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XII Annual Miami International Piano Festival


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Planning to indulge myself a little tonight after work... :)

XII Miami International Piano Festival

"Established in 1998, the Miami International Piano Festival has achieved international recognition with participants and journalists from all over the world coming to the Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach...( ).

Set in beautiful, tropical, and multi-cultural South Florida, the Miami International Piano Festival draws on musicians from England, Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Russia, Argentina, Israel, the USA and more".

http://www.miamipianofest.com/index3.html

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I just got back, and it's REALLY late...(or very early, depending...). The night got extended... :wink:

Anyways, yes...I did go yesterday, and tonight. I'm also planning on going tomorrow. Both days I've witnessed the most unbelievable talent in the hands of two very young pianists. Yesterday the night was conducted by the German Severin von Eckardstein, who has been named "The new Horowitz", after his overwhelming recitals in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, as well as his successful debut in the Piano Hayes Series in the Kennedy Center, at DC...(Natasha...?, heard of him?)

He played 3 Chopin's nocturnes, two works of Scriabin-(a Sonata and a Nocturne), a Ballade by Grieg, another work by Olivier Messiaen and a Sonata from Liszt. I was in heaven...i can't never have enough of Chopin.

Tonight the experience was as powerful, with the very young American pianist Stephen Beus doing the honors. OMG...what a revelation. The somehow shy personality of this young man flipped 360 degrees once he sat and starting attacking the piano with such passion and brio that at some point I thought that he was going to fell from the stool. Honestly. He played Bach-(the English Suite in G Minor), Liszt-(Spanish Rhapsody), Mendelssohn-(Sonata in E Major) and Samuel Barber-(sonata in E-flat Minor)-and Nicolas Medtner-(Sonata Tragica). He left me breathless, particularly after his Mendelssohn interpretation. I was wondering if somebody on this board has seen him playing. Loved it.

Oh, and yesterday Von Eckardstein played an encore...a piece by Prokofiev-(which i couldn't identify)

Beautiful... :clapping:

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dirac, on the third night it was Hungarian Balazs Szokolay who did the honors. A very charismatic musician, with plenty of those mannerisms pianists sometimes develop while playing...(like talking out loud with the instrument at times... :P ). He played Mendelssohn-(10 songs without words, Prelude and Fugue in E Minor Op. 35 No. 1 and Rondo Caprioccioso in E Major, Op. 14). All impeccable. After the intermission he played a beautiful piece by Schumann, "Papillons", and then Liszt-("Harmonies du Soir-Transcendental Etude No. 11"-, "Legend No. 2 in E Major" and "Venezia e Napoli-Annees supplement to II"). Now, during his interpretation of "Papillons" something happened. I have never heard of this piece before, and suddenly a familiar BALLET melody hits me...and VERY familiar. My mind started to process it right away and wouldn't stop...(oh, you balletomane... :P ). Anyway, I first crossed out Tchaikovsky, for which I never heard of him copying anybody. That left me with few other choices, so I'm thinking about...Giselle...?, No, I know Adam's score like the palm of my hand, and it doesn't go there...Coppelia...?, mm, maybe...Fille...?, I don't think so...the melody was VERY familiar, and I don't get to see Fille that often...Another clue was that I was CONVINCED right away that It was a character passage melody, not pointe...for some reason I knew that right away...then I kinda "saw" that It was like a comic fragment, and then and there...I got it. Not other that THE PARTY SCENE FROM THE NUTCRACKER...!!!, you know, when grandpa is leading the dancing with grandma with all those comic gestures imitating elderly dancing...

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Stephen Beus just competed in the Van Cliburn International Competition. He did not make the cut of 12 in the semi-final round.

Beus bio from the competition website

One of his competition performances is on YouTube, which I learned from the Saturday Matinee blog. (Scroll down.) The blog also gives a heads up about the live stream from the competition website; it runs through June 7. The competition schedule is found here:

http://www.cliburn.org/index.php?page=13th_tickets

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I have never heard of this piece before, and suddenly a familiar BALLET melody hits me...and VERY familiar. My mind started to process it right away and wouldn't stop...(oh, you balletomane... :angel_not: ). Anyway, I first crossed out Tchaikovsky, for which I never heard of him copying anybody. That left me with few other choices, so I'm thinking about...Giselle...?, No, I know Adam's score like the palm of my hand, and it doesn't go there...Coppelia...?, mm, maybe...Fille...?, I don't think so...the melody was VERY familiar, and I don't get to see Fille that often...Another clue was that I was CONVINCED right away that It was a character passage melody, not pointe...for some reason I knew that right away...then I kinda "saw" that It was like a comic fragment, and then and there...I got it. Not other that THE PARTY SCENE FROM THE NUTCRACKER...!!!, you know, when grandpa is leading the dancing with grandma with all those comic gestures imitating elderly dancing...

Ah, that's the Grossvater-Tanz (Grandfather Dance), a traditional tune in Germany that basically serves the same function as "Good Night, Ladies" in America--the last number played at a ball or wedding celebration to send everybody home. (Schumann also uses it at the end of Carnaval.) Papillons was inspired by a masked ball scene in Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre, and is practically a ballet without dance. In the final section, the right hand plays a repeated A in the treble to represent the ringing of the hour, while in the left hand the rustic tune fades away as the dancers disperse.

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Ah, that's the Grossvater-Tanz (Grandfather Dance), a traditional tune in Germany that basically serves the same function as "Good Night, Ladies" in America--the last number played at a ball or wedding celebration to send everybody home.

Thanks, AnthonyNYC. I always wondered but never got around to looking it up.

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