Tania Stavreva New York Recital Debut@Carnegie Hall | PRIVATELESSONS.com Articles
Tania Stavreva New York Recital Debut@Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall Debut
Tania Stavreva Plays Scriabin
Tania Stavreva New York Recital Debut@Carnegie Hall Review by Harris Goldsmith Tania Stavreva, Piano Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall
Tania Stavreva, a 25-year-old pianist, made a deep impression with her Weill Hall debut as a recipient of Artists International's Special Presentation Series. Ms. Stavreva is a graduate of the Dubrin Petkov Music School in her native Bulgaria, where she studied with Rositsa Ivancheva for fourteen years.
Her demanding and diversified program began with a bold, dynamic performance of Alberto Ginastera's 1952 First Sonata, Op.22. Her reading of the Allegro marcato first movement immediately showed architecture, rhythmic swagger and the huge dynamic range whose brilliance never once became harsh or percussive. The Presto misterioso, with its scary unison between top and bottom of the keyboard, went with unlimited virtuosity and seeming effortlessness. Ms. Stavreva evoked a crouching inwardness in the Adagio molto appasionato slow movement and finished with a supercharged, almost overpowering version on the Ravido ed ostinato finale. I had almost forgotten just how fine a work this Ginastera Sonata was (it used to be heard frequently in concerts, but these days most pianists opt for the late composer's lesser Argentinian Dances). Ms. Stavreva deserves gratitude for her magnificent revival.
Also, noteworthy was a US Premiere of Gil Shohat's "Sparks from the Beyond" (1996-1997) The short pieces of Shohat's composition are entitled "Sparks from Infinity"; "Sparks of Existence"; "Sparks of Motion"; "Sparks of Material"; "Sparks of Faith"; "Sparks of Beauty" and "Sparks of Love." Ms. Stavreva's con amore performance evoked all the requisite rapt intensity, love, motion and beauty.
Scriabin's "Vers la flame", Op.72 continued along the lines of Ms. Stavreva's thematic programming. Her magnificent interpretation commenced with a delicacy that made the flesh creep, and then it ignited and built to an immense power which reminded me of those unforgettable Horowitz recordings and concert performances from the 1960s and 1970s.
The Sonata No.1 by the Australian composer Carl Vine first came to my attention when I was a judge at the 1995 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Interestingly, the unisons in the Sonata's second movement have much in common with the aforementioned second movement of the Ginastera Sonata. Ms. Stavreva obviously finds this particular genre of pianism made to order for her superior technical abilities; she played the Vine and the Ginastera outstandingly well.
Two Debussy Preludes, "Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir" from Book I and "Bruyeres" from Book II, were elegantly recreated with pulse and atmosphere, and the concert ended with the Variations on a Bulgarian Folk Song "Dilmano Dilbero" Op. 2 by the late Alexander Vladigerov (1933-1993).
- Harris Goldsmith
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