Thursday, July 24, 2008

It's been an interesting afternoon session of SIPCA semifinals...

Miyeon Lee gave us some seductive Scriabin, bite-less Beethoven, fascinating Holliger, and an up-and-down Dante Sonata. I find much to enjoy in her playing, but much to quibble with also. Her Dante had me jumping out of my skin at times, only to fall so very flat at others. I still find her an interesting artist, however, so I wouldn't mind seeing her progress.


Charlie Albright brought us the Archduke Trio, which was a bit young-sounding, although beautifully played. He is an interesting musician, that is for sure. Yet... still I'm not 100% convinced.


Yoon Soo Rhee is well and truly besting her countrywoman. I'm glad I'm listening to her in the afternoon, because I am enjoying her playing THOROUGHLY. Especially the Five Klavierstucke by Yun, which were very fine indeed. Not music I'm familiar with, but I'd like to be. Her Ravel is also extremely fine - Oiseaux tristes a dark rainbow of colour; Une barque given an exciting, stormy feel; and the Alborada full of passion and virtuosity. It lacks some of the polish given to it by Hoang Pham, however, so I'll have to put it in second place thus far. Her Beethoven, to start, was beautifully shaded... yet so full of presence. So much presence!

Well, well, this is a great Rigoletto-Paraphrase! One that singers could keep up with, for the most part! Scintillating fingerwork, and gorgeous singing melodic lines. I am a fan. BRAVO, Yoon Soo Rhee. A wonderful, wonderful recital!

I admire female pianists who aren't afraid to (or are capable of) making a big sound, with big ideas and DARING.

Now we have Eric Zuber, with the Mendelssohn Trio in D minor. Thank goodness not everyone's playing it this time... in 2000 and 2004, this and the Arensky were almost all anybody did. This year there's a bit more variety, however, there are quite a few Brahms B minor...

So far, so good. He seems to be attentive to his strings, even with all the bubbling notes of the Mendelssohn piano part. I like this better than I liked his last recital. Gorgeous second movement. A beautifully shaped performance that was attentive and a pleasure to listen to. Nothing like his crash, bang, bash performance of the Nutcracker suite!

2 comments:

Chang Tou Liang said...

Many thanks for posting your commentaries, which I will follow closely from now till the end. I had been listening to Pham's Schubert through my MP3 player when the power went off! Totally missed the Hough encore. Whoever heard of the Radetzky Waltz? Probably as plausible as the Beautiful Blue Danube March!

Lady Blogger said...

Well it's definitely a labour of love.

Unfortunately, tonight, I have visitors, and tomorrow I'm off on a weekend away. So I don't know how much more of Stage IV I'll hear, if any.

But, when it gets to Stage V, you can't drag me away from my radio!