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Music competitions,
by definition, are populated largely by the unknown, with some
perhaps on the cusp of discovery and a springboard to a stellar
ascendancy. The Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia
(SIPCA) may not have the fillip of the "big name" competitions like
the Tchaikovsky or Naumberg, but it has had its share of commotion
and drama over the years. Also known as the "Piano Olympics" for its
gruelling competitive regime, SIPCA is held once every four years in
the same year as the sporting Olympics. (SIPCA began in 1977, and
was subsequently held in 1981 and 1985, before it was moved forward
a year in 1988 to coincide with the Australian Bicentenary - which
also brought it into alignment with the Olympic year.)
 The tumultuous events of the 1992 SIPCA
finals are still vividly remembered by those who were present, and
this disc commemorates three of the finalists around which the
melodrama swirled. Six finalists, after four elimination rounds, had
to perform a Mozart concerto and a Romantic concerto with orchestra.
The youngest finalist, Vitaly Samoshko (picture), had prepared the
incorrect Mozart A-major work (K.488 instead of the stipulated
K.414) and faced one of three equally unpalatable choices: pull out
from the finals altogether; perform the K.414 with score and risk
disqualification; or, play it by heart and risk the embarrassment of
memory lapse (but still guaranteed coming in no lower than sixth
place).
Samoshko played with the music, in
contravention of competition rules, and was inevitably disqualified.
Yet, because of overwhelming popular demand and through a charitable
special dispensation by the jury, he was allowed to perform in the
second Romantic round with his selected work, the Rachmaninov
Paganini Rhapsody. The occasion was piled high with emotion, yet
perhaps it was the pathos and temperament of a contestant who
literally had nothing left to lose which ultimately lent an edge to
his performance.
Samoshko's
Rhapsody
is the opening work on this album, sensibly separated into six
tracks for easy access. From the starting blocks, Samoshko races
through the first six variations before a quicksilver change of mood
in the 7th variation. There is a certain aristocratic manner to his
playing, underlined by an unself-conscious instinct which is more
than closely matched, passion for passion, by Tchivzhel and the
Sydney Symphony. Samoshko dispatches the famous 18th variation with
great composure and finesse, leading into some high-wire fingerwork
in the 19th and 20th variations, notwithstanding some glaring slips.
Yet, these occasional slips and
agogic (even reckless) mannerisms actually gives his music-making a
hint of vulnerability amid his youthful, crashing waves of
volatility and spontaneity. Also, Samoshko's delivery doesn't have
much on keyboard colouring, whereas Duncan Gifford, in Liszt's First
Piano Concerto, has it in spades. Gifford was the youngest
Australian contestant in his year, and along with Daniel Hill in the
2004 SIPCA, are the highest-placed Australians in the SIPCA to date.
(Both were third-placed finalists.)
Gifford's reading
of the Liszt is persuasive and magisterial: he has a strong grip on
this work, both technically and interpretatively. In the inner
movements, he takes the solo piano writing and unabashedly claims
the spotlight for himself in the interchanges with the orchestra. He
gives so much poetry and sensitivity in the second movement, with
copious amounts of rubato and even sounds quite relaxed at times.
Deceptively, though, Gifford is storing up the juice for a
barnstorming finale, where he lets fly at the keyboard with
dexterity, taking on the orchestra on its own terms and he comes
out, proverbially, the last man standing.
If Samoshko's performance was
poignant and Gifford's sensational, then Olivier Cazal's sheer
artistry in Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto makes it the capstone
of this album. It was an ambitious selection, stating his intentions
quite clearly in making a huge push for the first prize. The third
concerto is regarded as the most popular of the five piano concertos
Prokofiev wrote - there is even a comparable recording of the same
work from the 1978 Tchaikovksy Competition on the Chandos label
(CHAN 9913), by the late Terence Judd with the Moscow Philharmonic
under Lazarev.
 Even if it has some unpolished
moments, the compulsion and fortitude of Cazal's playing is hard to
resist. His solo turn of finger acrobatics belies the quiet opening,
impulsive and rumbustious. His accomplice-accompanist, Tchivzhel,
does a superb job with the orchestra to underline the subtleties and
ideas which Cazal tosses up. Cazal's central movement is simply
echt
Prokofiev: just listen to his scalar roulades in the second
variation, or the spicy, quirky elements he brings to the third
variation, or the glowing white-heat in the final variation leading
up to the recapitulation of the
Tema.
It's not hard to see why the
audience (and he himself had) expected him to win, and if you
weren't there, it might make just you wonder just what Kong Xiang-Dong
did to clinch his
first prize that year ahead of Cazal. In yet another pique of drama,
Cazal subsequently replaced the Haydn in his prizewinner's recital a
few days later with the Chopin "Funeral March" B-minor sonata.
These live recordings come from July
1992, made in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. The sound
is generally full of presence and resonance, without excessive
bloom. The Sydney Symphony orchestral timbre has a fine lustre with
the piano well-balanced, but the back row (brasses and percussion)
does suffer from lack of clarity. This is quite evident, for
instance, in the interplay between the piano, and castanets and
triangles in the Prokofiev.
Nonetheless, the bottom line here is
how candidly this album captures the feckless thrills and
excitement, as translated to musical performances, of a
drama-drenched occasion, and is indicative of the pedigree of this
competition. Sometimes a glimpse of nervousness and pressure shows
through, but there is nothing otherwise ordinary or routine about
these performances. None of these works will displace any of the
front-runners in the same repertoire in today's already-saturated
market - but then, perhaps for once, we shouldn’t be as concerned
about such merits, as simply to partake of the human drama in this
piano competition.
Benjamin Chee
is no stranger to drama in the concert hall. (If you buy him dinner,
he'll tell you all about it.)
More about Vitaly Samoshko:
http://www.vitalysamoshko.com
Readers' Comments
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365:
12.12.1998 © Chia Han-Leon
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