SIPCA Final

The winners for this year’s Sydney International Piano Competition were announced tonight.

They were/are:

6. Tanya Gabrielian (“Janet Jackson” in honour of her outfit in an earlier round.)
5. Hao Zhu
4. Mikhail Berestnev
3. Dmitry Onishchenko (our nickname: “The undertaker” – because of his lugubrious and rather deadpan stage presence)
2. Nikolay Khozyainov (“Cherubino” in honour of his youth, his blond curls and his performance of the Liszt Figaro Fantasy which is based on one song addressed to Cherubino and one sung by him)
1. Avan Yu

As an announcement it was a bit of a schemozzle. The revelation of the various special prizes (I went to the afternoon session but was at home listening on the radio for this) was entrusted to Marian Arnold, the ABC’s announcer.

Before that, Warren Thomson, the chairman of the jury, committed a little Freudian slip which gave the game away. Making some preliminary acknowledgements, when intending (I think) to say “able,” he actually said “Avan.”

“Aha!” D and I said to each other.

However, the cat was totally out of the bag with two special prizes: the Paspaley Pearl awards for best female and male players.

The best female player had to be Tania Gabrelian, because she was the only female finalist. Then Avan Yu was announced as the best male competitor.

Hang on! Unless SIPCA has any intersex competitors, doesn’t that tell us who the winner is?

Indeed it did, though the pretence of some suspense was then maintained right up to the moment of the announcement of first and second prizewinners. Logically the outcome even as to second place was clear once we were told who came third.

Nikolay Khozyainov won the “People’s Choice” award.

I only heard half of the Mozart concerti on the radio and a bit of one from the foyer on the second night (I was at Die tote Stadt next door). D and I went to both of the C19 and C20 rounds on Friday and Saturday. If the competition depended only on these concerti (which it doesn’t), then Avan Yu’s Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini was, at least as a percentage realisation of the work in question, head and shoulders above any of the others’.

From what I heard, from those chosen for the finals, I don’t disagree with the first three places. I’m not so sure about the order of 4,5 and 6.

SIPCA 2012 continued and rejigged

Since last posting on this topic, I have been to quite a bit of the Sydney International Piano Competition [not Nova Scotia but] Australia. I managed to hear in the flesh all 12 of the semifinalists though not always for both their solo recital and their chamber music performance. Except for Stefano Guarascio I heard all of them in an earlier round even if I did not catch their semifinal recital.

I also listened to some broadcasts but I want to emphasise that broadcasts give a very different impression and fall far short of replicating the experience if you are there in the flesh. You might hear all the notes but you don’t hear the tone, the true volume or, in the chamber music, the true balance. More contentiously and probably less importantly (because one might wonder: why is this relevant?) you are deprived of any visual element. If you are actually there you can also assess the way that the performer holds the attention of the audience. That shared attention is an important part of the live performance experience and also, if you are being evaluative, a kind of double-check on your own response.

The six finalists to play with the orchestra have been announced.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday they will play Mozart concerti. Those will be K 467, 467, 453 and 453, 491 and 467 respectively.

Next Friday night and Saturday afternoon, they will play their nineteenth and twentieth century concerti. This is [correction: was, when first announced - see below] the roster:

Friday 20th July, 8.00pm (19th/20th Century Concerti)
Tanya Gabrielian – Tchaikovsky 1
Nikolay Khozyainov – Rachmaninov 3
Dmitry Onishchenko – Rachmaninov 3

Saturday 21st July, 2.30pm (19th/20th Century Concerti)
Avan Yu – Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini
Hao Zhu – Rachmaninov 2
Mikhail Berestnev Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini

That’s rather a lot of Rachmaninov, isn’t it? And it’s not as if the sole Tchaikovsky really breaks the pattern.

I would have preferred to have seen in the final one or both of the two Italians, Guarascio and Giulio Biddau, not just because they were down to play Liszt and Brahms 1 respectively (aside from Gabrielian they were the only semifinalists who did not choose Rachmaninov), but because those choices are a proxy for something more. They are both more interesting pianists (to me, anyway) than at least two of those who have been chosen.

