Cliburn Final Round, Fourth Concert: Vadym Kholodenko, Tomoki Sakata, Sean Chen

Beatrice Rana, Vadym Kholodenko, Sean Chen
Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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If you’ve been following the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, you know that yesterday (Sunday, June 9th) the big three awards went to Vadym Kholodenko from the Ukraine (gold), Beatrice Rana from Italy (silver) and Sean Chen from the USA (crystal). I’m happy with that, in part because I feel they deserved their awards and in part because the judges’ ranking exactly mirrors my own. Alas, I didn’t have enough confidence in mine to make it public beforehand (via Twitter I predicted in advance that the those three contestants would get medals without specifying which ones) so I can’t claim bragging rights for my prediction.

It probably doesn’t matter now, but here are my thoughts on the fourth and last final round concert with the Fort Worth Symphony under Leonard Slaktin, which concluded yesterday at 5:30 PM. I didn’t have time to post anything yesterday since the awards ceremony and reception started at 7 and I had to walk back to the hotel to change into my suit.

Mr. Kohlodenko opened with a very neat Mozart Concerto No. 21 (once known as the “Elvira Madigan” after a popular 1960s film that made extensive use of the second movement). It was stylistically on target, smoothly played, and featured two cadenzas that Mr. Kohlodenko wrote on the flight to Fort Worth. The first one had some impressive fugal passages and showed off Mr. Kholodenko’s abilities without being overly flashy. As in his Prokofiev 3rd Friday night, Mr. Kholodenko’s concentration and involvement with the music were unshakable.

Tomoki Sakata (the youngest finalist, at age 19) had some rather unfortunate episodes during a generally decent Tchaikovsky 1st. Some were his fault (flubbed and/or smeared notes) but some (apparently) were Mr. Slatkin’s (most noticeably a botched entry by the trombones in the first movement). The orchestra also played less well, to my ears, than it had for other soloists. They just did the Tchaikovsky back in February, so perhaps they overestimated their preparation.

Sean Chen brought everything to a rousing close with a Rachmaninov 3rd that had the crowd not just standing (which they did for every performance) but cheering loudly. Mr. Chen got five curtain calls and deserved every one. I had good things to say about Fei-Fei Dong’s Rach 3 on Thursday (a minority view among the critics, as far as I could see) but Mr. Chen’s was clearly the superior performance, with volcanic power and finesse—and none of the banging that showed up in his “Emperor” concerto Friday night.

If you want to see what the medalists looked and sounded like, by the way, the Cliburn organization is making all of the concerts (including the final four) available as on-demand video at their web site.

Cliburn Final Round, Third Concert: Nikita Mndoyants, Fei-Fei Dong, Beatrice Rana

Tonight was the third of the four concerts in the final round of the Cliburn Competition. All concerts feature the Fort Worth Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

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It occurs to me that I should note the large differences between the experience of a competition concert like the ones I’ve been reviewing for the last few days and the sort of concert one hears as part of the regular season of an established orchestra.

As Maestro Slatkin noted in his Friday morning symposium, Cliburn contestants are, in many cases, playing concerti that they might never have performed with a live orchestra before, so they might not be used to listening in quite the same way as an experienced concert performer.

Rehearsal time is much more limited for a competition as well. Mr. Slatkin has only one fifty-minute session with each pianist, which means there is barely enough time to run through the concerto once, much less do any polishing. Normally a visiting soloist will have a day or two to work with the orchestra and conductor. This means that competition performances are, inevitably, a bit “rough and ready.”

I try to take all that into account in my reviews. Ultimately, the question I ask myself is: did this performance work, musically and dramatically? If the soloist made a good case for his or her interpretation, I don’t think the occasional glitch really matters that much, as long as they’re neither large nor frequent enough to take me entirely “out of the moment.”

Saturday’s concert was, in my view, the strongest of the bunch so far.
Nikita Mndoyants (who made a bit of a hash of the Prokofiev 2nd Thursday night) gave us a very solid Mozart Concerto No. 20 in D Minor (K. 466). He didn’t appear to always observe the score’s dynamic markings and his second movement Romanze was a bit on the slow side, but overall he did what felt like a credible job to me.

In keeping with period performance practice, Mr. Mndoyants created his own cadenzas. They were more harmonically modern than anything a pianist would have improvised in Mozart’s day, of course, but the difference was not particularly jarring and I thought they worked well.

Fei-Fei Dong, blinged out in a striking cream and silver gown, gave us a somewhat idiosyncratic Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in G Major (Op. 58). Her entrance in the first movement was, perhaps, a bit too dolce to be effective and she added tempo variations to the second movement that felt a bit exaggerated to me. Still, it was a performance that radiated joy on her part, and that went a long way towards making it more acceptable than it might have been, at least for me.

Beatrice Rana gave what, in my view, was the best performance of the evening with a very exciting and (to my ears) precise Prokofiev Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (Op. 16). When Mr. Mndoyants did this Thursday, the result (as I wrote back then) felt monochromatic. Saturday, under Ms. Rana’s hands, it sounded like an entirely different concerto. She played with the tremendous power Prokofiev requires without ever descending into the “banging” that has marred some other contestants’ work. She was a human perpetual motion machine in the second movement scherzo and threw off the glissandos and arpeggios in the third movement with an easy grace that was impressive.

