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Showing posts from June, 2011

Tchaikovsky Competition Moscow - Prizes - Trifonov takes the Gold!

And so Trifonov wins the Audience Award No surprise to me.... Later.... He won! I am over the moon about this - so richly deserved - all my musical instincts correct.  [Scroll down for more detail] The jury opened their ears and more importantly their hearts to his sensibility. A great poet of the instrument. And I am going to hear him at the Duszniki Zdroj International Chopin Piano Festival in Poland in August. My emotions 'recollected in tranquillity' later...

The Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow - the Final Battle for the Holy Grail

I have been so busy with my own researches on my forgotten Australian concert pianist and writing a recreation of his life in the 1920s I have only been able to watch the competition in fits and starts. However the Archive link on ParaClassics menu is a very useful catch up but why did they remove the finalists' concerto recordings apart from the Mozart? I would love to have compared them in my own time. One cannot remember the finer details in musical interpretations of a number of supremely outstanding finalists. How the jury deal with talent of this high order I have no idea - certainly much of it must be in the final judgement one of personal taste followed by a compromise collective decision which is seldom fair but will never entirely disappoint. Alexander Romanovsky is a magnificent aristocratic presence at the keyboard with the superb technique and deep musicality we have come to expect historically from  so many glorious Ukrainian pianists. His Tchaikovs

Daniil Trifonov plays the Chopin Etudes Op.25 and Mozart A Major concerto K. 488 from Moscow

If you are not already watching the Tchaikovsky Competition piano section streamed on 'Paraclassics' you really must do so. Trifonov gave one of the greatest live performances of Op. 25 I have ever heard. So passionately committed to this music it was electrifying. I could trot out all the poetic cliches in the book but  what use would that be? Pathetic words signifying little. Really you must watch this although it may not be to everyone's taste - the involvement of this pianist in the extreme emotions and fiery virtuosity of Chopin's youth makes one almost uncomfortable and leaves one questioning one's own personal musical committment. Here we have a young man possessed of a unique and ardent love, nay passionate joy in this music that only  illusioned youth is capable of, unfettered by mature experience and deep reflection. I have always believed that Chopin is played best by young pianists of the same age as Chopin himself when the work was composed and po