Within just twenty-four hours, two piano recitals in Miami showcased the talents of a recent competition winner and an acknowledged master of the instrument. Both concerts aptly demonstrated that the solo recital is anything but an endangered species, despite rumbling to the contrary.

Russian pianist Arsenii Moon made his American debut on Sunday night at the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami Beach with a wide-ranging program for the Miami International Piano Festival. The 2023 first prize winner of the Ferrucio Busoni Competition, Moon displayed a flawless technique wedded to distinctively personal interpretive instincts. In the layered textures of Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s chorale “Nun komm der Heiden Heiland,” every note and undertone emerged transparent and cleanly articulated. Moon brought out the grave aura and depth of expression in Bach’s creation.

Alexander Scriabin’s music was deeply influenced by the idea of synesthesia, leading the composer to equate notes and tones with specific colors. In the composer’s Twelve Preludes, Moon fully captured that array of hues with a lightness of touch that did not preclude immense power in climactic moments. He handled the live acoustic of the Wolfsonian’s atrium adeptly, avoiding pounding, ear-splitting salvos. Moon conveyed the preludes’ contrasting moods – by turns languid, solemn, feathery and tinged with fire. Scriabin’s keyboard-spanning octaves were rendered with bravura pizzazz and showmanship. Avoiding extremes of volume and speed, Moon made every bar compelling.

Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit is considered one of the most difficult scores ever conceived for solo piano. Moon conquered the challenges of the work’s three impressionistic portraits. The ripples of water that surrounded the nymph “Ondine” were exquisitely portrayed, Moon’s keyboard sonority always beautiful. He also conjured up the eerie atmosphere of “Le Gibet,” a snapshot of a man’s corpse hanging from the gallows. Moon’s rhythmic dexterity at a rapid clip in “Scarbo” generated visceral excitement. The final crescendo was masterfully built, avoiding overt bombast.

Moon’s pearly touch imbued the opening section of Chopin’s Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brilliante with flowing melodic songfulness. There were fireworks galore in the polonaise without loss of the dance impulse. The quirky, moody vignette “Lent” from Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes proved an enterprising encore, finely rendered. Moon is a pianist one wants to hear again and soon.

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