The orchestra played well throughout, as they have since Friday night.
The last concert of the final round is this afternoon (Sunday, June 9) at 3. It will feature Mozart’s 21st (once known as the “Elvira Madigan” concerto, after a film that made prominent use of the second movement) with Vadym Kholodenko, Tchaikovsky’s 1st (one of Van Cliburn’s signature pieces) with Tomoki Sakata, and Rachmaninov's 3rd (also a Cliburn specialty) with Sean Chen. The award ceremony takes place at 7, so I might not be able to post a review until tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Cliburn Final Round, Second Concert: Tomoki Sakata, Sean Chen, and Vadym Kholodenko

Tonight was the second of the four concerts in the final round of the Cliburn Competition. All concerts feature the Fort Worth Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

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The Friday concerts were marked by generally strong playing all the way around. Thursday night we had, in my estimation, two good performances and one disappointing one. Tonight we had two that were very good and one that was so outstanding I had to stop taking notes and just listen.

Tomoki Sakata (Japan) got things off to a fine start with a very persuasive Mozart Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466. Mr. Sakata and the orchestra adopted a brisk pace in the first movement that made the most of its drama (although his first entrance was a bit hesitant) and included a fine performance of the Beethoven cadenza. The second movement Romanze was elegantly played but a bit too slow for my taste and never quite took flight, but the final movement flowed along nicely. Overall it was a well-proportioned reading and neatly played.

Mr. Sakata is not a demonstrative performer (a rarity in this group, it seems), choosing to express himself entirely through his music.

Sean Chen (USA) took on the Beethoven Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major (Op. 73), known as the “Emperor.” His performance was marked by extreme dynamic contrasts and, at one point towards the end of the first movement, a bit of banging away at the keyboard that distorted his sound. For the most part, though, this approach worked well for him and enhanced the work’s grandeur. Tempi were a bit slow, but not so much so that the music ever lost energy, and the second movement (Adagio un poco mosso) was quite lovely. As with Mr. Sakata’s Mozart, this was not a flawless performance, but quite a fine one nevertheless.

Unlike Mr. Sakata, Mr. Chen is not shy about playing to the audience. This is neither good nor bad as long as it serves the music, which (mostly), it did.

Judging from his Prokofiev Concerto No. 3 in C Major (Op. 26), Vadym Kholodenko (Ukraine) is a powerhouse of a pianist who is also capable of great delicacy. His concentration was intense and he seemed to be entirely caught up in the music. The Prokofiev 3rd is the music of youth, with ample wit, nose-thumbing cheer, and some ridiculously difficult writing for the soloist, especially in the final movement. Mr. Kholodenko captured all of that, and did it with precision and flare. There seemed to me to be a real joy in his playing that communicated itself to the highly appreciative audience. It certainly won me over.

The third concert of the final round is tomorrow night (Saturday, June 8). It will feature Mozart’s 20th again (with Nikita Mndoyants), Beethoven’s 4th (Fei-Fei Dong), and Prokofiev’s 2nd (Beatrice Rana; I’m very much looking forward to that one).

The Cliburn Report 16: The Impresario

Leonard Slatkin conducts the
Prokofiev 2nd with Nikita Mndoyants
Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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Not all the important events at the Cliburn Competition involve making music; some of them involve talking about it. This morning’s event, for instance, was a free public symposium with Leonard Slatkin, hosted by Fred Child of PRI’s Performance Today (which will broadcast a performance by the gold medal winner on Monday, June 10). Mr. Slatkin is a familiar and much-loved figure in St. Louis, of course, since he led the symphony here for many years. He’s also conducting the Fort Worth Symphony for the final round concerts and had some interesting insights on that process.

Mr. Slatkin has expressed some skepticism about competitions in the past, once noting that he normally avoids “this display of music as sport,” but observed this morning that competitions can still offer opportunities for performers and producers alike by focusing attention of promising artists. In the case of the Cliburn, he was moved to participate in part by a personal appeal from the late Mr. Cliburn himself.

Asked if he has any advice for competitors, Mr. Slatkin said they should always try to satisfy themselves first rather than try to second-guess judges. Ask how you can best grown within yourself, he noted, and everything else will follow.

Mr. Slatkin recounted a number of fascinating and funny anecdotes from his years growing up in a Hollywood musical family. His parents played for film orchestras, his father conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and his uncle provided the piano tracks for many films, including the classic Warner Brothers cartoon sting to “That’s All, Folks”. As my fellow St. Louis residents will recall, Mr. Slatkin is quite the raconteur. I won’t attempt to repeat them here, as I couldn’t do it nearly as well. Fortunately, the Cliburn folks recorded the whole thing and will be streaming it at their web site.

Returning to the competition, Mr. Slatkin noted that conducting for the final round is a somewhat thankless task. He only gets fifty minutes rehearsal with each pianist. Since the concerti themselves are usually over thirty minutes long, this means he’s usually calling out directions to the pianist and orchestra while they’re rehearsing. He see establishing rapport with the orchestra and supporting the soloist (who might not have ever had a chance to hear his or her piece played by a live orchestra) as his primary task. They’re called concertos for piano and orchestra, not orchestra and piano, he noted.

Mr. Child pointed out that in concert last night, Mr. Slatkin’s gestures were economical but that his face spoke volumes and asked why he decided to work without a baton. The answer: he forgot to bring it (a reminder of the influence of chance on art, I think).

This led to a discussion of the changing role of the conductor. Mr. Slatkin feels the end of the era of the conductor as autocrat is a good thing and feels the relationship should be more collaborative, as it generally is now.

