Update:
This story is being updated daily through June 1 with reviews of the semifinal round.
Review: The Van Cliburn Competition’s semifinal round
Reviews of the recitals at Fort Worth’s Bass Hall will be updated daily.
FORT WORTH — The first two rounds of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition ended Sunday, May 25, with the announcement of 12 semifinalists. We’re covering the semifinal round, May 28 through June 1, after which six pianists will be announced for the final round, running June 3 through 7. Ultimately, three medalists will be selected and additional prizes awarded.
One of the highest visibility classical music contests in the world, the Cliburn has been held quadrennially in Fort Worth since 1962. In advance auditions, 30 pianists from 16 countries were selected from 340 applicants to participate in the actual competition. Two dropped out beforehand.
Preliminary and quarterfinal recitals were presented at Texas Christian University’s Van Cliburn Concert Hall, and I sampled a number of them online. Technical assurance was never in doubt, and interpretive maturity seemed more consistent than in some previous Cliburns. But that special something that sets great musicians apart from the merely skilled and well schooled wasn’t always in evidence.
The competition has moved to Bass Performance Hall for the five-day semifinal round. Each pianist is playing a 60-minute recital (with no duplication from earlier rounds) and a Mozart piano concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, led by guest conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto. The absence of movement indications in printed programs is frustrating.
With semifinal concerto performances scheduled in the evenings, the Friday session conflicts with the Dallas Symphony’s must-hear performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony. So we’re covering just the semifinal recitals, and the Friday afternoon recitals will be reviewed on the basis of the livestream. Reviews will be updated daily.
We’ll report on both the concertos in the final round, in which Marin Alsop will conduct the FWSO.
For complete schedules, check the Cliburn website: cliburn.org.
Tickets for all competition performances are available at 817-212-4280 or cliburn.org. In addition, free video streams are available live and on demand at cliburn.org and the Cliburn’s YouTube channel. Video presentations are hosted by Buddy Bray and Elizabeth Joy Roe, with commentary and behind-the-scenes interviews.
Sunday evening, June 1
Piotr Alexewicz, Poland, 25. After two Sunday afternoon performances that were very impressive in very different ways, the final evening of semifinal recitals was less satisfying. Alexewicz gave Schumann’s C major Fantasy too burly an opening, setting a tone for performances that went for extremes that didn’t always fit the music at hand. Soft ages were very soft, and more introspective music was extravagantly stretched. I tried to rationalize all the rubato as expressing the “Fantasy” title, but it increasingly seemed too much of a good thing.
Without program pages listing movements, the audience understandably applauded enthusiastically after the third movement, not realizing a gentle finale was still to come. The Cliburn really should provide a program sheet for each performance with movement listings.
It was more of the same extremes in the Chopin B-flat minor Sonata (No. 2). First-movement energies seemed products of the modern gym more than a 19th-century salon. The Funeral March was too slow — who could march that slowly even at a funeral? — and the slow pace kept the songlike middle section from singing. At the end, Gershwin’s Three Preludes were too roughly handled.
Yangrui Cai, China, 24. In past Cliburns, the weakest playing often came in the semifinal round, when fatigue from an impossibly demanding schedule has tended to catch up. I’ve not noticed that this time, although maybe it ed for Cai’s performances that never really felt inside the music. (I can’t speak for contemporary English composer Thomas Adès’ Darkness Visible, a six-minute exploration of trills, notes high and low and fragments of a song by turn-of-the-17th-century English composer John Dowland.)
Cai’s performance of Ten Pieces from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet made some splashy and atmospheric effects, but with little awareness that this is music for dance. And he couldn’t seem to make a big sound that wasn’t harsh.
After Evren Ozel’s exquisitely timed and tinted Ravel Gaspard de la nuit on Friday, Cai’s lacked subtlety. The too-forward “melody” of “Ondine” made the eponymous water nymph less than usually seductive. “Le gibet” was aptly eerie until it got too loud, after which Cai tore through “Scarbo” with little of the imp’s hide-and-seek mischief.
Sunday afternoon, June 1
Philipp Lynov, Russia, 26. Lynov was the first of two superbly equipped pianists Sunday afternoon. Total technical mastery is pretty much assumed by this point in the Cliburn, but in music as different as Ravel’s Miroirs and Prokofiev’s Eighth Sonata, he also demonstrated a breathtaking range of dynamics, colors and textures. His was one of those performances that keep you riveted to every note, every turn of phrase, every nuance of timing. He cast a spell that never let up.
The moths of Ravel’s “Noctuelles” fluttered and flickered, but also lighted as if in contemplation. Left-hand ripples buoyed the boat of “Une barque sur l’océan,” but calm was disturbed by some rough waves. The jester of “Alborada del gracioso” delivered his morning song with just the right hip-shifting rhythms.
