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FRANZ LISZT Années de Pèlerinage Deuxième Année: Italie
Kemal Gekic (piano)
These splendid live performances from the 1999 International
Piano Festival at Williams College reveal Kemal Gekic's prodigious
growth as a Lisztian since his earlier efforts for the JVC
and VAI labels. His style, to be sure, remains as capricious
and subjective as ever, yet these qualities (mannerisms, perhaps?)
are easily absorbed into the lyrical rhetoric typifying most
of the Italian chapter of Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage. Listen
to how Gekic continuously keeps the left hand accompaniments
and counterlines vibrant and alive no matter how complex the
right hand filigree. In the Dante Sonata he conjures up strange
voicings and highly personalized phrasings, laced with murky
bass lines and heart-on-sleeve melodic stresses. It may not
be Liszt by-the-book, but the overall results seem more involved,
spontaneous, and interesting than Frederic Chiu's recent traversals
of these pieces, and they hold your attention all the way.
I look forward to hearing more of Gekic's recent work, and
am sorry that this release doesn't also include the Venezia
è Napoli triptych. [Editor's Note: You can purchase this CD
online at: www.taubman-institute.com]
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