From the 2012 ARD Competition, Day 7

Day 7, String Quartets, Semi Finals

Six string quartets (performers) and 18 string quartets (compositions) in just under nine hours is something you will not likely experience anywhere outside the ARD Music Competition. It’s a marathon, exhausting and gratifying, and particularly insightful when it comes to the ARD commissioned competition that participants of the semi final are required to play.

For the String Quartets in 2012, that was a composition by Erkki-Sven Tüür, Lost Prayers—his second string quartet, which is quite easy on the ears, comprehensible, not all too novel, and full of musical references that the ear consecutively grasps after one, two, three hearings. Notably there is a general kinship with Gregorian, or Schütz-like sentiments (not surprising if you know his Wanderer's Evening Song), there are long dramatic arches that emerge, and also hints—but just half a second long—of extreme romanticism. It’s a work that pays homage to the string quartet tradition, and continues it… written expressively for the instruments, not against them. If it’s a little tedious in its constant stymied run-ups that are lost in flageolet notes before the whole shebang starts over again until it finally reaches fruition after the eleventh or so time… well, it’s also a lot better than this commissioned piece could have been. The voices—this year and those from 2009—should know what I mean.

The Acies Quartet (Benjamin Ziervogel & Raphael Kasprian, violins, Manfred Plessl, viola, Thomas Wiesflecker, cello), experienced favorites, were the first to go—which meant the world premiere performance for Lost Prayers. Every hearing of a new work is a learning experience, even with the very readable score on one’s lap, but the Acies’ transparent, nuanced, gently lit account was just about ideal for a first listening. Rather than single-mindedly reciting the text in front of them, they made their own (though perhaps not Tüür’s) musical sense of it, even if that meant not slavishly following every dynamic marking, or lack thereof.

The Novus Quartet (Jae-young Kim & Young-Uk Kim, Violins, Seung-won Lee, Viola, Woong-whee Moon, Cello – from the Korea National University of Arts) went about it differently, informed perhaps by a desperate instinct to get as much sentiment out of the work as it lends itself to—which is a

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From the 2012 ARD Competition, Day 5

Day 5, String Quartets, Round 2

The first impression the Anima Quartet makes is that they sound very different from the expected. There’s a sense of timidity, for lack of a better word, behind a screen of expressive business. Theirs is a light tone, silvery and flitting, that first seems like interpretative inefficiency, but soon works its own enchanting ways. Especially in the second movement of the Mendelssohn Quartet op.44/2 which turns out particularly suited to that sound. What may have started out as strangeness was eventually channeled, via a decreasingly nervous slow movement, into a happily frenzied finale. Almost unnoticed, they also managed to keep a titillating alertness throughout the entire work, without a movement or even just a part of it slacking off. That might be more of an achievement in Brahms, true, but even so it’s a quality that can scarcely be overestimated.

Their style—if one can speak of “style” after hearing them only once—would seem top bode well for Ligeti’s First Quartet, which demands brawn and dark stained sound much less than it does charged nervousness and a penchant for the weird and pale. The Anima Quartet had the latter, but they also brought a burnished tenacity to the first half of the Métamorphoses nocturnes, and an air of surprising confidence—as if Ligeti had been in their repertoire for years, rather than being a newly learned acquisition for this competition. If the quartet was ultimately still note-bound, at least it was very well told off the page.

The Anima Quartet’s generally faster tempi—somewhere between trying to prove something and always keeping the music on the run—might have had something to do with their ability to keep the ears firmly tied to the music. The effect of their playing is hard to describe: Nothing impresses in any immediate sense… if anything one might think of a thing or two to criticize. And a little later one looks back, wondering how the music just played could have been so particularly entertaining. I can easily imagine an audience enjoying an evening of chamber music by these performers and leave, delighted, attributing the good time had on the music and general circumstances, not the interpreters. In that sense, theirs is an involuntarily self-effacing way. If I ran a chamber music series, I’d hire them any day… whether I’d advance them to the semi final of the ARD competition is another matter. (And indeed, they did not make the cut for the semi finals.)

The Armida Quartett was back, and confirmed in Richard Schumann’s Quartet in A, op.41/3 their civilized sound, on the light and elegant side which is their one facet of which the offer variations, but no real deviation. As it was, the Schumann—easily tanked by thick, romantic performances (true for virtually all Schumann repertoire)—took very well to the Armida Quartett’s way with him. The way the dug into the second movement with chugging momentum was terrific, and where I had quibbled with the first violinist’s performance before, there were scarcely any quibbles left. The Allegro molto vivace Finale, was propulsive, not profound.

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From the 2012 ARD Competition, Day 4

Day 4, String Quartets, Round 2

All the ten participating string quartets were given a chance to present themselves again in the second round—a nod not only to the limited number of those who had shown up, but also to the relative proximity of the shown accomplishments. (Which was certainly true for the second day of the first round.)

The South Korean Novus String Quartet, like four other participants, had opted for Ligeti’s 1954 Quartet No.1 in the second round. It’s a work that has just about become mainstream fare among ‘contemporary’ quartets, and rightly so. Little wonder that Luciano Berio’s Notturno, Pierre Boulez’ Livre pour quatuor, Franco Donatoni’s La souris sans Sourire, Hans Werner Henze’s Quartet No.5, György Kurtág’s Officium breve, Conlon Nancarrow’s Quartet No.1, Helmut Lachenmann’s Quartet No.3, and Wolfgang Rihm’s Quartet No.9 got no takers. Only Henri Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit, the other contemporary classic, was as popular with four picks, while the Acies Quarett and the French Quatuor Zaïde bucked the trend with Wolfgang Rihm’s Quartet No.4 and Iannis Xenakis’ Tetras, respectively.

They hopped into the grateful Ligeti’s Métamorphoses nocturnes with gusto and a sinewy, full bodied sound, shy on atmosphere at first, and with unimaginative pizzicatos (which, granted, is the international standard for string players at all levels), but great piano-pianissimos. Some atmosphere arrived yet, but not the grasshoppers, cicadas, and ‘David Lynch’ that I usually associate with the work, but more beeping cartoon Martians and “Red Dwarf”.

Their lean and pointed, rhythmically compelling Dvořák was rather straight-laced and got under way, tightly squeezed, with awfully little lilt. Their very harmonious-homogenous second movement displayed the viola from its finest sounding side, the third movement started très explosif, but as with much of the other movements, the beginning seemed to promise more than the follow-through delivered. That became noticeable when the last movement, slow to the point of phlegmatic, became a little long in the tooth...