Update

There has been a rejig of the order: Berestnev has been moved to the first program and Khozyainov moved to the second program. This avoids two Rachmaninov 3s on Friday and two Paganini Rhapsodies on Saturday. The same could have been achieved by swapping Berestnev or Yu for Onishchenko – if Yu had gone rather than Berestnev this would have avoided 3 K467s on Tuesday.

This gives an advantage to Khozyainov, particularly in relation to voting for the “People’s Choice” prize, since that voting is by those who are present on the Saturday.

In my opinion it would have been better if things had been left as they were.

SIPCA 2012 begins

The tenth Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia [ie, not Nova Scotia] has started.

This competition has punctuated my adult life since I attended the first one in my final year of school. It makes me think of those fairy stories where the fairy returns every seven years, though in this case the period has settled to 4. Another myth which comes to mind is the Nietzschean eternal recurrence, but I’m conscious that my perspective changes. When I first went, the competitors were all older than I. Now they all seem so young. Conversely, some of the regulars in the audience seem ageless.

My friend, P, with whom I went to much of the very first competition, told me that she recently showed her son a picture of me taken from about that time. He was shocked. Tell him (I said) his time will come.

I have been to one whole session and two half sessions of round 1. So far, in the sessions that I have attended, there has been more piano playing than music. It’s not that, I’m sure, all of the players are not capable of playing music which would give any hearer pleasure, but competition conditions (including the syllabus requirements, the silence between pieces and the 20-minute slots) and the requirement to “game” the competition can militate against that. Mostly this is because they are either playing too many notes (to show that they can) or because they are playing something which is too hard for them also to allow a margin for the beautiful. I’m told (I wasn’t there for it) that there has been at least one spectacular “bomb” and I saw one player severely afflicted by nerves.

The whole thing is being broadcast on ABCFM. Guy Noble, one of their commentators, describing himself as a lapsed pianist, gave voice to a feeling that I myself have when he remarked on the different experience of the competition for those youngsters for whom it is all new and exciting and those at the upper age limit for this (and many other) competitions for whom it is a final throw of the dice.

Why am I going? There’s something a bit compulsive about it – like watching series 2 of Downton Abbey.

I plan to go to more. The longer programs in the later rounds will, I hope, give more of a chance for the music. And despite my reservations about the competitive element, the event has its own cumulative Affekt.

SIPCA 9 – Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia – Auld Lang Syne

On Thursday night, I went to session 4 of Stage IV – that is, the semi-finals.

The program was:

Konstantin Shamray (Recital)
Hoang Pham (Chamber Music)
Tatiana Kolesova (Recital)
Tomoki Kitamura (Chamber Music)

This was good because it included 3 players whom I had not heard in the flesh, and one favourite (Kitamura) whom I wanted to see again.

The potential downside was that there were two Hammerklavier sonatas.

Which of the two anybody liked tended to depend on how you like your Hammerklavier. Both players were Russian, and the differences seemed really to boil down to gendered readings. Shamray (Steinway) gave the piano the classic thrashing. This was exciting in the big boilings up in the first movement, but for me less effective in the long slow movement, and a bit too much in the last movement, where he made a habit of landing on fugal trills with a kind of initial crushed note which must have been deliberate but just sounded messy. Shamray also played some Scriabin which amongst other things allowed him to deploy his large hands (protruding beyond his coat sleeves with no sign of a cuff) to advantage.

Kolesova (who also played the Steinway, by now a bit the worse for wear in its top register) took a feminine route – her dynamics had a lower ceiling which coincided with a politer range of pianistic tone. I thought her slow movement had more shape. She did, however, seem to have a tiny memory lapse at one point.

