18th International Chopin Competition
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Watch the preliminary rounds on YouTube:
Link to video
168 pianists are competing in the preliminary with 80 advancing to the finals in October.You can watch performances on the main web site:
Web siteEach competitor has to perform a selection of Chopin Etudes, Nocturnes, Mazurkas and Ballades. Being a judge has to be difficult!
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The contestants seem to have a choice among different pianos. She plays a Yamaha. Looks like a CFX, the bigger brother of my CF6. The contestant before her played a Steinway. Just to annoy @jon-nyc , I'd like to point out that none of the contestants have chosen a Bösendorfer.
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@copper said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
I listen to Chopin while I mow the lawn.
But not by any of these people, Arthur Rubinstein.
Us polish Jews prefer the moniker “Artur”
The first serious classical music record I ever bought was Artur’s rendition of Chopins piano concertos 1 and 2. I think I must have been about 12.
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Second pianist I listened to so far, this guy is very good, musically and technically: https://chopin2020.pl/en/competitors/153/yuchong-wu
I expect him to advance.
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@bachophile said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
Artur
I listen to Artur Rubinstein playing the nocturnes, while driving, mowing the lawn and playing golf. My wife is tired of hearing them.
Several people in the Saturday morning group will play music during the round. Some even install speakers on the cart. In this part of Virginia, you mostly hear Country & Western or some 80's Pop maybe Jimmy Buffet. I can listen to those, but you can raise an eyebrow with Chopin Nocturnes.
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Was scrolling through the list of contestants. It looks like over 80% of them are Asians of the far-eastern/Oriental varieties. It seems competitive classical piano playing has become a de facto racist enterprise.
@klaus said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
Everyone of them would have made headlines and been given the biggest concert halls 150 years ago.
Due to widespread racial discrimination 150 years ago, most of the Asian pianists would have been barred from entering the US, let alone be given concert halls, due to the various versions of the Chinese Exclusion Act in effect in that era.
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Listening to Miki Yamagata now, technically impassive for sure, and I liked her Nocturnes and Mazurkas, keep hoping for stronger left-hand melodic elements in her Etudes, and keep hoping for more swagger, more robust rubato with her Ballade #4. My prediction is that she will advance past the preliminaries but probably will not advance as far as YuChong Wu whom I heard yesterday.
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@klaus said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
The level in this competition is insanely high. I'd gladly attend a full concert of basically every contestant I heard so far. Everyone of them would have made headlines and been given the biggest concert halls 150 years ago.
So piano playing is a solved problem, you say?
Education is extremely important.
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DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
@horace said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
So piano playing is a solved problem, you say?
It’s only a problem when Klaus is playing. The solution is well known - get him to stop.
But getting me to stop isn't easy. Only if you pry the piano from my dead cold hands.
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@klaus said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
One thing this competition reminds me of: I don't really like most of the Mazurkas. Does anyone? I like almost everything else from Chopin, but the Mazurkas don't work for me.
The Mazurkas are where Chopin went full Polish, they are more "ethnic music" than "classical music", so I supposed from that standpoint it does not surprise me that the Mazurkas do not appeal to the non-Poles the same way the other Chopin pieces do.
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From today's competitors....here's Boao Zhang (18 years old!) playing what most pianists consider to be the hardest etude, Op. 10 No. 2. Knocks it off with ease.
Link to video
I think he's a candidate to advance to the finals.
