Amateur Night at the Goethe

Adolovni Acosta began her March 8, 2010 recital at the Goethe Institute in Bangkok, by announcing to the audience that she had just arrived from India and that in India, she has spent three days traveling. The message: Don’t expect much from me tonight. The audience wasn’t disappointed.

The first half of the program was consumed with seven well-known Chopin works, all played with mechanical literacy and jagged rhythm, not to be confused with rubato. Erratic and rough, with a technique just barely equal to the task, Acosta exhibited no affinity for Chopin, and anything approaching passion or understanding of this composer were hard to detect.

The second half of the program was slightly more successful, especially Schumann’s Papillons, where Madame Acosta, a native of the Philippines now living in NYC, seemed to be at one with the composer, but her technique was not solid enough to permit her to give more than a hint that she had something to say. A short work by Albeniz, Almeria from Iberia, was idiomatic and had some of the “Spanish” sound associated with this composer. Mendelssohn’s very difficult Variations Serieuses, which concluded the program was a disaster, but it was not entirely the pianist’s fault inasmuch as half way through the piece, a stage light malfunctioned and modulated on and off to the distraction of the pianist and the audience.

Acosta’s recital began with her amateurish announcement of her travel schedule, and what followed was a recital in the same style.