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From the 2012 ARD Competition, Day 3 (2)

Day 3, Voice, Round 1

Too much overlap between string quartet and the other competition first rounds, but Sunday evening there was still time to take a little of the atmosphere over at  Voice in, where 120CHECK applicants were ushered through the first round at the Munich Conservatory by the dozen. Mozart aria, Thank you, Next. I arrived in time for the very elegant Sumi Kittelberger (Germany) singing her “Je suis Titania” from Ambroise Thomas’ Mignon. The soprano’s volume certainly was all there in this coloratura vehicle, as was expressive vigor and the height. But even though she got better by the minute, her runs were not easy, and her agility forced with each notes receiving a little push. Thank you very much; no encore of the Mozart required.

Mezzo Nathalie Flessa (Germany), by the looks of it a Flesshilde in the making, displayed a voice that suggested to be lower than it actually was. A mezzo with heights, low timbre, voluminous, compressed, and vibrato-reliant, she sounded mature before her time and a little ungainly. After her “Inflammatus et accensus” from Dvořák’s Stabat Mater, she was asked to stay for Mozart’s song “Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte”. That didn’t give great insights into the nimbleness of her voice and whatever she did display may not have worked particularly well in Mozart, but it suggested potential in some different Fach.

So Young Lee (South Korea) displayed grace and style before she even opened her mouth to Mozart’s “Ach, ich liebte” (Abduction). I liked her better quiet, to be honest, because the more or less vocalized aria, doughy rather than explosive, turned out earnest at best, and trying. She certainly has the ability to use her voice… just not to particularly pleasing effect. “Thank you very much” sounded awfully much like “Good bye”.

Olena Tokar (Ukraine) was a different kettle of fish. Tchaikovsky’s “Gde zhe ty, moj zhelannji” (from The Enchantress, a.k.a. Charodéyka) was well controlled, well applied, rich, not effortless nor even entirely pretty, but with an edge and the knowledge of how to use it to good effect. It reeked, in the positive sense, of (small) stage-experience and (medium) stage-readiness. Asked to encore “O mio babbino caro” (perhaps just because the jury wanted to treat the audience—an obnoxious lot, as every year at these free concerts at the Conservatory—to a ‘greatest hit’ moment), she delivered with eager power and command, as her mezzo-tinted soprano reached heights beyond which, however, she doesn’t seem comfortable going.

Amid this fancy, festooned crowd, Therese Fauser (Germany) looked a bit like a Plain Jane, a pleasant, a charming one, and one that—endearing her to these biased ears—chose Bach to go with first. “Buß und Reu” from the Matthew Passion, which I wanted to be better than it ultimately was. Her scrupulous and intelligent treatment of the text, her sincerity, responsive agility, and intelligent breath control didn’t quite conceal that she has a smallish voice with little to tell, and without much of a tonal sweet spot. The cynic might write her off as the reliable oratorio understudy type, the optimist would hope that her strengths will come to bear one day, when the weaknesses are accounted for.

Joohyun Lee (South Korea) took to “Je suis Titania” like a fish to water, much more so than Mlle. Kittelberger. From her throat, this (frankly tedious) étude for coloratura got the empty-fireworks treatment it calls for (including the optional high F), and a good deal of natural zest on top... Alas for naught; she did not advance.

Stanisław Kierner, from Poland, was the first lad of this batch, and he was in a word outstanding. Borodin’s “Ni sna, ni otdikha izmuchennoi dushe” from Prince Igor, was in good hands, with this text-book Russian-type baritone. His voice, between forehead and chest, negotiated the part with sovereignty that forbade all nitpicking. No surprise that he’s already in the semi-final, alongside Miss Tokar, among others.

His US American colleague Marco Antonio Lozano did not share that good fortune. A caricature of a singer, no one has ever told him, apparently, that the ability to sing loudly does not a singer make. Trotting out every operatic cliché that haunts American amateur stages—he’s hardly the only such case—he belted Rossini’s tenor aria “Asile héréditaire” (William Tell) with grotesque effort and results. The strange, strange voice takes you aback first, wondering if this is really horrible or actually quite fantastic (hint: it’s not the latter): it’s half spoken, like thin metal and moonlight and talent- and technique-deficiency rolled into one. The only good thing that could be said about him is that I’ve seen countrymen of his that look and act even more ridiculous on a stage… but that won’t be much consolation. To collective wincing, he pushed his poor instrument to the breaking point and beyond, and it was mercy in all directions when the jury send him home with a well meaning “Thank you very much” and hopefully lots of honest, well digested advice.

From the 2012 ARD Competition, Day 3

Day 3, String Quartets, Round 1

Running a prestigious music competition puts its administrators in a most enviable position. Not only for getting to foster musical talents—gratifying as that must be—but even more so for being able to shape the performance industry from the ground up. Bad habits are formed early and easily reinforced and a competition, as one of the first professional experiences for many of the participants, can undo some of the damage. Like putting a stop to the circus-shtick of playing without a score. Or better yet, by requiring them to look beyond the usual repertoire with the selection pieces from which the prospective musicians have to chose. Even if a singer or clarinetist or, in this case, string quartet opts for the most conventional of the given choices, they will still—one hopes—have looked at some of the others and might remember them when they run out of new things to play.

The ARD International Music Competition does that more notably this year than they usually do. Augmenting one of two dozen Haydn Quartets or one from Beethoven’s op.18, the participating string quartets in the first round also had to play one of the following: Berg, Lyric Suite. Bertold Goldschmidt 1, 2, or 3, Pavel Haas 1, 3, Janáček 1, Hindemith op.16 or op.22, Gideon Klein Fantasy & Fugue, Hans Krása, Schoenberg op.30, Erwin Schulhoff Five Pieces, Stravinsky Three Pieces & Concertino, Viktor Ullmann 3, or Zemlinsky 2. That’s repertoire-enrichment by fiat, even if the Janáček sucked up some of the alternative-repertoire-oxygen, being chosen by four of ten Quartets.

Six String Quartets had already played in this year’s ARD International Music Competition, four more were scheduled for Sunday, September 9^th. All four had virtues that would have merited a second-round ticket, all those virtues were different, and none of them convinced outright. Since every one of the ten quartets was moved on into the second round, there’ll be plenty opportunity to hone in on their divergences and relative merits.

The Armida Quartet from Germany counted a very well played Haydn Quartet op.76/1 among their assets, a light divertissement and fleet in the first movement, husky and with a wonderful sense of calm in a great Adagio sostenuto. On the downside, there wasn’t an excess of transparency or precision, and the husky tone that worked so well in the slow movement and the Allegro ma non troppo Finale, was apparently their go-to sound and that didn’t work equally well elsewhere.

