: lecture on Rachmaninoff by Geoffrey
Norris, music critic of England's Daily Telegraph; 8:15 p.m.:
Nicholas Angelich play; Brahms Ballades, Op. 10; Ravel: Gaspard
de la Nuit; Rachmaninoff Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 39
Feb. 9: 6:45 p.m. conversations with musicologist Frank Cooper,
pianist Ivan Davis and critic John Ardoin on ``Men, Women
and Pianos''; 8:15 p.m. Francesco Libetta plays Beethoven's
Sonata Op,14, No. 2; Hummel's Rondo; Liszt's Totentanz; Strauss-Risler
Til Eulenspiegel; Debussy: Three Preludes, Etude No. 2 and
L'ísle joyeuse.
Tickets for all recitals: $15 to $40.
Call 305-673-3331 or 305-935-5115.
James Roos is The Herald's music critic.
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