"[Smith] may be said
to have gone on a mighty virtuoso tear with these warhorses...He is an
impetuous, powerful player who rises to their grandeur with rhetorical
grandiloquence...his rubato has the flair of a great actor making the dramatic
most of a soliloquy that, without sounding forced or calculated, lends the
overly familiar a series of jolts that keeps one's attention on the qui vive...this
is impressive and towering...it yields one of the more gripping accounts of the
Sonata in recent memory. Sound is transparently immediate."
Fanfare,
July/August 2000
"[Smith] offers a
committed, often majestic reading."
American
Record Guide, July/August 2000
* * *
Timothy Smith
is Professor
of Piano at the University of Alaska Anchorage and has been chairman of
the music department there for 11 years. “A concert pianist in Alaska?”
So read the headline in a newspaper soon after the artist arrived.
A graduate of Juilliard, the University of Washington, and the State University
of New York at Stony Brook, Dr. Smith has long garnered accolades from North America and Europe for his performances as recitalist, chamber
musician, and orchestral soloist. In Brussels, the press called him an
“excellent pianist”; the Philadelphia Inquirer singled him out as “a pianist
who interlaces grace with bursts of power and color.” The New York Times
covered his debut at Carnegie Recital Hall, describing his performances
as “polished, powerful, energetic and technically impressive,” and the
Salt Lake City Tribune labeled his rendition of Liszt as “towering.”
This
disc offers a sample of Timothy Smith’s dazzling virtuosity as well as his
sensitivity in quieter expressive passages. The major work on the recording,
the Sonata in B Minor, dates to 1857 and is remarkable in both
its architecture and power. The shorter works which follow offer sparkling
technical brilliance as well as engaging lyricism. The pieces were
recorded in the recital hall at the University of Alaska, which Dr. Smith
describes as among “the finest of its kind, both aesthetically and acoustically.”
Commenting further about the geographical setting of Anchorage, the artist
spoke of the inspiration of the mountains. The booklet notes reproduce
some beautiful photos of Alaskan sunsets at midnight taken by this energetic
and compelling artist - who seems to have a talent for grasping powerful
broad lines plus luminescent details visually as well as in his piano performances.