Juror Michael Brimer is probably the one to ask about this, since a few years in a critical cause celebre the Herald’s reviewer, Harriet Cunningham, accused him of memory lapses in this sonata, and he responded (backed up by Daniel Herscovitch and the recording of the concert) that this was just the way the sonata goes. (The only web-based link I can find for this, strangely, is in what appears to be Icelandic Swedish.)

As so often happens in contrasting approaches like this, I found myself wanting the best of both approaches, even though that may simply not be possible. Overall I enjoyed Kolesova’s more, though I would have preferred a bit less pedal. Nevertheless, having literally played up a storm (you could hear the rain beginning outside as it thrummed on the Seymour Centre roof – one of a number of technical deficiencies of the York Theatre) she seemed to get the warmer audience reception.

Kolesova preceded the Beethoven with an attractive arrangement of Gluck but which, with the shadow of an impending Hammerklavier hanging over it, was difficult to take too seriously.

Hoang Pham (Yamaha) played the Mendelssohn Trio with Dimity Hall and Julian Smiles. This was polished playing by all, though I still felt that Pham could have engaged a bit more with his fellow players. Most of the time the piano is playing so many notes that the other players simply have to go along with it. In that case, all the more important in the easy bits to establish rapport.

Kitamura played the Schubert B flat major trio with Helen Ayres and Timothy Nankervis. They are a more dramatic pair of players than Hall and Smiles and this does raise the question of whether there were advantages in playing with one pair of string players over another. Someone suggested to me at interval that they [gender neutral plural for anonymity] didn’t think Dimity and Julian had given one of the other competitors a fair go: they must have meant Miyeon Lee, who played the Brahms in the first half of the afternoon session.

I don’t know what was their [sic] basis was for saying that. I would be most surprised if that were the result of any conscious decision by Hall and Smiles. They have a slightly cooler, objective, way of playing than Ayres and Nankervis – and I think their long musical partnership might be a bit harder for the pianist to really break into in the competition circumstances. I’m now venturing into dangerously speculative territory, but if anything it feels as though Smiles and Hall are being almost self-consciously fair in their approach to the pianist: they will match his approach as possible, but also try their best to make it look as good as they can – the traditional accompanist’s approach. Ayres & Nankervis play more riskily, not always without mishap, but in a way which maybe leaves more openings for the pianist and for a collaboration to occur between all three.

All of this is based on precisely two hearings of each string pair (though many more of Hall and Smiles on other occasions), so it’s got to be dodgy and especially for one particularly obvious point: it could really be the pianists who were the decisive factor in each case.

Kitamura’s choice of the Schubert is technically, I would say, one of the easier choices, but everybody has that choice in this round, and what’s important is or should be what you can do with the music. I came already well-disposed to Kitamura, and I wasn’t disappointed. At the risk of sounding offensive, I can only say that when he is playing he narrows his eyes to slits – in repose when he was bowing at the end his eyes were not so. The look is definitely part of the charisma. It’s all part of his intensity of concentration – it doesn’t seem “bunged on” for effect. He can really play Schubert. I didn’t think he was quite as good as Dank at the chamber-music thing, but you could see and also hear the collaboration. Some of the result was quite electric – at least up to the last movement, where he seemed to get more back inside his own head space and for me the heavenly length began to make itself felt just a little. It was late in a long program, after all.

Since I first arrived late to one of the morning sessions in Stage One, I have regularly encountered a fellow-member of the audience at the downstairs coffee-cartish refreshment bar. He is always the first there to order a coffee. On the first time and also the next day, I was there having arrived too late for the first half, and had just ordered my coffee before the first interval exiter arrived. After that, because I too do not like to queue for interval refreshment, we met almost every interval. Last night we met also walking up behind the Seymour Centre, and he graciously allowed me to beat him for the first time ever as we strode purposefully down the steps at the head of the interval rush (there was open space behind us, let me tell you). As we were drinking or waiting for our coffee we were joined by some other acquaintances of mine (P, who had not been able to come since Stage II, Lx, who came yesterday, and R) which finally gave the occasion for some kind of introductions, including to each other.

