| Long advance scheduling is often
the bane of music presenters, and so it proved again last
week at the Miami International Piano Festival.
Paul Lewis, the star attraction of the festival's "Discovery
Series," canceled his recital Thursday night because
of illness. Fortunately, festival regular Mihaela Ursuleasa
happened to be in town and kindly agreed to fill the gap by
performing in Lewis' place.
Under the circumstances, it would be ungracious to say that
the Romanian pianist's performance at the Lincoln Theatre
was something of a letdown. Ursuleasa is clearly a musician
with impressive talent and she displayed some of the exciting
bravura as well as poetic touch of previous local outings.
Yet despite a measure of inspired pianism, one came away
from Thursday's recital with the feeling that the musician,
25, has yet to find her niche in terms of repertoire and as
an artist.
The raw material is certainly there. Ursuleasa possesses
an admirable technique, yet one that, while exciting, becomes
a little wild and out of control under pressure. Also in legato
passages, she seems impatient and reluctant to relax and take
the time to let the music resonate.
Beethoven's Eroica Variations had moments of delicacy and
excitement. Ursuleasa's plainspun reading, however, seemed
like a work in progress, stinting on virtuosic sizzle, and,
more fatally, humor.
Her dexterity was undeniably impressive in Prokofiev's Sonata
No. 7, yet the wartime violence and intensity of this music
calls for greater sonorous heft than Ursuleasa provided. Liszt's
Mephisto Waltz was also unsteady rhythmically and wanting
in diablerie.
Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze, also performed by
Ursuleasa at the festival's Broward concerts in March, proved
more successful. Though the score's charm wasn't always evident,
the pianist firmly etched both the flamboyant Florestan and
ruminative Eusebius sides of Schumann's personality, and brought
some luminous, evocative playing to the more gentle episodes.
Unsurprisingly, Bartok's Two Romanian Dances drew the most
convincing performance of the evening. Ursuleasa fairly attacked
the music with great intensity, bringing pungent rhythmic
punch to Bartok's sharp accents. Her idiomatic and dazzling
playing was fully in sync with the music's sarcastic and edgy
folkloric bite.
Ursuleasa began the evening with a brief tribute to longtime
Miami music critic James Roos, who passed away earlier in
the day. Her rapt and poised rendering of Chopin's Nocturne
in C-sharp minor made an apt and touching homage.
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