Mr. Child put Mr. Slatkin on the spot a bit by asking if he would offer the gold medalist an engagement with one of the orchestras he conducts. His response: no, but there are one or two finalists (whom, of course, he could not name) who might get an offer.

Asked about how he listens to music, Mr. Slatkin said that he always asks why a performer has made a particular decision, as this tells you a great deal about the performer’s intent. He asks the same question of his own decisions. If you can’t answer that question, he said, it suggests you haven’t really thought through the piece you’re performing.

Asked about his attitude towards YouTube, social media, and related phenomena, Mr. Slatkin said that while piracy—making money from someone else’s work without their permission—is always wrong, he doesn’t see any problem with making audio or video recordings of performances available for free. He noted that the Detroit Symphony streams all their concerts live and, rather than reduce their audience, it has actually increased it.

This segued into a discussion of the dire straits in which many orchestras now find themselves and possible remedies. Mr. Slatkin feels strongly that community involvement and musical education are the keys. If a community values its arts institutions, it will find ways to support them. He acknowledged that this is not always easy, but it is nevertheless essential.

Regarding the inclusion of new music on programs, he feels this is a good thing, but also feels that orchestras should not allow this to crowd out the classic American composers of the 20th century such as Ives, Schumann, Harris and the like.

Asked about how he feels conducting works that have already been recorded by their composers, Mr. Slatkin noted that most composers are lousy conductors and not always the best advocates for their own music. Works of music are living things, and there is no one “perfect” performance of anything.

Tomorrow’s morning symposium will be with the competition judges. Expect some interesting questions at that one.

Cliburn Final Round, First Concert: Beatrice Rana, Nikita Mndoyants, Fei-Fei Dong

Tonight was the first of the four concerts that make up the final round of the Cliburn Competition. All concerts feature the Fort Worth Symphony conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

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Beatrice Rana (Italy) got things off to a lovely start with a nimble, elegant, and beautifully executed performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C Minor, Op. 37. This is a work full of drama, lyricism, and good cheer—all of which were present in abundance in Ms. Rana’s thoughtful and impeccably executed reading. Her communication with Mr. Slatkin was good and she was clearly very much “in the moment” at every point. If she does as well with her Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor (Op. 16) on Saturday, she could be a real contender for a medal.

Speaking of the Prokofiev 2nd, Nikita Mndoyants (Russia) seemed to be having problems with his performance of it tonight—somewhat surprising, given the generally good notices he got in his preliminary and semi-final round work. He did capture much of the concerto’s grotesque humor, especially in the second movement, but was clearly working hard all the way through. Jeff Dunn, a fellow critic who is intimately familiar with the work, felt that Mr. Mndoyants was over his head technically—which might explain why the performance felt rather monochromatic to me. It was still fascinating to see, as Prokofiev’s concerti always are, but to my mind true virtuosity should never appear as difficult as it actually is. Like Fred Astaire’s dancing, it should seem effortless when, in fact, it’s just the opposite.

Fei-Fei Dong (China) concluded the evening with a Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor (Op. 30), that really rocked the house. You wouldn’t think the diminutive pianist could generate that much power (and, in fact, she actually rose from the bench once or twice for a little extra muscle), but she took everything Rachmaninov could throw at her and made it not only rock but sing. Her entrance in the second movement lacked just a bit of the hallucinatory quality that I associate with that section, but otherwise this was another potentially prize-winning performance. Like Ms. Rana, she was obviously listening closely to the orchestra and paying close attention to Mr. Slatkin throughout.

Watching these concerts is a rather unusual experience, by the way.  The Cliburn is streaming them live at their web site, so there are multiple video cameras capturing everything.  The video stream is also shown on a large screen suspended above the stage, so everyone can get close-up views of the pianist's face and hands, as well as of Mr. Slatkin and the orchestra.  The massive boom-mounted camera suspended above the stage—the one used for the panning shots—can be a bit distracting at first, but I soon learned to ignore it.

Bass Hall has excellent acoustics, by the way, so you can also hear every note with great clarity.

The Cliburn Report 15: The Yellow Rose of Texas

Twin Gabriels flanking the
entrance to Bass Hall

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It’s now the afternoon of my first day here in Fort Worth, Texas, for the finals of the Cliburn Competition. I haven’t heard a single note yet (the first final round concert isn’t until tonight), but it has already been an interesting experience.

It started with the party at the Fort Worth Zoo thrown by the Cliburn for visiting media, contestants, and local host families, backers, and other prominent folks. It was pure Texas—big, elaborate, and loud. We were picked up at the hotel by the kind of high-end party bus usually reserved for rock stars and the like, with comfy swivel chairs, a kitchen, and big-screen TVs (which I quickly figured out how to mute, to the relief of everyone in the bus) and whisked to the zoo, which as closed down for the party. There was an open bar, plenty of Texas-style food (jalapeno beans, mac and cheese, port sliders, hamburger-style sliders, and the like), a live country band and line dancers. Welcome to the Lone Star State, y’all.

Today there was a critics symposium hosted by Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News and featuring some of my fellow critics from the Music Critics Association of North America. Since most of the panelists were from the print media world, the discussion largely focused on the dilemma of print media in the digital age and the ways in which this was changing the role of the critic. It was suggested at one point that the very role of the critic might be an artifact of a time when it was possible to write longer pieces and take more time with them. I’m not so sure that’s true—we have no length limitations on what we write for KDHX’s on line presence, for example—but there’s no denying that the interweb tends to favor those who publish early and often vs. those who take time to consider.

There was general agreement that the role of the critic is changing, though, and that these days it often includes the role of arts advocate.