RR, from Hobart, has been attending his second competition this year, having also come in 2004. He’s been to most sessions, but also fitted in some golf, and on Wednesday (when I noted his absence from the cafe bar) he and his wife went instead to Otello. They fly on Saturday to Hawaii for their daughter’s wedding. Last night was my last semi-final round. We said goodbye for this year. Provided we are spared, we may see each other again in four years’ time.

SIPCA 8 – Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia

On Wednesday night with D to the Seymour Centre for session 2 of the semifinals.

The program was as follows:

Mariangela Vacatello (Recital)
Daniil Tsvetkov (Chamber Music)
Takashi Sato (Recital)
Ran Dank (Chamber Music)

Mariangela Vacatello played Beethoven and Chopin and then Ravel Gaspard de la nuit.  That’s quite a program.  She is very competent and secure.  I especially got into Le Gibet, which is surely one of the longest pedal points in the history of western art music.

The other soloist was Takashi Sato, who played Beethoven and Chopin. 

For the second part of each half, we had the chamber music.  First Tsvetkov with Dimity Hall and Julian Smiles playing the Shostakovich Trio.  This is a great piece.  It must have been a bit odd for Ian Munro, one of the judges, to be sitting up the back and hearing someone else play with those two string players with whom he so frequently plays himself in the Australia Ensemble.

In the second half, Dank played the Brahms Trio Op 8 with Helen Ayres and Timothy Nankervis.  Lx, my former high-school drama teacher was there and had also been there for the afternoon session.  He said that Konstantin Shamray’s version had been boring and he was not relishing a repeat.  Indeed, some audience members near me left before Dank’s turn with a similar justification – that they had “already sat through it once today.”

D said he liked the Brahms more than the Shostakovich because it was more dramatic. This might seem odd because there is a lot which is dramatic in the Shostakovich.  The “x” factor was that Dank got a much higher level of interaction going on with the string players than Tsvektkov managed.  

When you learn chamber music you are always told to look at your fellow players.  You might wonder how necessary that is, especially for the pianist, who can listen and watch the score, but in my experience it really does make a difference – probably because when you just listen you may think you have a rapport, but (all other things being equal) you will actually get a better rapport if you are also looking.   Ran was always making eye contact with the others and they with him and the result was certainly a team effort from them all.  Tsvetkov only rarely did so, and all the dramatic impetus of the performance seemed to come from Smiles and Hall, with Tsvetkov more of a co-operative bystander than a co-participant.

So for me Dank et al’s Brahms was the stand-out of the evening.  Lx said it was much better than Shamray’s effort earlier that day and in his opinion the best chamber music of the day, despite moments where he thought Dank too loud.

SIPCA 7 – Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia – Semi finalists

Are:

Hoang Pham
Tomoki Kitamura
Mariangela Vacatello

Takashi Sato
Miyeon Lee
Yoonsoo Rhee

Konstantin Shamray
Tatiana Kolesova
Daniil Tsvetkov

Ran Dank
Charlie Albright
Eric Zuber

Amongst other things, that makes Pham the winner of the prize for the best Australian competitor. And in terms of my previous post, so far at least it has proved possible to have both chalk and cheese.

Full schedule is now here.

SIPCA 6 (Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia) – Chalk and Cheese

On Monday night I went to a session of the quarter finals, aka Stage 3. Owing to work commitments, this was the only session of this stage I could attend.

I heard:

19:15 – Christopher Devine
19:55 – Takashi Sato

INTERVAL

20:55 – Miyeon Lee
21:35 – Yoonsoo Rhee

As with all sessions, it ran considerably over these times, which ambitiously don’t allow any time for change over between the players or delay in starting the sessions.

I enjoyed Christopher Devine‘s Mozart sonata and his choice of the specially-composed Australian work, Thin Air, by Andrew Ford. His Prokofiev Sonata was a bit lacking in interest in the outer movements: when things get big and technical, it feels as though he goes rather on autopilot – competently enough, but that’s not the point.

