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Round two, stage one, was completed yesterday for the twelve competitors who made it out of the first round. Stage one of the second round was another mini recital with much more freedom in the choice of repertoire than in the first round. (The only stipulation is that this second-round recital has to include some Russian music.) Madeline and I saw almost all of the performances, and we pretty much agreed about our impressions. This listing keeps to the order in which they performed:
- Sergey Redkin (Russia), using a Yamaha, with a program of
- Johann S. Bach. Toccata in C minor, BWV 911
- Franz Schubert - Franz Liszt. Aufenthalt, Liebesbotschaft, Der Muller und der Bach, Erlkonig
- Sergei Prokofiev. Sonata 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84
Redkin was one I hadn't seen in the first round until after the judges' decisions had already been announced. Strikingly thin (Madeline calls him "Delicate Boy"), Redkin seemed very deserving of his pass into the second round, and I think his second round playing was even better, especially in the Prokofiev Eighth Sonata, in which he effected some marvelous articulation, even (in a couple of spots) outdoing Richter (on that famous DG recording from the 60's). We both say he's one of the top half dozen.- Maria Mazo (Germany), using a Fazioli, with a program of:
- Alexander Scriabin. Sonata 4 in F-sharp major, Op. 30
- Igor Stravinsky. Danse infernale de tous les sujets de Kachtchei, Berceuse, and Finale from The Firebird (transcribed for piano by Guido Agosti)
- Ludwig van Beethoven. Sonata 29 in B-flat major (Hammerklavier), Op. 106
You have to give Mazo points for not shying away from the difficulty! After an excellent Scriabin Fourth Sonata, she continued with an impressive performance of Guido Agosti's monstrous transcription of music from Stravinsky's "Firebird", and employed Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata as an after-dinner digestif! She did sound a bit strained in the fugue, so although she gets points for trying, she did reveal some weaknesses. At this point, we would not put her in the top six, although we do feel that she's right on the cusp.- Reed Tetzloff (USA), using a Steinway, with a program of:
- Cesar Franck. Prelude, chorale and fugue for piano, M. 21
- Alexander Scriabin. Piano Sonata 7 ("White Mass"), Op. 64
- Domenico Scarlatti. Sonata in B minor, K. 27 (L. 449)
- Charles T. Griffes. Piano Sonata, A. 85
- Nikolai Kapustin. Variations, Op. 41
I did not think that Tetzloff deserved to make it into the second round in view of his comparatively messy performances in the first. But, in a way, I'm glad he was allowed in, because of his VERY interesting program choices. He played pretty well, but with a bit more clotting in the textures and more wrong notes than most of the others. In addition, he seemed to have a momentary memory lapse near the end of the Franck and had to re-strike a note. It's certainly not the worst memory slip I've ever heard, but, amazingly, it's the ONLY memory slip I've heard by any of the contestants thus far, and it seemed to rattle him not only though the ending of the Franck, but also into the beginning of the Scriabin. Tetzloff is big on the facial grimacing, and even his facial grimaces seemed affected by his lapse (as if his face were conveying "Goddam! I blew it!"). I love the fact that he inluded the Kapustin Variations on his program, and there was one variation where he seemed to play even faster than Marc-Andre Hamelin, but, overall, we see him as pretty far down the list and not one of the top six.- Ilya Rashkovsky (Russia), using a Yamaha, with a program of:
- Robert Schumann. Phantasie in C major, Op. 17
- Alexander Scriabin. Sonata 10, Op. 70
- Alexander Scriabin. Sonata 5 in F-sharp major, Op. 53
Another guy I didn't hear in the first round until after the announdements, but I agree with the judges that he deserved a place in the second. Madeline didn't like his Schumann Fantasy at all, considering it insufficiently nuanced, even though he played the notorious end of the second movement with a minimum of damage (!). I liked his playing a bit better, and I loved that he chose the greatest of the single-movement Scriabin Sonatas - No. 10, aka the "Trill" Sonata, aka the "Insect" Sonata - and I thought he played it well. Still, I think he would just miss the top six for me.EDIT: Continuation from where I left off earlier today:
- George Li (USA), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Sergei Rachmaninov. Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42
- Franz Liszt. Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 in C-sharp minor, S. 244 (cadenza by Sergei Rachmaninov)
- Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Meditation, Op. 72,5; Valse de salon, Op. 51,1
- Frederic Chopin. Variations "La ci darem la mano" from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, in B flat major Op. 2 (Jan Ekier edition)
George Li was not on my radar before this competition, but as you can find out on YouTube, he's been around as a prodigy for a long time. He's another one I didn't foresee getting past the first round, and I now must admit that I was VERY wrong in that assessment! Li's performance of the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody was the most fun, the most brilliant rendition of this piece I ever hope to hear in my lifetime! No easing in to the big tune in the middle of the "friska" section - it's jet propelled from the get go! So unbelievable! At certain camera angles, you could see out into the audience, a great many members of which had big smiles on their faces as Li launched off. This was a wonderful performance that makes me thankful that great music (yes, I DO mean the Liszt Second Hungarian Rhapsody!) can be so renewed over the centuries by the imagination and craft of each new generation. Li's amazing piano solo version of the Chopin-Ekier "La cidarem la mano" Variations was nearly as astonishing as the Liszt. On the Google Groups thread about this competition, some amateur geezer took Li to task over his "childish" program. (I can only pity that poor guy who seems to view such musical cheer as a threat to his own "marmoreal sublimity" conception of classical music.) The medici web site is also reposting some Twitter comments about the various performances, and, just after Li played, they reposted someone's tweet, "George Li is smokin' the competition!" Well, maybe not entirely, but Li's performances were a great discovery for me!- Lucas Debargue (France), using a Yamaha, with the following program:
- Nikolai Medtner. Sonata in F minor, Op. 5
- Maurice Ravel. Gaspard de la nuit
Here's another pianist from the first round whom I grossly underestimated. And he didn't play just any Medtner Sonata, but one of the more obscure ones, which Medtner wrote when he was only 16! And what a case he made for it - playing like this makes you wonder why this wonderful composer isn't much better known. Is there no more room in the standard repertoire? In any case, Debargue's playing had an ease and a tonal refinement that inspired confidence on the part of the listener. He also had some original ideas in Gaspard too, even if performances by Argerich, Pogorelich et al generate a higher voltage in places. Still, Madeline and I would both pick Debargue as one of the top six.That's it for today, I'll post about the other six tomorrow.
Edits: 06/24/15 06/25/15Follow Ups:
Continuing from yesterday. . .
- Lukas Geniusas (Russia/Lithuania), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Johannes Brahms. Sonata 1 in C major, Op. 1
- Frederic Chopin. Etudes in E major, C-sharp minor, G-flat major, and E-flat minor, Op. 10, 3-6
- Sergei Prokofiev. Sonata 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83
Although Geniusas was one of the standouts of Round 1, his program for Round 2 seemed awfully conventional to us. I'm not a fan of those early Brahms sonatas at all - Brahms, the big structuralist, gets away with a lot of very uninteresting material in these works, and then lets it meander. Tip of the hat to Schumann for seeing genius in these early works - I'm not sure I would have had that kind of insight! Geniusas' performance was great however, as were his performances of the Chopin Etudes which followed. (At the most recent Chopin Competition, Geniusas played the complete Op. 10 and Op. 25 sets, so he just re-used some of the Op. 10 for this Tchaikovsky round!) The Prokofiev was exceptional too and provided an object lesson to the other competitor in this round who also played this piece - see below! ;-)- Daniel Kharitonov (Russia), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Johann S. Bach – Ferruccio Busoni. Chaconne from the Partita No.2 for violin in D minor, BWV 1004
- Franz Liszt. Petrarca Sonnet 123 from Annees de pelerinage, S. 161,6
- Franz Liszt. Hungarian Rhapsody 12 in C-sharp minor, S. 244
- Sergei Rachmaninov. Prelude in G-flat major, Op.23,10
- Sergei Rachmaninov. Sonata 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 36 (second edition)