In a subsequent private meeting among the MCANA members, the discussion turned towards issues specific to musical competitions and their relevance (or lack of same) in the broader musical world. The consensus was that the career path for a concert pianist is not, perhaps, what it once was, and that in any event the judges at competitions like the Cliburn are no more capable of predicting the future than the rest of us. There were discussions of the pros and cons of open vs. pre-selected repertoire for contestants, the value of having a mandatory commissioned new work (as there was this season), and the degree to which the conductor can make or break contestants in the final concerto round.

I wouldn’t say there was widespread agreement on much of anything (this was, after all, a group of critics….) but the talk was lively and filled with amusing anecdotes from our resident Canadian, William Littler.

For now it’s on to a dinner at Reata courtesy of the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau, followed by concerto round 1 with the Fort Worth Symphony and Leonard Slatkin at Bass Hall.

The Cliburn Report 14: 40 Great Unclaimed Melodies

[Thanks to The Firesign Theatre for the title of this post. If you haven’t heard the hilarious 1970 sketch in question, you owe it to your sense of humor to check it out. Some of you may even be old enough to remember the commercial—featuring Jack Benny’s long-time announcer Don Wilson—that inspired it.]

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[Note: this has been corrected based on information obtained from tinyurl.com/cliburn2013rep; viz. the anonymous comment]

"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Silver Blaze”

“I would while away the hours / Conversin’ with the flowers,” but instead I chose to devote the time spent in transit to the finals of the Cliburn International Piano Competition noting the musical canines that were silent, or very nearly so—that is, composers whose work was poorly represented or entirely absent during the three rounds of preliminary and semi-final recitals.

Let’s start with the dogs that didn’t bark at all.

One of only two known
photos of Alkan

Charles Valentin Alkan – Not a household name but certainly known among pianists. Granted, most of his stuff is fiercely difficult, but somebody could have taken on (say) Aesop’s Feast, the Sonatine, or the Barcarolle (with its prescient “blue” notes)—any of which would have been well within the capabilities of these technically proficient pianists. Besides, none of them appeared to shy away from technical challenges; Stravinsky’s thorny Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka was heard often as were works by Liszt (including 11 of the Transcendental Études by Vadym Kholodenko).

And, speaking of Stravinsky, the Pétrouchka suite was the only work of his on the bill.

François Couperin – Yes, he wrote for the harpsichord and organ rather than the piano, but so did Bach and that didn’t keep him off the program (although he didn’t appear that often either; three performances including a Siloti transcription).

John Field – Nothing from the inventor of the nocturne. In fact, no nocturnes at all. Maybe everyone was afraid of putting the audience to sleep?

George Gershwin – He's marginal in this context, perhaps, but surely his Preludes would have made an interesting addition.

Charles Ives

Charles Ives – Ives only wrote two piano sonatas, but they’re amazing pieces—and would surely have been appropriate for a competition held in America. Indeed, American composers were poorly represented in general.

Dimitri Shostakovich – Granted, Shostakovich might not be as well known for his piano works as Prokofiev (see below), but his Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues are real gems. It would have been nice to see a few performed.

These dogs, meanwhile, barked so little you could easily have missed them.

Albèniz – A prolific and popular composer for the piano, he’s represented only by Book 2 of Iberia (Tomoki Sakata)

Bartok – Again, a composer well known for his piano works, but represented by only three performances: the 1926 Sonata (Luca Burrato), the Étude, op. 18, no. 3 (Alexy Chernov), and Out of Doors (Beatrice Rana).

Grieg – Another prolific and popular composer of piano miniatures and one massively popular concerto, Grieg is represented by a whopping total of three pieces (two waltzes and a valse-impromptu, Alexey Chernov). I find this odd, to say the least. Is it because most of his work doesn’t offer the kinds of opportunities for flash that one finds in the work of (say) Liszt (who is very well represented)? Or has he simply fallen out of fashion?

Mendelssohn – Only three works: the Fantasy in F-sharp Minor, op. 28 (Scottish Sonata), the Sonata no. 3 in B-flat Major, op. 106, and Variations serieuses, op. 54.

Schubert – Only two Schubert works (if you count the Drei Klavierstücke as one piece, which I am)? Seriously? And not even major works at that: Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, D. 718 (Alessandro Deljavan) and Drei Klavierstücke, D. 946 (Claire Huangci). Truly a head scratcher.

Liszt by Lehmann

So who is well represented? Well, after Liszt, the biggies were Chopin, Schumann, Beethoven (including the challenging “Hammerklavier” sonata), Brahms, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev.

Ravel looks to be well represented—sixteen performances—but those performances covered only five works including the multiples of Gaspard de la nuit. Still, they’re major works, so maybe that’s not a big deal.

What, if anything, does this mean? The Cliburn and other competitions have been criticized for encouraging safe repertoire and performance choices—a kind of reversion to the mean, in which idiosyncrasies are weeded out. I didn’t see enough of the preliminary and semi-final rounds to comment on the performance side, but it certainly does appear that, given the ability to choose their own music, contestants tend to go with the tried and true. What do you think?

The Cliburn Report 13: Les Six

Leonard Slatkin

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After two three rounds of recitals and one round of piano quintets (with the Brentano String Quartet), the group of thirty Van Cliburn International Piano Competition contestants has finally been narrowed down to six finalists. This Thursday through Sunday, each of them will play two concertos with the Fort Worth Symphony conducted by former St. Louis Symphony music director Leonard Slatkin.

