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Today's Cliburn concertos: Ozel, Wang, Sham

143.105.119.122
Posted on June 6, 2025 at 20:34:50
sser2
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Posts: 2714
Location: Pittsburgh USA
Joined: July 30, 2003
 Ozel
Beethoven 4th - it was nice and solid, but pretty traditional. I didn't hear any new insights and there were no revelations. Wang played this concerto in much more involving way.

Wang
Rachmaninov 3rd - Angel again displayed his signature style, quirky, deep penetration into music, a lot of unusual and exciting phrasing, fleeting moments everywhere, masterful control of dynamics, beautiful tone - and mistakes.

Sham
Brahms 2nd. Musically, Sham is doing very well playing music with a lot of exclamation marks, and the first two movements perfectly fit the bill. But his moment of truth came in the third movement, Andante. The movement opens with cello solo, one of the most beautiful in Brahms output. One would expect then something even more beautiful from the piano, but Mr. Sham apparently didn't know how to bring out the beauty. He was just playing notes. The 4th movement, Allegretto grazioso, was anything but grazioso. The light, joking character, the flight of this scherzo were completely amiss. Sham again proved to be a one-trick pony.

 

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Ooh! Gotta disagree this time around, posted on June 7, 2025 at 02:54:15
Chris from Lafayette
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Posts: 28649
Location: SF Bay Area
Joined: February 17, 2004
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  Since: February 6, 2012
 Unfortunately, we couldn't start watching until Ms. CfL got back from a chamber music concert where she and two flutists were playing one of the works. She didn't get back until 9:40 or so (local time) and we didn't start watching until well after 10:00. Earlier on I had seen part of Angel Stanislav Wang's performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto (near the end of the second movement to the end of the work) on the live feed. It just annoys the heck out of me that the live feed was unbroken by YouTube commercial interruptions, while the replay seemed to be interrupted by YouTube commercials every four or five minutes. (They must have shown the same commercial ten times for some Google "AI" product - Google owns YouTube. Outrageous!)

Anyway, here's what we (or I in some cases) thought of tonight's performances:

Evren Ozel played the Tchaikovsky Concerto on Tuesday (which I'm not sure is the best vehicle for him), but tonight, he played the Beethoven Fourth Concerto which Angel Stanislav Wang had played on Tuesday. In our opinion, the sophistication of Ozel's tone production and voicing really put Wang's performance in the shade. There was a clarity about this performance which was hard for us to resist and which also did not undermine the lyrical aspects of the work either. Bravo!

Angel Stanislav Wang chose the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto for this session, a work which IMHO is the greatest piano concerto ever written, but also one of the most difficult. We thought Wang played pretty well, but he committed more mistakes than the other two pianists tonight. In addition, I did not like the way he smudged some passages, even though he was not literally making mistakes. On the positive side, he also showed off a good dynamic range in his performance - but we both doubt that Wang will be placed in the top three in this round. And one other thing I didn't like was his inattentiveness to the tempo changes marked in by Rachmaninoff at the beginning of the work (i.e., the main theme in simple octaves at the very beginning, "Allegro ma non tanto"; "Piu mosso" when the piano and orchestra exchange roles, with the orchestra having the theme; and "Piu vivo" a little later on - you should notice a speed increase at the beginning of each of the faster markings, but not so much in this performance). And I almost forgot - Wang took a cut in the last movement (from rehearsal number 52, or maybe it was 50, to rehearsal number 54). Did he get permission to do this, or will he be marked down? IMHO, as the elder Bush would say, "That's bad! That's bad!".

Aristo Sham played the Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1 on Tuesday, but tonight, he played the far more challenging Brahms Concerto No. 2. Having seen a number of Sham's performances in this competition, we believe that it's absolutely uncanny how few mistakes Sham makes - his technical readiness seems to be on a far higher plane than that of the other pianists. It's almost as if he's a savant when it comes to accuracy of the notes. The controversy comes when you start judging his purely musical instincts. I was definitely not on his wavelength in the earlier rounds, but his two concerto performances in this final round sounded far more convincing to me from just the musical side of things. Ms. CfL thinks Sham might win the gold, just because of his amazing technical attainments - even though she doesn't like what she considers his lack of passion in large portions of his performances.


