{"id":84117,"date":"2022-10-24T18:57:59","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T22:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=84117"},"modified":"2022-10-25T09:57:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T13:57:46","slug":"report-the-10th-honens-international-piano-competition-semis-i-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2022\/10\/24\/report-the-10th-honens-international-piano-competition-semis-i-iv\/","title":{"rendered":"REPORT | The 10th Honens International Piano Competition: Semifinals I-IV"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"10th
Pianist Rachel Breen performs The 10th Honens International Piano competition Semis I-II. (Photo: Honens)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Semis I-II<\/strong><\/p>\n

CALGARY \u2014 The 10th Honens International Piano Competition, covid-complications edition, started appropriately: I watched the livestream at 20,000ft with an Air Canada \u201cbread\u201d in one hand. The quarterfinals earlier this year also had jurors at a distance, watching videos shot in a sound studio to boil fifty competitors down to the ten now performing in Calgary.<\/p>\n

Each pianist plays twice in the semis. First a 65-minute solo recital that has to include a newly commissioned work by Stewart Goodyear, and then a 60-minute chamber concert with one of Beethoven\u2019s ten violin sonatas, a piece from Fritz Kreisler\u2019s Alt-Wiener Tanzweisen, and a bonbon they get to choose for themselves.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s over two hours from each pianist and this being a competition they all badly want to win, the rep leans to romantic showstoppers. Listening to\u00a0all\u00a0of it is the musical equivalent of competitive eating, so strap on your nosebag and let\u2019s get force-fed some\u00a0oats<\/del>\u00a0notes.<\/p>\n

First up, Simon Karakulidi, who started sweetly with Valentin Silvestrov\u2019s Allegretto from 3 Bagatelles Op. 1 (2005), a hopeful, even naive-seeming piece by a Ukrainian composer who is currently a refugee in Berlin. This was a red herring. The Beethoven (vampy), Liszt (mechanical), and Goodyear (brash) that followed revealed a different performer: huge expressive potential \u2014 and upper body strength! \u2014 but enervated, like he was struggling to ride whatever brutal spirit possessed him at the keys.<\/p>\n

\u0141ukasz Byrdy was a fine contrast, all shading and analytical precision. He started with the Goodyear and found surprises in the Rondo Capriccioso\u2019s fireworks (seen those videos where a barge loaded with a 20-minute fireworks show goes off all at once? It\u2019s like that.) His rendition of Szymanowski\u2019s Masques was a Bermuda triangle of intellectual subtleties\u2014I thought we might lose Byrdy in there\u2014but he found warmth in Chopin in Etude in C-sharp minor Op. 25 No. 7 and ended with an elegantly oiled Brahms Piano Sonata No. 3. The Scherzo was decadent. I was shocked, amidst so many perfectly-placed notes, to remember Karakulidi\u2019s wildness with new pleasure.<\/p>\n

\"10th
Pianist Angie Zhang performs The 10th Honens International Piano competition Semis I-II. (Photo: Honens)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The evening round began with Angie Zhang and a revelatory performance of Mily Balakirev\u2019s Piano Sonata in B-flat minor (1905). This late 19c Russian was one of the nationalistic establishment group \u201cThe Five\u201d with Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov; and he was against formal training, bless him. Zhang\u2019s meticulousness is remarkably balanced with feeling, a capacity she applied to the Goodyear with intriguing results. For the first time in the semis I could shrug off the structural virtuosity of the work\u2014useful in a competition, you need see them sweat \u2014 and start to dream, and the Rondo became a dance of porcelain automatons. Like something a child magician spies through a keyhole and backs away from. She finished with a lightweight (bordering on malnourished) Sonata No. 3 by Chopin, but it is fun\u00a0basking in apparent effortlessness. I could see her in the finals.<\/p>\n

Last on Thursday night was Rachel Breen, who started with another under-appreciated 19c Russian, Micolai Medtner. He\u2019s known for abandoning a virtuoso performance career\u2014I wouldn\u2019t want to compete with Rachmaninoff either\u2014to turn to composition, and for marrying his brother\u2019s wife. Amidst so many stiff and eager young \u201cprofessionals\u201d, Breen radiates a natural pleasure at the instrument. I\u2019m tempted to explain it by her (relatively) late start after years playing for herself. Her program had more personality than the average, too. She treated Medtner\u2019s Piano Sonata No. 3 in G minor Op. 22 a bit casually, the Goodyear lacked confidence but she brought out inner voices and pivots that I hadn\u2019t heard yet, which is explained by her affinity for Bach. She finished with a mesmerizing performance of the Goldberg Variations, peppered with idiosyncratic interpretations of volume and tempi. Her performance of the 25th variation haunted me for a day. Will she make the finals? It depends what Honens means by \u201cthe complete pianist.\u201d But one to watch, regardless.<\/p>\n