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From the 2011 ARD Competition, Days 12, 13, 14, and 15

September 10^th, Trumpet Finals with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Herkulessaal

In many ways, the final for the trumpets at the ARD Music Competition was the most pleasant of all the performances of the event: Three times the Bernd Alois Zimmermann 1954 Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See”† after the spiritual of the nearly same name. That meant 45 minutes net music with the Munich Radio Orchestra (not to be mistaken for the BRSO, but also part of the Bavarian Broadcasting family) under the musical and pleasingly unfussy leadership of the young Rasmus Baumann (*1973) at the Herkulessaal before being allowed back home again. Brevity, that great underrated pleasure of classical music in general and concerts in particular! Frontrunner Manuel Blanco Gómez-Limón (Spain), Alexandre Baty (France, future principal trumpet of the RCO), and dark-horse finalist Ferenc Mausz (Hungary) each performed the concerto with great success. Assured and rhythmical Gómez-Limon, bluesy-but-reticent Baty, and trying and with positive struggle Mausz. No one complained when they were given first, second, and third prizes in that order, with Mausz cleaning up the audience prize presumably because he made the Concerto most immediately felt of the three. One of the more interesting special prizes went to another trumpeter: Simon Höfele got the “Under 21” prize; he had particularly pleased me when I heard him during the second round on Day 6.

† Originally the concerto was called “Darkey’s Darkness”, but when it was pointed out to the alliteration-admiring Bernd Alois Zimmermann that “Darkey” had a connotation—even or especially in 1954—that he surely didn’t intend to convey, the composer changed the name to the slightly modified version of the spiritual’s title. You can find a performance of the work on YouTube.


September 11^th, Piano Finals with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonie, Gasteig

If only the final of the piano competition had been nearly as satisfying an event. Instead they were an example of how much of a drudge competitions can be. Admittedly I was in poor mood and shape when I attended, but even after trying to deduct those influences on my perception, the result was still a bore-fest. Not that Da Sol Kim’s (South Korea) interpretation of the Third Rachmaninoff Concerto wasn’t technically impressive: it was rather! But one felt tempted to repeat the famous quote from Amadeus: Too many notes. And to what purpose? It sounded better, in retrospect, because Eun Ae Lee (also South Korea) Beethoven Third Concerto sounded worse. Blasé, although powerful. After the break one could sense that the audience responded a lot more to Alexej Gorlatch’s (Ukraine) interpretation of the same concerto; I, alas, only heard a different, more sophisticated kind of boring… and didn’t hear anything truly musical until Tori Huang (USA) performed Chopin’s e-minor Concerto op.11 – with such natural ease and confidence that it sounded to me in a different league. The resolute first and lyrical second movement in particular, quite different from another, charmed me sufficiently to turn an evening long frown into a faint smile.

The performance, along with her other three rounds, brought her a much deserved Second Prize; Gorlatch took First and the Audience’s seal of approval; Da Sol Kim was given a Third Prize as well as the Munich Chamber Orchestra’s Prize for his Mozart performance in the Semi Finals with them and the Alice Rosner Prize for his interpretation of Bela Bartók, Sonata Sz 80 in one of the earlier rounds. Gorlatch, meanwhile, cleaned up several of the gig-related prizes. Jury member Anatol Ugorski spontaneously gave out a special “Prize for an outstanding performance” to Mao Ishida (Japan) who must have done something very right in an earlier round but not advanced despite Mr. Ugorski’s (presumed) advocacy.

September 14^th, Prize Winner Concert I with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Prinzregententheater

With all finals out of the way and three first, five second and five third prizes given away, the prize-winning musicians presented themselves to the audience once again in three concerts, two of which caught before treating myself to just a smidgen of contemporary fare at ULTIMA, the Oslo Contemporary Music Festival. The first took place in the lovely Bayreuth-like Prinzregententheater, with the Munich RSO, and Rasmus Baumann conducting again. When the repertoire-issues among the oboists suggested Jean-Marie Leclair’s Concerto in C, op.7 no.3 as a desirable choice for Marc Lachat to play, Baumann agreed to learn the continuo part over night and led that very charming piece from the harpsichord. Charming, too, was Lachat’s interpretation, if not much more than that.

Ivan Podyomov brought his mature approach to bear on the Bohuslav Martinů Concerto for Oboe and small orchestra, a piece that encapsulates in microcosm the Martinů-Problem: Extraordinary appeal and beguiling means in close proximity to wearisome episodes. Fortunately much more of the former than the latter. Ferenc Mausz and Tori Huang gave repeat performances of their prize winning Zimmermann and Chopin concertos; interestingly neither as good as under the presumably more stressful competition conditions. Especially from the Mausz-Zimmermann-I’ve-won-so-now-I-can-play-however-I-want combination I had expected much more from… instead, it was a rather timid version that we got to hear. The differences were more subtle from Huang on Sunday to Huang on Wednesday, and at least the slow movement was as delicious as ever.

September 15^th, Prize Winner Concert II with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Great Hall of the Music Academy

The second prize winner concert opened and closed with the solo organ. Anna-Victoria Baltrusch, who in the semis had presented a rather stiff interpretation of the ARD commissioned work for solo organ, Arabesques pour orgue by Naji Hakim (successor of Messiaen as organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité). Lukas Stollhof opened with Bach’s Trio Sonata in G, BWV 530, but for all the beauty of Bach, it was a rather pedantic, correct effort, not an in any way inspired one. Cristina Gómez Godoy’s lovely Mozart Concerto (for the interpretation of which during the semi-final she received a special prize from the artistic director of the competition, Axel Linstädt) was sabotaged by an accidentally live monitor on stage that whispered a radio broadcast or back-stage chatter into all the concertos soft moments. Da Sol Kim also encored his semi-finals Mozart performance (KV459) and Alexandre Baty did the same with his Haydn Concerto for Trumpet… a nice enough performance but not half as interesting as the fine, retro-ish brow pinstripe suit he wore.


Photos of Trumpet finalists & jury and Piano Competition Prize Winners courtesy ARD Music Competition, © Dorothee Falke

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 11

September 9^th, Organ Finals, Part II

Playing on the grand 1985 Klais Organ of the Philharmonic Hall of the Gasteig, the four young organists Lukas Stollhof, Michael Schöch, Johannes Lang, and Anna-Victoria Baltrusch came together for the second part of the organ finale for four performances of the Hindemith Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra, op.46 no.2 (1927), a.k.a. Kammermusik 7, not to be mistaken for his Concerto for Organ from 1962, as I found out when I looked at the score and the notes didn’t match what was being played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sebastian Tewinkel. They were an integral part of making the four performance continuously diverting, which is—not to take too much of a dig at Hindemith—a great compliment.

P.Hindemith, Kammermusik, Chailly / RCO Decca [FYI: Chailly is set to record a new set of Kammermusik with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.]

