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Late for Work

September 8, 2006 at 5:07 AM

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.

Syndicated from theBlogject

What a great description. Loved reading all your comments - thanks for posting them.

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