Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Changes coming to the Leeds Piano Competition

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/arts/music/leeds-piano-competition.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront

These changes definitely seem like a step forward. It might make the first round taking place across the world less prestigious, and considered a "prelim" to get into the real competition, but I see a lot more positives from this change. I'm really looking forward to seeing who moves on.

I also found it extremely interesting to hear that "performers have to put together a recital program with a written explanation of the thinking behind it." I wonder if the public gets to see these explanations. I would be really interested to hear what the contestants have to say!

PS Please please! take the effort to make these clickable links

It's about time the Leeds is streamed live, like the other major (and not-so-major) competitions.

Here is a clickable link to the article cited in the OP.

Fanny Waterman and her friend Marion Lascelles were a formidable duo, and as long as they were involved in / running the competition, it was going to be done their way, with absolutely zero room for compromise whatsoever. I just can't see her agreeing to live streaming. It was hard enough to get her to agree to TV coverage.

I like the changes they are talking about in regards to reducing the cut-throat feel of competitions. I have attended several of the big ones and been friends with many competing, and it was pretty much always viewed as, at the very, least a super-stressful experience - and more often than not an outright negative one.

Anything they can do to give pianists more performance and learning opportunities is a good thing.

Leeds relies on the goodwill of much of the amateur musician population in and around the city who own good pianos to house the competitors during the competition. So, they get to practice in nice homes, away from the hothouse atmosphere of the performing venue (Leeds Town Hall), and are well-fed and looked after. In return, their hosts get to hear up & coming (and established) concert pianists playing music at the highest standards on their pianos - not to mention sharing their highs and lows as they keep progressing (or not.....).

Fanny Waterman had been the driving force of the Leeds since she started the competition with Marion over half a century ago. Is there any other music competition which has had such consistent leadership over such a long period of time? It would be interesting to see where Paul Lewis takes it. It definitely needs more worldwide media exposure, in a world where yesterday's news is old hat. I'm surprise that Waterman didn't want TV coverage, if Fareham is right. She isn't shy of coming on TV to talk about the competition, as in this BBC TV documentary shown before the Leeds 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spsO9DM-v_M

A good friend of mine was a programme manager seconded from Radio4 to BBC2, and Fanny Waterman was insistant that she didn't want cameras whirring and moving round the place during recitals, distracting the judges and performers. She was apparently fairly amenable to microphones as long as they were discreetly located (this was around the time I was at University 1969-72). After further representations and with the advent of ever more TV channels, she must have had her mind changed, and doubtless embraces the opportunities these days.

It is, https://leedspiano2018.medici.tv/

The concerto finals are in four hours' time, and from what I heard in the semi-finals, the American Eric Lu (20) who won the 4th prize in the last Chopin Competition, is the hot favorite.

He's playing Beethoven's 4th on Saturday - in fact, the last of the five finalists to perform.

No Rach or Tchaik, and only one Prok........

They have to prepare and submit the names of two concerti and then perform the one chosen for them (yes?)

Yes - maybe that's why there are hardly any big Russian warhorses among them, and heavily skewed towards Classical, unlike almost every other competition.

The first pianist (who played K491) gave Prok 2 as his other choice.

In Barenboim's '5 Minutes On Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata', he said the sonata was played " ... in his youth, every second concert, now as if people are little tired of it, it's not so often played ...".


Maybe something similar is happening here?

I think that a different jury would have chosen completely different concertos for the finals. (Eric Lu's other choice is Chopin, for instance).

There are two students of Brendel (both steeped in the Viennese classics) in the jury, and we also know what Brendel thinks of the Russian warhorses........

I'm presently listening to BBC Radio 3's live coverage of the finals, where the result is about to be announced in the next half hour or so.

Apparently, Leeds has been transformed into a piano city for the occasion, with 'pop-up' concerts and free twenty-minute piano lessons given by various competitors and members of the jury to anyone who dropped in off the street - including complete beginners who'd never touched a piano before as well as lapsed pianists who once learnt as kids.

Paul Lewis gave a concert on a digital piano in the "world's smallest concert hall" (a shipping container, apparently), and there are several pianos placed all around the city for anyone to play, including the train station - where a well-known British comedian played La cathédrale engloutie and a Gershwin prelude, a BBC newsreader and amateur pianist confessed that she suffered too much from stage fright to play in public, and an ex-politican played Bach.

Hmmm, I don't suppose Warsaw or Moscow - or Fort Worth - go for that sort of thing during their respective competitions......

BTW, where do you see that?

I remember it was not so long ago people tried to collect every single Rach 3 recordings and also tried to rank them. Same with the Chopin Etudes.

From BBC Radio 3's commentators - you might be able to access it via www.bbc.co.uk/radio3

I wonder where Xinyuan Wang got his British (?) accent from??

Kudos to Eric Lu, first prize winner of 2018 Leeds! I caught his rendition of the Beethoven No. 4, very well played. No surprise that he won the orchestra prize as well. And his playing of the Chopin Ballade No. 4 was mesmerizing in the earlier rounds as well.

And a shout out to 2nd place winner Mario Haring, who gave an outstanding account of the Beethoven No. 1, replete with the right hand glissandi prior to the recapitulation in the 1st movement. His scale work was faultless and he had great frisson connection with conductor Edward Gardner. The looks exchanged between the two at the end of the sublime 2nd movement says it all:
https://leedspiano018.medici.tv/replay/final-with-mario-h%C3%A4ring/

He also won the chamber prize for his account of the Beethoven Cello Sonata, Op. 69, with guest cellist Bjorg Lewis.
A 28 year old pianist of German/Japanese descent, he has great stage presence, charisma and handsome, runway model looks.

Hope he has an established and fruitful career.