The first candidate of a day, especially when it involves a work one doesn’t know well and perhaps an instrument with which one isn’t on very intimate terms, serves largely to get to know both. That role fell to Lukas Stollhof, the oldest and most experienced of the candidates. He worked his way through a lively and pleasant first movement, with liberal—frankly distracting—use of the swell for dynamic variation. The second movement sounded like organ and orchestra mutually accompanying each other and with neither taking up the case of the music. At its best, it’s truly a chamber work for winds and organ, with the flute and oboe duetting with the organ, after which the rest of the winds and eventually the horns enter.

Michael Schöch put the performance into perspective. One of the students of Munich organ professor and member of the ARD competition’s jury, Edgar Krapp, he gave more of a pulse to the first movement, more rigor, and more horizontal pull which resulted in, ironically, a great flow. He dealt with dynamic issues through nicely subtle registration that eschewed abrupt blocks of sound… and his third movement showed first signs of humor, not pretentiousness as it had with the first candidate. The painfully obvious better registration might be considered a by-product home field advantage, though a (slightly sleazy) article in the local paper insinuated foul play by Krapp—who knows all three organs on which the candidates performed very well and whose students were very successfully in making the initial cut—and his fellow jury member from Munich, custodian of the Gasteig organ, Friedemann Winklhofer. Local storm in a teacup, for the most part.

Johannes Lang and Anna-Victoria Baltrusch are not students (former or current) of Krapp, nor overly familiar with the Gasteig’s (or Music Academy’s) organ, and their registrations were considerably better, too. The former still worked the first movement mainly through the swell, which I find off-putting, but the second movement was indeed “Very slow and very calm”, beautifully, subtly registered, with a nice give-and-take—albeit not quite as seamless and grayer, more homogenous than Schöch’s. The last movement, suggested ♪ = up to 184, was taken slower, with wit penetrating even into the registration. Mlle. Baltrusch substituted daring for wit, and threw herself at the first and third movement with buoyancy, meticulous registration work, and a stern, grand, brilliant ring to it, especially in the finale where the winds and brass of the chamber-sized Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sebastian Tewinkel must have felt the challenge. Her second movement—this the exception—was flexible, gentle, and slightly boring. The audience reacted with astonishment that their favorite, audience prize winner Lang, did not even receive a third prize which went to Stollhof. Second went to Mlle. Baltrusch, and the first—this one hardly controversial—to Schöch.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 10

September 8^th. Piano, Semifinals with the Munich Chamber Orchestra (MKO) at the Herkulessaal

For a Mozart concerto to be played so well, by orchestra and soloist, that hearing it six times in a row wouldn’t be a dulling, cruel experience, it would have to be played… well… astonishingly well. I doubt I have heard it. Maybe Clifford Curzon or Ivan Moravec, with someone like Ferenc Fricsay or Karel Ančerl or Rafael Kubelik—to list the names that pop into my mind trying to come with the most musical, satisfying artists—would be able to pull in a hypothetical musical universe. It’s quite bad enough even just to hear three in a row, and that’s not because the MKO isn’t up to snuff or because Roope Gröndahl (Finnland), Eun Ae Lee (South Korea), or Tori Huang (US) are rubbish. They’re all in the semi final and fine pianists, the first-named with a no-nonsense, mature, unaffected approach. Subtle and perfectly pleasant, with elegance-through-simplicity in the slow movement, which seemed most notable in his performance of the Concerto No. 18 in B-flat, K.456. Yet the Finn with a Swedish name left something, that intangible ‘something’, missing from the concerto … a minor-yet-important fault he shared to some degree with all three renditions before the break.

W.G.Mozart, Piano Concertos 17 & 18, M.Perahia / ECO sony J.Reubke, F.LisztSonata in c-minor, Ad nos, Sir Simon Preston, Westminster Abbey Organ DG M.Reger, Chorale Fantasias, op.52/2 et al., H.Feller, Reger Memorial Organ, St.Michael, Weiden Oehms

The second performance came from Eun Ae Lee, one of two South Koreans left from the 18 (!) that started out in round one. Performing the rather lovelier G-major concerto, K.453, she took a more mannered but also a more nuanced approach which made for some very charming passages early on and the finest impression of these three overall, even if the slow movement was a wee bit overwrought. The third movement, much like the third, was unambiguously lovely.

Tori Huang, a wafer-thin Chinese-American and although of the complexion of rare porcelain, didn’t treat the Mozart (also the B-flat concerto) in the Dresden-China style either. (Thankgoodness!) More energetic than either of her predecessors, with a hint of flamboyancy, she came up with a notably compelling first movement—especially when compared to the other K.456 performance. There was pretty stuff in the third movement, too, but arguably more heat than light.

The main draw for attending the piano semi-finals (as any ARD semi final and in fact one of the best aspects of the whole undertaking) is, and was, the commissioned composition. The one written for the pianists came from Lera Auerbach this year. “Milking Darkness” sounds, no matter how different the interpretation, like Messiaen-meets-Silvestrov; it’s a pianistic, musical, playable composition that starts with an Adagio misterioso that also insists on being ‘ritmico’, like a little music box, perhaps. Eun Ae Lee took “ritmico” more seriously than “misterioso”, which was particularly notable after Mr. Gröndahl had done it the other way around… to considerably greater success. Tori Huang nearly achieved the perfect third way between steady-steady and ominously meandering, but was less concerned with the low and lowest dynamic markings of the work than her Finnish colleague. Her more robust approach offered yields of its own, but couldn’t, to these ears, surpass Gröndal’s way of milking “Milking Darkness”.

Organ, Finals Part 1, Grand Hall of the Academy of Music

With three more Mozart concertos threatening, the decision to bike over to the Academy of Music for the first—solo—part of the Organ finals, was easy enough. All the easier, since Jamie Bergin, for my ears the bright spot of the second round, had sadly not even made it into the semis. (Music’s loss, methinks, but surely no obstacle for his ensuing career.) The 140 minutes spent at the Herkulessaal with the pianos meant missing the first two candidates (German Lukas Stollhof in the Reger Fantasie & Fugue in d-minor and Austrian Michael Schöch in Julius Reubke’s Sonata, the “94th Psalm for solo organ”*), but catching the two candidates heard previously, Johannes Lang and Anna-Victoria Baltrusch. That constellation meant another personal favorite missing: Mlle. Metzger, particularly convincing in the first part of the semi final (which in the case of organ was already the second round), had not advanced.

