Discussion Group #3: Misha Dacic's Scriabin Fantasy Op. 28

Misha Dacic (pronounced "Datsich") studied with Kemal Gekich here in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia, and as Kemal's assistant I had the pleasure of working with him on many occasions. I'll never forget the first time I heard him, playing Chopin Op. 25 #7 in our recital hall - it was to die for, emotional, pianistically from another, more golden era. He was always a phenomenon, right from the beginning, our Academy's brightest star. His instinct for the grand gesture that always had elegance, and his sheer energy was always awe-inspiring. Misha never graduated from our Academy, but left Novi Sad to study with Lazar Berman in Italy. Although Berman is great, this was a kind of fallow period for Misha: he returned from Italy playing like he thought the Italians wanted him to - it was completely tame! Gone was the fire! But we worked to get it back, and then I was recording engineer and editor for his CD, ( ), which he sent to Gisella Brodsky, head of the Miami Piano Festival of the Stars. She flipped over it and the rest, as they say, is history. He moved to Miami shortly thereafter and his career has started to take off. In this video, you can see many aspects of his spectacular technique: - the Classic Russian arch, very pronounced - much more so than Horowitz's - very "bony" playing: he's obviously using his skeleton well, economizing on the amount of muscular effort he needs and improving the direct quality of the sound. With this directness he has a much wider colour spectrum at his command than he would otherwise. He will often literally throw his fingers at the keyboard, but he does it with such exactitude that he gets exactly the sound he wants. - his lumbrical-interosseous action is also completely at his command. He doesn't always use this capability for a strong contraction at the metacarpal-phalangeal joint, but when he needs it, it's there for him - very fine use of curling (Taubmann's no-no): when he needs fine, fast, brilliant fingerwork, his long and short flexors are doing their job, curling the distant parts of the finger. - He sits very still but not at all stiffly. He economizes his energy so it is all channeled into the keyboard. There seems to be no resistance, no barrier between him and his instrument: he is comfortable with it, at one with it. But perhaps the most telling thing about this video is the completely obvious fact that technique is the last thing on Misha's mind. His passion, his deep need to feel the intensity of expression that is innate to this music, his sense of the drama and lyricism, his innate feeling for an organic unfolding of structure - all this is what we notice most. And I want to stress that although we mostly discuss physical aspects of technique on this forum, for me technique always aims to create this kind of musical content. I am only too happy when a student comes to me who can , whose reflexes do what they are supposed to, so we can get to work on what's really essential. Do others feel as positively as I do about what we're seeing and hearing here? Any negative perceptions of how he gets around the keyboard? Regards, AFF

I'm extremely curious why this video was taken off of Youtube--Dacic's other performances are still there, but the Scriabin is nowhere to be found. Shame, too... I thought it was one of his best performances.

The link is removed so I could only listen to his other playing.... I doubt whether the "bony" playing is actually his style of playing or just his hands. I found that most thin virtuoso (including Kissin who WAS thin) look "bony". Perhaps Horowitz is an exception..... Perhaps because fat hands obscure the actual motion, I always find virtuosos play with less effort, look as if they're just placing the fingers onto the keyboard. "Spagatti" in Alan's word. But perhaps we can learn more from the thin virtuosos..

I downloaded that file before it was removed (Misha still hasn't told me WHY it was removed), and would like to upload it somewhere. The trouble is, I don't know how, the file is in some weird format. I hope to resolve this soon and get it online but right now I am traveling, just finishing off a week's teaching in New York, so you'll have to be a little more patient! Sorry! Best, AFF

its .flv (flash video). Send it to me, or upload somewhere and i ll make it work.

I like his performance, his technique is brilliant, I even jealous(in good sence of course), because my personal technique is very far from this perfection. His musicality excellent, with some musical ideas I could of course argue a little, but anyway - it is really great. By the way his playing very similar to MR. Horowitz, which at one point good, at other not, he must find his own face, I'm shure he will! in fact some things he already found. Good luck him! Tell him my deep respect!

I just spent some time with Misha in Miami, in fact he was with me the whole afternoon both times when I played the Horowitz Steinway (see my blog about that). I told him how great that Scriabin Fantasy post was, and he agreed to have the Miami Festival reinstate it on YouTube - hopefully it will be up soon again. AFF