Takashi Sato played much as I expected him to play. He played the Morceau de Concours by Roger Smalley. He is a strong player, and perhaps the Clementi was a little over-played, but it was still intelligent and interesting. I still couldn’t get the point of Bartok – in this case the Sonata Sz 80. Does it all need to be so harsh and ugly? Someone suggested that the Kawai was a little the worse for wear.

Earlier in the day I heard Tomoki Kitamura play Bach’s French Suite No 4 BWV 815 in E Flat Major and I liked what I heard. He and Sato are chalk and cheese.

Two other players who are also chalk and cheese, and in a similar way (tough and strong vs refined and interesting) were the two Korean women, Miyeon Lee and Yun Soo Rhee.

Lee tends towards the delicate and even, in her attitude, prayerful approach. She is a Steinway player. Her set was a Haydn sonata, the Andrew Ford, and some Albeniz. The last was just a little too mild for my taste, but there was some beautiful playing.

Lee Rhee is a more muscular player. She is wearing a red dress which is a little too big for her in the chest. D and I joked when we previously heard and saw her that she may even have committed a “nipple fault” in relation to some viewing angles, or, to use the contemporary terminology, a tiny “wardrobe malfunction.” Somebody else must have said something to her, because in subsequent rounds she has always been very careful to clutch her hanky to her decolletage when leaning forward to make a bow. She is clearly still suffering a cold (as Sato also appeared to be): there was a less than elegant “see that man over there, he’s got green stripes down his trousers” nose wipe at one point.

Anyway, in my opinion that sort of thing isn’t really relevant except possibly as a tie breaker. Rhee also played a Haydn sonata and the Ford. Of the three I heard that night, she had the clearest conception of the piece which maintained continuity between the different sections. That shows she is not just a muscular player at all. Others who were there and had heard other accounts of the Ford also commended her approach. Her big piece was Brahms’ Sonata No 2. As Gerard rightly said, this is a dinosaur of a piece – to continue the metaphor, it is even a kind of evolutional dead end since Brahms’s mature style took a different turn from these very youthful works. She played the Yamaha, which is of course her choice. I would have preferred to hear her Brahms on the Steinway. But still, it was an impressive effort on a highly problematic piece. If at times it seemed a bit heavy handed, other performances I have heard by very reputable players suggest that this is a matter of the writing rather than the playing.

I”m trying to eschew adjudicative determinations. This is partly a question of wanting to enjoy the playing for what it is, rather than trying to keep some kind of running score as I listen. But the pairs of chalk and cheese in make it hard to avoid the question. I like both the Japanese boys and the Korean women, but at this stage, if I had to choose between Rhee and Lee, I would plump for Rhee, and conversely, if I had to choose between Sato and Kitamura, I would prefer Kitamura.

SIPCA 5 (Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia) – The first cut

Sunday afternoon with D to the afternoon and final session of Stage II.

In the morning I heard a bit of the playing, and in particular a pretty exciting Petruschka by Tatiana Kolesova. P, who was there, told me that it was gripping stuff, so for once the radio did not lie.

I wondered if someone had had a word to Gerard Willems about his radio commentary, because he was now describing the appearance of the male contestants as well as the female, though not to the extent of describing their clothes.

Of those I heard this afternoon, in the first half:I enjoyed particularly Sean Chen‘s Rachmaninov Etudes Tableaux; I wasn’t crazy about Sergei Saratovsky‘s Bach C# minor (Book II) though he was obviously a strong player – if neither as dark or as handsome as his PR picture; I was unimpressed by Ryan McEvoy McCullough‘s Schubert Impromptu (and take back some of my criticism of Emmanuel Ax‘s, which I know is rather an unfair comparison) but liked his Magin studies. Chun-Chieh Yen bravely took on 6 Chopin Etudes in a row, but not always, I thought, entirely idiomatically. And that’s not because I didn’t want him to do well, because – how shall I put it delicately? – neither D nor I felt he could be accused of being “str8-acting.”