Johannes Lang performed Max Reger’s Chorale Fantasia & Fugue op.52/2 (“Wachet auf! Ruft uns die Stimme”), Anna-Victoria Baltrusch the next one in line, the Choral Fantasia op.52/3 (“Hallelijah! Gott zu loben, bleibe meine Seelenfreud”). If anyone found himself sleeping at the Grand Hall, they certainly woke up to Lang’s Reger, given the full-out organ assault he unleashed between deceiving stretches of lull and whisper. The lowest pedal points struck literally rattled the cage and got assorted construction bits of the venue to hum. Anyone but an card-carrying organ-aficionado won’t often hear even the more popular Reger pieces, which makes judging a performance for lay ears so difficult. Did Lang brush parts of the music under the heavily registered carpet? Was there something that ‘isn’t done’? I like the occasional Reger and, perversely, have two complete sets of just the organ music, and could access a good dozen versions of op.52/2 via the Naxos Music Library. But still I felt at a professional loss, admiring ‘in private’, as it were, the gorgeously gentle register change and choice for the faint end of the Fantasia, and the very Bachian Fugue, played fresh, lively, not without mistakes but nice and—never to be underestimated as far as organ-appeal goes—loud. Mlle. Baltrusch’s Reger Fantasy has the more striking opening, distinct and distinctly registered. The erratic muting with the swell annoyed me more than anything else, otherwise the work, especially the Fugue, struck as well judged. All four participants would go on performing the Hindemith Concerto for Organ and Small Orchestra (a.k.a. “Kammermusik 7”) the next day at the large organ of the Philharmonic Hall of the Gasteig.

* A work Simon Preston much cherishes and one of his recordings he takes particular pride in, even if the affable, almost deferential but witty seventy-three year old probably wouldn’t use the word “pride” referring to anything regarding himself.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 9

September 6^th was a gorgeous late summer day in and around Munich—and it started with a trip to Ottobeuren in the far south-west corner of Bavaria. On the way toward Ottobeuren you drive through and over the many rolling, lush-green-grassy Allgäu hills—most of them with the typical hill-top farms on it. And just as you get over the top of yet another one of them, the little village comes into view, dominated by the large white, imposing and very beautiful baroque basilica and abbey. It sits amid and above Ottobeuren (population 8000), like a gargantuan white hen roosting on its nest... still lower than the surrounding hilltops but itself above the rest of the village with stone steps cutting through the grass hill on which it chose to hatch its ecclesiastic eggs. Music lovers might know the place from the annual concerts (and recordings—some with Bernstein, for example, are quite famous) of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at the cathedral.

Organ

Inside, at its eastern end in front of the altar stand to the left and right the Heilig Geist (Holy Ghost) organ, and the Dreifaltigkeits (Trinity) organ by the German/French-school master organ builder Karl Joseph Riepp… a masterpiece of organ construction essentially unmodified since their premiere in 1766, even if it isn’t necessarily the favorite of everyone who has to (or gets to) play it. Among them were the eight semi-finalists of the organ competition who went out to Ottobeuren on their second day of their semi final to perform on it music of the organ’s time, including that of Franz Xaver Schnitzer (1740-1785) who was the organist of the Ottobeuren basilica, inaugurated the organ when it was built, and specifically composed for it.

With red currant cheesecake—freshly made and if not made by one of the two grandmotherly middle-aged ladies behind the bakery’s counter, then surely by one that looked and talked just like them—taken in as the necessary nourishment for the upcoming organ hours, I ascended the stairs to the basilica and took, with sure but sadly misguided instinct, a place vis-à-vis the wrong organ. Excusable, perhaps, seeing how on the outside the smaller Holy Ghost Organ (37 ranks / 27 stops and two manuals) looks almost identical to its bigger sibling, the Trinity Organ (74 ranks, 49 stops, 4 manuals).

The young Freiburg student Johannes Lang went first with the Toccata octava by Georg Muffat (1653-1704), for which he chose a dark, musty, yet clear and plain, unexpectedly melancholic registration, even as the high voices of the Toccata have fairly gay material to cherish. His Franz Xaver Schnitzer Andantino from the Sonata no.2 sounded similar, a bit forward leaning, clumsy even, but clearer, less awash in the Allegro assai. The Fugue à 5, Duo, and Dialogue sur les grands jeux from "Veni creator" by Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703) was required of everyone. Nasal and precise the Fugue, a bit gawky in the Duo, and at last with some grandiosity for the Dialogue, with the pushed to its reluctant maximum and easily drowning out the chainsaw outside that had been cutting down trees at an incompatible pitch.

Dominik Bernhard’s Toccata dudecima & ultima (Muffat) was comparatively gleaming, with large swaths of shimmering, yet beautifully soft sound, though throughout a second winner in the unofficial contest with that chainsaw. Schnitzer (Minuetto & Presto from the Sonata no.5 in B-flat) was lively muted, light and sparkly. The Grigny Fugue more deliberate than Lang’s perhaps, but with excellent rigor against which the ears can lean. During the Dialogue he taxed the instrument’s droning low register to a point where the organ only just approximated the right pitch.

Anna-Victoria Baltrusch (*1980), more buttoned-down than actually young, already looks the part of the protestant church organist… but where she has a humor- and spunk-deficit, she offers impeccability and properness. Two qualities not to be underestimated for organ playing. Apparently. A grand, ‘Bachian’ registration in the Toccata octava sounded glorious, although not half as haunting as the damp browns and soft black that Lang had chosen. Instead everything was clearer and more audible. She also chose a brighter approach for the Schnitzer Andante and Presto (from the Sonata no.4 in D) which my organ-naïve ears preferred here, rather than in the Muffat. De Grigny opened lean, bright, reedy and not as notably fugal. The noon bells rang through the summer day before the Dialogue proceeded.

Angela Metzger, still a favorite for her Toccata interpretation, jumped into the Muffat Toccata duodecima et ultima, without pomp nor undue hesitation and ultimately a little pale. Schnitzer’s Andante und Presto (Sonata no.4 again) was clad in muted colors, fast, and bright; pleasantly mechanical in its regularity. An unobtrusive fugue, a pleasantly chatty duo, and a dense, rather than just loud Dialogue (avoiding the ill tuned pipes) in De Grigny concluded the first batch of organists in Ottobeuren after which it was time to go back to Munich to catch a bit of the Trumpet semi final and the oboe final.

Trumpet

It’s quite impossible to judge on the merit of a candidate advancing over another when one has not heard all of them in the preceding round. So I was merely surprised not to find mine and my colleague’s favorite trumpet of the second round (Simon Höfele) in the semi final at the ugly Carl-Orff-Saal of the Gasteig. I’m sure I will hear him again, somewhere. First-to-perform Miroslav Petkov (Bulgaria) struggled through the Haydn Concerto in E-flat (on a B-flat trumpet) with a trying tone even where he was perfectly secure. Choppy and not particularly musical, with orchestra and soloist rarely forming a meaningful union. On the upside, he turned in a performance of French-German Darmstadt-school composer Mark Andre’s “iv6b” for solo trumpet that, in its passive aggressive way, did the work more justice than the other two I heard; Fabian Neuhaus’, and Ferenc Mausz’. A work that veers between pppppp and pp (at its loudest), with an occasional fppp and fpp accent. Petkov took the work to its extremes, which if you have a work written against one’s own instrument in front of you, you might as well do. I would have liked to read along, but turning the pages of the score would literally have been louder than the performance.