I’ll be covering the final round from Fort Worth as part of a delegation from the Music Critics Association of North America. Meanwhile, here’s a list of the finalists along with the concerti each will play.

Sean Chen (24, USA)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, op. 73
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, op. 30

Fei-Fei Dong (22, China)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, op. 58
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, op. 30

Vadym Kholodenko (26, Ukraine)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, op. 26

Nikita Mndoyants (24, Russia)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, op. 16

Beatrice Rana (20, Italy)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, op. 37
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, op. 16

Tomoki Sakata (19, Japan)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466
Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, op. 23

And for those of you who like details, here’s the Cliburn jury handbook, courtesy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Cliburn Report 12: The Unanswered Question

[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

Cliburn in Moscow in 1958

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The semifinal round of performances, in which recitals will alternate with piano quintet performances, runs through tomorrow (June 4th), at which point each one of the dozen semifinalists will have done one of each and the six finalists will be announced.

By that time each of those finalists will have played three 45-minute recitals and performed a piano quintet with the Brentano String Quartet. Starting on Thursday the final round, in which each one of them will play two piano concertos with the Fort Worth Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, will commence. The winners are announced at a ceremony on Sunday evening, followed by a black tie party at the Worthington Hotel.

It’s a punishing schedule and raises an interesting (and ultimately unanswerable) question: if he were alive today, could the 23-year-old Van Cliburn, who took the world by storm when he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, win the competition that carries his name?

The evidence is ambiguous and scanty. Looking at the works Cliburn played in concert and on record, he was clearly at his strongest in the romantic Russian repertoire. His 1958 Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with Kirill Kondrashin and the Symphony of the Air is legendary. As cited in Joseph Horowitz’s 1990 The Ivory Trade, Aram Khachaturian called Cliburn’s performance “better than Rachmaninoff’s; you find a virtuoso like this once in a century.” Cliburn’s subsequent Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 went platinum—the first classical LP to do so.

Outside of the Russian romantics, though, he fared less well. Here’s how Mr. Horowitz describes the situation:

Cliburn’s recordings add contradictory impressions. He never made another as ardent as his 1958 Rachmaninoff Third—unless it was the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata, also recorded in concert, in Moscow in 1960. In American studios, he recorded sixteen concertos eleven sonatas, and a variety of shorter solo works. Here, the Cliburn imprint remains sonorous and expansive. He majestically sweeps through his “Favorite Encores”—by Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann/Liszt—in love with their stormy rhetoric. Elsewhere, the lustrous sheen and monumental architecture attain a sort of embalmed perfection.

Fei-Fei Dong

Cliburn also had no interest at all in chamber music. Add that to his limited musical interests, and one wonders how we would fare today in a competition that demands a variety in repertoire, including the piano quintet. Would he ever make it to that final round? One wonders.

Meanwhile, back at the competition, a bit of controversy has spring up around the revelation that Yoheved “Veda” Kaplinsky, the teacher of competitor Fei-Fei Dong, is sitting on the Cliburn jury. And she’s not the only one. As Andrea Ahles reports in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram today, “Two of juror Arie Vardi’s students, Claire Huangci and Beatrice Rana, performed Saturday. Jury member Dmitri Alexeev’s student Nikita Abrosimov played Saturday, too. In all, nine of the 30 competitors who started the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition were current or former students of the individuals adjudicating it. Four of the jurors’ students advanced to the semifinal round, which started Saturday.”

This turns out to be far from unusual, not only at the Cliburn, but (as Ms. Alhes reports) at competitions in general:

Although it may seem like the world is filled with concert pianists and teachers who could adequately judge a piano competition, [former Cliburn chief Richard] Rodzinski said, there actually is a small pool of talent to draw on for contests at the highest levels. Therefore, he said, it would be impossible to eliminate teachers altogether from juries like the Cliburn’s or the Tchaikovsky’s.

“I think [the criticism of the Cliburn] is a little bit unfair,” Rodzinski said. “There are certain master teachers and obviously, Veda [Kaplinsky] is a master teacher. She’s also a wonderful juror.”

My feeling is that Mr. Rodzinski (son of the great conductor Artur Rodzinski) may be right. When it comes to competition-level pianists, teachers, and judges, “it’s a small world after all.”

The Cliburn Report 10: Luftpause

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

Well, the twelve semifinalists (pictured) have been chosen. Starting on June 1st, each will play one solo recital and one performance of a piano quintet with the Brentano String Quartet. The Cliburn folks have thoughtfully provided a complete schedule of the semifinal round along with a list of what each of the semifinalists will play.

Meanwhile, it seems that I missed a couple of important blogs in my last roundup. Allow me to correct that error now.

For some reason, I completely overlooked the Cliburn’s own competition blog. Since it’s a more or less official outlet, I have the sense (skimming a number of the posts) that “never is heard a discouraging word”, but even so it offers an interesting perspective. More of the posts are by Mike Winter, but there are also some contributions from “visiting German journalist” Christoph Hiller.

The Brentano String Quartet

TheaterJones, meanwhile, provides coverage that goes beyond Gregory Isaacs’s reviews of the recitals. Contributor Jan Farrington has been providing the blog equivalent of sports “color commentary” with backstage interviews, a look at the skilled Steinway piano technician team, and even an amusing look at competitors’ hair. You can see their complete Cliburn coverage here.