The opening of the Prokofiev was no less atmospheric, no less subtly timed and shaded, than the Ravel pieces. Even in the ferocities of the movement’s development, dynamics were fastidiously graduated.
There were more marvels of touch and timing in the songlike slow movement. The finale had the right sense of desperation, marred only by excessive banging at the biggest moments. (Recordings prove that Prokofiev, an elegant pianist, was not a banger.)
Chaeyoung Park, South Korea, 27. A sophisticated pianist friend was more wowed by Park than I was. For my ears, her opening Myra Hess arrangement of Bach’s “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring” was pleasant enough, but nothing special. And, while she skillfully negotiated all the twists and turns and shifts of Scriabin’s Black Mass Ninth Sonata, I never sensed the atmospheric magic that Lynov conjured practically start to finish in his recital.
How do you review a performance of a piece you really don’t like? That was my challenge with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, which pushes the 19th-century piano sonata to arguably absurd limits of virtuosity and endurance. Heavy lifting in the best of circumstances, it was dispatched with formidable authority — and daring tempos — by Park.
Saturday afternoon, May 31
Along with typical barn-burner pieces, programming this year seems to be making more room for introspective music displaying virtues subtler than power and prestidigitation. Saturday was a very good day for these virtues, in recitals by both of the afternoon’s pianists.
Vitaly Starikov, Israel/Russia, 30. Starikov had the technical chops for any demands of Chopin’s Op. 25 Etudes. But more impressive was his willingness less to play at the audience than to draw us into musical intimacies. In addition to fastidious attention to dynamic and coloristic nuances, he demonstrated the magic that can come of stretching and contracting rhythms, lingering over melodic high points and poignant harmonies.
All this made for exquisitely poetic Chopin, and magic in Liszt’s arrangement of Schubert’s song “Du bist die Ruh.” Starikov even found the tenderness, the vulnerability, in a piece as different as the Prokofiev Seventh Sonata.
It was there in the sonata’s slow movement, before anxieties built up, even in reflective sections of the first. But the outer movements had all the rhythmic intensity one could wish, with dynamics just gradually pumped up in the final Precipitato.
Carter Johnson, Canada/United States, 28. Johnson had one of the more enterprising programs, and played every bit of it to the hilt. If he didn’t quite manage Starikov’s magic in dreamy parts of the standard-rep work, Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, there was commendable naturalness to the rise and shape of his phrases, the expressive give and take. The mercurial, impetuous movements were no less effectively realized, with a keen sense for just how and how much to play with rhythms.
A more different musical world could hardly be imagined than the vaporous, multicolored Op. 74 Preludes of Alexander Scriabin. Through the free-floating harmonies of the Russian composer’s last completed work, from 1914, Johnson maintained a thread of quiet intensity.
We had Johnson to thank for a rare Cliburn hearing of a Paul Hindemith sonata, the Third, from 1936. Its four movements deftly balancing structural integrity with playfulness, even mischief — even tunefulness — it got a most persuasive performance.
Friday afternoon, May 30
I experienced this afternoon’s performances as the vast majority of Cliburn followers are doing — via the livestream. Heard through what I’d call the low end of high-end audio equipment, the sound quality was quite good, apart from an occasional metallic ring in the middle of the keyboard.
Repertory choices in this year’s Cliburn have been more imaginative than in most past years, but both of Friday’s semifinalists stuck to 19th-century standard rep, apart from two Ravel works just barely tiptoeing into the 20th century.
Yanjun Chen, China, 23. Chen displayed confidence and fine fingerwork, and she set Ravel’s Jeux d’eau glistening. But her expressive gestures in the opening Chopin Ballade No. 2 felt more calculated than organic. Fastidiously as it was executed, the music lacked buoyancy and the all-important illusion of spontaneity.
A little playfulness surfaced in the middle section of Chopin’s E major Etude (Op. 10, No. 3), and Chen loosened up about halfway through Schumann’s Kreisleriana (a work dedicated, by the way, to Chopin). Whether by design or forgetting the announced program order, Chen added Chopin’s F major Etude (Op. 10, No. 8) as a sparkling encore.
Evren Ozel, United States, 26. Ozel’s was one of the most impressive recitals I’ve heard so far in the semifinals. The opening Liszt Les jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este, assuredly as it was executed, could have had more poetry. And in Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, other players have lent a more vaporous quality to the opening tremolos of “Ondine.” Otherwise, Ravel’s triptych was a marvel of atmospheric tints, textures and timing, and the final “Scarbo” viscerally evoked the nightmarish goblin’s now-you-see-me, now-you-don’t antics.
This was the third Beethoven Op. 111 I’ve heard this time, and with one reservation, Ozel seemed absolutely at one with the sonata’s bold rhetoric. As with two previous contestants, though, he failed to convince me of a too-slow tempo for the second movement’s songlike theme. Beethoven even labels the movement “Arietta,” a little aria, but Ozel didn’t let it sing.
