3 x tears in my eyes during slow movement 2th violinconcerto of Vieuxtemps in Verviers

October 24, 2006 at 11:22 AM

Last saturday 21 oktober I was with my parents on the 30th concours prix de Vieuxtemps in Verviers. In the first round the 8 candidates had to play a sonate and partita from Bach solo and with piano the 2th violinconcerto of Henry Vieuxtemps. % candidates plays from 9.30 till 13.00 and 3 candidates from 15.00 till about 17.00. During the piano part from the first to the second movements I got 3 times tears in my eyes from this beautiful, but seldom played music. Why? Because I knew the music so good from the cd? Or because I was so happy to hear it life for the first time of my life, although it was only with piano. Or because I heard it, 8 times for probably the last time in my life. Or because of the high quality of playing and the sweet melodies of this music?

After this 1th round in the beautiful small hall/canteen of the Grand-Theatre, built in 1891 (after the death of Vieuxtemps), there were 4 people who had to fell of, always a bit painful for the candidates. With my parents I was looking for this statue of Vieuxtemps, during that break and we easily found it in the roundabout of the Vieuxtemps square.

I run back to hear the 4 finalists. One of them had a long conversation with someone of the jury and waiting for half an hour I gave him a bottle Vieuxtempsbeer and said: Prix Vieuxtemps. He must laugh about it even after his heavy disappointment not reaching the finals that evening (oke, my joke is funny, he said modest). Also another quite corpulate Japanese candidate (all candidates must have studied 1 year at an Belgian conservatory), who did not reach the final, and who could not play her programm of the 1th round of the Elisabeth competition because the jry rang the bell and said: "you may leave", I gave a Vieuxtempsbeer.
The final was in the beautiful main hall of the Grand Theatre, which lokks the same as the hall in the Conservatory of Brussel for the 1th round and semi's of the Elisabethcompetition. Both much more beautiful than the ugly concrete hall of the Joseph Joachim competition in Hannover. They had to play a part (with piano again) of a romantic violinconcerto of free choice. 1 time Shos1 , 3 times Tsjaikovsky. Even my parents were irritated because everybody play this too well known piece, you (both) also hear too much during the Elisabeth competition. Also they had to play a sonate of Vieuxtemps. onece that was Reverie op.22, I also had played on violinlessons and once Fantasia Appassionata,opus 35 and a unknown piece of Vieuxtemps for me.
These were the results:
1th)Hrachya Avanesyan, 20, Armenia
2th)Caroline Poncelet, 24, Belgium
3th)Weronika Godlewska, 23, Poland
4th)Vincent Hepp, 26, Belgium

first round players:
Elisabeth Deletaille, 29, Belgium
Marie Gabriel, 23, Belgium
Naoko Matsui, 27, Japan
Emilio Mecenero, 20, France

The results are still not on the website of the competition www.vieuxtemps.be
The finalists also got a Vieuxtempsbeer, which is also on this T-shirt I was wearing