Kharitonov was the other standout in Round 1 for me, and he didn't diaappoint in the second round either. For me, his best performance in this round was that competition warhorse, the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata, where his gradations of textures and dynamics made the flitting, fragmentary structure of this revised (second) version more coherent than I can remember in a long time. (The original is SO much better!) Kharitonov should be among the top six for sure, assuming he gets through his Mozart concerto OK.- Julia Kociuban (Poland), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Grazyna Bacewicz. Piano Sonata 2
- Frederic Chopin. Piano Sonata 3 in B minor, Op. 58
- Sergei Prokofiev. Piano Sonata 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83
We did not listen to most of the Bacewicz Sonata. (I have nothing against Bacewicz, and have even played a movement from one of her violin sonatas as well as another violin piece. However, the second piano sonata is just not the type of piece that would help me decide how good Kociuban's playing might really be.) As for the Chopin and Prokofiev sonatas, Kociuban gave just average college-student-level performances of these works. Although there were no major problems in Kociuban's playing, there were quite a few clotted textures and wrong notes, resulting not from memory lapses, but more from simply not paying attention all the time and not having sufficient awareness of what was happening "in the moment" as she played. To us both, this was very ordinary playing and just not worthy of a major competition like the Tchaikovsky, even if we would not characterize her as the worst of the twelve competitors in this round. (For more on that, see below!) I would say she was the second worst however. However, she may still make it to the final round, especially if they want to have female representation. (And don't forget, Putin really wants those NATO missiles out of Poland, so he might have commanded the jury to throw the Poles a bone! LOL!)- Mikhail Turpanov (Russia), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Johannes Brahms. Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel in B-flat major, Op.24
- Alexander Scriabin. Sonata 7 (White Mass), Op. 64
- Olivier Messiaen. Regard de l'Eglise d'amour from Vingt regards sur l'enfant-Jesus, Op. 20
OK. THIS guy was the worst. First of all, he shouldn't have been promoted from the first round after his mediocre Schubert Sonata in D Major, with all of its smudges and missed notes. (What were the judges thinking? Did they owe one of his teachers a favor?) So he gets into this round and follows that up with the SAME TYPE of hapless performance in the Brahms Handel Variations - not exactly amateurish, but not too far from that either. We both felt that this was bottom-of-the-list playing.- Nikolay Medvedev (Russia), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Sergei Prokofiev. Sonata 6 in A major, Op. 82
- Claude Debussy. Des Pas sur la Neige and Feux d'Artifice from the 24 Preludes for piano, L. 117,6; L. 123,12
- Franz Liszt - Feruccio Busoni. Reminiscences de Don Juan based on Mozart's opera
We had a bit of a disagreement about Medvedev, a somewhat nerdy-looking guy, with Madeline finding his playing uninspiring, while I found it very good, especially considering he was playing the uber-difficult Don Juan Fantasy, although the Busoni version seems to have made one passage near the end a bit easier than in Liszt's original. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can play this piece as well as Medvedev played it - but Madeline wanted more. Like Mazo, Medvedev is probably on the cusp between the top six and the bottom six.- Dmitry Masleev (Russia), using a Steinway, with the following program:
- Joseph Haydn. Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI/48
- Camille Saint-Saëns – Franz Liszt. Danse macabre (arr. by Vladimir Horowitz)
- Sergei Rachmaninov. Variations on a Theme of Corelli in D minor, Op. 42
- Felix Mendelssohn – Sergei Rachmaninov. Scherzo from the Incidental music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Franz Liszt. Totentanz, S. 525
This guy was great too, although I wondered why he included a Haydn sonata in this round's recital stage - he had his chance for that repertoire in the first round. Whatever! The standouts for me were the Rachmaninoff Corelli Variations (in a somewhat more conventional performance than George Li's from the previous day - but as conventional performances go, Masleev's was excellent indeed: clear, colorful and sparkling as needed!), and the piano solo version of Liszt's Totentanz. The piano/orchestra version of this work is already hard enough, but adding the orchestra part into the solo mix augments the difficulties considerably. Masleev's performance was largely exciting and brilliant, although I felt he took the "hunt" varation too slowly. Nevertheless, we would both pick him to be among the top six.
