September 2006

The finals of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis got started yesterday with a trio of concerti by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (well, a duo of Mozart concerti, but one was played twice), followed today by another pair of Mozart concerti and one by Joseph Haydn.

Simone Lamsma of the Netherlands started the finals with Mozart's Turkish Concerto. Her playing was both technically solid and, to some extent, frozen solid. I thought a lot of warmth was lost in a cold sound that almost sounded calculated at some points. A performance with her technical ability and a less wintry tone would have been very much appreciated.

Korea's Yura Lee followed with another performance of the same concerto. While it may have been not as clean as Lamsma by just the tiniest of margins, I enjoyed it immensely more, from the jovial first movement to the bright third. And she played with the orchestra, too! Blend in or stand out: Lee can do both exceptionally well.

I read following Lee's performance that she won the Mozart International Violin Competition in May. "Well, that's not surprising at all," I thought to myself. What was surprising, however, was that I completely skipped over "Leopold" in the competition's title.

Ye-Eun Choi, also of Korea, was next, and she played Mozart's Concerto No. 3. It was clear, precise, and extremely accurate.

It's an overused cliché, but solid precision and a vast colour palette are so rarely found in the same musician. Thankfully, Choi has colour to go with her technical abilities; somewhat selfishly, though, and to my surprise, I still wanted more. I'm looking forward to hearing her performance of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto. The last time I heard it, it was excellent.

Today's session opened with Bulgaria's Bella Hristova playing Haydn's Concerto No. 1. Despite floating rumours to the contrary, I don't hate Hristova. I don't hate her playing either, but I'd be lying if I said I liked it, too. I wasn't expecting much from this performance, but then again, music competition history has numerous examples of great performers making their name in competition finals.

At first, my worst fears seemed to be justified. Hristova began with a very clunky sound that did not at all fit the mood of the piece, which repeated itself every time the first theme came back. A few instances of dubious intonation later, she proceeded to rush through the first movement cadenza faster than one could say "Simone Lamsma" ten times fast. (But now I'm critiquing Hristova's performance of a cadenza she wrote herself. I'll stop now.) I was glad to hear her tone improved during the first movement, though, and it gave way to a warm and endearing second movement. The third movement was just as spirited and lively.

She had a few more noticeable issues with intonation in the middle of the third movement, though. I can understand that great violinists will have the occasional problem in that regard, but I've heard Hristova have more than her fair share of them at this competition. If fundamental points like pitch are dubious, any debate over tone, colour, or sound becomes moot.

After the semifinals, I had Celeste Golden of the United States pencilled in as a competition medallist -- until now, that is. Golden played Mozart's Concerto No. 4, and there were two things to notice about her playing almost immediately. The first was that she started quite shakily; although she quickly regained control, it would be a foreshadowing of things to come.

One could hear Golden's first movement cadenza coming apart very soon into it. One run was flat, the next was sharp, and then she completely flubbed a downward figure on two strings. To make matters worse, the pitches were so indistinct that she actually repeated one element in the series. The rest of the movement was a rushed scramble to recover from the glitch, both musically and mentally.

The second very noticeable thing was that her sound, which had been, for the most part, crystal clear in the semifinals, had crossed the line from clear to acute. There's a fine line between cutting across the orchestra and piercing the orchestra, and Golden crossed it numerous times. I tired of the overdone razor-sharp sound very soon, and was not at all pleased to find it continuing into the second movement, where the occasional glimpse of warmth and beauty was lost in the knife-like precision.

The last finalist was Augustin Hadelich of Germany, who played Mozart's Concerto No. 2. There was much to like about his performance. Hadelich brought to his music everything I expected out of Mozart; I particularly appreciated his touch, which was light, happy, and humorous. His self-written cadenzas were displays of stylistic brilliance. That performance is one tape I'm keeping. (I wanted to keep Lee's great performance too, but my computer decided it was going to stop taping yesterday due to lack of space without telling me. Audiotaping this competition has been nothing short of a total disaster.)

By the way, I've been noticing someone's humming is somewhat audible on the radio, particularly noticeable during second movements. Apparently Glenn Gould is either in the audience, or conducting the orchestra, and I suspect the latter.

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So Many Hopefuls: Finalists Announced in Indianapolis Violin Competition

September 11, 2006 19:19

Well, every competition needs a "who I want in the finals" thread. I got home from school late today and only got to listen to Anna Tifu (everything after her Beethoven), though, and I'll review the last four performances tomorrow. With that in mind, here are my favourite six out of the thirteen I've heard:

Jinjoo Cho
Ye-Eun Choi
Miki Kobayashi
Simone Lamsma
Yura Lee
Saeka Matsuyama

It's actually quite disturbing, the amount of talent that any list of six people at this competition will leave out. I've yet to listen to Celeste Golden, but I've heard nothing but glowing remarks about her here, and I wonder if she'll be added to the already crowded list of violinists I'd like to hear again.

Update @ 11:26 EDT:

The finalists have been announced:

Ye-Eun Choi
Celeste Golden
Augustin Hadelich
Bella Hristova
Simone Lamsma
Yura Lee

Add your thoughts in the comments.

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Late for Work

September 7, 2006 22:07

So it's three-thirty on this side of the continent, and I'm taking the bus home to listen to the semifinals of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. What's the one thing I'd least like to have happen? My bus running into a thirty minute traffic jam, making me certainly late for the start of the concert. The next thing I'd least like to have happen? My connecting bus coming early and leaving me forty minutes late instead of fifteen.

