Thursday, June 11, 2009
One who got away, and TWO who didn't
Mariangela Vacatello, who won the audience prize at the Cliburn, playing Stravinsky in an early round. The 27-year-old Italian studied at Imola and is a great favourite back home. Here in Britain we can hear her at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 10 July and the Buxton Festival on 13 July. Her semifinal video is a gorgeous performance of the Scriabin Etude for the Left Hand.
Now here's winner Haocheng Zhang in what sounds to me like a jolly impressive Scarbo.
And - after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing involving a mysteriously missing video on Youtube - thanks to Michael Monroe for sending me a link that actually works so we can show Nobuyuji Tsujii playing some of the Hammerklavier:
UPDATE: 5.30pm, Thursday - whatever you thought of the Facts & Arts piece, try this one for nastiness: Benjamin Ivry in The Wall Street Journal, under the title WHAT WAS THE VAN CLIBURN JURY THINKING? I find some of his arguments exceedingly odd - and the Takacs Quartet has not come 'from Hungary' for donkey's years and is in fact half English.
I should warn you quickly, if you are wanting to comment further on any of this, that as of tomorrow afternoon I am OFF until the end of next Thursday and have no intention of straying further from the swimming pool behind our favourite Luberon bed & breakfast than I absolutely have to - and it's in a spot deliciously remote from WiFi. So speak now or temporarily hold your peace!
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12 comments:
"Curiouser and curiouser."
I know the conspiracy theory is much more fun, but why don't you just go view all of Nobu's performances where they're still archived in nice quality at the competition website?
http://www.cliburn.tv/
Here's Nobu's semi-final video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLBmBdLw4Yw It works for me.
It's not the whole recital, but I don't think they've posted full recitals for any of the contestants on YouTube, although I could just be not finding them.
Again, they're all here, in better quality: http://www.cliburn.tv/
I don't think there's anything suspicious going on. Do you honestly think they'd try to award a gold-medalist and then hide his performances? Whatever problems people may have with the decision, the jury and the Cliburn Foundation are clearly not ashamed of this young man or his playing.
OK, thanks, got it now - update coming up.
You're correct that Nobu's video doesn't show up on this playlist.
Since there are only 171 views listed there, it looks like it was taken down early, probably due to a technical glitch (not Nobu's!) and then reposted, but someone forgot to fix the playlist. Again, the performance does show up here.
Just one more question. You write, "I dread to think what the music business machine will decide to do with 'Nobu'." I just hope they treat him with more respect than Michael Johnson does in the oddly named "Facts & Arts."
And once more, I can't recommend highly enough Greg Allen's blog reviews for a nicely nuanced take on the competition from someone who attended every performance.
I just want to think Michael for his balanced, considerate, compassionate comments on two posts here. I've found this rather dismal, not all what I expect, but I reflect that perhaps the aerosol of unkindness that burst out of the European Parliament elections is still in the air.
Philip, when music competitions are discussed we can't expect anything very much except dismalness, if such a word exists.
I don't think it has anything to do with the European Parliament. But it might help if someone there decided to legislate against corruption in music competitions. They are good at legislating.
BTW, before you say anything, I can confirm that I am being deeply sarcastic.
A small detail, but I'm pretty sure that the "audience vote" won by Ms. Vacatello came from the internet vote, not polling of the live audiences. And that voting was not very elegantly handled - among other things, I noticed the "polls" had closed less than 15 minutes after Di Wu played the closing performance of the weekend. I wouldn't have voted for Wu - I didn't vote at all, not having felt that I'd seen enough - but that could hardly have been fair to her fans.
Also, quite awkwardly, the "audience vote" award was announced last (after the medalists!) at the awards ceremony, with the note that it carried a cash prize of: zero. It must have been a mistake that they announced it at the end, as the entire ceremony seemed hastily and awkwardly planned. The point is, I wouldn't put too much emphasis on audience vote, though Vacatello clearly had many fans. If you read the competition's open blogs (not for the faint of heart), you'll find many ardent supporters of all the finalists, but I never got the sense that she was a leading favorite. There were also rumors that she was sick part of the time, and maybe not always at her best.
I just read the article by Benjamin Ivry. That's it, I'm done. I don't have time for this. What is not plainly nasty has no diacectic and gets us nowhere at all. I want time to listen to Ivry Gitlis playing the Sibelius and I don't have time for Benjamin Ivry, whom I otherwise know only as the author of an utterly tendentious book on Ravel. Have a lovely break, Jessica.
As you can imagine, Philip, I need a holiday!
Well, right, the Cliburn didn't hide the playing of competitors from the internet audience, which means that the weirdness of the jury's decisions are available for all to see. I, for one, was not terribly impressed the Nobu as a musician, other than what he has achieved in spite of his blindness, and was quite surprised when he made it past the first round. Except that on one level I wasn't at all.
It would be interesting to find a group of people seriously interested in classical piano who have not heard any of those performances, and to have them rate the performances without knowing the names or seeing the video portion, just the audio. It would be the equivalent of playing behind a screen, as some auditions are handled.
Minor correction, Jessica: the Takacs is half-Hungarian (Schranz & Fejer), one-quarter British (Dusinberre), one-quarter American (Walther).
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