Croatian pianist Kemal Gekic
played at the Austrian Embassy in Washington DC, USA
And embassy’s Boesendorfer instrument has never sounded more sonorous, with
plangent depths lower on the keyboard and crystalline sparkle above. Gekic
maintained a refreshingly modest bearing at the piano without the
distraction of ultra-heroic gestures.
The Washington Post, 9/17/2005.
Arts section
KEMAL GEKIC
Croatian pianist Kemal Gekic played at the Austrian Embassy Thursday in a
recital as revelatory as it was thoughtful. Though Beethoven and Chopin
wrote music light-years apart in temperament, Gekic’s approach highlighted
their mutual tendency to carve seemingly simple themes out of a richly
variegated harmonic bedrock.
In Beethoven’s “Moonlight� Sonata and 13 Chopin Etudes, Gekic underlined
this quality with a patina of sheer tunefulness braced with a telling legato
touch and a rare sonic resonance.
And embassy’s Boesendorfer instrument has never sounded more sonorous, with
plangent depths lower on the keyboard and crystalline sparkle above. Gekic
maintained a refreshingly modest bearing at the piano without the
distraction of ultra-heroic gestures.
The pianist sped at a bracing clip from one Chopin etude to the next with
only a micro-second between, crowning each with a final sustained pedal that
sent infinitely vibrant tones throughout the embassy’s spacious atrium (and
warding off unwelcome applause until set’s end). Gekic gave full vent to the
music’s know-‘em-dead bravura, tempering Herculean virtuosity with ample
plastic tunefulness in the more ornamental passages.
This sense of balance also held true for Gekic’s version of seven Liszt
pieces: three arrangements of Schubert songs, two of the mystical “Legends�
and a pair of Hungarian Rhapsodies. “Erlkoenig�, based on a terrifying
Schubert-Goethe song, was transported to heights of insane spookiness in
Gekic’s hand.
Cecelia Porter (one of the best music critics for the Washington Post)
on Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/croatian/2005-09-17-voa6.cfm
