Pianist Frank Fernandez performs inside Ravinia's Bennett Gordon Hall on Tuesday, August 18, 2015. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
Cuban pianist earns oles! in US debut at Ravinia
Well before the Minnesota Orchestra earlier this year became the first American orchestra to perform in Cuba since President Barack Obama moved to reinstate diplomatic and economic relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the Ravinia Festival already was representing American classical music on Cuban soil.
Since 2014, artists and faculty from Ravinia's Steans Music Institute have been giving recitals and master classes in Cuba at the invitation of pianist Frank Fernandez, the internationally respected Cuban virtuoso who serves as president of the Chamber Music Festival in Havana.
Madeleine Plonsker, a Ravinia annual fund patron, came along as part of the Steans entourage and befriended Fernandez. They discussed a cultural exchange whereby he would perform at Ravinia. Although his 56-year career had taken him to 38 countries, he had never performed in the U.S. Indeed, his closest contact with an American orchestra had come last May when he played in Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" as part of the Minnesota Orchestra's breakthrough concert.
With Plonsker as sponsor, Ravinia booked Fernandez for a recital and helped set into motion the festival's application for a visa for the pianist. The visa arrived only last Friday, just days before Fernandez's scheduled American debut Tuesday night in Ravinia's Bennett Gordon Hall. Ravinia thus became the first American presenter to engage the remarkable, 71-year-old pianist, a real coup for the festival.
Fernandez's program reflected his grounding in both the standard classical repertory and in Cuban and Latin American vernacular music. To this repertory he brought a meaty sound, a comprehensive command of the keyboard and a big, extroverted manner that clearly reflected his training at the Moscow Conservatory. (He is among the very few international classical performers who's never studied in Europe or the U.S.)
Fernandez was at his most convincing in the selections that gave free rein to his strong technique and penchant for kicking up floods of Lisztian bravura, especially in his native music.
Although the pianist is said to be a seasoned authority in Beethoven's music, I was troubled by his "Waldstein" Sonata – particularly the first movement, which he tore through in a hectic rush that reduced some passages to a blur and allowed for no thematic contrast.
His Chopin group, consisting of three Waltzes and the Ballade No. 1 in G minor, was by turns impressive and idiosyncratic. His swashbuckling accounts of the ballade and the "Grand valse brillante" in E flat reached into the sonic depths of the Steinway grand piano, while the lilting rubato he applied to the C sharp minor waltz (Opus 64, No. 2) was complemented by a bell-like tone. Curiously, he did little with the charming Waltz in A flat (Opus 69, No. 1) besides making it sound heavy and studied.
A suite of Afro-Cuban and Spanish-style dances by the pianist's countryman Ernesto Lecuona and Fernandez's own "Suite for Two Pianos," both dispatched with verve and flair, gave his recital a big splash of Cuban musical color.
The Lecuona dances merge classical and popular idioms in such an inventive, pianistic way as to render genre distinctions irrelevant. Such music clearly speaks to Fernandez's nationalistic musical pride and his playing allowed the audience to take as much delight in it as he did. The familiar "Malaguena" cast its sultry spell, but even more interesting was "La comparsa," with its subtle syncopations poised over an insistent ostinato rhythm.
Fernandez's suite had the pianist superimposing his performance of the first piano part over a rather distant and tubby-sounding recording of the second piano part. The gimmick yielded not rigidity but a riotous fiesta of Cuban and South American folkloric melodies and rhythms. Particularly striking was the "Conga de mediodia," which evoked the dissonant, pounding polyrhythms of eastern Cuban drumming.
Fernandez, who placed hand to heart and blew kisses to the appreciative audience throughout his recital, favored them with an unusual encore – his own jazz arrangement of "Somewhere over the Rainbow." Speaking in Spanish, he invited the crowd to sing along, and they did.
Ravinia's $10 BGH Classics series continues through Sept. 8 with concerts by pianists Peter Jablonski, Joel Fan, Richard Glazier, Llyr Williams, Joseph Moog, Anna Polonsky, Orion Weiss, Ingolf Wunder and Alon Goldstein; violinists Augustin Hadelich, Simone Porter and Jennifer Koh; the Lincoln Trio; and Turtle Island Quartet; 847-266-5100,ravinia.org.
Twitter @jvonrhein
Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario
Gracias por opinar