To make things even worse, I forgot about the programming change at WFYI: the competition was now playing on the station's main signal, rather than their HD-only secondary signal. As a result, the digital tape I had recording from the morning was absolutely useless. With haste, I started a new tape, stumbling into Saeka Matsuyama's performance at the end of Ysaÿe's Sonata No. 2 (drat, I thought; I quite wanted to hear the world première of the imposed work, Bright Sheng's A Night at the Chinese Opera), which was followed soon after by Brahms' Sonata No. 3.

The first movement suffered from what sounded like a synchronization glitch midway through; pianist Akira Eguchi yielded to the violinist quickly, however, and the problem was barely audible. Other than that, it was a largely enjoyable performance. I particularly liked the second movement, which was the warm, choral Brahms I've come to love over the last year. Matsuyama did a great job of keeping the tension ratcheted up throughout the torrential fourth movement right up to the end. I had one major gripe about her performance as a whole, however: whole parts of the Sonata were played sharply.

Bulgaria's Daniela Shtereva was next, and she started with Beethoven's Sonata No. 3. The first movement sounded very quiet -- unfortunately, not a suspenseful What's Going To Happen Next Keeping The Audience On The Edge Of Their Seats kind of quiet, but more of an uninteresting kind of quiet. She needed to be more forceful, but when she was (as in the coda, for example), it sounded scratched. The second movement was much less monotonous; it was as if Shtereva's sound had increased in richness by a factor of about ten during the movement break. The finale was bright, lively, and incredibly dance-like.

I finally got to listen to Bright Sheng's A Night at the Chinese Opera next. I settled back into my seat, only to nearly get startled out of it by the sound of pianist Tatyana Stepanova hitting the highest note on the piano with what sounded like maximum force. After I regained consciousness, I very much enjoyed Sheng's composition, even if it was a night at the Chinese opera with a bit of polytonality thrown in. As for Shtereva's playing, I wasn't entirely convinced by her non-violin sound making. Personally, I wanted more erhu (Chinese violin) sounds in particular.

Of course, I'll have to listen to the piece a few more anyway. I'll get plenty of opportunity to do that over the next few days.

Shtereva's next piece was the Sonata No. 1 by Prokofiev, a piece with which I am almost completely unfamiliar. In fact, I nearly mistook the whispers in the first movement for very tentative playing, until I realized the "wind passing through a graveyard", as Prokofiev himself described it, was an intended colour effect. The brisk second movement was played with passion and vigour, the third movement calm and relaxed, almost chilly at times. The fourth movement was just as passionate as the second; structurally, I found the Sonata as a whole very pleasing.

(Interestingly, I actually thought I had never heard the piece before until midway through the second movement. I recognized it as soon as the distinctive three-note motif came in. Those three notes really stick in one's head; I think the Prokofiev is on its way to being one of my favourite pieces already.)

Shtereva closed her recital with Wienawski's Polonaise Brillante in A major. It had just as much passion as the rest of her recital, and the slow section was lovely, although I think I would have appreciated it more had it been a little cleaner, minus the intonation issues and squeaking that popped up every now and then.

I then went to the competition's website to listen to the rest of Matsuyama's performance that I'd missed earlier, starting with her performance of Beethoven's Sonata No. 8. (By the way, I should add that I'm not at all a fan of the audio that comes with the archived website videos. The random glitches are annoying, and the sound that comes from WFYI's high-definition stream is of much higher quality.) The Beethoven was crisp, clear, and articulate, and the ensemble was superb. With that said, the second movement was rather directionless, and some parts of the third movement were rather sharp.

Next was the world première of A Night at the Chinese Opera, which, thanks to the wonders of technology, I was listening to after I'd heard the piece once already. Matsuyama had an almost perfect Chinese folk sound and gave the piece the première it deserved.

Last on my evening's to-hear list was the Ysaÿe Sonata that I stumbled into earlier in the day. I am not at all familiar with the Ysaÿe, so I was completely unprepared for the faux Bach opening, despite the advance warning from WFYI's competition hosts. The performance was a showcase of talent; the Dies Irae theme was chilling, almost to the point of being creepy. One thing that I do want to know about, though: There were extraneous noises popping up every so often throughout the last movement of the Ysaÿe, and I'm quite certain they didn't come from the Internet stream. It's impossible to tell on the video, so could someone who did see it tell me if Matsuyama was tapping her foot during her performance?

Tomorrow's schedule includes another four semifinalists: Simone Lamsma and Wang Zhijiong will perform in the afternoon, while Ryoko Yano and Miki Kobayashi are scheduled for the evening session.

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An Unannounced Entrance

September 5, 2006 10:05

A blog contest? Count me in!

Except, there are a few problems. First of all, I'm an amateur musician -- hardly a professional critic by any standards.

Even worse! I'm a pianist! In fact, my violin playing experience has been limited to about five minutes of attempting to play a cheap forty-dollar violin from a music store in China.

I'm not entirely hopeless, though. I do know my fair share of talented violinists. I first ran into this site several months ago digging up information about the Montréal International Musical Competition, in which two friends of mine took part. In fact, if it weren't for one of them, I wouldn't have known about this competition in Indianapolis.

That's right -- I wouldn't even be writing here. So, feel free to disagree vehemently with anything I write. The only right I reserve is to actually write it.

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