How China Does Piano Competition
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No, you don’t get to play two sets of 90-minute solo program, one newly commissioned piece, one ensemble work with other musicians, then end with one or maybe even two piano concerti if you get that far.
In this piano competition that took place in China, you get FIVE MINUTES. The recording below is from the FINAL round:
Link to videoFWIW, the pianist certainly has the chops, and he rearranged an excerpt from a piano concerto into a solo piece for his performance. I am pretty sure I hear a broken string at the end of his performance.
For the hardware folks, yeah, that’s a Hailun concert grand.
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For the hardware folks, yeah, that’s a Hailun concert grand.
I knew that when you mentioned the broken string...
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@klaus said in How China Does Piano Competition:
Maybe technically impressive, but to be honest I found that awful. Hard to listen to more than 30s of it. Music has ups and downs, a beginning, a middle and an end, tension and release, soft and loud. This was just 5 minutes of fff piano banging.
Yeah, I suspect he designed that excerpt to fit what he thought would appeal to the judges/audience given the five minute limit.
Here’s another recording of the same pianist playing La Campanella with a bit more nuance, see what you think:
Link to videoAnd his Rach 3 performance in Brussels:
Link to video