A blend of wisdom and youthful spirit (Filed: 17/05/2006)
Geoffrey Norris finds himself spellbound by the performance of Ingrid Fliter at the Miami Piano Festival
The Miami International Piano Festival scored a major triumph with this recital by the Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter. True to the aims of its annual "Discovery Series", the festival aired a talent of exceptional quality that might not yet be universally known about but is easily as hot as Florida's 90-degree sunshine.
While her London debut is a year away (she is scheduled for a Wigmore Hall recital in June 2007), Fliter's gifts have just been recognised by the elite Gilmore Artist Award, previously accorded to pianists of the calibre of Piotr Anderszewski and Leif Ove Andsnes. On this evidence, Fliter shares their company comfortably.
Not surprisingly, Fliter has drawn comparisons with her fellow Argentinian the great Martha Argerich, and her playing has a similar fusion of poetry and dynamism. But Fliter is very much her own person, with essential sparks of individual imagination that show a fertile mind as well as a phenomenal technique at work. One gratifying thing is that she has not been fast-tracked to stardom. She is now in her early thirties, and brings with her a mature wisdom and discretion alongside youthful spirit.
She certainly let rip in the blazing rhythmic infernos of the Ginastera piece that formed her second encore, but in many ways the main body of the programme was more revealing of the interpretative perception and refinement that make her playing so distinctive.
She identified the mercurial wit and introspection of Haydn's E minor Sonata Hob.XVI:34 with a lightness of touch. She encompassed Beethoven's E flat Sonata Op 31 No 3 and the C minor Variations Op 80 with strength of fingers and a subtlety and suppleness of approach that illuminated nuances of texture and expression within the context of sound architectural reasoning.
All this, articulated with such panache and character, would have been enough to highlight Fliter as a pianist who is true to stylistic ground rules but at the same time brings to her performances something of her own.
But then in the second half came a Chopin group that was simply spellbinding. The music seemed to flow from her with an utterly natural lyrical impulse, graced with power, luminous delicacy and a spectrum of tonal colouring that combined to mark her out as one of the most instinctive and eloquent Chopin interpreters playing today. Her London debut should be put in everyone's diary now.