So of the three pianists we've heard who have played both their final round concertos, we would rank them as follows:

My Ranking:

Evren Ozel, perhaps tied with. . .

Aristo Sham (although I'm not sure that ties are allowed)

Angel Stanislav Wang

Ms CfL's Ranking:

Evren Ozel

Aristo Sham

Angel Stanislav Wang

We have to remember the three pianists who will play tomorrow afternoon: Vitaly Starikov in the Schumann Concerto, Carter Johnson in the Ravel Left-Hand Concerto, and Philipp Lynov in the Prokofiev Concerto No. 2. So far, I'd rate Starikov's performance of the Bartok Concerto No. 2 (on Wednesday) as the best concerto performance I've heard in this round.

 

We more agree than disagree., posted on June 7, 2025 at 09:37:52
sser2
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Posts: 2714
Location: Pittsburgh USA
Joined: July 30, 2003
 We just give priority to different things. For you playing correct is more important than playing musical, for me the other way around. You understand technical details of performance, and I don't. The Cliburn jury seems to be more guided by your values than mine, although they promised from the start that musicality will be their #1 criterion.

I liked Ozel's Beethoven 4 (it is also my favorite Beethoven concerto), but it sounded to me like a mean of well-known versions of the piece. By contrast, Wang strikes me as someone who goes entirely his own way, which, though at times questionable, is fresh and interesting.

Sham I would disqualify - on my criteria - after his technically flawless but extremely boring Hammerklavier. I don't care about Mendelssohn's concerto, which was composed in a matter of few days to impress a chick, but it sure fits Sham's taste by providing ample opportunity to beat the hell out of keyboard. Brahms 2 he screwed the last two movements without even suspecting this. I would like to hear this concert played by Aumiller, or Cai, or Chen, who have innate musicality that Mr. Sham entirely lacks, IMHO.

 

Mendelssohn's Concerto - "composed in a matter of few days to impress a chick", posted on June 7, 2025 at 11:40:10
Chris from Lafayette
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Posts: 28649
Location: SF Bay Area
Joined: February 17, 2004
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  Since: February 6, 2012
 I was not aware of that - but there are certainly worse motivations to write music! Just think - some people actually write music for the tawdry purpose of getting money! ;-)

Anyway, you're right that we have a number of points of agreement too. I would take issue however with your claim that Sham "beat the hell out of the keyboard". That's just not the way it sounded to me. I notice that, in reading some of the comments about the various performances on YouTube, there are some listeners who claim that some pianists are "pounding" whenever they raise their dynamic level above mezzo forte! However, these YouTube comments are usually directed at other pianists besides Sham.

I guess we'll see later today - or this evening, depending on how long it takes for the jury to make up its collective mind.

BTW, did you see the interview with Jon Nakamatsu, especially regarding the Rachmaninoff Third? When Jon and I first started rehearsing it, the Concerto was of course new for Jon, but also new for me. (I'd never accompanied anyone else in this work up until that time.) I remember that we agreed that it was such an honor just to be studying the work, much less getting it to a level where we could play it in public!

OK, my nostalgia trip is over for today! ;-)

 

"Beating the keyboard" was exaggeration ., posted on June 7, 2025 at 12:13:25
sser2
Audiophile

Posts: 2714
Location: Pittsburgh USA
Joined: July 30, 2003
 When Mr. Sham plays fast and loud passages, he does it in convincing and exciting ways; his technique alone is breathtaking. I can see from comments that a new cult is forming (or may have already formed) similar to that of the previous Cliburn winner, Yunchan Lim. But Sham's mastery (and I mean mastery without tongue in cheek) is lopsided: he is a typical bravura virtuoso with a limited expressive range, as his Brahms PC2 has demonstrated.

 

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