Semis III-IV<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a relief to listen in the room rather than hurtling through the air looking over your shoulder to see if the flight attendants have noticed you\u2019ve tricked their wifi into letting you watch\u00a0forbidden\u00a0video streams. I don\u2019t recommend looking around Mount Royal University\u2019s campus while you walk to the Bella Taylor hall, though\u2014nobody comes to Calgary for the urbanism. The dark thoughts persisted after the grim walk from the parkade and I noticed with alarm how the previous winner, Nicolas Namoradze, seems to be everywhere at this year\u2019s competition. What\u2019s the true price of victory? Is he even allowed to leave this place? I thought about pulling up his pant leg to check for an ankle bracelet. Nicolas, blink three times if you need a ride. (Happily, the hall itself is an auburn tea box; a modest design of veneered curves that most importantly sounds warm and clean.)<\/p>\n

The afternoon concert began with Sae Yoon Chon, who started studying violin but preferred an instrument where he \u201ccould sit down\u201d. His performance was heavy-handed and heavy-footed, from an uneven Brahms Piano Sonata No. 3\u2014missing details, squeezing the theme of the Finale to the edge of perception, but also flourished with superhuman speed and accuracy \u2014 to an exciting but reckless Goodyear, which reminded me of this fake video<\/a>\u00a0of a stressful bus ride. His Prokofiev was best. Sinister and elegant like bumping into Tilda Swinton at your local bar and noticing there\u2019s a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth. His pyrotechnics singed very little in the first movement and by the third there was a deliciously unsettling sense that the forces onstage were barely contained. Will it be enough? (The moment he\u2019d finished, an elegant older lady dashed through the aisle, probably to buy a refreshing tallboy at the dedicated beer bar, and woofed \u201cThank you, Prokofiev!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Philipp Scheucher is one of the oldest competitors at 29 \u00a0and his program was only the second, after Breen, to feel thoughtfully constructed rather than the musical equivalent of greased bodybuilders flexing under arc lights. The credit isn\u2019t his alone, it\u2019s composer Gerd K\u00fchr who wrote two Intermezzi (2014) for Schubert\u2019s 3 Klavierst\u00fccke. This is a very tasty club sandwich. The alien tang of K\u00fchr\u2019s interventions sits next to Schubert\u2019s lyricism like a beautiful hallucination. I imagined playing Schubert into an empty sewer pipe and hearing a faint echo from the other end; unfamiliar and frightening, and clearly made by something intelligent. It is hard to identify Scheucher\u2019s limitations, yet. His performance of Goodyear was weightless, the first pianist to sound like they\u2019d solved its puzzles, and the Schumann Symphonic Etudes were simply brilliant–meditative. It was even difficult to think. It will be a surprise if he doesn\u2019t make the finals.<\/p>\n

The evening semis began with \u00c1d\u00e1m Balogh who \u2014 and I mean this as a compliment \u2014 seems to be part squid. There is a smoothness and slipperyness to his fingers (has anyone checked if he has the usual number?) and a capacity for astonishing delicacy that is positively aquatic. He opened with Bart\u00f3k\u2019s Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs Op. 20, bringing out their mischievous restlessness to delightful effect. His daintiness sometimes becomes hesitancy, particularly in the pedal that intruded a few times. Gaspard de la Nuit suits him perfectly but I\u2019m physically incapable of appreciating Ravel\u2019s vapid noodling. I was more concerned about what the Goodyear would do to this gentle person. It dragged him onto the beach, grilled him and ate him. And finally, between beautiful moments and sprays of shocking detail, the Rachmaninoff needed more brawn.<\/p>\n

Friday night ended with 21-year-old Illia Ovcharenko, the youngest semifinalist, in an athletic mood. He somehow managed to quicken my pulse with an eighth performance of the Goodyear, delivered with gloss and power. Beethoven\u2019s \u201cLes Adieux\u201d may seem like too safe a choice for this week\u2019s knife fight but Ovcharenko blitzed through it wherever he could, without losing his distinctive bell-like tone. The overall impression was of an artist with a coltish impulse to find out how fast he can really run. But he seems too clever to lose control, so Schumann\u2019s Kreisleriana included breakneck stunting as well as coy affection.<\/p>\n

Though, by this point, he was facing growing competition from the audience\u2019s panicked spinal columns. It wasn\u2019t entirely Ovcharenko\u2019s fault, he only went a few minutes over his 65, but it seems that none of the previous competitors had prepared us for what a full use of their time would feel like, especially at the very end of the night. It was an enraptured performance but circumstances conspired to make it feel relentless. After the Schumann, there was still Alberto Ginastera\u2019s Piano Sonata No. 1 Op. 22 (1952), a playful mid-century gem with quotations from what sound like electronic synths. Had we doubted that the colt also had endurance? No. Absolutely not. Please, no.<\/p>\n

Over a breakfast of muscle relaxants the next morning, it became possible to appreciate one of the most exciting performances so far.<\/p>\n

Livestream the 10th Honens International Piano Competition [HERE]<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/b><\/em><\/div>\n
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This is the first in our series of reports from Calgary following the 10th Honens International Piano Competition from start to finish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":84121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[39907,17,47,52],"tags":[9511],"yst_prominent_words":[27934,27931,27930,19090,19085,13317,12451],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/10\/HONENS-2022-Rachel-Breen.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-lSJ","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84117"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84176,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84117\/revisions\/84176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84117"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=84117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}