The Mozart Concerto stage of Round Two began earlier today - we'll have to catch the saved webcasts on the medici tv site. We did hear part of George Li's Mozart Concerto No. 23, K. 488, and I heard enough to realize that the State Chamber Orchestra of Russia (Moscow Chamber Orchestra), and conductor Alexey Utkin, have imported the ghastly HIP-based vibratoless string sound into their playing. How insufferable - I never thought that such a outrage could happen in Russia, much less in the Tchaikovsky Competition. This stage is going to be a trial for us to listen to. :-(
I'm following your report with interest, though I probably won't listen to any of the competitors myself until the very end.
Off topic, but apropos of your comment at the end on HIP and vibrato, I thought you and others here would be amused, or maybe annoyed, by the article below about vibrato and the classical clarinet and in classical music generally.
Don't you wish Richard Mühlfeld had lived long enough to record the Brahms clarinet quintet? OK, back to the piano competition.
Hi rbolaw - nice article. Rusinek is a fine player, and the Pittsburgh Symphony is easily one of the top ten in the world now. The article is also perfectly correct when it talks about how vibrato was not really used much at all in orchestral playing until the 20th century. It is used more often in classical solo playing than the article implies, however. Many players will use a very small amount for solo playing, but not orchestral playing.
One of my teachers was the long time principal horn of the San Francisco Symphony, Dave Krehbiel. In lieu of vibrato, he developed what he called a hand shimmer - he would wiggle his fingers inside the bell while playing, which would put just a little bit of shimmer in his sound during such solos as the one in the opening of the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony, for instance. He did it better than anyone else, but some of his students, myself included, have used it occasionally.
About the only brass sections in the world who still use vibrato are in Russia and Eastern Europe, though even there it is fast disappearing. I do agree, as do just about all US wind players, that a great tone does not need vibrato - it should only be a sparingly used "special effect," if you will. If a player needs it to sound good, that is a problem.
Thanks for all that, very interesting. There are two other clarinetists who used vibrato, though in very different ways, well worth checking out if you haven't already: Jacques Lancelot and David Oppenheim. Lancelot long performed and recorded in a woodwind quintet with Jean-Pierre Rampal. He can also be heard to great effect in the Brahms sonatas with Annie D'Arco and in the Brahms quintet with the Amadeus Quartet.
Oppenheim was a close friend of Leonard Bernstein and was the dedicatee of his Clarinet Sonata. He headed Columbia Records' classical Masterworks Division in the 50s, and recorded the Stravinsky Octet and Soldiers' Tale with Stravinsky conducting, and the Brahms and Mozart quintets with the Budapest Quartet.
Madeline and I heard all six of the Mozart performances from yesterday and three from today (although we heard only the tail end of Geniusas' K. 466), and we've modified our predictions for the final round a bit, especially in view of Sergey Redkin's indifferent performance of the earlier A-major Concerto (No. 12, K. 414), so we both demoted him off of our top six lists:
Lucas Debargue (France - Yamaha)
Lukas Geniusas (Russia/Lithuania - Steinway)
Daniel Kharitonov (Russia - Steinway)
George Li (USA - Steinway)
Dmitry Masleev (Russia - Steinway) - he hasn't played yet, but we're assuming he does OK with his Mozart K. 466
For the sixth spot, we disagreed. Madeline is picking Maria Mazo (Germany - Fazioli), while I'm going with Ilya Rashkovskiy (Russia - Yamaha). I'm hearing Julia's K. 488 as I write this. Gawd, she's terrible - so many thoughtless mistakes and so much uneven tone production!