Thursday afternoon, May 29
Having seemed unusually reverberant Wednesday, Bass Hall sounded fine for Thursday’s second day of semifinals — but it was still cold. If you’re planning to attend other performances, dress warmly, or bring layers.
Angel Stanislav Wang, United States, 22. Wang’s multicultural name is explained by immigrant parents from China and Russia. He’s a performer of considerable flair — sometimes of attire as well as musical interpretations — and he obviously connects with audiences.
In standard rep works framing the program, Beethoven’s Apionata Sonata and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, he tended to heighten extremes. The opening of the former was slower than suggested by the Allegro assai marking, but as the movement progressed it felt like an exploratory adventure — not a bad impression for a thrice-familiar piece. The finale was wisely paced until the Presto section ran away with itself, at the cost of clarity.
The Mussorgsky’s opening “Promenade” was surprisingly brisk, as if the composer were hurrying to the show of Viktor Hartmann paintings that inspired the suite. (The spectacularly ambiguous tempo marking is “Properly lively, in Russian mode, without cheerfulness, but a bit sustained.”) One could certainly visualize children running around in “Tuileries,” the massive oxen drawing the cart in “Bydlo,” the frenzied market of “Limoges,” the spooky gloom of “Catacombs.” What I kept missing was a warm core of tone, and “Baba Yaga” got rather clangy.
In between came the first and last of American composer William Bolcom’s 12 New Etudes, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Music. “Fast, furious” was just that, with devilish glitters and clatters and pounding arm clusters. Considerably longer, “Hymne à l’amour” suggested a love anything but uncomplicated. An eight-note motif was variously punctuated with comments high and low, and the music went on to explore added-note chords, some pretty stormy. Wang tossed off both etudes with pizzazz.
Jonas Aumiller, , 26. With so much great piano music out there, this retired organist wonders why a pianist would program Busoni’s piano arrangement of so classic an organ piece as Bach’s D major Prelude and Fugue (BWV 532). Nor was I convinced that Liszt’s orchestral tone poem Les Préludes needed Aumiller’s own piano transcription.
But there they were, framing Aumiller’s recital. He played them with panache — he’s a most accomplished pianist — and the audience was visibly and audibly thrilled by the latter’s sound and fury. I could think of lots of pieces I would have preferred.
Aumiller and the piano were on more congenial ground in Brahms’ Op. 118 Piano Pieces. The opening A minor Intermezzo was pushed and pulled about a bit too much, and the F minor felt a bit hurried. But the reflective A major and E-flat minor Intermezzi were marvels of sensitive touch and voicing. Chopin’s Impromptu No. 2 in, F-sharp major, was quite beautifully done.
Wednesday afternoon, May 28
Aristo Sham, Hong Kong, China, 29. Bass Hall air conditioning was on overdrive for the opening evening, and, even with sound-absorbing curtains drawn over almost all walls, the hall seemed more reverberant than usual. Sham, the first of the semifinal recitalists, was never less than assured, but he sometimes seemed to gauge tempos and pedalings for spaces much less sonically “wet.” The first movement of Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of three movements of Bach’s E major Violin Partita (BWV 1006) was too often a blur, and the Gavotte could have used more spring in its downbeats.
He was on more congenial ground in Scriabin’s Sonata No. 10, evincing fine nuances of touch and sensitive voicings. He effectively conveyed music from hazily atmospheric to jittery to almost desperate, with trills alternately sparkling and sinister.
Sham was in full command of the technical demands of Rachmaninoff’s nine Op. 39 Études-tableaux, and he made the obvious expressive gestures. No. 2 was beautifully dreamy, No. 4 danced and No. 5 was rendered in rhetorical grandeur. But Nos. 1, 3, 8 and 9 tended to feel pressed, especially for the Bass Hall acoustic. In No. 8 I kept thinking, “What’s the hurry?” There was however a rousing ovation at the end.
Elia Cecino, Italy, 23. Six years younger than Sham, Cecino impressed as a more mature musician, in a program irably demonstrating his gifts. In music from the 19th and 20th centuries he managed the trickiest of musical balances, between illusions of spontaneity and strong structural groundings. This is a musician I’d like to hear again.
Opening his recital, Tchaikovsky’s F major Nocturne (Op. 10, No. 1) seemed to float in from another world. In Schumann’s Sonata No. 1 (Op. 11) Cecino gave the music organic urgency, stretching and breathing — and lingering — in all the right places. In an age of so many over-loud performances, Cecino maintained an appropriately reserved dynamic range.
The Soviet-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who died just two months ago, was memorialized with her little Toccata-troncata (truncated toccata). Barely a minute long, contrasting spare gestures in bass and treble, it was an amuse-bouche for Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata, which followed without pause.
The Prokofiev received a commanding performance, uneasy even when superficially playful (as at the beginning) or reflective (in the slow movement). The musical assaults lacked nothing for intensity, and the final Precipitato drove to a hair-raising close.
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