The Cliburn Report 9: It's getting very near the end

[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

Alessandro Taverna

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The preliminary round of the competition is just drawing to a close (the final recital will end today at 5:30 central USA time; just a half-hour away as this is being written) but it’s already apparent what some of the prizes will be. As reported today in the Waco Tribune, the Cliburn gold medalist will play a concert with the Waco Symphony on April 10, 2014. It’s just part of the gold medalist package, which includes three years of tours, recordings, and concert management.

Gregory Isaacs’s coverage for TheatreJones continues. His favorites from the first, second, and third Wednesday sessions were:

• Alessandro Taverna (29, Italy) – “He did a remarkable job and should get extra credit for programming music by composers of our own time.”
• Alessandro Deljavan (26, Italy) – “Originality is at a premium in today’s prepackaged and predigested world. Deljavan is a refreshing—and infuriating—example. Would that there were more like him.”
• Jayson Gillham (26, Australia/UK) – “Gillham appeared to be enjoying the entire experience, and that translated to the audience through the music-making.”

Alessandro Deljavan

Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News singled out only one contestant for uniform praise in his morning, afternoon, and evening reviews: Alessandro Deljavan. Mr. Cantrell described him as “the rare contestant who actually seems to enjoy himself.” All the others got notices that were, at best, mixed.

The Cliburn Report 8: Here, There, and Everywhere

Jade Simmons

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

I'm a bit late with this one, but I have an excuse:  I had to write up and record a review of the tour of Anything Goes that's playing the Fox Theatre locally.  That's the disadvantage of being both a music and theatre critic.

Anyway, I’ve been concentrating on mainstream media outlets so far, but I don’t want to give you the impression that the blogosphere isn’t paying attention to the competition as well. Here are  a couple of recent examples:

Chang Tou Liang’s Pianomania blog has been covering the competition at least as assiduously as mainstream critics Scott Cantreel and Gregory Isaacs (see below). It’s interesting to compare their picks with his.

I have mentioned the fine job pianist Jade Simmons has been doing as host of the Cliburn live webcast. Her Emerge Already! blog is worth a look (and listen—it includes audio blog entries).

Giuseppe Greco
Photo: Ralph Lauer

Back on the mainstream media beat, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram continues its daily photo coverage of the competition, including both performance and backstage pictures from day 6 (May 28th).

Gregory Isaacs’s coverage for TheatreJones continues. His favorites from the first, second, and third Tuesday sessions were:

• Nikita Mndoyants (24, Russia) – “The best word to describe his performance is ‘classy.’” Scott Cantrell liked Mr. Mndoyants’s Phase I recital quite a bit as well.
• Giuseppe Greco (23, Italy) – “Giuseppe Greco is an anomaly. He is a fine pianist with remarkable skills who played an excellent program, yet he doesn’t command the kind of attention that some of the other, equally talented, pianists seem to attract. It is hard to understand why this happens. However, in listening to him play his second round program, we were constantly reminded of what a fine pianist he is.”
• Oleksandr Poliykov (25, Ukraine) – “This was an exceptionally thoughtful performance” of Liszt’s arrangement of Isoldens Liebestod and Brahms’ Sonata No. 3 in F Minor, op. 5.
• Nikita Abrosimov (24, Russia) – The pianist’s program of 20th-century Russian music included Rachmaninov’s Prelude in D Major, No.4, which Mr. Isaacs called “the most beautiful single performance of the competition to date.”
• Vadym Kholodenko (26, Ukraine) – Mr. Isaacs was most taken with the Stravinsky’ Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka, a piece that has been popular with the contestants this year. “We have heard it played impeccably, note-wise,” he writes, “as did Kholodenko, but this was the first time the music came to life in all its delightful grotesquerie. He made faces, bounced on the bench in rhythm, hunched over, leaned into the instrument and generally had a grand time. He played the music, but he also played the intent, and that is a rare quality. Suddenly, this work stopped being an elaborate étude and became a piece of theater music.”

Oleksandr Poliykov
Photo: Ralph Lauer

Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News singled out the following contestants in his morning, afternoon, and evening reviews:

• Nikita Mndoyants – “Amid so much playing to impress, he again proved an unassuming, thoughtful musician.”
• Giuseppe Greco – “a serious contender for the semifinals”
• Oleksandr Poliykov - “opened the afternoon sessions with two of the competition’s most compelling performances so far.”
• Vadym Kholodenko – Mr. Cantrell echoes Mr. Isaacs’s praise, especially of the Pétrouchka scenes, which was “the first of five performances so far to suggest the wit, whimsy and sheer weirdness of Stravinsky’s original ballet.”

The Cliburn Report 7: Da Capo

Claire Huangci

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX.  Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

No matter where you stand on the question of the validity of piano competitions in general and The Cliburn in particular, you must admit that the folks behind the Fort Worth-based competition/festival are always looking for ways to improve it and raise public awareness of it (not necessarily the same thing).

This time around, for example, they have doubled the length of the preliminary round by allowing each contestant to perform two 45-minute recitals instead of one as they used to do.  It’s more work for the pianists and (especially) the jury, but it does give every performer a second chance.

François Dumont

For an example of the importance of that second chance, one needs look no farther than Claire Huangci (23, USA), who opened the Phase II preliminary session Monday afternoon.  As Gregory Isaacs notes in his TheaterJones review:

Her performance of excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty, in a virtuoso arrangement by the Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev, has surely caused the judges to reconsider her. Marquis said that the second recital might make up for an off day in the first round. In this case, it allowed Huangci to have a spectacular day after a good one. Also, it helped to make up for her falling, by luck of the draw, into the dreaded first position in the competition.