In the second half, Eric Zuber made the strongest impression, especially in his Liszt Spanish Rhapsody. But I also liked, in different ways, both Yekwon Sunwoo (at 19, one of the younger competitors: maybe not yet up to a really brilliant Islamey) and Xun Wang (best in the Chopin Waltzes, which I really enjoyed, not so convincing in the Hungarian Rhapsody).

The thing is, by the end I was wearying of critical assessment. And now that the decision as to who is to progress to the next stage has been announced, I have lost the stomach for it.

Since the link doesn’t go straight to the list, here is the playing order for stage III:

Mon 21 July

09:30 – Hao Zhu
10.10 – Hoang Pham

INTERVAL

11:10 – Alexey Yemtsov
11:50 – Tomoki Kitamura

14:00 – David Fung
14:40 – Fernando Altamura

INTERVAL

15:40 – Mariangela Vacatello
16:20 – Jose Menor

19:15 – Christopher Devine
19:55 – Takashi Sato

INTERVAL

20:55 – Miyeon Lee
21:35 – Yoonsoo Rhee

Tuesday 22nd July

09:30 – Konstantin Shamray
10:10 – Tatiana Kolesova

INTERVAL

11:10 – Daniil Tsvetkov
11:50 – Ran Dank

14:00 – Charlie Albright
14:40 – Sean Chen

INTERVAL

15:40 – Sergei Saratovsky
16:20 – Eric Zuber

D went home, but I hung around at the Seymour Centre for the announcement of the jury’s decision as to who should go ahead to the next round. I was one of the tragic 100 or so. After about an hour, the announcement was made. This is the nasty bit about competitions – if there are winners, there must also be not-winners (OK: losers, if you must). I am soft hearted about this bit. I took the bus home (rain was now falling: cf James Joyce, Dubliners) feeling rather sad.

Because I didn’t hear everybody, I’m not really qualified to give a firm opinion on the 20 selected. All of the obvious people (from either report or my own hearing) did get through, none of the ones who I thought would definitely not go through progressed, but of course there is room for some surprise or disappointment in the middle ranks – particularly because the voting system is a kind of modified first-past-the-post system. This is the point of the road not taken. As I look at the repertoire of those eliminated and realise that we won’t now be hearing it, I’m feeling just a bit regretful.

When the announcement was made, I was sitting with the Steinway gang. Of course, they have their own agenda and focus of interest. Apparently the score for the next round is Steinway 8; Yamaha 8; Kawai 4.

SIPCA 4 (Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia)

On Saturday afternoon, to the Seymour Centre for another instalment of Stage II of this competition.

Thankfully, today the endess loop of the Brandenburg concerto movement piped through the foyer had been switched off.

I was just a little late, so I stood at the back for the first of Alexey Yemtsov‘s pieces, which was “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” – his choice of the (obligatory) Debussy Prelude (any prelude except for Book I No 7 – my guess is that they just got sick of hearing this one by competitors eager to impress). Alexey is one of a bunch of boys who came to Australia in 1998 or thenabouts from the Ukraine. He now officially studies with Gerard Willems, though other pianists have rather unkindly suggested to me that Alexey could teach Gerard a thing or two.

I finally heard Tomoki Kitamura.

My former teacher, P, told me that sitting behind her was a “young whippersnapper” who has come from Adelaide to take in a bit of the competition and also to have a couple of trial lessons with Gerard Willems and Natalia Sheludikova – to decide which he [could be a she but I suspect "whippersnapper" is a male term] wants to learn from when he comes to Sydney. His comments, she said, were driving her mad. Apparently this young Adelaideian said of Kitamura, “of course, everyone just wants him to do well because he looks so cute.” And it’s true, he does look cutish – in a way to which I, for one, confess a susceptibility. But it certainly isn’t just that. It is Kitamura’s poise and intensity which is attractive – and which bears fruit in his playing. He opened with a Sonnet by Sibelius, and then played a very assured Rondo Op 51 by Beethoven. The telling thing about this was the way that he sustained the ornamental and quasi-cadenzal moments in a way which simultaneously maintained the momentum but also suspended time. This boy has charisma.

