Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner 16th Tchaikovsky Competition

Not to mention that the commissioned work is given to the finalists only AFTER the semis are over. Meaning that they have about ten days to get it ready for performance. It's a fascinating idea, and I wonder why more competitions aren't trying something similar. This sort of time limitation shows what a pianist can and cannot manage out in the real world, where it's not unheard of to learn pieces in short time. A note on Queen Elizabeth in that regard: in the last one, Alberto Ferro MEMORIZED the commissioned concerto piece.

I noticed that this is a male dominant piano competition, both the jury and the competitors.

Ovnchinnikov shaking his head after Gadjiev's Tchaikovsky variations.

Here are the piano scores 😅
12 Steinway
8 Yamaha
2 fazioli
2 yangxi river
1 shigeru

Interesting...

In the competition only 2 out of 25 are female. I don't know what's typical for this competition or other competitions but my guess is few are as one sided as this year's Tchaikovsky.

Heard the last part of Alexandre Kantorow, which was played well on a Shigeru Kawai.

I don't know much about him, how was the rest of the program?

Steinway is hosting the Medici live cast on their site (and it seems to work better from there).

https://www.steinway.com/news/featu...iMbaHnqLK_PqPHc-q1o5SrR6gGWC7UqWzib6rQFc

Mighty fine Mozart from Mao Fujita (Sonata in C Major, K. 330)!

I like Fujita's music!

Little activity here today. Any particular performances today that stood out? The little I heard of Kantorow was very interesting. Curious to hear more of him. Heard most of Gugnin's round which kept my attention until Liszt - clear and distinct voicing in Bach, and great control in Beethoven. The leggerio left hand and little pedal in the normally pedal-drenched opening theme of the rondo theme was a tad unusual but interesting. In Liszt he had a small but noticeable memory slip and things didn't go as well for the rest of that Etude, and on top of that, he cheats in a difficult octave passage towards the end. Nevertheless, excellent pianism as expected otherwise. The Liszt was one of few obviously virtuosic pieces in that program (the other Etudes weren't), so let's see what the jury ruling will be.

There is an active discussion going on over on the Pinano Discord server on this competition. I loved Fujita's Mozart albeit his animated facial expressions reminded me of Lang Lang-. The standing ovation was well deserved.

Gugnin's Liszt was disappointing but I really liked his op25#1 even though I agree it is a technically easy piece he played it quite beautifully.

Some highlights today based on what I had time to watch:

Gugnin - excellent and thoughtful. I agree with Martin about the pedaling in the Beethoven (could have used more) and the issues with Liszt, too. It wasn't a gigantic memory lapse, he just repeated a passage and got right back on. On the other hand, I thought his Dumka was the best of those offered so far. I hope he passes because of his great musicianship, but others did play more consistently than he did.

Tarasevich-Nikolaev - solid from start to finish, and it was nice to hear some Mozart for a change (even if he looked a little dour while playing it). The etudes were all excellent.

Yashkin - finally an Appassionata that delivered! No slowing down in hard passages, lots of intensity, no faking.

Kopachevsky - solid, but it didn't really thrill me. The Haydn was nice, though.

Mao Fujita - awesome! He nailed the hardest Book I P/F and had s great spirit about everything else in his playing. A very nice breath of fresh air.

Another note - it's nice to see Ovchinnikov enjoying himself as he listens to the contestants. Heartwarming in this supremely stressful environment.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the Dumka, agreed, very well thought out. Getting *slightly* tired of hearing the da-da-DA-DA-DA section by now, but hey, this is the Tchaikovsky competition and we've all signed up on hearing heaps of Dumka's in the first round. Btw, Shishkin's Tchai choice seemed rather refreshing to my ears!

Do the rules stipulate starting with Bach + Classical sonata? Haven't listened to everyone but that seems to be what everyone is doing? And the Etudes seem to be more or less in the same order, right? (Chopin-Liszt-Rach) As I said, haven't heard everyone but that seems to be the pattern. They've decided to be rigid all the way, it seems. I do understand that there are merits to this approach, just pointing it out, and...it's generally difficult to make an artistically interesting whole out of this. But that's the normal story with first rounds. Many pianists dread them, me included.

Just listened to Fujita and was quite impressed. His Bach crisp, rhythmic and clean and Mozart beautifully phrased and played. He is clearly a major contender here.

I absolutely hate the Dumka probably as much as I hate Islamey but enjoyed his performance. You also would think that the audience would know when to clap at the end by now!

Looking forward to tomorrow for Kenny Broberg and Malofeev. The solid ones for me now are Yemelvanov, Shishkin, Fujita, Tarasevich-Nikolayev, Mun, and Yashkin.

Pinano Discord admin here. Sorry to everybody who tried to join earlier today and got interrogated by our rather zealous automated security guard. (In truth, we had a banned user create an absurd number of alt accounts a few months ago which tried the patience of all the moderation staff and we haven't turned off the alt-ID bot since.) We're having some lively discussion during the performances, hope you can join and I promise the bot won't bite again.

My thoughts so far: Yemelvanov, Shishkin and Fujita have sounded the most convincing so far - especially Shishkin, for me.