As it happens Ms. Huangci’s Sleeping Beauty suite was one of the few performances I’ve been able to catch on the Cliburn’s live webcast, and I heartily second Mr. Isaac’s comments.

Alex McDonald

Meanwhile, wall-to-wall coverage by Mr. Isaacs and Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News continues.  In addition to Ms. Huangci, Mr. Isaacs’s favorites from the first, second, and third Monday sessions were:

• François Dumont (27, France) – “His ability to switch musical styles was remarkable, from an understated Mozart to an explosive Chopin with a highly colored Gaspard in between.”
• Yury Favorin (26, Russia) – Another pianist who demonstrated facility in different musical styles (Schubert, Wagner as arranged by Liszt, and a contemporary work).
• Beatrice Rana (20, Italy) – “In my earlier review of Beatrice Rana, I commented that I heard remarks in the audience such as ‘here is a real artist.’ After today, we heard ‘she might be a winner.’”
• Alex McDonald (30, USA) – “[H]e turned in a wonderful performance, with some truly remarkable moments, that validated the trust many have in him.”  I watched the tail end of this one and was pretty much blown away by his bravura performance of Stravinsky’s Trois mouvements de Pétrouchka.

Mr. Cantrell's morning, afternoon, and evening reviews singled out:

• François Dumont – “awesome technical command—not merely speed and power but also fastidious clarification of gentle rustles and cascades.”
• Claire Huangci – “one of the most impressive performers in the first phase, got the second off to a fine start.”
• Beatrice Rana – “after a fairly generic recital Friday, thrust herself among the frontrunners Monday.”

By way of contrast, he named Mr. Favorin “most annoying player so far.”

And so it goes.

The Cliburn Report 6: First movement coda

Jayson Gillham
Photo: Ralph Lauer

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

As some of you may know, this is the first edition of the Cliburn in which the thirty semi-finalists are given a literal second chance to show their abilities as soloists. Previously, the field was cut from thirty to twelve after only one round of recitals. This year, each contestant gets to perform two forth-minute programs, beginning today. That’s a classic good news/bad news scenario, as Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Tim Madigan observes. “For all the positives,” he writes, “the new format has brought scheduling challenges and intensified the already grueling nature of the preliminary round. In past competitions, with just one recital per competitor, the preliminaries started to feel like a slog for the media and audience members committed to sitting for every note.”

Alexey Chernov
Photo: Ralph Lauer

Mr. Madigan also has a nicely balanced article on what winning the Cliburn does—and doesn’t—mean to a young pianist’s career. It’s well worth a read.

Dallas Morning News music critic Scott Cantrell continues his coverage of the competition with reviews of the Sunday evening recitals as well as the morning and afternoon performances at the paper’s arts blog.

The pianists he singles out for special praise this time are Jayson Gillham (26, Australia-U.K.), Alexey Chernov (30, Russia; “the most riveting contestant so far”), and Sara Daneshpour (26, U.S., who “gets the prize so far for the most ravishing playing”).

Sara Daneshpour
Photo: Ralph Lauer

Gregory Isaacs of the Music Critics Association of North America continues his more detailed coverage of the first, second and third rounds on Sunday at the TheaterJones site. He shares Mr. Cantrell’s enthusiasm for Jayson Gillham, Alexey Chernov, and Sara Daneshpour, but has positive things to say about many of the others as well.

Phase two of the preliminary round begins as I’m writing this today at 3 PM central. You can view the entire series live at cliburn.org, hosted with great charm by pianist Jade Simmons.

The Cliburn Report 5: Morning, Noon, and Night in Fort Worth

Nikolay Khozyaninov

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

Note-for-note coverage of Phase 1 of the preliminary round continues with Dallas Morning News music critic Scott Cantrell’s reviews of the Saturday afternoon and Saturday night recitals at the paper’s arts blog. None of his reviews are unqualified raves although his comments on Russia’s Nikolay Khozyaninov (age 20) include praise for his “pretty amazing performance of Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit.” He also singled out Italy’s Alessandro Taverna (age 29) for the way he “managed to find some surprises in that Cliburn cliché, the Three Movements from Stravinsky’s Petrushka.”

Lindsay Garritson

Meanwhile, my fellow member of the Music Critics Association of North America, Gregory Isaacs, continues his coverage of the first, second and third rounds on Saturday at the TheaterJones site. He has something positive to say about nearly everyone, but his favorites so far are Ukraine’s Oleksandr Poliykov (age 25; Mr. Isaacs loved his Pictures at an Exhibition); Taiwan’s Kuan-Ting Lin (21), who did well by Liszt; American Lindsay Garritson (25) whose performance of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83 earned a standing ovation; Nikolay Khozyaninov (he loved the pianist’s Ravel as much as Mr. Cantrell did); and Italy’s Alessandro Deljavan (27) whose outrageous stage persona (he grimaces and hums along, a la Glenn Gould) nevertheless appears to come with good musical judgment. “Weird facial expressions matter not a whit,” notes Mr. Isaacs, “and he received a standing ovation.”

The Cliburn Report 4: Morning Mood

Beatrice Rana

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking the best of the current press coverage for you dining and dancing pleasure.]

