Italy was well represented at the 2005 Van Cliburn with four pianists in the competition, two of them making it all the way to the final round. That country only has two this year, and yet it wouldn't be strange if there were two Italians in the finals again. Neapolitan Mariangela Vacatello came on stage in a dress in a well-chosen shade of red. She started with Haydn's Sonata in C major (Hob. XVI: 50) and gave a bright, acute reading of it. Then she essayed Busoni's Variations on Chopin's C minor Prelude, in which the Italian composer turned the funereal original into an elegant waltz and even a tarantella. Vacatello made an impressive case for this unfamiliar work.
Then came the showpieces: Liszt's Transcendental Etude No. 10, which she dared to treat as a real piece of music (with mostly good results), and Stravinsky's murderously difficult whirling dervish called Three Movements from Petrouchka. Vacatello couldn't fill the hall with her sound the way some of the male competitors have, but she could do everything else, rendering these with a combination of good taste, objectivity, and phenomenal technique that reminded you of her countryman Maurizio Pollini, only with more flair for the big occasion. She may or may not be cut out for the later rounds, but she has gotten her competition off to a promising start.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Zhang Feng
And we're back to me sitting in genial incomprehension while another Haydn performance washes over me. Zhang Feng did recover from that during his Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue in E minor, which he played without sounding like Bach. (At times, trying a bit too hard to not sound like him.) He launched straight into Liszt's St. Francis of Assisi's Sermon to the Birds, a hushed piece that's almost entirely confined to the upper register of the piano. It doesn't get nearly enough play, and Zhang managed to get the spirit of religious rapture that pervades it.
His Romantic plunge into Mendelssohn raised my hopes for his performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Sonata No. 2, but those were quickly dashed. He got the notes right and the overall architecture of the piece, but he missed the deep-seated Russian melancholy in the work. It was an emotionally shallow rendering. Then again, maybe I'm just missing the plummy, pearly sound that I've heard from competitors (Russian and non-Russian) over the years put into this work. (It took us until the third day of competition to hear any Mozart or Rachmaninov. Strange.) Overall, Zhang's performance goes down as a wildly uneven effort.
His Romantic plunge into Mendelssohn raised my hopes for his performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Sonata No. 2, but those were quickly dashed. He got the notes right and the overall architecture of the piece, but he missed the deep-seated Russian melancholy in the work. It was an emotionally shallow rendering. Then again, maybe I'm just missing the plummy, pearly sound that I've heard from competitors (Russian and non-Russian) over the years put into this work. (It took us until the third day of competition to hear any Mozart or Rachmaninov. Strange.) Overall, Zhang's performance goes down as a wildly uneven effort.
Lukas Vondracek
The heavens opened up while we were on break, and judging by the clouds immediately to our south, it might not be done raining.
Lukas Vondracek (pronounced LOO-kash von-DRA-check) hunched over the keyboard as he raced through a decent but unexciting performance of Bach's Italian Concerto. He followed that up with two Chopin nocturnes and Liszt's "Harmonies du soir" ("Harmonies of the Evening"). All of these pieces were beautifully played, and Vondracek didn't miss the dramatics in the Liszt piece. His primary strength is as a colorist, though, and we've got better ones in the field. That's the trouble with the competition format: If you heard his performance in isolation, you'd say it was perfectly nice. Here it seems inadequate.
He finished with three of Smetana's Czech Dances. (Vondracek is scheduled to play Czech music in every round. That's representing your country.) He could have used a bit more grit in the "Furiant," but his "Skocna" brought his program to a lively conclusion and drew repeated curtain calls. I wish I could have shared everybody's enthusiasm.
Lukas Vondracek (pronounced LOO-kash von-DRA-check) hunched over the keyboard as he raced through a decent but unexciting performance of Bach's Italian Concerto. He followed that up with two Chopin nocturnes and Liszt's "Harmonies du soir" ("Harmonies of the Evening"). All of these pieces were beautifully played, and Vondracek didn't miss the dramatics in the Liszt piece. His primary strength is as a colorist, though, and we've got better ones in the field. That's the trouble with the competition format: If you heard his performance in isolation, you'd say it was perfectly nice. Here it seems inadequate.
He finished with three of Smetana's Czech Dances. (Vondracek is scheduled to play Czech music in every round. That's representing your country.) He could have used a bit more grit in the "Furiant," but his "Skocna" brought his program to a lively conclusion and drew repeated curtain calls. I wish I could have shared everybody's enthusiasm.
Alessandro Deljavan
I suppose that with all the different pianists playing Haydn in this round, the odds were pretty good that one of them would eventually get through to me. Congratulations, Alessandro Deljavan! The bearded Italian started with the Sonata in E-flat major (Hob. XVI: 52) and produced a light, supple performance that I could follow from beginning to end.
He followed it with Liszt's Sonata in B minor, and honestly, I was rather dreading the prospect of a third hearing of this piece in two days. However, his Liszt sonata was easily the best one so far. He played with an authentic fire that was missing from the other two performances, and it was coupled with an airy, sun-kissed tone that seems to be second nature to Italian pianists. He took the lighter passages with an enviable gossamer touch, and wrangled this massive half-hour work into a narrative that flowed so smoothly that I never checked my watch. Terrific stuff.