With a full page of performance-instructions, it offers all kinds of different ways of blowing at or into the trumpet, tut-tutting helicopter-style (“taps”), and tone ‘corridors’ in which the player is to retrace relative microtonal variations. Much of it looks just like a composer trying to show his performer that he is familiar with the trumpet and its technique… only that the whole thing sounds decidedly anti-trumpet. I couldn’t find much in it that appealed musically, but with the aggressive silence it made a point I cherished… and it made that point only in the superbly over-the-top Petkov interpretation. Neuhaus and Mausz attempted to actually play the work by, among other things, bringing up the entire dynamic level. It was more audible but took away the joy of the extreme, which is pretty much all the work has got. The colleague next to me, less amused about even the aspect of the extreme, shook his head, grunted “idiotic, that’s so super-yester-year avant-gardish” and wrote a brilliant snarky article about it. Fabian Neuhaus’ Hummel Concerto in D-major—initially a more pleasing concerto than the Haydn, but not nearly holding up as well—was played with few mistakes and more energy than Petkov had given Haydn, a fine but indistinct performance. Ference Mausz—with Haydn again—was in a different league than those two; his confident tone of the Böhme Concerto (Round 2) present again, as was his well rounded tone with a tendency toward the ungainly only at high volume. Not surprising that of those three, Mausz made it into the final, along with Alexandre Baty and Manuel Blanco Gómez-Limón. The Munich Chamber Orchestra, the usual highlight of these semi finals, performed well under concert master Esther Hoppe, but not quite with the enthusiasm I remember from the last three years.

Oboe

The Oboe final in the Herkulessaal was too far away not to miss the first competitor, Ivan Podyomov, but then there seemed unanimity among everyone I spoke to that his Strauss Oboe Concerto was nothing I needed regret having missed; “on the music, not in the music” was the kindest verdict. Christina Gómez Godoy is a pint-sized oboist member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and her Strauss was immediately, very appealing: Mellifluous, plaintive, with more than a hint of the wistfulness of the old graying Strauss in the music. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sebastian Tewinkel turned in three superb performances, a very happy surprise after their often lackluster showings in previous years. They were already good in playing truly with Mlle. Gómez Godoy, but in accompanying Philippe Tondre (France) and his Marigaux M2 “Alfred”, they coaxed yet more out of old Strauss. The latter bested Mlle. Gómez Godoy with his self-evident naturalness, dignity, perkier tone, his very powerful softness that brimmed with contained force. It wasn’t lovely-lachrymose as Gómez Godoy’s tone, who was my emotional favorite in this finale, but seemingly on track to a first prize and successful in securing the Audience Prize. Certainly Marc Lachat’s neutral, beautiful but uninvolved performance didn’t seem to argue strongly for getting that prize, and while he was lyrical in the Andante, it wasn’t as sensitive or cantabile as the others, marred by great nervousness. The final alone would not have suggested the jury’s result bringing in Podyomov and Philippe Tondre at second, and Cristina Gómez Godoy and Marc Lachat at 3^rd. Part of the result might be explained if the jury felt awkward giving Podyomov, who had come second in the 2007 ARD Competition, a lesser prize now, four years onward.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 8

Piano is, in theory, one of the more pleasurable categories in a competition, because of the amount of great music available to pick from, in any round—from first to finale. And because there is a vast pool of pianists to choose from, which presumably would suggest a higher general level of quality. In practice, that isn’t so, because in the piano part (as with violin) of a competition, it seems, the worst qualities of competition-playing—technical prowess married to bland-as-can-be risk-avoidance—come out. Everything an étude, nothing inspired.

That’s one reason why I didn’t regret too much that I only started listening to the participants in round two, and then only to a small sample—four of the 18 pianists that made it to the second round, down from 47 that had qualified for (though not necessarily all participated in) the first round. First up were two Ukrainian pianists, that (once-upon-a-time) hotbed for great pianists. Vasyl Kotys performed Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata in f-minor, op.57, opening it softly to the point of hazy, heavily pedaled, unclear, with ostentatiously emotion coming through in outbreaks, with peaks, valleys, and notable pulling and pushing of tempo. The slow movement was very slow, indeed, with Kotys going for the lyrical at the expense of the wonderfully crisp rhythm that underlies this variation movement. Absolutely gorgeous were the emphasis-shifts between hands in repeated material; phrasing being his strong suite, not architecture. He raced through and labored away at the third movement—enthralling in a way, but also slightly senseless-sounding. Much clearer than the first movement it wasn’t longer awash in indistinct loudness, until the end that is, when it was just too darn fast for anyone’s good, not the least Beethoven.

Schumann’s Fantasie in C-major continued where the Beethoven had left off: High romantic, fast, and with very pronounced dynamics and tempo changes. Fortunately that suits Schumann better than middle-Beethoven. Kotys, whose body always announces the next interpretive move, rushed himself a little and while there were a couple too many slips towards the end—perhaps betraying waning concentration—, at least he succeeded in not making the piece sound longer than it already is.

His countryman Alexej Gorlatch played Beethoven’s op.110 after Brahms Four Ballads op.10 (thank him!) The first of the Ballads, “after a Scottish Ballad ‘Edward’”, seems to quote Schubert’s “Götter Griechenlands”, but wasn’t songful in many other ways. The opening was monochrome and, just as Kotys before and South Korean Da Sol Kim after him, ungainly-loud on the Steinway that everyone plays. The latter might be a detriment by contributing to the unhealthy grand-piano monoculture, but is surely outweighed by avoiding the distracting manufacturer-politicking. (See the Chopin Piano Competition.) Beethoven, after the Brahms (a piece for which I must admit ever-waning patience) was cleansing to the ears, lean and swift and youthful vigorous, neither thick nor lumbering. During the terse scherzo was inclined towards a choppy and crude sound, with either some odd interpretive choices or very cleverly marked memory blanks. Gorlatch recovered in the blustering third, fugal movement, even though its various parts sounded just like moments, strung on a line… awkwardly first, eventually muddled.

Da Sol Kim offered a glimpse of a much more pleasant ‘loud’ being possible on the instrument in the Great Hall of the Academy of Music—and his gratuitously stormy & wild style suited the early Beethoven in op.10/3 better, too, than it had many of the passages in middle and late Beethoven. I found something beguiling, even pretty in the way he flailed the instrument in the first movement, though eventually he got carried away by the loudness factor. His facial expressions threatened a ‘most tender and yearning’ Largo, but the hands—thankfully—provided something more sober and well articulated with only a few heavier-than-necessary accents. His Liszt Dante Sonata—a dazzling, appropriately flashy, loud, and feckless, was received with enthusiastic ovations and even hollering by the crowd which, especially in that venue during the free-admission rounds of the ARD competition, is staggeringly obnoxious; every year, every time. And that’s before taking their overt Liszt-appreciation into account.

