| What was originally
slated as a recital by the duo-pianist Gledhill brothers turned
into an inadvertent pianistic battle of the bands Saturday
afternoon at Gusman Hall.
With Justin Gledhill having to bow out due to an injury,
Daniel Gledhill wound up sharing the Festival Miami event
with Misha Dacic, each pianist offering a demanding program.
The many Dacic partisans in attendance were clearly enthralled
with the Yugoslav's flash and brilliance. For this listener,
however, the musical honors were more evenly divided, with
Gledhill, somewhat surprisingly, showing the greater insight
and interpretive sophistication.
Just 18 years old, the Utah native and Brigham Young student
displayed poise, impressive technical polish and an artistic
maturity beyond his years. He opened with Bach's Prelude and
Fugue in G minor, a reading that showed fine clarity of voicing,
albeit with a rather steely tone and heavy accents.
Gledhill's performance of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18
was first-rate. The young musician captured the playful, ebullient
qualities of this music with fleet playing and a witty, light
touch. The dynamic contrasts were firmly pointed in the scherzo,
and Gledhill delightfully conveyed the effervescent high spirits
of the skipping finale with its hunting-horn motif.
His reading of Ravel's La Valse was strong in the technical
demands of the latter pages but was wanting in elegance and
Gallic grace.
No complaints about Gledhill's muscular rendering of Chopin's
Ballade No. 4. Powerful and eloquent, the young artist held
the mercurial elements together, unfolding the musical narrative
with a sure sense of the long line. The explosive climaxes
were remarkable, the torrent of notes delivered with supreme
technical control. Let's have Daniel Gledhill back in South
Florida for a full-length recital sometime soon.
Misha Dacic made an impressive American debut last May at
the Miami International Piano Festival. Now in his mid-20s,
he is clearly an artist equipped with an awesome technique
and a taste for keyboard barnburners. Yet Saturday, as at
that previous outing, it wasn't always clear that his interpretive
maturity was as keenly developed as his steel-fingered technique.
Mozart's Rondo in D major was sparkling and scintillating
in Dacic's hands, yet the tragic depths of the composer's
Adagio in B minor seemed glossed over in a pristine yet cool
and rushed reading.
Arcadi Volodos' note-bestrewn yet evocative arrangements
of two Rachmaninoff songs, Morning and Melody, were rendered
with supple grace and lyrical point. Dacic met the virtuosic
demands of Chopin's Rondo in E flat with staggering virtuosity,
yet his playing lacked poetry in the more intimate passages.
Like the Russian Volodos, Dacic enjoys programming the unabashed
keyboard flamethrowers of old, such as his closing selection,
the Liszt-Horowitz arrangement of Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre.
Dacic tossed off the preposterous concoction -- with its cornucopia
of difficulties, double octaves and hand-crossing glissando
sweeps -- with fire, jaw-dropping technique and huge panache.
The UM School of Music's concert guidelines remain baffling.
Photographers are banned from all performances but apparently
infants are allowed, judging from the repeated crying that
threatened to disrupt Saturday's recital.
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