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Denis Burstein, the young Russian pianist whose debut recital
last season for the Miami Festival of Discovery stirred such
hope for the future, underscored the validity of that expectation
when he opened the 2001 festival Monday night with a fascinating
program including the seldom-heard Fourth Piano Sonata by
Nikolai Miaskovsky.
That Burstein is in his early 20s means little, except that
if the gods are willing, he has a long, rich time to go. More
important is that he is a pianist of quality, of reassuring
attainments, and of extraordinary potential.
As sometimes happens in such cases, the piano is his refuge,
the door to himself. So he began with his own composition,
a ground with variations dedicated to his friend, the pianist
Konstantin Lifschitz.
It is a strong, often charming, well-crafted tribute to Elizabethan
music, in which Burstein evokes Bach and the Baroque from
a 21st Century man's point of view. His stately variations
were deeply felt, ingeniously convoluted, and Burstein unraveled
them with a steely clarity and logic that carried over into
his welcome revival of the craggy Miaskovsky sonata -- a work
whose unrelentingly loud, dense textures demanded the sort
of revelation of chord structure Burstein provided.
This sonata has been explained as a grim evocation of war
and, except for the brief respite of its grieving Intermezzo,
it emphatically evoked brutality. In fact, ``emphatic'' is
the word that best describes Burstein's playing, along with
adjectives like probing, incisive, perceptive and stimulating.
Still, he needs to balance his brilliant projection by developing
his sensuous side, which was apparent but not prominent enough
in the impressionistic imagery of three well-chosen Debussy
Preludes and four evocative Spanish pieces by Falla.
Burstein understood the sometimes episodic character of each
piece and what needed to be stressed. But, as in Chopin's
Polonaise-Fantasie, while the outline was boldly defined,
a little more spacious reflection would have been welcome
-- a quality Burstein possesses but will more richly develop
as he matures. No matter. On the whole, this was a beautifully
prepared, solidly played program, and the razzle-dazzle Kreisler-Rachmaninoff
Liebesfreud was a corker.
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