THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220046
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
TANYA STAMBUK'S credentials speak for themselves.
She studied at Juilliard and won an international competition in Portugal. The New York Times gushed about her recital at Alice Tully Hall. She's performed in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.; on radio in Moscow and Croatia; and appeared on the television program ``In Praise of Women Pianists.''
But when Stambuk sat down to prepare for this weekend's concerts with the Virginia Symphony, the seasoned pro faced a new challenge.
The piece: Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3.
Her reaction: ``This is going to be impossible!''
Make that her initial reaction.
``Little by little, it made sense,'' Stambuk said earlier this week from Vancouver, British Columbia, while packing for her long flight to Norfolk. ``Its form and classical manner were not as complex to learn as I thought they would be. So far, it's been that way. But we'll see.''
That's precisely the challenge.
Part of an all-Russian program that includes Stravinsky's ``Firebird'' suite and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4, the concerto is, in many ways, traditionally structured, with a defined melody and what Stambuk calls a ``soulful lyricism.''
But Prokofiev, who wrote the piece between 1917 and 1921 while living in his native Russia, the United States and Paris, was a child - a child prodigy - of the 20th century.
In ``The Vintage Guide to Classical Music,'' author Jan Swafford writes, ``In practice, that means traditional clarity of form and gesture, but with modernistic elements of various kinds: the craggy leaps in the melodic lines, the dissonant chords amidst traditional ones, the quirky juxtapositions of tonal harmonies, the sudden jumps from key to key.''
Many Westerners, comfortable with musical ideas that were three centuries old, called him barbaric, primitive and grotesque. One critic said he was the ``psychologist of all the uglier emotions.''
Prokofiev wasn't surprised by the reaction; he even agreed that his music was grotesque, though he was referring to its stylistic variations, not the standard definition.
``It's like when you go to Notre Dame and see the gargoyles,'' Stambuk said. ``That's a grotesque fantasy image, but it's something you wouldn't turn your head from.
``There's a fantasy quality to much of his music. There's a powerful strength in his dissonance - a harshness, a percussiveness. I like that. In his bravura passages, he avoids the typical late-Russian grandiose style. Everything is more of an understatement.''
Stambuk, a professor at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., is undaunted by the high wire act presented by the concerto. Quick to laugh, she said the real test will come when she sits down with an orchestra. Until midweek, she'd rehearsed with only another pianist.
``The challenge is in the ensemble between the orchestra and pianist,'' Stambuk said. ``There's so much going on in each movement. One has to know what to bring out. It's sort of playful. Lyrically, it's very sarcastic.
``There's a lot of mood to establish in 28 minutes. You have to change temperament in a matter of seconds.''
But that isn't the only challenge, perhaps not even the greatest.
The concerto is a workout, from the lively allegro of the first movement to the athletic finale. Even the traditionally slower second movement allows only a few measures for the soloist to catch her breath.
``Overall,'' Stambuk said, ``the challenge is in endurance, keeping the excitement going. By the end of the piece, your arms are quite exhausted. It doesn't give you much of a break. There's a constant dialogue between piano and orchestra.''
Stambuk, who is single and lists her age as ``under 35,'' can rest on her trip back to the Northwest.
She teaches about a dozen students and averages 10 performance a year. At one time, she thought about performing full time. ``It's a very stressful life. Ideally, 20 (dates) would be nice,'' she said.
Those dates have included benefits for the Croatian victims of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Stambuk has a personal stake in the performances: Her parents are native Croats who emigrated to California in 1950. ``They go back every year as if nothing has happened,'' she said.
One such benefit is set for this summer in Los Angeles. Before that, she'll enter the studio for the first time. Stambuk and pianist James Barbagallo are recording a piece for four hands by the early 20th century composer Edward McDowell of Baltimore. It will be released by Naxos.
``Hopefully, after that, I'm going to do a solo one,'' she said. ``I've never done this before, so I'm really excited. It's a great collabor-ation.'' ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTIAN STEINER
Tanya Stambuk says the challenge of this piece is "in endurance,
keeping the excitement going."
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW PROFILE by CNB