If you missed the first day of the Cliburn’s seven-day marathon of preliminary round recitals, never fear; the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has a huge photo gallery of the contestants in action, along with an article by Tim Madigan describing some contestant and audience reactions to opening day. Mr. Madigan isn’t doing any handicapping yet, but he did describe 20-year-old Italian pianist Beatrice Rana’s recital as “a highlight of the first day, particularly her exquisite sonata composed by Muzio Clementi…The piece featured slow, pianissimo passages requiring a delicate touch, interspersed with fast music that allowed Rana to showcase her speed and dexterity at the keyboard.”

Nikita Mndoyants

Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News, on the other hand, is doing mini-reviews of each recital. His Friday report is less enthusiastic about Ms. Rana than Mr. Madigan’s (although it’s still mostly positive). His praise of Russia’s Nikita Mndoyants and Italy’s Luca Buratto mostly mirror my own impressions from the webcast (although I’m less bothered by Mr. Buratto’s presentation eccentricities than he is). His blog coverage of this morning’s concert singles out Taiwan’s Kuan-Ting Lin as “one of the most impressive performers so far, sensitive to melodic shape and harmonic nuance,” although he also has praise for the Ukranian Oleksandr Poliykov.

My fellow Music Critics Assocaition of North America member Gregory Isaacs is also doing wall-to-wall Cliburn coverage at the TheaterJones site. The link will be updated as he adds more reviews, so it's worth a bookmark.

Finally, those of you wishing to escape the hype around the Cliburn (and competitions in general) might want to check out Brad Hill’s curmudgeonly (but thought provoking) article at Huffington Post. You may or may not agree with all of it, but I think you’ll have to admit he makes some telling points.

The Cliburn Report 3: Trial by Jury

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking highlights of the current press coverage for your dining and dancing pleasure.]

This is the second in the grueling seven-day marathon that is the preliminary round of the Cliburn competition. Each of the thirty contestants will perform two 45-minute recitals in front of a live audience in the 2,056-seat Bass Performance Hall, located in the city’s Modern Art Museum on Commerce Street, and for a world-wide audience via the Cliburn Foundation’s professionally-produced live webcast at cliburn.org.

The concerts start at 11:00 AM and run, with two 90-minute intermissions, until after 10 PM each day. It’s a killer schedule that reminds me of nothing so much as the old “continuous vaudeville” shows of a century ago.

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term (i.e. pretty much anyone who hasn’t made a study of the Vaudeville era), “continuous vaudeville” was an arrangement devised by producer Benjamin Franklin Keith in the early years of the 20th century whereby vaudeville theatres were kept open for twelve hours per day, with entertainment being offered continuously. The same bill of acts would cycle three of four times, with audience members coming and going at will. As Rick Easton notes in his on-line vaudeville history site, “[t]he continuous provided the illusion of a constant and thriving business, eliminating what Keith saw as ‘hesitancy’ on the part of patrons to enter the theatre until they were ‘reassured by numbers.’” It was a great deal for Keith; less so for his acts, who had time to do little else than perform and (maybe) sleep.

The Cliburn’s schedule may not be as punishing to performers as Keith’s was, but it seems to me that it must be every bit as hard on a group that’s equally as critical to the competition: the judges. They’re obliged to not just listen to almost eight hours of recitals per day but to listen attentively as well—a daunting task, to say the least. In his backstage look at the 1989 Cliburn, The Ivory Trade, Joseph Horowitz neatly summarizes the hazards of such a schedule: “Impressions, sharp at first, blur and refocus intermittently. The mind wanders. The ears tire.”

John Giordano

And yet listen they must, and with care. When the preliminary round is over, they’ll have to vote to advance twelve of the thirty contestants to the semifinals. If they take their jobs seriously (as I presume they must) they have to make sure that no nuance of any performance is missed. They need to feel confident that their twelve choices are, in fact, the best of the bunch.

I don’t envy them that task. Listening to some of the live webcast last night, I was struck by the stunningly high level of pianism on display. If asked to pick a “best” among the few I heard, I’d be hard pressed to do it with any degree of assurance. The members of this jury—headed by Fort Worth Symphony director emeritus John Giordano—have their work cut out for them.

The Cliburn Report 2: Preludes and Fugues

Image from cliburn.org
Ironically, only 5 of the 30 contestants are women

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[I will be covering the final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in June for 88.1 KDHX. Meanwhile I’m picking highlights of the current press coverage for your dining and dancing pleasure.]

The first notes are only now being played by the first pianists in the preliminary round of recitals, which began today at 11 AM central time (the order in which they’re playing having been determined by a lottery on Wednesday the 22nd), but there has already been plenty of press coverage. Here are a few interesting items.

Back on May 19th, Stephanie Allmon of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram assembled “14 Burning Facts About the 14th Cliburn Competition”, an article that is essentially a FAQ list for those attending in person.

The day before, Christopher Kelly of the New York Times did a brief piece on how the death of the competition’s namesake might affect it. He includes an overview of some of the controversies that have dogged the Cliburn over the years (including the high management turnover rate), which makes for interesting reading. A similar piece in the Idaho Statesman by Tim Madigan of the Star-Telegram is more sentimental and concentrates on memories of Cliburn by those who knew him.

Looking for a one-stop overview of the competition, including social media links? Dallas News music critic Scott Cantrell (who will be covering the entire event from start to finish) had a nice summary yesterday as does Katie Womack in The Dallas Observer today. The day before the Observer had a profile of hometown contestant Alex McDonald by Ms. Womack, a fellow Dallas Music Teachers Association member.

Can’t get to Dallas but curious as to what the concerts look and sound like? Never fear. The Van Cliburn Foundation is streaming the entire business live. You might want to bookmark that one.

More to come.