Then, alas, came a revelation. Jamie Bergin (2^nd Prize Winner earlier this year in the PianoRama Competition in Århus) made an exclamation mark bigger than any of the previous techno-banging with his quiet opening of Beethoven’s Sonata op.31/1. Wit like Haydn, color and sensibility (at last!)—how very enjoyable was this, endearing and puckish. Bombast was employed only for brief moments of contrast, almost as if to make light of the ‘grand air’ that Beethoven is so often given. He had a tendency to be fast in the Scherzo, but didn’t sacrifice the ioie de vivre of it. The Menuetto. Moderato e grazioso was a balm on soul and ears and the closing Presto con fuoco very smart, indeed. Why would a musician like that chose the Liszt Sonata in b-minor for the non-Beethoven piece? Especially when Schubert’s Six moments musicaux were an option or, better yet, his Drei Klavierstücke?The tender, more obliging episodes of the Sonata suggested a few reasons; that there were a few things very young Mr. Bergin might have wanted to say (and did) in this music. His playing continued to be organic, including his struggles, his loud never hurt, and he could sound just as bold in Liszt ad did his South Koran colleague, and without that neutral glam-sound. Only technically it wasn’t nearly as proficient as that Dante Sonata. It certainly didn’t bother me, but perhaps the jury; sadly Bergin did not make it onward into the semi finals, unlike Da Sol Kim and Gorlatch.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 7

Among all musicians, I envy organists the most. There is nothing I would rather be able to do (without putting the necessary effort into it, of course) than play Bach’s Passacaglia flawlessly, or pretty much any Prelude & Fugue set. Or the Toccatas and Chorale Preludes. As a wee lad, I wanted to become an organist because the instrument fascinated me more than any other… until my piano teacher took me to her church job one day, opened the organ, and flipped the switch to turn it on: The realization that the organ, the instrument of Bach, needed electricity, so shattered my idea of the instrument, somehow infringed upon the ‘purity’ of it, that my organist-zeal suffered lasting damage and kept me from pursuing the dream in unison with lacking talent and excess laziness.

Still, the organ fascinates me, and particularly Bach on the organ in any and all forms. There is scarcely a cycle of Bach’s complete organ works that I can resist (favorites are, in no particular order, (Walcha II, M.C.Alain II, Koopman II), and for this reason the ARD Competition’s inclusion of the organ for the first time in over a decade exuded special appeal to me. I missed the first round, but at least the first half of the first part of the semi-final fit into the schedule.

On the 1999 Kuhn organ of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich’s Grand Concert Hall, four organists played in the morning-session of this first part of the semi final (the other part would be performed on the baroque organ of the Ottobeuren basilica)—each a work by Bach and the mandatory ARD commissioned composition by Naji Hakim, “Arabesques pour orgue”.


First up was Johannes Lang (Germany) with the Prelude & Fugue in e-minor, BWV 548, in full and brawny sound of the modern instrument, but with one set of registration throughout and—also ‘authentic’—no use of the heel on the pedals. His Prelude was mellifluous rather than rigorous, more sweeping than compelling, gorgeous if not outright astonishing. Clear throughout the Fugue, Lang was meticulous, even immaculate up until near the end when a fatigued finger slipped. The first outing of the Hakim “Arabesques” might have aroused a riotously frivolous response from a less stiff and tight audience; the work is, in short, a hoot. Any piece of music that makes me grin, smile, seat-dance, and laugh in a concert setting has already won my heart… and the rollicking romp that Hakim presents does all that.

Hakim’s preface is so telling, it deserves being quoted in full: “Song and dance are at the heart of this suite for organ, which reflects the overlapping influences of jazz and Mediterranean folk music. The six movements—Prélude, Pastorale, Libanaise, Arabesque, Litanie, Rondeau—are characterized by ornamental melodies, modal harmonies, irregular meter and an expressive quality inspired by joy.”

Joy, indeed! The whole work is drenched with joy; an improvisatory thing dashed off in a moment of exuberance and written down (or so it sounds), in parts hurdy-gurdy in Brighton, baseball stadium, clown-with-big-red-nose, Woody Allen humor, Haydn, playful like an unwritten score for “Zelda, the Arabian Princess Edition” and the like. It’s impossible to sit still during the thing, and Johannes Lang (even though we couldn’t know that at that point) did it justice.

Dominik Bernhard (Germany) took Arabesques slightly more seriously, to the first five movement’s detriment, I found… too dour to create a lighthearted mood… not attacka into the Rondeau but with little artful pauses that added something to that long last movement. This seriousness, which had impeded Hakim, worked well in the Fugue of the g-minor Fantasia & Fugue BWV 542. Although not terribly different from Lang in brawny, unchanging registration or demeanor, he was the nuanced opposite: rigorous rather than mellifluous, compelling more than sweeping in the Prelude; structured like clockwork and eventually transfixing in the Fugue.

After a short break followed two of the three remaining female organists: Anna-Victoria Baltrusch (Germany) first, then Angela Metzger (also Germany). (The third remaining female, Anna Pikulska, Poland, is also the only organist left from a non-German speaking country, but studies in Germany.) With the Fantasia & Fugue BWV 542 she scored on steady and delicious tension in the Fantasia, more imaginative registration than Bernhard, colorful playing but perhaps a touch stolid. The Fugue revealed impressive footwork but had less of the powerful-through-rigor element Bernhard had brought to it. Her “Arabesques” interpretation split opinions to my left and right. “The only interpretation that didn’t sound banal and boring” was the sentiment on my left; “the lady has as much humor as Lady Macbeth on an off-night”, on my right. I agree with the latter: It wasn’t slipshod exactly… indeed it was impressively fast throughout, with great technique on proud display. But it lacked that simple and coy wit, sounded like an automaton racing through the stuff with more grim determination than a smile and wiggling rear. The penultimate Arabesque-movement was Messiaenififed, which is to say that Mlle. Baltrusch knows how to distinctly color a piece… just not in the way I’d want to hear it colored. This is music for dancing Muppets, but buy when it’s whirled through like here, they’d never get into the grove. Articulation amazing, interpretation lacking… unless the attempt was to deliberately iron out all the highs and lows of joviality, to play it ‘against character’… in which case the aim was nobler than the result.

Angela Metzger is made of different, spunkier stuff: Her Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C-major, BWV 564 was an allegory on the joy in athleticism… the joy of movement, palpable at all times, and perhaps spiced with a dash of (very becoming, enchanting) narcissism, with the long pedal-only part like a classical foot-cadenza. She tackled the Hakim likewise, with speeds rivaling those of her predecessor (maybe even too fast in the c = 144 Libanaise, I thought) but with interpretation to spare. The last movement had exactly the head-bopping country fair flair and lilt it needed.

