PRELIMINARY ROUND
Session V (Wednesday, 15 January 2025)
Wednesday afternoons are when I usually take a long nap at home, but this was an opportunity to catch another four pianists at the Singapore International Piano Competition, something not to be missed. And I wasn’t disappointed.
Roman Lopatynskyi (31, Ukraine), a former runner-up at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, took an epic view of J.S.Bach’s slow Prelude & Fugue in C sharp minor (WTC Book 2), which had such broad tempi that one could drive a T-64 tank through. This was at the risk of losing the narrative, but the build up of the stately fugue was one worth waiting for.
Brahms’ late Four Pieces (Op.119) are also his most modern piano works, particularly the first two which look ahead to Schoenberg’s unstable harmonic world. Again, very deliberate tempi and unusually placed accents distinguished the B minor Intermezzo, the tonality of which kept one guessing for a while. Similarly ambiguous was the E minor number that followed, but the glorious central melody in E major was well brought out. The C major Intermezzo could have done with more lightness and charm but no arguments against the E flat major Rhapsody which had the right heft and bluster to close.
And who wasn’t waiting for the burly Ukrainian to deliver Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka with true Slavic intensity? Although a tad slapdash in the Danse Russe, his view of Chez Petrouchka was to bring out as many jarring dissonances as possible, and it worked. The bustling Shrovetide Fair was a high decibel event, which despite some missed notes was fully characterised. The octave leaps at the end were just stunning and the thunderous close was pretty much what was expected.
The choice of Elia Cecino (23, Italy) to juxtapose the contrapuntal prowess of Shostakovich’s Prelude & Fugue No.21 in B flat major (Op.87) with J.S.Bach’s Toccata in G minor was a touch of genius. Both have breathless fugues which make for absorbing listening, and the two centuries that separate the Soviet and the German seem much narrower now. He also proves a supreme colourist in two of Ravel’s Miroirs. Alborada del Gracioso, with its clacking castanets and sweeping glissandi, sparkled ever so brilliantly but even better to come was his aromatic and bell-filled visage of the Orient in La vallee des cloches.
A more gripping performance of Scriabin’s Sonata No.3 in F sharp minor would be hard to find. He stamped his authority on the main theme and the struggle of the “states of the soul” was at hand. The second movement’s imperious romp was well contrasted with the slow movement’s dreamily reflective state, the latter I have never heard more clearly or persuasively rendered. The first movement’s emphatic theme would come back one last time before the finale’s relentless rush of adrenaline to complete this unusually creative recital on a high.
The repertoire choices of Yi-Teng Huang (26, Taiwan) were puzzling for this level of competition. Mozart’s “easy” Fantasia in D minor (K.397) followed by J.S.Bach’s Toccata in E minor seemed odd, both opening with recitatives which could have been freely improvisatory but instead came out as heavy-handed. Maybe he wanted these to sound like coming from a pipe organ. The happy conclusion to the Mozart and the fugal climax of the Bach were fine heard on their own, but were less than the sum of the parts. Schubert’s Impromptu in F minor (Op.90 No.1) is not often heard in isolation from its siblings, but Huang made as much possible from its slim musical content.
I am beginning to wonder if Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka, heard for the second time this afternoon, is becoming competition-weary. Everybody plays it, almost becoming a cliche for loud and unapologetic barnstorming. It is business as usual in Huang’s reading, slightly more accurate and conventional but less characterful than Lopatynskyi’s. I think that’s enough Stravinsky for this competition.
The preliminary recital programme of Tianyou Li (20, China) was centred wholly in the key of C minor. That was a risk unless he could make the music sound special, and he more than accomplished that. J.S.Bach’s French Suite No.2 and its short dances were ripe his ornamentations, which were interesting and ear-catching, almost improvisatory in nature. This is crisp Bach-playing that is hard to dislike.
His tour de force came in Schubert’s mighty Sonata No.19 (D.958) from the great final trilogy. This is a young person’s reading, full of rhythmic vitality and a lust for life. When one considered that Schubert died soon after this was premiered at 31, he was still very much a young man.
The tragedy was well captured with the opening chords, confidently punched out, and the harrowing development section of the first movement. The hymn-like slow movement was beautifully sung, and the tension was raised for the third movement’s Menuet and Trio. The finale’s tarantella rhythm had a fatalistic finality to it, and even though there were two more sonatas to come, Schubert knew his time was up. Li’s eventful Schubert and Cecino’s Scriabin were the two transcendent performances of the afternoon.
JUDGES' VERDICT
The six pianists chosen by the jury to proceed to the Semi-Finals are:
Tiankun Ma (China)
Leyu Xu (China)
Jiyoung Kim (South Korea)
Philipp Lynov (Russia)
Elia Cecino (Italy) and
Tianyou Li (China)
The Semi-Finals take place on Thursday and Friday (16 & 17 January 2025) at the SOTA Concert Hall.
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