Anna Vinnitskaya was the most recent First Prize winner (2007) of the Queen Elisabeth International Piano Competition in Brussels. Just to put things into perspective, Ilya Rashkovskiy (right) – who so captured the hearts of Hongkongers at the First Hong Kong International Piano Competition in 2005 – only managed to finish three places behind her. Musical artistry is positively not about who finishes ahead of whom. The mere idea of competition placings, equating artists to race horses and greyhounds, is an odious one but it has become a fact of life. International competitions have made sure of that.

At any rate, the petite 23-year-old Vinnitskaya proved to be a powerhouse performer, belying her slight and diminutive figure. The Bach-Busoni Chaconne that opened her recital was the first proof of that. The performance was a steady and rock-solid one which generated lots of volume from the outset. However she was intent on employing a rather hard and sometimes unyielding tone throughout, where one would have hoped for some degree of subtlety or variation of colour. With no blips or slips, it was almost a case of one down, three to go.

Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit fared somewhat better, and she impressed with her accuracy and very fine control. Ondine was delicately balanced between right hand tremolos and the left hand melody, building inexorably from an uneasy stillness to a massive climax. If there were to be any criticism, this was it: in her quest for utmost virtuosity, sensuousness was sacrificed for safety first, resulting in a certain bloodlessness. Isn’t that often a criticism of first prize winners of concours the world over?

Le gibet, the vision of a corpse swaying on a scaffold, had little mystique as Vinnitskaya chose to illuminate her B flat octave tolls in a bright monochrome. Where were the half lights or variegated shades? The garish neon lights of Vegas (or Tsim Sha Tsui, downtown Kowloon in this case) seemed more likely to be evoked in this reading. There was even a hint of technical fallibility in the infamous Scarbo, despite the obvious prestidigitation. Here her volcanic energy was tempered by a strange sense of propriety. Instead one longed to be gripped vice-like at the neck and throttled with extreme vehemence.

Such is the very nature of this music that one returns to the Hong Kong International Piano Competition of 2005 - yet again – to witness Meiyi Foo’s safety last, suffocating and devil-may-care reading, one that defined the life and death of a performance.

If there were reservations with Vinnitskaya’s first half, there was none whatsoever in her all-Russian second part of her programme. This was clearly home territory, where the air was thick with the sound of pealing kolokola (Russian church bells) and wafts of home-stewed borshch. If there were a better “live” performance of Medtner’s Sonata Reminiscenza (Op.38 No.1), I have yet to hear it.

The extremes in dynamics, which should have earlier served Gaspard with aplomb, were well-employed here. Beginning with the wistful unfolding introduction, Vinnitskaya’s traversal was akin to a master-storyteller, peeling off each layer of an enthralling skazki (fairy tale or its Russian equivalent) in front of an enraptured audience. The baritone melody, appearing like some character from Chekhov, sang out in earnest, later to be overwhelmed with waves of turbulence and passionate outpourings. Her melding of different tunes, textures and moods into one coherent whole was totally admirable, which made for a very memorable outing.

And what about that overplayed chestnut, Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata? Vinnitskaya acquitted herself well in the shorter 1931 version of the work, bringing its clangour, angst and anger to satisfying climaxes. Here, the sheer volume can be overpowering but she used it judiciously, ensuring that there is little that was overblown or tiresome to the ear. When the music needed tenderness and nostalgia, as in the hymn-like second movement, she responded in kind. 

There is little more to be said about the requisite virtuosity needed for the outer movements of the work to shine, and she was armed to the hilt. More importantly, the sheer Russianness of the drama and tragedy also came through.  To borrow Chicagoan critic Claudia Cassidy oft-quoted descriptions of Emil Gilels’ playing, of “blowtorch incandescence” and being “stewed in Russian juices”, these superlatives would not be out of place here.

Her encore also underlined the technical superiority that is needed to triumph in competitions, one no less than Chopin’s very first Étude in C major (Op.10 No.1). While Anna Vinnitskaya is still young and maturing, here is a very accomplished pianist and musician to follow.

By Chang Tou Liang

By Chang Tou Liang 

 

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