South Florida Classical Review

The Chipak-Kushnir Piano Duo performed for Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion Sunday in Aventura.

Franz Liszt made piano transcriptions of all nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven. While the first eight are arranged for a single keyboard, Liszt transcribed the final Symphony No. 9 in D minor for two pianos. 

That rarely heard iteration was the piece de resistance on a recital by the piano duo of Olha Chipak and Olesksiy Kushnir Sunday afternoon at the Aventura Arts and Culture Center, presented by Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion.  The program’s first half held two piano classics and a delightful novelty by a talented Turkish pianist-composer.

Ravel’s La Valse is best known in orchestral form and the solo piano version is occasionally programmed on recitals. The two-piano version is heard infrequently, partly because of its difficult technical demands which require huge amounts of rehearsal time. 

Chipak and Kushnir are a well-traveled team, having played leading concert halls around the globe. Their partnering is nearly flawless and proved totally equal to the requirements of Ravel’s unique score. Half a tribute to the Viennese waltz, half a nightmarish vision of fin de siècle imperial Vienna, Ravel’s work opens with low rumbles in the bass and concludes with forceful, shattering impact. Chipak captured the syncopations of Ravel’s Gallic revision of the Austrian dance, and the duo’s well calibrated playing perfectly encapsulated both sensitivity and torrents of digital power.

Liszt’s Reminiscences du Don Juan is a wildly flamboyant fantasia on melodies from Mozart’s operatic masterpiece Don Giovanni. After a stormy opening depicting the ghost of the Commendatore dragging the licentious, unrepentant Don Juan down to hell, the music turns to the Don Giovanni-Zerlina duet “La ci darem la mano.” As in the opera, the melodic lines are tossed between the two pianos, standing in for the soprano and baritone. Played with lithe inflection, the theme and ensuing variations were deftly handled. Turning to the Don’s Champaigne Aria, the tune emerged with fluency while the variations abounded in Liszt’s distinctive brand of fireworks. With a return to the tempest-tossed dungeon of the opening, the duo concluded in combustible mode to bravos from the large audience.

Turkish-born Fazil Say is best known as a concert pianist but he is also a composer. His pianistic cameo Night is conceived for one piano, four hands. Many of Say’s compositions can be described as “Turkish Bartok” (in the positive sense) and the dissonant figurations that commence Night fall into that style. The work then takes a detour as the pianists hit and play the instrument’s strings, creating stunning effects and off-kilter rhythms. A toccata-like finale with the players going at full force suggests the Prokofiev of the war sonatas. Chipak and Kushnir brought deep reserves of power and extremes of volume to Say’s appealing novelty.

The main event proved to be an adaptation of an adaptation. To Liszt’s two-piano version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Beethoven’s original timpani part was added, skillfully played by Colin R. Williams. 

Many of the Liszt-Beethoven symphonies suffer from Liszt’s addition of bombastic pyrotechnical display. His version of the Ninth, however, is relatively straightforward, the piano lines following the instrumental text, leaving the bravura for the end. This is an ambitious conception of one of the seminal works of the symphonic canon. 

The musicality and depth of Chipak and Kushnir’s performance came closer to the soulfulness of Beethoven’s opus than many conductors leading orchestras who are content with surface excitement. Their heady combination of heaven-storming exclamations and poetic lyricism conjured up the essence of this revered classic. The crescendo that concluded the first movement offered a display of sheer pianistic thunder.

In the Molto vivace second movement, the players’ rhythms were exact with intense articulation intense yet informed by a wonderful spirit of lightness that seemed to carry through the span of the movement. The trio section flowed with brightness and bounce, aided by varied coloration. 

Liszt’s writing is spare in the Andante moderato, maintaining thematic flow rather than attempting to emulate the full orchestral panoply. The sudden interruptions to the heavenly melody and harmony rang out with the impact of the brass in Beethoven’s original instrumentation.

In the finale, a choral-vocal movement in the symphony, the opening proclamation was stated by the pianists at top speed. The “Ode to Joy” emerged emphatically as some of Liszt’s pyrotechnics take charge of the choral part. There was propulsive lightness in the alla marcia section and the choral fugue translated to Bachian keyboard voices, assayed with clarity. A rapid-fire coda may have been miles from Beethoven’s final joyous flourishes but it was undeniably exciting. Chipak and Kushnir’s reading of this unique revisionist edition of Beethoven’s symphonic swan song was a genuine event.

Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion presents “One Song with Nicole Yarling,” 4 p.m. February 16 at the Miami Beach Bandshell.  Dranoff2pianofusion.org

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