| Posted on Fri, May. 11, 2007
French teen pianist makes impressive debut
BY LAWRENCE A. JOHNSON
Music aficionados in general and local pianophiles in particular should give three cheers for the Miami International Piano Festival as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.
As always, there is a pronounced emphasis on returning musicians for a series that bills itself as ''Discovery.'' Yet the lineup of artists and programs is chosen with the usual enticing mix of quirkiness and discernment.
One of three new faces at this year's festival, Lise de la Salle made her local debut Thursday evening at the Lincoln Theatre.
Just 19, the French pianist has garnered critical accolades and substantial international attention with a series of well-received recordings on the Naive label. Her Mozart and Prokofiev program exactly replicated the works on her latest CD, and for the most part, de la Salle's polished, charismatic performances confirmed her advance billing as a greatly gifted artist.
De la Salle was most impressive in music that allowed her to conjure up an array of evocative coloring, particularly in excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.
The composer's popular ballet music is less frequently encountered in its original, Terpsichorean inspiration, than it is as flashy concert-hall fare. Yet, increasingly, Romeo and Juliet excerpts are working their way into the standard piano repertoire, and it's easy to see why. In addition to offering Prokofiev's most lyrical and least acidly sardonic style, the music offers a discerning artist a chance to display her poetic side as well as plenty of digital bravura.
Six selections provided an apt showcase for de la Salle. She blazed through the virtuosic Juliet as a Young Girl with enviable articulation and invested the lumbering march of Montagues and Capulets with the requisite malign expression. Her Mercutio was a tour de force, thrown off with dazzling speed and unhinged energy.
De la Salle provided the evening's finest playing in Romeo's Farewell to Juliet. Spacious and concentrated, her playing conveyed the rapt tenderness, delicacy and grim foreshadowing with nuanced, dynamic shading and hypnotic eloquence.
That de la Salle possesses considerable technical chops was shown in the other Prokofiev selections as well. Her propulsive take on the Toccata made up in speed and brilliance what it lacked a bit in sonorous heft. There was no lack of power in Prokofiev's Third Sonata, which was delivered with daunting, mechanistic fury.
The first half of de la Salle's program, devoted to Mozart, was nearly as impressive. In the Twelve Variations on Ah! Vous dirai-je maman -- better known as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star -- the pianist's witty performance put across the wealth of variety and ingenuity Mozart mined from the banal little tune.
Yet there were also moments that reminded one that this artist is still at the beginning of her career with room to grow and deepen. While poised and elegant, the bleak depths of the Rondo A minor weren't quite plumbed, with the music failing to unfold in a single arc.
And though fleet and vivacious, in Mozart's Sonata in D major, K. 284, de la Salle's boldly outlined style lacked a more varied tonal palette. There were inspired moments in the variations finale but de la Salle's extremely measured drawing out of the minor-key episodes was Romanticized even for this forward-looking music.
Lawrence A. Johnson is classical music critic of The Miami Herald.
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