18th International Chopin Competition
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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?
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@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. -
@sd-tav said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
Boao Zhang (18 years old!) playing […] etude, Op. 10 No. 2. Knocks it off with ease.
Went listen because you called out him out. Agree with you assessment that he knocked Op.10 #2 out of the park; that performance was divine.
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The list of competitors who advanced to Stage 1 has been posted.
The preliminary round eliminated half of the competitors. A little over 2/3 of competitors from China advanced. Just a bit less than half of Japan’s competitors advanced. Amazingly, 15 out of 16 competitors from Poland advanced!
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@axtremus Of course the Polish competitors advanced. They could understand the application!
I'm looking forward to watching the finals in October. A piano friend told me she hopes to be able to attend the competition in Warsaw. I said, "you do realize that the competitors mostly play Chopin?" She slammed the piano lid on my fingers!
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The 12 finalists have been announced. They will compete this week to determine the winner. Should be interesting! There are really fine players in this group.
Chopin competition web site -
@axtremus said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
@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.
What little I listened to, skipping around, was impressive technically and expressively.
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I think Ms. Kobayashi deserved a bit higher of a placement…
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@lufins-dad said in 18th International Chopin Competition:
I think Ms. Kobayashi deserved a bit higher of a placement…
Have Kirk reprogram it