Semi-finals
Day 2 (18 September)

Here’s a tip for those planning to stay in Leeds for the duration of the piano competition. Accommodation is generally expensive (as in much of UK), but budget bed and breakfast hotels (at GBP30 per person per night or thereabouts) are available near the University at Woodsley Road. It’s a pleasant 6-minute stroll to the Great Hall, and 6 minutes to the free shuttle bus service that serves the town centre.

Now to the pianists:

Tatiana Kolesova (21, Russia)

Much was expected from the young Russian who finished 6th as a teenager in the 2000 competition. Uppermost in the minds of regulars at “The Leeds” was “Has she progressed?” Hearing her for the first time, I was mostly impressed by her opening Bach-Busoni Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major BWV.564. Although the opening flourish was made to sound like an exercise, she sculpted a cathedral of sound in the chorale that followed. The dotted rhythms in the Aria were nicely voiced and she mastered the jaunty and celebratory Fugue with aplomb.

More colour followed in Schumann’s rhapsodic Kreisleriana, where there was both passion and longing in its eight movements. After the emotional roller coaster that was Schumann, her Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales sounded strangely flat, with little variation in mood or texture in its eight dances. Dohnanyi’s Etude in F minor “Capriccio” acted as an encore, but its empty bluster seemed almost superfluous.

Verdict: A musical but somewhat uneven showing. Might make the final cut, but given the present competition, I have my doubts.    

Grace Fong (27, USA)

One would be hard pressed to find a lady pianist who more than lives up to her christened name than this American-Chinese from California. Attired in a light green evening gown, she cuts a stunningly elegant figure on stage. Fortunately her pianism also fully matches up. The only pianist to begin a recital with Britten, its quiet B flat major close (the finest performance of the work, in my opinion) would have imperceptibly led into Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata in B flat minor Op.36. However audience applause intruded into what would have been a truly sublime moment.

The whirlwind whipped up in the clangorous Rachmaninov was one of sonorous beauty rather than raw Horowitzian energy and diablerie. Of all the 12 pianists heard in the semis, Fong produced the most gorgeous and exquisite tone. There is not an ugly note to be heard in a high voltage reading that tapered off in the noisily congested final movement. Was she already losing stamina? Mozart’s rarely heard Variations in B flat major K.500 that followed yielded much wit and humour. The multiple movements of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze Op.6 were also a feast for the ears, especially the tear-jerking B minor melody from No.2 (Innig) which magically recurs towards the end in No.17. However the performance was peppered with slips and inaccuracies, which may cost her as they accrued.    

Verdict: An artist of rare eloquence, and ahem, grace (sorry I just could not resist that! A true musical colourist who may have had an off day. May not make the final if the jury was only looking for cold and clinical accuracy.  

Kim Sung-Hoon (28, Korea)

This is the same “Fatboy” Kim who so amused and enthralled the audience with his corpulence, nonchalant but impressive pianism at the First Hong Kong International Piano Competition last year. I don’t know whether he read my blog (and heeded advice to get a personal trainer), but he seemed to have shapened up and benefited from some sartorial counsel.

Kim took the best part of 40 minutes in Bach’s Partita No.6 in E minor, but time passed like a flash in a stupendous reading that plumbed its every musical possibility. With eyes gazing heavenward for celestial guidance (and possibly divine instruction), his lips audibly mouthing the music, pure inspiration oozed from every pore. From the improvisatory opening Toccata to the joyous final Gigue, there was contemplation, supplication, agony and ecstacy. More than being someone out-Goulding Glenn Gould, Kim’s Bach was akin to an act of worship and communion. For this listener, the best performance of the competition.

Then off came his coat in a solid reading of Chopin’s Polonaise in F sharp minor Op.44 and the ultimate tour-de-force of technical virtuosity, Liszt’s transcription of Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture. While not as effortless as Cziffra’s impossible-to-replicate feat, Kim was more than equal to Jorge Bolet’s legendary Carnegie Hall effort.

Verdict: For me, the most inspired pianist of the lot. A definite finalist but is he the next winner of “The Leeds”?    

Kim Sunwook (18, Korea)

The talk in the grapevine was the apparent rivalry of the “two Kims”, who are of course unrelated. Sunwook is Sung-Hoon’s junior by some ten years (and probably lighter by ten stone) but he displays a maturity that is well above his chronological age. He is also the second of two teenagers remaining in the competition. While Mndoyants (who performed the day before) had his rough edges, Kim has none. Highly polished would be a most apt description for his performances of Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata and Beethoven’s Sonata No.32 in C minor Op.111. To this I would add slick, but this sometimes came close to the point of glibness.

The sensuality of Scriabin eluded him, after all how many 18-year-olds have experienced erotic love (as opposed to lust)? However the Beethoven posed little interpretive obstacles as he poured heart and soul into the music - and a bucket-load of perspiration - as a puddle rapidly formed under the keyboard. To top it all, Liszt’s mighty Sonata in B minor – with its stampeding octaves, febrile highs and rapt moments of reflection – became yet another colourful canvas for Kim’s free-flowing pianism. All this at eighteen? By twenty-five, he’ll be ready to commit murder, just to borrow the oft-quoted superlative about the young Aaron Copland.      

Verdict: A most polished performer and another likely finalist. So the “Kim versus Kim” saga is likely to continue to the grand final.

Tourist Tips of the Day

Use the free city shuttle bus (6.30 am to 7.30 pm on Mondays to Saturdays) to see all the sights of Leeds city. Stops include The Headrow (the main shopping street), Kirkgate Market, Bus and Rail Stations, the Town Hall and the universities.

Leeds Art Gallery (on The Headrow) is home to a small but impressive collection of British paintings, including the Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt’s The Shadow of Death. Also currently being exhibited are sketches and drawings by Leonardo da Vinci. A reclining nude by Henry Moore fronts the Gallery and the adjacent Henry Moore Institute, which has rotating exhibitions of contemporary and installation art.

by Chang Tou Liang

 

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