Cliburn Competition: Quarterfinal Recitals, May 24 & 25, 2025 (@ TCU)
Photo by Ralph Lauer
—Wayne Lee Gay
May 24 (afternoon): Shangru Du, 27, representing China, opened the Cliburn competition's quarterfinal round with a program or four works, all designated as "fantasies": Beethoven's Fantasia, Opus 77; Scriabin's Fantasy in B minor; Rachmaninoff's "Polichinelle" from the Marceau de fantasie; and Liszt's Fantasia quasi Sonata aprés une lecture de Dante. Doubtless each of these composers had his own conception of what a musical "fantasie" or "fantasia" actually is; certainly the range here, mostly romantic, gave Du plenty of opportunity to show off varied touches and emotional approaches. Beethoven is virtually schizophrenic in his Fantasia, leaping from calm to excited; Scriabin is at his most broadly romantic; Rachmaninoff's "Polichinelle" (clown or puppet dance), while not particularly difficult, demands a definite viewpoint; finally, Liszt's "Dante" Sonata presents Liszt succinctly crafting a musical interpretation (rich with pianistic challenges) of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, as described in Dante's Divina commedia. Du was clearly up to the technical and emotional content, and definitely did no harm to his hopes for advancement.
Chinese pianist Xiaofu Ju, 25, walked onstage for his quarterfinal round performance, then walked offstage and withdrew from the competition. Cliburn management stated that he had withdrawn for medical reasons.
Carter Johnson, 28, of Canada and the United States, began his quarterfinals round performance wit an unusual montage of short works by Brahms and Shostakovich: five of Shostakovich's Preludes from Opus 34 (1934), four short works from Brahms Opus 76 (1878), and concluding with three more Shostakovich Preludes from Opus 34. Though Johnson very convincingly communicated the sharp contrasts of mood and texture, the continuous stream of contrasting ideas made for a confusing focus—at least for this listener. Bartók's Sonata from 1926 is, however, easily digestible as a whole work; Johnson built logically through the first three movements for the explosive Finale—with dissonance, energetic melodies, and folk rhythms joining together for an irresistible musical experience.
David Khrikuli, 24, from the Republic of Georgia, opened with a complete performance of the seven short "Fantasies" of Brahms' Opus 117. While ranging expansively from thunderous power to breathtaking quiet in these compact masterpieces, Khrikuli demonstrated a thorough command of the essence of the late Brahms. Although Brahms and Liszt were never on friendly terms, Liszt's "Dante" Sonata proved a sensible companion piece to the Brahms set that had opened Khrikuli's program. The work pretty much interprets itself in terms of bombast and sweetness; what is at issue is the necessary technical ability to present the thousands of notes at velocity and volume, a skill that Khrikuli (and several other pianists) have demonstrated already in this competition.
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May 24 (evening): Aristo Sham, 29, from Hong Kong, took on a risky move in his programing for the quarterfinal round by delivering a single, albeit monumental, work: Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata, Opus 106. On the plus side, the work offers a huge array of technical and expressive challenges, as well as a total expanse of dynamic range. Most striking of Sham's successful efforts was an emotionally warm reading of the gargantuan final fugue, with its unforgiving rapid scale-based subject.
Angel Stanislav Wang, 22, California-born with largely Russian musical training (he has studied in Moscow since the age of twelve), opened his quarterfinal round Saturday night with Ravel's La Valse, allowing the work's dark, somewhat uneasy undercurrent to break through the glitzy scales and glissandos that dominate the work. Four of Debussy's Preludes followed, crowned with the technical fireworks of the aptly titled "Feux d'artifice"; Wang clearly owns a gift for the sparkles, rich sonorities, and quintessentially Gallic character of French impressionist music. His technical gifts extended to Italian pianist Guido Agosto's brilliant transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird, though Wang allowed missed notes and fatigue to intrude on the final sections of that work. However, Wang's overall virtuosity and charisma (represented by his sequined shirt) won for him the loudest and most enthusiastic audience ovation of the day, just as it had for his preliminary round performance.
Russian Philipp Lynov, 26, brought the focus of his quarter-final performance to a pair of less-often-heard romantic works. Late romantic Russian composer Sergei Taneyev's Prelude and Fugue is rarely performed in the West (one of the few Americans to program the work was Van Cliburn himself, who included it in his repertoire for the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition). Lynov was quite at home with the moodily romantic Prelude as well as in the quick, complex fingerwork of the Fugue, climaxing in grand romantic fashion. And while Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 1 does not hold the repertoire position of many of that composer's more famous works, it allowed Lynov to serve up a wide array of styles within the romantic style, including a percussive momentum in the second movement and a captivating singing tone in the slow movement.
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May 25 (morning): Just coincidence, of course, but Sunday morning's session of the quarterfinal round brought out piano works with religious undertones. Jonas Aumiller, 26, of Germany, opened with Franz Liszt's "Saint François de Paule marchant sur les flots" ("Saint Francois of Paola Walking on the Waves"), picturing waves in the left hand and a steadfast progress in the right. Aumiller was slightly heavy on the left hand, but otherwise achieved the intended dramatic image. He accomplished a more nearly perfect touch in the quick, light passagework of Debussy's "Feux d’Artifice” (“Fireworks”) Prelude, and closed with well-balanced voicing and convincing momentum in Beethoven's final and most massive Sonata, No. 32 in C, Opus 111.
Russian Mikhail Kambarov, 24, also contributed to the morning's unintentional religious theme with Messiaen's "Le baiser de l'Enfant Jésus" ("The Kiss of the Infant Jesus"), demonstrating emotional control in this serenely meditative modern work. He followed up with the morning's second performance of Beethoven's Opus 111, most impressively in his management of the elusive but organic structure of the work, and the passing poetic segments.
