Press

02. 03. 2011

Savon Sanomat (Pauli Vesakas)

Star Series II: Anika Vavic, Piano; Kuopio Music Center, March 1, 2011

Anika Vavic Offered Gentle and Well-Controlled Pianistic Art

The program of the piano solo recital by Anika Vavic turned out to be especially interesting and well-constructed. The central composer on the playbill was the Russian Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915). The pieces by Robert Schumann and Fréderic Chopin offered her audience an excellent opportunity to get to know the idiosyncrasies of Scriabin, certainly less well-known.

The first movement of the Scriabin suite 4 Morceaux Op. 51, entitled Fragilité, immediately gave the audience the experience of spontaneous musical joy, with its gentle, distinctly impressionistic colors. With obvious love for the composer's melodies, Vavic developed impressionist meditations in the other movements, offering well-thought-out structures, bubbling outpourings and smiling clouds of sound, fleeing towards the horizon in pianissimo.

Her interpretation of Schumann's eight-movement Kreisleriana was finely nuanced in its atmospheres, while maintaining a structurally homogenous whole. This approach had room for glittering leaps, dreaminess, even wildness. One must remark, however, that Vavic even realized this romantic wildness in a measured way, by no means impulsively.

Her interpretation also featured virtuosic leaps, strong contrasts held together by a sculptural approach, and at the end, dance-like exuberance as well. On the whole, Vavic performed the suite with absolute control.

Chopin's Ballad No. 3 in A-flat-Major Op. 47 sounded light, transparent, but on the other hand also as precise as a march, the finale characterized by sparkling sound-carpets created by both hands.

Scriabin's Waltz in A-flat-Major Op. 38 began with lengthy and broad impressionistic chains of sound, and then transformed into an example of traditional Central-European romanticism, including babbling brooks and storms, full of rich and generous harmony. In the end, Vavic returned to impressionistic dusk. 

Scriabin's Sonata No. 3 in F-sharp-Minor Op. 23 began with true drama. The repetitions and interlinking of the second movement's motifs were constructed with great energy and solid power by Vavic. The third movement boasted a transparent, calm clarity. The parallel tensions between the motifs were clearly outlined by Vavic; the end offered full drama once again.

In summary, Anika Vavic's nature as an interpreter includes true and noble sensitivity, the limitation of ego and an analytic approach that easily grasps musical structure.

If news of Tuesday's concert has spread, there might be a run on the Music Center's box office tonight.

Translation (from the German): Alexa Nieschlag

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