Today's Fredlines: June 10, 2009 Archive

Wrapping it all up

Posted at 6:48 PM on June 10, 2009 by Greg Allen (6 Comments)

This Cliburn Festival entry written by Gregory Allen, Professor of Piano, University of Texas at Austin, exclusively for Performance Today's Fredlines.

Travel and exhaustion have prevented my posting since the Awards Ceremony. Yes, it's old news by now, but here are my thoughts about Sunday's final performances, as well as reactions to the outcome and to the competition as a whole.

Nobu Tsujii's recital was thoroughly professional, if not as compelling as his previous work. Sorry to say, the Appassionata sounded a bit too much like Rubinstein - clean, sober and grounded, to be sure, but not quite to the manner born. (Let's face it, Rubinstein was never considered the greatest Beethoven player of all time.) Surprisingly, the Chopin Berceuse was rather prosaic, and the Liszt Rhapsody seemed overly, um, is respectful the right word? Is it possible that the poor guy was just tired??

Haochen Zhang sure didn't sound tired - if anything he burned up more calories in the Prokofiev 2nd than in all the other rounds combined. Not to put down Yeol Eum Son's admirable achievement in the same work, but I thought Zhang's was more disciplined, more accurate, more rhythmically secure, and at least as powerful relative to the orchestra. If I had to quibble, it would be that he didn't appear to be moved by the dark Slavic narrative that constitutes the last movement's middle section. (That's really the only part of this concerto that asks for some degree of poetry.) Otherwise, a stunning performance!

I got pretty much what I expected from Di Wu's Rachmaninoff Third. This piece has become such a rite of passage among competition players that surmounting its immense technical challenges is no longer a big deal (sort of like the Liszt Sonata). She did that adequately, for the most part. But her control of tempo and sonorities was spotty, and the architectural organization was erratic at best. As I've noted before, I think her playing is very attractive on a superficial - and visual - level, but trying to find deeper significance is, for me, a futile search.

So... The awards have been announced, and the jury has pretty much validated my educated guess as to the medalists, notwithstanding the first-place tie. To them is due all possible gratitude, for their expertise, professionalism and stamina. I personally think they got it right, insofar as Cliburn winners have always been the pianists who play a broad range of repertoire accurately, tastefully, and consistently, with just the right degree of imagination and dignified showmanship - just like Van himself. (To those who look at this tendency with disdain, who see boring propriety trumping unconventional individuality over and over, I say - you're not entirely wrong. Lang Lang would never win this competition...) In this case we had Bozhanov, who seemed to fit the mold and was well positioned to win a medal, until his idiosyncrasies went berserk. Vacatello might have been a prime candidate if not for inconsistencies that, unfortunately, may have been beyond her control. Wu, with all her audience appeal, was lucky just to make the finals. (My opinion, of course.) Several of the others who didn't, like Kunz, Lifits, Deljavan, Lam, Myer et al, showed distinctive personalities as well as respectable integrity. Ultimately, though, it is these three medalists who are best suited to represent the ideals of the Cliburn Competition. In the real world, for better or worse, ya gotta have a hook, a defining image, and each of them has one. The diminutive Samurai warrior, triumphant over adversity. The shy youth, guileless, humble and wise. The serene diva, draped in radiant robes. These things can help a career, and shouldn't be completely discounted, but of course they're ultimately peripheral to the qualities of outstanding pianism and musicianship that really speak to us. I'm thinking that all three of them have an abundance of these assets, and that we'll be hearing from them a lot in the future.

It's been a special privilege for me to be able to share my experiences here. Many thanks to Sevan Melikyan at the Cliburn, and Fred Child right here at Performance Today, for having faith in my untested abilities as a music critic - I hope I've shown some progress in the quality of my grousing and sniping! Thanks also to you faithful readers, and especially to those who have posted comments. And so, with the figurative flourish of a fermata over the final double-bar, I'm outta here...
GA

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