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Two pianists at polar extremes of interpretative-technical
approaches opened phase two of the Fifth Miami International
Piano Festival of Discovery this week. Pietro Di Maria, the
Italian who played a prim and correct Mozart concerto last
month, returned this time with a remarkably penetrating Beethoven
Appassionata Sonata, plus other works with more mixed results.
Then Mihaela Ursuleasa, the young Romanian causing a clamor
in Europe, made her debut and, despite reservations about
some lack of rhythmic strictness and her tendency to race
through music without fully defining its contours, served
notice of a tremendous talent. Both have extraordinary potential,
though must work at becoming artistically "whole". Di Maria,
35, began his Tuesday night program at the Lincoln Theatre
with a sensitively shaded, careful Mozart K. 333, even though
the much finely etched phrasing seemed a bit precious. But
the Appassionata was the work of a pianist who doesn't merely
practice assiduously then walk out and play, but who thinks
intensely through each bar of the music while he is playing
-- not as easy as it sounds.This was not an Appassionata in
the garden variety ''heroic style,'' but rather a study in
light and shadow, with interlocked phrasing that seem freshly
conceived, eloquent, and consistently ''right.'' There was
boiling turbulence and impassioned address, to be sure, but
there was also a constant sense of the overarching structure
of the music.
Mendelssohn's F-sharp Minor Fantasy often flowered under
Di Maria's lyrical fingers, but lacked too much of its elfin
sparkle and panache. And Ravel's haunted triptych, Gaspard
de la Nuit, despite some subtle coloration, wasn't fully satisfying
either. Murmurous Ondine had interesting accentuations but
not its unforced flow; ghoulish Le Gibet wasn't mysteriously
eerie; and bizarre Scarbo, though it rose suddenly to quite
a climax, never went wild and had few flashes of demonic brilliance.
Ursuleasa, by comparison, is one of those pianists with the
kind of facility that skims the keyboard without encompassing
it. At her best, as in her three spontaneous, wonderfully
expressive Schubert Klavierstuecke, effortlessly tossed off,
she reminded me of Martha Argerich. She has phenomenal technical
equipment and other qualities you can't buy. You are either
born with them or you don't have them.
In the third sonatas of Enesco and Chopin there was extraordinary
sweep, but she seemed mainly a rhapsodist with fleet fingers
and intriguing ideas she didn't bother to round to completion.
This may be all right for Enesco -- I'd never heard his diffuse
sonata before -- but the Chopin B minor Sonata only hinted
that she suspects the poetry of the work is not just lyrical
and ornamental, but also epic and dramatic.There was a kind
of boneless fluidity to most of her playing, which often lacked
rhythmic spine. The best of it, besides the Schubert, were
two piquant Bartok Romanian Dances and the improvisational
character of her encored Chopin C-sharp minor Nocturne. If
Ursuleasa, 24, can just harness her extraordinary fluency
and technical ease, think through her music more thoroughly
and cultivate more depth, variety and color of cascading tone,
her future could be limitless.
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