Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner 2009 Van Cliburn Competition Megathread

Maybe he'll play the 3rd movement like Gould.

be proud of your country man and what he has done so far in the competition! i know my teacher would be too, in spite of B's mistakes. there're more people talking about him than about anyone else in the Cliburn.

Two orchestras might help fatigue but the main problem is lack of rehearsal time, and I don't think this would help. More importantly, I'm sure the Cliburn has given all these possibilities literally thousands of hours of thought over the past 40 years.

i don't like this Liszt that much. feel something is not quite there.

His performance was fine, but somewhat lackluster.

Tsukii recital...

Beethoven Appasionata - fairly typical interpretation, very cleanly executed.

Chopin Berceuse - quite beautifully rendered... imageries of sappy anime scenes kept popping into my head as I listened.

Liszt HR-2 - seems a bit rushed in the opening, was hoping for more cheesy sort of interpretation, more dramatic changes of tempi... but he seem to be getting better as the music enters the more Tom & Jerry bit... oy, then he got bit sloppy as speed picked up. OK, the piece ended. Still think it could have used more bravado, more drama.

yeah, note wise very good. but something is missing.

It was all right. Not spectacular, but all right. Don't forget this is one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire!

People who know Richard Kastle will get this joke. *cough*

What's missing is that since he cannot see the keys, he has to feel for them, and that sort of precludes much bravura display.

Now that the recitals are done, Bozhanov still leads the pack in my view.

Really? Based on just the recitals? Because his concerto last night struck me as pretty immature (maybe excluding the 2nd movement).c

Matt

Yeah, my view is

1 Bozhanov,
2 Vocatello,
3 Wu

And I'm not basing that just on the recitals, I just was noting that all the recitals are now done.

Unfortunately I'll have to wait for the link. A storm just passed through and knocked out my computer for his recital. But remember, it was the just the last run that was the most difficult piano part.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

i heard that the final ranking will include the previous 2 rounds. so, does anyone know how they score each finalist after all is done?

Zhang is impressive. Can't believe he's only 19.

Is anyone else noticing a lot of noise in the live feed?

Zhang's Prok 2...

It's a damned good performance. I've got nothing to criticize.
No lack of excitement at all

Just feel it a bit unfair that he had to come after Vacatello's Prok 3.

I think I would have written more glowingly about Zhang's Prok 2 had I not listened to Vacatello's Prok 3 first.

EDIT to add: OK, there's something that Zhang's Prok 2 did better than Vacatello's Prok 3 - Zhang's Prok 2 sync'ed better with the orchestra. Yay!

someone seems saying that he's always note perfect. he does have great techniques and high precision, which is his advantage.

Zhang is a hummer, á la Gould.