He had a couple of odd stage mannerisms. He worked the soft pedal with his left foot as one is supposed to do, but during some of the more impassioned parts, he'd take his foot off the pedal by leaning back and kicking his left foot forward between the pedals and the piano leg. Also, when his right hand was playing a soft passage by itself, he'd sometimes raise his left hand with his palm up, as if to help himself play more gently. As good a musician as he is, he could play standing on his head for all I care.
He followed it with Liszt's Sonata in B minor, and honestly, I was rather dreading the prospect of a third hearing of this piece in two days. However, his Liszt sonata was easily the best one so far. He played with an authentic fire that was missing from the other two performances, and it was coupled with an airy, sun-kissed tone that seems to be second nature to Italian pianists. He took the lighter passages with an enviable gossamer touch, and wrangled this massive half-hour work into a narrative that flowed so smoothly that I never checked my watch. Terrific stuff.
He had a couple of odd stage mannerisms. He worked the soft pedal with his left foot as one is supposed to do, but during some of the more impassioned parts, he'd take his foot off the pedal by leaning back and kicking his left foot forward between the pedals and the piano leg. Also, when his right hand was playing a soft passage by itself, he'd sometimes raise his left hand with his palm up, as if to help himself play more gently. As good a musician as he is, he could play standing on his head for all I care.
Michail Lifits
What is it with the second slot of the afternoon sessions? I liked the performances in that slot in previous days (Stephen Beus, Di Wu), and the same holds true for this German pianist of Uzbek descent. He played only two pieces, Mozart's Sonata in D major (K. 311) and Schumann's Fantaisie, and the constant in both of those were Lifits' clarity, lucidity, intelligence, and a beautiful burnished tone. He didn't even allow the cell phone going off in the slow movement of the Mozart to distract him. However, the real glory of his performance was the sprawling Schumann work, which he played with great emotional fervor without losing the melody amid the thickets of bass notes. This complex work can fall apart in the wrong hands, but Lifits led the audience through it without ever losing the thread. This is one pianist who doesn't need a conventional showpiece to display what he can do.
Zhou Ning
The thin, bespectacled Chinese pianist started by delivering a fine version of Ravel's Miroirs, with his "Alborada del gracioso" done with a lighter touch than Di Wu had. It was all downhill after that, though. He followed it with Liszt's Vallee d'Obermann, a piece named after a novel by Etienne Pivert de Senancour, and not after Doberman pinschers. Zhou frequently lost the thread of this discursive piece.
He removed his glasses after that piece, going without them for Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1. He was sweating pretty profusely by then, and probably didn't want the distraction of sweat dripping onto his glasses. (I can personally testify that you don't want that in the heat of performance.) Zhou's performance was really strange, going from loud to soft and fast to slow in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. If he was trying out new interpretive ideas, he failed massively.
He removed his glasses after that piece, going without them for Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1. He was sweating pretty profusely by then, and probably didn't want the distraction of sweat dripping onto his glasses. (I can personally testify that you don't want that in the heat of performance.) Zhou's performance was really strange, going from loud to soft and fast to slow in a seemingly arbitrary fashion. If he was trying out new interpretive ideas, he failed massively.
Raindrop Prelude
It's starting to rain here on Day Three before we start the afternoon session. Hey, if you're going to be sitting in a concert hall all day, it should be a day like today. The month of May has been pretty mild so far.
There was some debate in the press room yesterday about Steve Cumming's little spiel last night about his radio station for the blind. Like I said, I think he gave out quite a bit of information that'll be helpful for blind listeners in the hall and viewers on the internet, as well as people who know them. In the wake of Nobuyuki Tsujii's performance, Cumming probably saw what our president would call a "teachable moment." Still, it didn't seem fair to Naomi Kudo, who had to play immediately after that. Hope it didn't adversely affect her performance, or the judges' perception of her.
A stray link: So-yeon Lee has a sister named Lee So-eun who's a pop star in South Korea. Our program says the two of them have performed together on occasion. As far as classical/pop musician siblings go, maybe they could match wits with North Texas' own Ben Loeb and Lisa Loeb.
There was some debate in the press room yesterday about Steve Cumming's little spiel last night about his radio station for the blind. Like I said, I think he gave out quite a bit of information that'll be helpful for blind listeners in the hall and viewers on the internet, as well as people who know them. In the wake of Nobuyuki Tsujii's performance, Cumming probably saw what our president would call a "teachable moment." Still, it didn't seem fair to Naomi Kudo, who had to play immediately after that. Hope it didn't adversely affect her performance, or the judges' perception of her.
A stray link: So-yeon Lee has a sister named Lee So-eun who's a pop star in South Korea. Our program says the two of them have performed together on occasion. As far as classical/pop musician siblings go, maybe they could match wits with North Texas' own Ben Loeb and Lisa Loeb.
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