San Francisco Performances presents legendary pianist in concert
Lightning struck from a clear sky Tuesday night, May 6, at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater, as thunder rolled from the keyboard of young piano sensation Mihaela Ursuleasa. I was stunned to hear such fierce and passionate playing.
A demanding program of Medtner, Schumann and Rachmaninoff was all one could ask for, as the pianist flowed from tender opening to ferocious end.
Nicolai Medtner wrote Sonata Reminiscenza in A Minor, Op. 38, No. 1, in 1920, escaping the blood and confusion of the Russian Revolution for a friend’s country retreat. He opens his piece with spare quiet notes, and quietly develops it.
Ursuleasa took her time, letting each phrase dissipate into memory and drawing us into Medtner’s reminiscences before touching the next. She brought out tensions within the tranquil phrases, building to a vision that communicated both her brilliance and deep sympathy. Perhaps growing up behind the Iron Curtain under Ceauscescu’s brutal police state offered her insights into Medtner’s hunger and Rachmaninoff’s rage.
She moved into German romantic with Phantasiestücke, Op. 12, a cycle of eight piano pieces written by a young Robert Schumann to engage the play between his dreaming and passionate natures. The intimate “Des Abends” (The Evening) had a quiet sweetness, followed by the careful thunder of “Aufschwung” (Soaring). Again, Ursuleasa revealed her deep feeling for the material with an emotional range that would send some shrinks to their own couch.
In “Grillen” (Whims), the right hand happily romps, even as heavy bass notes move in to undercut the melodic line. “In der Nacht” (In the Night) is filled with the fluid dash of waves surrounding a serene center, ending with the dark pounding of surf. Ursuleasa displayed both lightning speed in the runs of “Traumes Wirrem” (Dream Confusions), and a heart-pounding expectancy in the last slow chords of “Ende von Lied” (End of the song).
After intermission she played the entire nine movements of Rachmaninoff’s famous Etudes-tableaux, Op. 39. Written as he performed for wounded soldiers, these tableaux or images are demanding and dark, brilliant and moody. In “No. 1 in C Minor: Allegro agitato” Ursuleasa brought out subtlety of progressions, stressing notes to make them visible among the round runs. And in “No. 2 in A Minor: Lento asai” her slow, golden arpeggios recalled a Russian-inflected Albeniz.
But the recklessness of the “Appassionato” hardly prepared us for the brooding madness of the sixth movement, which Ursuleasa conveyed with high mice-like scrabbling, a huge dynamic range, and urgent bass runs that stumbled to a stop.
She returned us to a slower meter in “Lento lugubre” with a sense that all technique must be in service to the heart. And then pounded out Rachmaninoff’s final movement with fury.
She displayed a gentler side with an encore by Romanian composer Paul Constantinescu. His Toccata, played at a fiery clip, sported gypsy runs and trills, and notes that piled up in playful arrhythmic drifts.
Already replete, I barely appreciated her last encore, a lovely Chopin Ballade.
—Adam Broner
This article originally appeared in the Piedmont Post