Backtracking, P didn’t like Aiko Yajima‘s Prokofiev Sarcasms and crossed her off her list on account of them. I didn’t have much of a view, though the one Sarcasm which I knew (having played it myself for an exam at the age of 16) was pretty unrecognizable to me. Later though, when I heard Fernando Altamura‘s to me preferable version of these on the radio, I began to see what P meant. I also felt Yajima had missed the point of the big moments in the Liszt transcription of Schubert’s Auf dem Wasser zu singen. It is meant to be expansive but the heart should open without the volume knob twisting round too far.

I had heard that Miya Kazaoka‘s first round was disastrous, so it was kind of a relief that she got through this round unscathed. She is one of the older entrants, and she is an attractive player (see further comments on Gerard’s view below). However, I did feel that La cathédrale engloutie and the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde were a bit too much of the same thing. (In addition, from all reports and from my radio listening, Konstantin Shamray overshadowed her in the Liebestod department.)

As the above foreshadows, I had to leave before Fernando Altamura played, in order to have a nap and turn around for the Missa Solemnis. Of the two I heard after interval, I wish I could be more enthusiastic about David Fung, but I just couldn’t get carried away by his Chopin Ballade No 4. That’s a high mountain to climb and it is also a piece where any perfomance must surpass or overcome all sorts of preconceptions. Balasz Fulei played “Footsteps in the Snow” as his Debussy Prelude. This would have been better without the very persistent cougher who finally left the hall. What I enjoyed more was his very lively Scarlatti sonata. Gerard liked Fuleis Bartok “Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs” (also assayed in Stage I by Daniil Tsevkov). I have to confess that I have a limited enthusiasm for Bartok’s solo piano works (forgive me, shade of Nancy Salas!). Fulei’s may have been the real McCoy but if so I preferred Tsevkov’s.

Speaking of Gerard, his commentaries are developing a kind of trope about the women in the competition. We are always hearing what gown they are wearing, or how attractive they are. Gerard should take a bit of a look at himself and check this line of commentary before it goes too far.

Alternately, I’d like to see a few more of the cuter male competitors come out in a strapless number or even (since decency certainly permits it) topless. Unfortunately, given the (unflattering to the abs) stance which pianists have to adopt towards their instrument and their general physical development, I doubt if such an idea would be quite as attractive in practice as I am prepared to imagine it might be in theory.

SIPCA 3 – (Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia)

So, shoot me! I still can’t drag myself to a 9.30 session, and so I only heard another 3 players today in the flesh.

The word at the York Theatre of the Seymour Centre is that the arrival of the North American and European players en masse has changed the picture considerably. The standard is rising.

Daniil Tsvetkov, from Kazakhstan but studying in Moscow and probably ethnically Russian, topped off an impressive bracket with a seemingly-nonchalantly tossed off Chopin – Etude Op.10 No.2 in A minor. He should surely progress on the strength of that alone. The fact that Ran Dank studies with Emmanuel Ax came through particularly, I thought, in the articulation of his Chopin Etude Op 10 No 1. But the wunderkind that everybody was struck by was the 19-year-old Charlie Albright, who in addition to count-them 4 finger-flashing etudes, played a stunning (and I think new to practically everyone) Ricercare and Toccata on a theme from The Old Maid and the Thief by Menotti (of Amahl and the Night Visitors fame).

This time I sat further back in the hall. This gives a clearer sense of proportion, though it did mean that I was subjected to a terrible whistle of hearing-aid feed-back. Mercifully, this could be minimised by cupping my hand behind my right ear or even cocking my head at a judicious if apparently quizzical angle.

More inanely, in the foyer of the Seymour Centre, the same movement from a Brandenburg Concerto is played in an endless loop. How can they stand it? Why don’t they take the opportunity of piping the actual broadcast sound of the program inside?