Paganini cadenza + results QE competition

May 27, 2012 at 12:13 PM

The competition has ended, but the most remarkable moment after the recital of Stefan Terara in the semi's was the Paganini candenza of the 2th price winner:

Here the results:
Andrey Baranov has won the 2012 violin competition. He receives a prize of 25.000 eur and the ‘Huggins’ Stradivarius (1708), on loan for a period of three years by the Nippon Music Foundation. Tatsuki Narita is second laureate, Hyun Su Shin is third laureate. Fourth laureate is Esther Yoo, fifth laureate Yu-Chien Tseng, who has also won both prizes of the public, and sixth laureate Artiom Shishkov. An overview of the prizes is presented in the violin 2012 menu.
The six unranked laureates, in alphabetical order : Ermir Abeshi, Marc Bouchkov, Nikki Chooi, Dami Kim, Josef Spacek and Nancy Zhou.

From Adrian Demian
Posted on May 29, 2012 at 11:30 PM

Dear Bram,
I have to admit, I do not understand your like for Tarara. There is more to music, and also to violin playing, than Paganini. His recital, other than the last Paganini piece, was less than average. The Bartok did not have any of the musical qualities, any of the contrapuntal refinement needed (just look on youtube for the recording with Hirshhorn of the same piece for comparison) but he used it as a brainless display of virtuosity. Bartok is anything but virtuosity. His Ysaye sonata also lacked any sense of taste and the rhythm was very approximate.
Maybe you like another of my compatriots: Eugen Sarbu. It is OK to like them, but this competition tries - at least it struggles to - to find musicians, not mere athletes. Really, being able to play "Nel cor piu" is not such a big deal. I myself, when I was at the age when I wanted to show off, I found the piece to boring to work on and I decided for Ernst's "last rose of summer" which is at least as hard as Paganini's solo, but much more rewarding musically.
As for Narita's Paganini, it was way more than virtuosity, it was music, it was light, it was phenomenal! It's not just the cadenza. He captured the audience from the first sound he made. He really sounded like Francescatti.
You might also like to listen to Yu-Chien Tseng's Paganini caprice from the first round and see what you think. Really, each one of the finalists could have play Tarara's piece. They just choose to show themselves as musicians, not as acrobats.

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Paganini cadenza + results QE competition

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