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MIAMI
HERALD
Posted on Thu, May. 30, 2002
By James Roos
CHAMBER
SYMPHONY
The high point of the Miami Chamber Symphony's
Tuesday night concert at the University of Miami's
Gusman Hall came when Leonid Sigal, the orchestra's
new music director-designate, brandished a violin
and joined pianist Kemak Gekic in Chausson's chamber
music Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet
in Sigal's transcription for string orchestra.
This gorgeous
music is as fragrant as a garden at night. Urgent,
rhapsodic, sometimes ecstatic, its first movement
dubbed Décidé is long and sustained.
Sigal
demonstrated what a fine violinist he is, playing
passionately and cleanly with a soaring tone,
and Gekic did an almost magical job at the piano,
exhibiting an apt French restraint, the darkly
emotional mood shattered only briefly by a few
startlingly percussive chords. It is such a pleasure
to hear Gekic in other music than the Liszt and
Rachmaninoff for which he is noted because he
is a multifaceted artist and shouldn't be stereotyped
as a mere barnstorming virtuoso. His way with
the chamber music literature is exceptional for
the fresh insights, simplicity, clarity, power
and genuine virtuoso control he brings to each
score.
Display
him in a work like Haydn's Piano Concerto in D
major, as Sigal did, and Gekic plays with chaste
beauty and classic style. His pearly finger work
was an abiding pleasure, as was his measured exuberance
in the perky finale.
As a conductor,
it's obvious Sigal has spent some time trying
to communicate with appropriate motions and knows
how to wave a baton convincingly. Still, he was
ineffective leading Elgar's Serenade for String
Orchestra. The first movement Allegro piacevole
was over-inflected as he tried to sensitively
shade it; in fact, the whole work was rather like
a bird drooping in a tight cage. I kept wishing
he would open the door and let it loose and sing.
It was a stodgy performance, reminding you sharply
that the bad thing about learning to be a conductor
is that the only way to do it is to make your
mistakes in public.
But it
will be interesting to see how Sigal develops.
To reach
James Roos e-mail: jroos@herald.com
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