Six down, six to go in Fort Price, TX. Similar six, in reality.
The Van Cliburn Worldwide Piano Competitors provides every of its half-dozen finalists two alternatives to play with the Fort Price Symphony Orchestra below Marin Alsop. Having heard the magnificent six, we will hear them once more in a unique concerto, and probably attain a unique conclusion about who deserves a medal and who doesn’t.
The wise factor can be to attend and see. However, handicapping is half the enjoyable at this well-known occasion, watched the world over by way of live-streaming portals like medici.television and cliburn.org. Many opinions have already been fashioned by way of a strategy of elimination that began on Could 21. Maybe some had been strengthened by the performances heard within the Bass Efficiency Corridor on two consecutive nights.
There have been traces of gold Wednesday in a efficiency of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2 by Vitaly Starikov, a 30-year-old graduate of the Moscow Conservatory. This 25-minute rating of 1931 is reputed to be amongst hardest within the repertoire, and certainly I used to be as soon as at a live performance in Montreal through which the pianist and conductor elected to repeat the finale because it didn’t go in addition to anticipated.
There was no such downside on this event as each Starikov and the Fort Price Symphony (together with the timpanist) had been firing on all cylinders. Trills within the outer actions had an unearthly high quality and the cadenza of the primary motion was super. An incredible technical achievement, little question, however probably the most charming moments had been within the Adagio, with its plangent piano chords and nocturnally muted strings.
Coordination with Alsop was wonderful in a rating that will need to have been new to many within the orchestra. For some cause Starikov fiddled with the piano bench earlier than the efficiency began, giving the impression of non-public uneasiness even when this was not the trigger. Irrespective of.
One other Moscow Conservatory alumnus, Philipp Lynov, 26, began the session with Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a piece that deploys bravura in a extra accessibly Romantic type. A tall determine in formal live performance costume, he appeared to embody the earnest outlook, heat tone and technical safety of the Russian college. Left-hand thunder and right-hand filigree had been equally properly attended to. Music that usually comes throughout as episodic in efficiency flowed like a narrative properly informed. Alsop and the orchestra appeared to relish the chance to play a concerto not typically heard in competitions. I detected some gold mud right here.
The night ended with the 28-year-old Canadian, Carter Johnson, in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The large cadenza of the primary motion reached a strong climax (memorably marked tumultuoso by the composer) and the semiquavers scampered vividly sufficient within the scherzo. At factors I questioned whether or not the brighter American Steinway would have made a extra incisive impact — a sense which may have been conditioned by the expertise of listening to the identical Hamburg instrument in 5 of the six performances. Carter must do properly on Saturday in Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand to stay within the operating.
Tuesday evening raised fascinating questions. Can Mendelssohn’s verbose and flashy Piano Concerto No. 1, nonetheless brilliantly rendered, result in a medal at a significant competitors? Aristo Sham, a 29-year-old of Hong Kong beginning and considerably American coaching, made his case for the affirmative with enjoying of excessive spirits and technical sheen. Fascinating to notice that Sham will get severe on Friday by enjoying Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Angel Stanislav Wang, 22, an American of Chinese language and Russian parentage and silver medallist within the 2023 Tchaikovsky Competitors, selected that paragon of sublimity, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. The poetry was there. The query in his case is whether or not a lightweight smattering of smudges ought to considerably worsen his possibilities. He’s heard Friday in Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, fairly a distinction.
Talking of conventional Cliburn showpieces, Evren Ozel, a 26-year-old American, closed the Tuesday session with Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. His strategy to this hottest of all concertos was lyrical and restrained. The celebrated double octaves had been freed from stress. “I simply consider them as a continuation of the music,” Ozel stated in a post-performance interview. How will the jury reply?
Till Saturday…
That is unknowable earlier than Saturday evening, when gold, silver, bronze and an array of particular awards (together with greatest efficiency of a Mozart concerto, and greatest efficiency of the brand new work, Gabriela Montero’s Rachtime) are introduced from the stage of the Bass Efficiency Corridor.
Cheering from the pleasant Texas crowd shall be voluminous. This we are able to predict with whole certainty.
The finals of the Van Cliburn Worldwide Piano Competitors can be found as a livestream at cliburn.org. The third and fourth periods begin Friday at 8:30 p.m. EDT and Saturday at 4 p.m. EDT. Prior rounds could be seen on YouTube.
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Arthur Kaptainis was classical music critic of the Montreal Gazette from 1986 to 2022 and wrote for the Nationwide Submit from 2010 to 2016. His articles seem in Classical Voice North America and Gramophone in addition to Ludwig Van. Arthur holds an MA in musicology from the College of Toronto. He’s president of the Music Critics Affiliation of North America.