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Posts: 28649
Location: SF Bay Area
Joined: February 17, 2004
Contributor
Since: February 6, 2012
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. . . Dave doth protest much too much! ;-) Sure there have been "flash in the pan" phenomena among performers in the classical music world since time immemorial. But that may or may not be relevant to the folks who are winning competitions now. Each competition winner is an individual case, and for Dave to go on and on about Dmitrios Sgouros as if his case is somehow the rule which applies to every other subsequent pianist is, how shall I put it, beating a dead horse on the subject - which may not even be applicable to Yunchan Lim. In addition, Dave had another video about Yunchan Lim's Rachmaninoff 3rd from the previous Van Cliburn competition which, IIRC, had a headline which screamed "Yunchan Lim's Uncompetitive Competition-Winning Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto". Then, you watch the video and you find out that Hurwitz thinks it's uncompetitive because of the orchestra's contribution - not Lim's! And yet, for some reason, Hurwitz dons the kid gloves when he mentions Marin Alsop (the conductor on this recording), when, in actuality, she was making mistake after mistake in the rehearsals, sometimes bringing the orchestra in at the wrong times (and although I can't name my source for this assertion, this source is unimpeachable), so that, by the time of the competition performance, it was every man for himself - and the playing showed it. What does this have to do with how Lim played? (BTW, I thought Alsop was at least competent, if hardly inspiring, in this 2025 iteration of The Cliburn.) And then Dave's use of Yevgeni Kissin as a cautionary tale may be even less relevant. I was never a big fan of Kissin, and I haven't listened to many of his recordings. (Just not on his wavelength is all I can say.) But I know that a lot of people like his playing, and, from what I read, he is still playing well today - even if his web site hasn't been updated in eight years! (Oops! Maybe that was Sgouros' web site!) Finally, Hurwitz's implication that there's somehow a problem with the given Competition if a particular winner doesn't stay at the top of the heap for a whole career is absurd. There are all sorts of things which contribute to an elevated mindshare for a given artist - and how well he/she plays is only one of them. (Remember, this is showbiz, folks!) Frankly, I don't care what kind of coterie travels around with Kissin, nor do I care what kind of life experience he's had - as long as I myself find his playing accomplished and interesting. Now, getting back to what you claimed in your post, I think you're misunderstanding the judging process if you think that judges' decisions can be reduced to the number of mistakes, deviations from the score, and memory slips. Although that is a more "objective" part of the decision, there's quite a bit of leeway in determining how important these various slip-ups are. And it's actually subjective how each judge weighs how important each of these "deviations from perfection" is. But to imply, as I think you did, that beauty or emotional impact of a musician's performance play no part in the judges decisions is misleading to be sure. Of course those more subjective factors enter into their decisions. It's just not all one or the other. And I think that where you get into trouble is in assuming that the subjective portion of each judge's rating for a particular contestant should match your own subjective reaction. I assure you: that just ain't gonna happen. And your sour-grapes assertion that Aristo Sham's appeal is only to the "average concert goer" is also rather misleading. After all, Sham's appeal this year was also to a jury which consisted of practicing artists (some quite a bit better than others IMHO - LOL!) with actual careers in music. Frankly, I'm glad that they got rid of critics' spots on the jury - especially having read Scott Cantrell's account of the competition in the Dallas Morning News. What an idiot! (But of course, that's just my subjective opinion - LOL!)
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