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Agreed about Bozhanov. Wouldn't surprise me if he gets the gold.

I really liked Lam and hoped she'd make it to the finals, but she was having some strange problems. Lots of wrong notes and insecure playing. She was having a bad day, even though she was quite valiant about it. I'm afraid it is over for her, which is too bad.

Do many of the major competitions have as lengthy repertoire requirements(3 solo recitals, 1 chamber work, 2 concerti) as the Cliburn?

Kunz's Waldstein was unique and well structured, despite some wrong notes. his Rach moment musicals were great and more emotionally involved. his Bates was interesting as well. i like him, but i don't know if he could make it to the final.

Loved his performance. Particularly the Rachmaninoff. I was called away, so I'm waiting for the archived version so i can rewatch.

Re Kunz, the Beethoven started well, but toward the end it seemed to me that he was just playing notes, and wanted it to be over.

I think the final movement of that Op 16 was disastrous. I liked his approach of playing some of the melodic chords with less force (and even piano) but he just seemed frazzled, and that secondary motif throughout the movement was completely muddled and lost. In the end, I thought "wow... that was pretty bad..." To me, he looked quite disappointed with his performance as well.

Unfortunate.

Daniel

Bohzhanov I feel is a strong contender for the next round. Also Lifits--his reading of the Schumann Piano Quintet was stronger than Nobu's. Zhang is remarkable, I liked his reading of the Chopin Preludes, and an awesome finish in the Lizst Rhapsody. He should move on as well.

i got my teacher's email about Kunz, and he likes his playing a lot even though he noticed his wrong notes too. so, i'm in agreement with my teacher on Kunz at least. i think Kunz is a really unique musician, whose style may elude some people though, but i love his playing anyway.

I missed the end of the Rach. Too bad.

I like his playing a lot and I hope he moves on. I also think Hauchen Zhang should advance.

I agree...Kunz did very well with some of the Rachmaninoff and Beethoven, but seemed to tire a bit towards the end of both.

The standout in the semis for me so far is Bohzhanov - absolutely fantastic beginning to end.

I'm looking forward to Wu tonight and Kim tomorrow. Davidsbundler!

absolutely great Frank quintet, both music and performance!

Does anyone know who the two piano tuners are that are featured in the "offstage" program on the live tv website?

Hats off to the big guy who interviews the pianists after each performance. You can see that 20 years of experience in an international competition has really paid off. With infinite respect for their artistry he asks "what was the toughest part?". The player doesn't understand and answers something else. Our bloke then ever so delicately tells them "go have dinner !"

I find this guy pretty annoying (and I think Kunz would agree with me); except that sometimes he reminds of John Hodgman (the PC guy, from Mac vs PC Apple ads)

I'm fairly sure the "go have dinner" was a jab at Kunz, who wasn't exactly letting himself be interviewed all that well and came off as pompous.

I thought it was amusing that Kunz said the reason he chose the "Lomax", as did most other people, was that it was easy to learn. Ironically, the blind pianist, Tsujii, is the only one who chose John Musto's Improvisation and Fugue, which sounds like an absolute pain to sight-read, I can only imagine even worse to have to memorize and learn by ear.

Kunz didn't same to put much weight on the "Lomax". Same with the Chamber performance. Someone on a blog said that maybe Kunz was just relying on good sight-reading ability to "coast" through parts of the competition he didn't care that much about.

Musto's Improvisation and Fugue sounds even better than Bates's White Lie to me. Tsujii was incredible playing it with everything memorized.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who thought that...

Wow, Lifits isn't through with the Liszt Sonata yet and already I don't want to hear anything else from him. I know, that's harsh, but I've never been so bored by a performance. Now he's dropping notes like crazy in the fugue while I'm typing.

the problem was that he didn't always ask right questions, especially when the pianist was exhausted from performing and had to answer some stupid questions. i wouldn't want any interview at all if i were any competitor there.

Lifts has some lovely slow moments with Liszt, but anything else seems falling apart.