Van Cliburn Semifinals: Chen, Ozel
Photos by Brandon Wade and Ralph Lauer
—Wayne Lee Gay
May 30 (afternoon): Chinese pianist Yanchun Chen, 23, began her semifinal round recital promisingly, setting up the opening passage of Chopin's Ballade in F with a suspense-inducing rubato; however, while she maintained a sense of drama throughout the work, too many smudged passages and missed notes undermined the momentum. In Chopin's Etude in E, both the serene outer sections and the brief central episode lapsed into eccentric phrasing.
In Ravel's " Jeux d'eau," less-than-precise passage work muddied the waters in this impressionistic depiction of the play of fountains. Schumann's Kreisleriana, a set of eight passionate short pieces, proved to be a convincing vehicle for Chen's dramatic tendencies and skill at presenting interweaving voices. As Kreisleriana was dedicated by Schumann to Chopin, it was appropriate to follow with another Chopin Etude, an exercise in arpeggio technique, well-executed by Chen.
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American Evron Ozel, 26, emerged as s strong candidate for advancement in a technically flawless, emotionally powerful program. (Incidentally, one very interesting aspect of the afternoon was the close placement of Ravel's "Jeux d'eau" in Chen's program and Liszt's "Les jeux d'eaux à la Villa d'Este" in Ozel's.) In the Liszt work, Ozel presented gorgeous arpeggios in a performance that was arguably the finest of any single work in the competition so far. In Ravel’s triptych Gaspard de la nuit, Ozel showed wonderful skills of interpretation in these three beautiful pieces inspired by dark poetic imagery of a watersprite, a corpse hanging on a gibbet, and an evil goblin.
He was equally at home in Beethoven's brainy but dramatic SonataNo. 32, Opus 111. Ozel is a master of achieving variety of tone quality in simultaneous voices—and he is well able to present the sturdy muscularity of Beethoven without sacrificing velocity. His energy never flagged during the hour-long recital, as exemplified by the flawless tremolo passages he produced in its final moments.
