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MIAMI
INTERNATIONAL PIANO FESTIVAL
TRIBUTE TO RACHMANINOFF
ALEXANDER GAVRYLYUK/ ILYA ITIN/ MISHA DACIC (5/9/2007)
By Lawrence Budmen
While French pianist Lisa de la Salle received considerable media
attention, the opening night Rachmaninoff gala provided the real
keyboard fireworks at the 10th anniversary edition of the Miami
International Piano Festival. On May 9 three pianists took the stage
of the Lincoln Theater to successively play a superb Steinway grand
in music of the Russian master.
Because of their technical difficulty, Rachmaninoff’s 9
Etude-Tableaux, Op.39 are rarely played. In the impressive hands of
Alexander Gavrylyuk, these display pieces were a veritable
tour-de-force. Gavrylyuk, who first appeared at the Festival four
years ago when he was only nineteen, unfurled sweeping coloration,
hyper intense passion, and grandiose pianistic gestures in a
performance that astutely served Rachmaninoff’s synthesis of fire
and melancholia.
Not to be out played, Ilya Itin brought sensitivity and explosive
pyrotechnical brilliance to the introspective patina of
Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor. Itin, a Festival
stalwart, vividly suggested the brooding intensity of this fiery
score. Itin is a pianist in the grand Russian tradition with an
instinctive understanding of both the composer’s classical sense
of form and unhinged passions. His playing was frequently awesome.
It fell to Misha Dacic to serve up Rachmaninoff’s bon-bons for
dessert. The Serbian born Dacic, a pupil of Frank Cooper and Kemal
Gekic, has matured enormously as an artist since American debut in
2003. Particularly enchanting was his perfumed filigree in
Rachmaninoff’s witty take on Latin rhythms in the Serenade, Op.3,
No.5. Earl Wild’s transcription of The Little Island sailed on
wings of lyrical grace. Arcadi Volodos’s arrangement of the Polka
Italienne was great fun, served up with brio and virtuosity in equal
measure by Dacic. Each of the pianists received standing, shouting
ovations.
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