Piotr Alexewicz, 25, of Poland, delivered a steely, motoric performance of the Prelude from Debussy's Pour le piano, and leaned heavily into the subsequent Pavane and Toccata movements in the triptych. He was more stylistically convincing in a complete performance of Respighi's Six Pieces for Piano, demonstrating here a greater variety of touches, ranging from mournful to passionate to light-hearted. He continued with a very different sort of twentieth-century music in the form of Prokofiev's Sonata No. 3, a relatively early, one-movement piece rich in the technical difficulties of his later piano works, but also definitely linked to the composer's occasional romanticism, This makes for a challenging combination of styles, which Alexewicz easily navigated.
Canadian Alice Burla, 28, made her bid for advancement with an unusual set of works rarely heard in the concert hall. The Sonata in G minor by J. S. Bach's eldest son, C. P. E. Bach, presents a lean-textured virtuosity with showy scales and arpeggios in a style half-way between baroque and classical, here performed with appealing energy by Burla. Her next work, Fauré's Nocturne in D-flat, from Opus 63, features the structure and voicing of Chopin, but with complex, Wagnerian harmonies; Burla impressed here with perfect singing tone and voicing. She closed with another generally overlooked masterpiece of late romanticism, Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's Variations on a Polish Folk Theme, which immerses a simple folk tune in sophisticated late romantic gestures. As in the rest of her program, Burla showed a remarkable penchant for music off the beaten track.
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May 25 (afternoon): Yanjun Chen, 23, of China, proved her musical versatility, covering the high classicism of Mozart, Debussy's impressionism, and the late Russian romanticism of Nikolai Medtner in her recital. A slight romanticism emerged in her performance of Mozart's Sonata No. 10 in C, with a fairly wide dynamic range and even occasional rubato—justified by the overall engaging aura. The "Ondine" and "Ce qu'a vu le vent d'ouest" ("What the West Wind Saw") Preludes of Debussy were likewise expressive and fleet-fingered. Stylistically, Medtner's Sonata tragica is definitely romantic in its charged emotionalism while leaning toward modernism, and Chen once again showed her mastery of a broad range of pianistic expression.
American John Mamora, 30, was not entirely successful in a program of Mozart and Liszt. He played Mozart's Adagio at a molto adagio tempo, very nearly destroying forward momentum while introducing a good deal more rubato than is appropriate for late eighteenth-century Viennese classicism. He underplayed Liszt's monumental Sonata, never quite reaching the obvious passion the work demands.
Evren Ozel, 26, of the United States, presented Bartók's Out of Doors Suite of five pieces. Bagpipes, drums, fifes, and the sound of the night join in a masterpiece that is unmistakably Hungarian and unmistakably modern. Ozel made the most of all of these elements with an intriguing range of colors, from the opening blasts of "With Drums and Pipes" to the gentle, mystical tone clusters of "The Night's Music." Ozel also discovered a convincing continuity in Schumann's Humoreske (a structurally disjunct work), producing a gorgeous singing tone.
Representing South Korea, Chaeyoung Park, 27, opened with a performance emphasizing the lyrical aspects of Guido Agosti's arrangement of Stravinsky's Firebird. Debussy's lively "Général Lavine—eccentric" describes a famous American clown, borrowing rhythms of cakewalk and ragtime; Park performed with the necessary lively humor. She moved in the opposite direction emotionally with the day's second performance of Messiaen's mystical "Le baiser de l'Enfant Jésus," rendered appropriately sonorous and meditative in Park's performance. Turning in another direction, she then captured the sturdy energy of Book II of Brahms' Paganini Variations.
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May 25 (evening): Italy’s Elia Cecino, 23, showed off a superb ability to create a fluid melody while maintaining sparkle and clear articulation throughout Haydn's Sonata in E minor (Hob. XVI:34). The same was equally true in his reading of the darkly romantic Variations sérieuses of Mendelssohn, a work demanding a carefully controlled sense of drama and virtuosity. Moving forward chronologically, Cecino took on the wilder passions of Scriabin's Third Sonata, a work which the composer himself characterized as "free and wild" and "a sea of feelings"—in other words, a world away from the concise structure and idioms of the Mendelssohn. Cecino seemed equally at home with the fleeting passions of Scriabin as he had been with the formal structures of Mendelssohn.
Chinese pianist Yangrui Cai, 24, chose three blockbusters for his quarterfinal program, opening with Scriabin's Fantasy, in which he applied beautiful and varied tones to this passionately romantic work. Liszt's "Benediction de Dieu dans la solitude" ("The Benediction of God in Solitude") has its moments of pianistic grandeur, but the main mood is serenity; Cai continued his command of piano colors (and flawless technique) here as well. Stravinsky's Petrouchka, a piano version of the great folk ballet, was a little on the tame side, coming at the end of a demanding program. Still, the inherent excitement of the work elicited an enthusiastic ovation, as usual.
Russian-Israeli Vitaly Starikov, 30, opened his quarterfinal recital with Mozart's Allegro in B-flat (K. 400), a single movement from an unfinished Sonata. Although generally overlooked in Mozart's repertoire, this charming work succinctly displayed Starikov's command of dynamic range and voicing in the classical style. In Liszt's "Le jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este" ("The Play of Waters at the the Villa d'Este"), Starikov created, in the fluid arpeggios, the sense of serene waters that Liszt intended. Likewise, Starikov created a wonderful momentum in Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, a set of variations demonstrating a catalog of romantic virtouso techniques.
Semifinalists (scroll below) were announced by the jury later in the evening, advancing 12 of the remaining 17 pianists to the next round of the Van Cliburn.
