South Florida Classical Review

Luis Urbina performed Saturday night in Miami Beach for the Miami International Piano Festival.

The Venezuelan-born, Miami-based pianist Luis Urbina displayed impressive technique and distinctive interpretive inclinations in a recital for the Miami International Piano Festival on Saturday night at the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum in Miami Beach. A graduate of Florida International University and participant in the festival’s piano academy, Urbina brought deft execution and musicality to a varied program.

He showed a fine sense of the melodic and contrapuntal aspects in Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat minor. Eschewing any tendency toward the pedantic, Urbina offered large-scale pianistic Bach with enlivening articulation and transparent voicings.

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major “a Therese” stylistically bridges the composer’s early classical era concepts and the bold, new paths of his middle-period works. Urbina emphasized the score’s surprising turns and unexpected thematic routes with agility. In the second and final movement, he also gave full value to Beethoven’s musical wit, an aspect of the master’s musical toolkit that is too often overlooked in performance.

Debussy’s Children’s Corner suite allowed Urbina to show both his poetic and bravura sides. The rippling figurations of “Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum” were executed with exactness. Deft hand crossings and high spirits dominated “Serenade for the Doll.” “The Snow is Dancing” was pictured with a svelte touch.  “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” emerged jazzy and buoyant, Urbina capturing Debussy’s quirky humor. The pianist adjusted to the very live acoustic of the museum’s atrium skillfully, keeping the climactic salvos from turning deafening. 

The concert’s second half was devoted to Rachmaninoff. Things began less than promisingly with an overly emphatic and percussive reading of the Etude Tableau in F minor, Op. 33, no. 1. One of the composer’s Romances played to the pianist’s strengths – multi-hued coloration, well-etched phrasing and a strong feeling for mood painting. “Daisies” encompassed a singing line with a distinctively Russian accent. The arpeggiated passages in “Lilacs” were broadly realized, Urbina bringing forth Rachmaninoff’s quintessential keyboard sonority. 

“Dreams” and “Midsummer Nights,” in arrangements by Earl Wild, a distinguished Rachmaninoff interpreter, found Urbina astutely mixing Rachmaninoff’s blend of melodic felicity and big-boned virtuosic pyrotechnics. The Etude Tableau in C-sharp minor, Op. 33, No. 8 seemed almost Lisztian in its thunder, tempered by Russian romantic melody.

Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 is his last large-scale solo keyboard creation. It is also one of the most difficult pieces ever written for the instrument.

Any pianist who attempts this score must be both brave and self-confident. Urbina is clearly that and more. The opening iteration of the famous “La Folia” theme was taken at a deliberate pace. There was a natural feeling for pulse in the succeeding variations, the fast sections given whirlwind treatment while keeping the thematic threads transparent. Alternating rhapsodic sweep and a dance-like touch, this was a young musician’s Rachmaninoff but no less compelling for that. At times, Urbina’s shaping and articulation was sensitive, at others flamboyant and impetuous. The final variation sounded almost impressionistic under the lightness of Urbina’s fingering.

The audience’s enthusiastic response brought two encores. The rhythmic alliteration of Rachmaninoff’s Polka de VR delighted the ear. Urbina’s lyrical side took full reign in Debussy’s “La plus que lente.” It will be interesting to  continue to hear this talented artist as he matures.

The Miami International Piano Festival presents Can Cakmur playing Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata, Liszt’s Sonata 104 del Petraca, Fazil Say’s Insan Insan Variations, Chopin’s Barcarolle and Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy  7: 30 p.m. Sunday at the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum in Miami Beach.   miamipianofest.com

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