Today (Thursday) afternoon, I arrived in Moscow. It feels good to back! The Tchaikovsky Competition is a monumental event and Russia has a great history and tradition in classical music. Sitting in the Great Hall of the Conservatory, where the piano competition takes place, you can sense this very special atmosphere. The audience is full of musicians and enthousiastic music lovers.

When attending such a meaningful international event, you can always see many friends again and well-known personalities, whom you know from other competitions. Also here in Moscow, just looking around, you can see Dmitry Bashkirov, Yakov Kasman, Alexander Scriabin (the grandson), Dmitry Onyshchenko, Sergey Dorenski and many others. It was a shock, however, to hear that Nelson Freire has already left Moscow! He was on the jury here, but not any more...

This evening, four pianists will play a Mozart concerto, and tomorrow the other four semifinalists. A Mozart concerto at the Tchaikovsky Competition ... that is a bit unusual. Of course, the "big" concertos will still come in the finals. The first contestant on stage was Alexander Romanovsky. I remember him from Bolzano, where he had won the Busoni Competition (2001), and also from Brussels (2003), where he had played very well, but had not been admitted to the finals. Here in Moscow, I found his Mozart Concerto KV488 a bit "cold", not very colourful. Next was Sarah Daneshpour. I was very curious how she would do. She had won 2nd prize in the William Kapell Competition 2007. Her playing (KV466) was more alive, and at the start, she produced a nice singing tone and created a nice atmosphere. In the 2nd and 3rd movement, she made some mistakes, but the cadenza went well again. The final chord came just a bit too early.

After the break, Philip Kopachevskiy did very well with Mozart's KV491. He studies with Sergey Dorenski, who came specially to listen to him. Alexander Lubyantsev is 24 and has already the 3rd prize of the Tchaikovsky Competition (2007) in his pocket. I remember him also from Sydney (2004), where he had won the 5th prize. He had chosen KV467 and was the only one to play the Fazioli piano. Lubyantsev's playing had wit and character, and he offered unusual cadenzas. The audience cheered, but I would still prefer Kopachevskiy. Tomorrow more!

Читать в оригинале