Daniil Trifonov wins the Artur Rubinstein Competition!
I have been so busy writing my latest book on Edward Cahill (in a way dying to life in order to create it) that I have not been able to follow the Rubinstein competition in detail. However I sat up late last night to watch the finalists on that incomparable television channel Mezzo. Trifonov played the Chopin E minor Concerto Op. 11 with all the ardent love, sensitivity, grace and classical style that I had expected of him from his performance of the same work in the Chopin competition here in Warsaw last year. His interpretation of the Romance-Larghetto movement brings one close to tears - all of the romantic, illusioned yearning that young love is capable of - the finest I have ever heard including Lipatti and Pollini (just after his win of the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1960). I was overjoyed at this result. This win absolutely confirms my conviction that Trifonov was one of the greatest Chopin players in Warsaw (see my extensive October 2010 posting on...