One nice thing about the Mozart Concerto round is that the competition used TWO orchestras. One was the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, which, as I mentioned yesterday, has allowed the string non-vibrato affectation to become part of its corporate sound. The other is the Moscow Soloists Chamber Ensemble, which plays with a more pleasing sonority which includes the use of vibrato. Unfortunately, this latter orchestra is not as agile as the MCO, and they're often sluggish and late. Their conductor, Ayrton Desimpelaere (a boy-babe, as Madeline points out!), seems very tentative as well. That's an extra burden for the pianists who played with this orchestra.
Julia has just finished now, so there are three left in the Mozart concerto stage of Round 2.
We're keeping to our predictions that we made above.
One big disaster occurred near the end of the exposition of the K. 467 ("Elvira Madigan") Concerto, as played by Mikhail Turpanov (who else?). Turpanov had a big memory slip and was floundering for a few seconds. Somehow, he weaseled out of it and the orchestra came in at the right time, avoiding a pause (re-start) in the performance. Kudos to the orchestra! (And it just confirmed Turpanov's place on the bottom of the list of competitors in this round as far as we're concerned.)
Also, we feel very strongly about the following four candidates, and we'll state that if they don't get in to the finals, then something is very wrong:
Lucas Debargue (France - Yamaha)
Lukas Geniusas (Russia/Lithuania - Steinway)
Daniel Kharitonov (Russia - Steinway)
George Li (USA - Steinway)
One last thing: although I hated the non-vibrato playing of the strings of the MCO, at least they did have a lot of babes in that orchestra - love the concert-mistress (and the intensity of her expressions), and the second oboist was a cutie too (a bit like Madeline when she was that age!).
So if you'll indulge me so I can crow a bit, here are the piano finalists, just announced a couple of minutes ago, in the Tchaikovsky Competition:
Lucas Debargue (France - Yamaha)
Lukas Geniusas (Russia/Lithuania - Steinway)
Daniel Kharitonov (Russia - Steinway)
George Li (USA - Steinway)
Dmitry Masleev (Russia - Steinway)
Sergey Redkin (Russia - Yamaha)
So. . . as you can see, both Madeline and I called five of the six correctly. And the sixth finalist, Redkin, was actually on both of our lists too until we demoted him after his Mozart performance. (I guess his Mozart performance was less of a determinant as far as the jury was concerned - or maybe they just thought he played the Mozart better than we did.) In a way, this was an easy one to call, since four of the competitors were clearly superior to the rest of the field. It was only the fifth and sixth positions that were open to more "interpretation" and argumentation.
In the finale, the competitors will play two concertos, one of which has to be by Tchaikovsky (only the first or second - the third is not allowed), and five of the six finalists will be playing the Tchaikovsky No. 1, with Geniusas playing No. 2. There are two days of rest now, with the final round revving up on Sunday.
I'm not listening to five Tchaik 1s, even if the concertmistress is a babe. I leave the rest in your and Madeline's capable hands, and am confident you will produce a good report after it's done.
Not sure if I'm looking forward to it myself! ;-)
BTW, I did read your linked article (above) about clarinet vibrato, and, yes, it WAS interesting. The only thing I would add is that clarinet vibrato has been a feature of the special woodwind sound of (for instance) the Czech Philharmonic, I think, ever since the days of Talich (certainly since the days of Ancerl!). And listeners have prized this tone quality of the orchestra for as long as I've been aware of it. For instance, when cellist Julian Lloyd Weber and Philips arranged to make a recording of the Dvorak Concerto with the CzPO, and arrived for scouting and first rehearsals, the conductor at that time, Vaclav Neumann, told Weber and the engineer that they might have to get used to the sound of the woodwinds, compared to those in other orchestras. Weber answered, "We love those woodwinds - that's why we're here!"
And finally,regarding babe concertmistresses, I don't think the MCO will be used for the "big gun" concertos in the final round. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have an orchestra with a babe concertmistress AND vibrato! ;-)
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