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June 18: The third day of Round I piano auditions continued in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory

Seven musicians played on the third day of the Competition.  Russians Ilya Rashkovsky (on the Yamaha piano), Georgy Voilochnikov (Steinway) and Marina Yakhlakova (Steinway) along with American pianist George Li (Steinway) performed in the afternoon session.  The evening session was opened by Lucas Debargue from France (Yamaha) and Daria Kameneva from Russia (Kawai), while Lukas Geniušas, a musician who represents two countries (Russia and Lithuania), wound up the session.   None of the competitors chose the Fazioli piano.

The repertoire for this day turned out to be quite unlike the previous ones.  All the performers played a Beethoven sonata, and four of them chose one of the three last ones, which are the most challenging and are considered to be at the pinnacle of the piano repertoire:  No. 30 (Yakhlakova), No. 31 (Voilochnikov) and No. 32 (Rashkovsky and Li).  Other Beethoven sonatas played on this day were No. 7 (Debargue), No. 3 (Geniušas), and No. 27 (Kameneva).  The tone set by the “dramatics” of the Beethoven pieces was then expanded by an extremely varied set of compositions.  Not one Tchaikovsky piece or Liszt étude was repeated.  Although some of Rachmaninov’s étude-tableaux and Chopin’s etudes were heard twice, that served to show how very diverse the interpretations of them by the musicians could be (as when George Li and Lukas Geniušas played Chopin’s étude in A minor, Op. 10, No. 2).

All the musicians (with the exception of George Li) are exponents of the Russian school of pianism, even the French pianist (whose instructor is Rena Shereshevskaya, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory who studied with Lev Vlassenko).  Nevertheless there was abundant individuality on display during a day that featured philosophical interpretations for Bach, elegant Romanticism for Tchaikovsky, and muscular forcefulness for Liszt, along with the very profound interpretations of Beethoven’s sonatas.

This third day of the Competition brought out audiences that were extremely engaged and even “fans” of the competitors.  During the afternoon session the Great Hall was nearly at capacity, and in the evening it was standing room only.  Several of the musicians received strong ovations from their enthusiastic admirers.  The high point of the day was the concluding performance by Lukas Geniušas, and the audience cheered him as one of the favourites in the Competition.

On June 19th auditions in Round I will continue.  The pianists will be Natalia Sokolovskaya (1:00 pm), Andrey Korobeynikov (1:50 pm), Jiayan Sun (3:00 pm), Dinara Klinton (3:50 pm), Daniel Kharitonov (7:00 pm), Julia Kociuban (7:50 pm) and Mikhail Turpanov (9:00 pm).

June 18:  Round I of the violin competition continued in the Small Hall of the Moscow Conservatory

There were six musicians on stage in the Small Hall for the second day of the Competition.  In the afternoon session there were the Russians Stepan Starikov and Tikhon Lukiyanenko (both alumni of the Moscow Conservatory) and also Stephen Jee Won Kim, who is of Korean extraction and represents the USA.  At the evening session all the musicians were from Asia:  Bomsori Kim (South Korea), Yu-Chien Tseng (Taiwan), and Clara-Jumi Kang (Germany).

The repertoire on the second day differed broadly from the first day.  Although it was less varied, it nevertheless introduced some new composers and pieces.  On the first day in addition to the mandatory works by Bach, Paganini, and Tchaikovsky, there were pieces by Lutoslawski, Bacewicz, Ravel, Kreisler, Brahms, Messiaen and Schubert.  On the second day compositions by the great Romantics Chopin and Schumann, along with those by French composers Saint-Saëns and Chausson enriched the programme.  Stepan Starikov opened the afternoon session adding also Ernst’s Étude in E major from his “Six Polyphonic Études” and Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor.  The performance of the latter was not without its surprises.  The audience took a pause in the middle of the piece as its conclusion and began to applaud, and the rest of the sonata resumed only after the applause had died down.

Out of the two required pieces by Bach all the competitors on the second day chose the Chaconne and Partita No. 2 in D minor, and three of the six started their performances with it.  Stephen Jee Won Kim was the only competitor on either day to play two Paganini caprices at the start of his programme, and he placed the Chaconne between them.  The violinist closed with Chopin’s Nocturne in D-flat major arranged for violin by August Wilhelmi. With nearly no letup, Tikhon Lukiyanenko picked up the Romantic thread by closing his programme with the Schumann-Kreisler Fantasie in C major. 

In the evening of the second day Bomsori Kim played first.  Alongside the mandatory pieces she added Saint-Saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” which brought a new element to the repertoire.  Yu-Chien Tseng offered a programme that was nearly a repeat of Stephen Jee Won Kim’s from six hours earlier.  Hers differed only in the order of the works, and she chose a different Paganini caprice.  Clara-Jumi Kang’s performance rounded out the evening, and her interpretation of Chausson’s “Poéme” received a hearty ovation.

There will be more Round I auditions on June 19th.  The artists will be Veriko Tchumburidze (1:00 pm), Jee Won Kim (2:00 pm), Yoo Jin Jang (3:00 pm), Haik Kazazyan (7:00 pm), Kyumin Park (8:00 pm), and Leonid Zhelezny (9:00 pm).

June 18:  Round I cello auditions continue for the second day in Saint Petersburg

A whirlwind performance by the Germany cellist Valentino Worlitzsch of the finale to Benjamin Britten’s Sonata for cello and piano came at the close of the second day of the Round I cello auditions in the Small Hall of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.  These Round I auditions will last two more days, but this second day had the most competitors with three in the afternoon session and four in the evening.

The competitors on the second day were all from Europe (Norway, Germany, France, Romania, and Russia).  Sandra Lied Haga, the only Norwegian in the Competition, opened the proceedings for the second day with a sonata by her fellow countryman Edvard Grieg.  Larger compositions, in addition to the Britten and Grieg pieces already mentioned, that came on the second day included two interpretations of Debussy’s sonata, which were heard almost one after the other in the afternoon session when Leonard Elschenbroich from Germany and Tristan Cornut from France performed.  Other larger works were Prokofiev’s Sonata Op. 119 (played in the evening by Bruno Philippe), the “Suite Italienne” from Stravinsky’s ballet “Pulcinella” (presented by Andrei Ioniță of Romania), and two performances of Hindemith’s cello sonata interpreted by Leonard Elschenbroich and also by the only Russian on this day, Alexander Buzlov, who is also the oldest cellist to compete.  He took part in the XII and XIII International Tchaikovsky Competitions, and he was awarded Second Prize in 2007 in the second of them.

The first round for cellists has now passed the midway point, and the Competition is beginning to generate more and more audience response.  If yesterday the public was polite, as is usual in Petersburg, as it gave the musicians restrained applause, today the hall resounded with shouts of “Bravo”.  It was also evident that the audience had its favourites.  How the opinions of the public compare to those of the highly qualified jury we shall see on the evening of June 20th.  And tomorrow there will be six more musicians to hear, this time from the western hemisphere and Asia.  In the afternoon session (from 1:00 to 4:00 pm) there will be young cellists from Colombia (Santiago Cañon Valencia) and the USA (John-Henry Crawford), as well as Seung Min Kang from South Korea.  The evening will offer auditions of Tao Ni of China, Michiaki Ueno of Japan and tomorrow’s only Russian, Fedor Amosov.

As always, all the performances in all three disciplines will be streamed online by medici.tv.