Only one element was missing here, as everywhere else, and that was a little more courageous fantasy in the registration of the Bach: Is intimidation by a jury headed by Sir Simon Preston at work here, or is that generation of organists already so molded into one uniform style of registration in Bach, that they have developed a “that’s-how-it-is-done” mindset they don’t wish to break out of?


It was with difficulty that I tore myself away from the organ semi-final’s afternoon session… alas the oboe semi-final waited at the Herkulessaal with six renditions of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C, K.314 (also known as the Flute Concerto No. 2 in D Major), and six interpretations of “Gyfu” (gift),  the commissioned work by Liza Lim, an Australian composer at the University of Huddersfield. Not that repetition is a particular draw, especially when Bach is the alternative. But the Munich Chamber Orchestra (MKO) traditionally accompanies the semi-finalists and their enthusiasm and professionalism is the annual highlight of the competition; so much so that it would do them injustice to stay away.

In retrospect that might not have been the wisest decision. Who doesn’t love Mozart, and who doesn’t wish he’d just go away after hearing the same concerto three times in a row, in perfectly lovely but ultimately bland performances?! Miriam Olga Pastor Burgos (Spain) played first and charmed with a pretty chamber-like delicate tone in that concerto and lean lines, refreshingly unsentimental in the Adagio (soothing, not lulling) but in the first movement she was so much at the front of the beat that it sounded hectic throughout. Gyfu didn’t become music at all in her hands, although I should think the blame lies mostly with the composer of this awfully convoluted, pretentious work with its fancy Old-English rune as a title and yet Arabic ingredients; full of quarter tones and multiphonics that neither look (nor sound) like they are actually repeatable feats. An oboist who didn’t make it as far as the semi-final but had studied the piece, crinkled her little nose at the mention of it and said half apologetically, half innocent-disapprovingly: “Hmmmmm… it’s not music…”

The performance of Marc Lachat (France)—didn’t suggest it was, either; though there is plenty lyrical ‘Arabic’ sentiment in it to make for a potentially enchanting core (or side-show) of a willfully modern piece. At least Lachat got a little closer to music in his attempt. His Mozart wasn’t that much better than the just-heard one; the tone with a little more weight, the interpretation a little more on the lyrical side, beautiful but not mawkish. His tone was more condensed, as if more energy where packed into the same limited space but the quality of his tone deteriorated notably by the third movement.

Ivan Podyomov (Russia) played the first Mozart Concerto movement as if he was a man among boys (or girls). There was a considerable qualitative difference, more dynamic variance, more maturity, greater differentiation from note to note, and all in a plaintive-reedy sound that brought character to the oboe that had previously been missing. His cadenzas were shorter, better (almost the same thing), which made the experience most rewarding even when the other two movements did not stand out quite as much. In Gyfu he was faster than his colleagues, with less emphasis on every quarter tone but instead on accentuated bends, generally longer lines and actual music. The nuance he had brought to Mozart was applied here, too, and found beauty in unexpected places. Of the three oboists before the break, it by far the most successful attempt of milking something appreciable from Gyfu.

With the same Mozart-ordeal ahead of me one more time (Gyfu, at ten minutes and with completely different interpretations every time was much easier to bear, even as I didn’t like the piece) , I fled the scene prematurely. That had me miss, I was told, Philippe Tondre, who apparently breathed excitement back into the Mozart with his completely different tone (due to a different instrument?), despite daring and long-winded cadenzas, which one is bound to hold against the musician after repeat hearings of that concerto. And of “Gyfu” he was said to have made so much musical sense that even I might have revised my opinion of the work—with even the multiphonics attaining a sensical architectural character. Well, I shall hear him in the Finals on Tuesday.

From the 2011 ARD Competition, Day 6

Squeezed between Salzburg and the last few dates of the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival, I am back again at the annual ARD Music Competition. The 2011 lineup of instrumental categories includes Piano, Trumpet, Oboe, and Organ, back for the first time in twelve years. Being a bit late to the party, I got into the game only on Saturday the 3^rd, for the second round of the trumpets in the BR Studio 2.

Up fourth, but the first trumpeter I’ve got to hear, was Jonathan Müller (Germany) performing Hans Werner Henze’s “Sonatina for Solo Trumpet” as the required modern piece (other choices being Luciano Berio’s Sequenza X and neoclassical Jean Françaix’ Sonatine pour trompette et piano [apparently the withdrawn original version]) and the flashy Concert Piece No.1 by Vassily Brandt, ‘founder of the Russian trumpet school’. During the Brandt piece, Müller featured a jarring fortissimo, penetrating, glaring sound—as if in constant fanfare-mode. A fact ameliorated by attempts at mezzo-piano, but not qualitative changed… with precise attacks, but scared ones. He certainly has the ability to play what he needs to play, but not—my feeling—the excess control to play with it. The same approach worked better for the short Henze three-part 1974 Sonatina (Toccata, Canzona, Segnali), not the least because the soft and sharp mutes used take the edge off his tone a bit. With modern music, it is either extremely difficult to tell qualitative differences because of excessive complexity, or extremely easy when one interpretation sounds like just-notes and another like music. The former can be expected in a competition setting (notoriously unmusical events, as far as music-events are concerned); unfortunately it sounded largely like a technical exercise here, too.

His countryman Simon Höfele chose Françaix as the ‘modern’ piece, except that Françaix rarely sounds modern. The Sonatine seems difficult without sounding like an Étude in the first part, has a melodious and pretty, muffled lyrical quality in the second, which is followed a brief cadenza-like unaccompanied part (least satisfying, musically, by far), and finally a romp & circumstance of a bumbling ride with gaiety before letting fly. A satisfying piece, seemingly well played. A bobble in his valiant opening and a few mistakes couldn’t distract from a beautiful and sensitive rendition that made sense out of the occasionally hollow Brandt composition. Höfele’s pleasing, comfortable tone was combined with a beautiful real piano; trumpeting in lavish velvet. He might have hit a few percent fewer notes than his predecessor, but played in a different league musically and expressively. The gratuitous runs were integrated into the fabric of the Konzertstück—and no longer sounded gratuitous. Far and away the best performance of the five I heard.

Frenec Mausz (Hungary) performed the Oskar Böhme Concerto in f-minor and the Henze Sonatina: the former in confident, harmonious, and one-dimensional sound; maudlin-Christmasy in the slow movement, and eventually with a turn toward the strident in his tone. The Henze was tackled with hesitation, not gusto, neat staccato attacks, but the prescribed pianissimo was nonexistent and the dynamic range generally flattened.

Senne LaMela (Belgium) began with the Henze. A promising start with nicely separated notes and only the occasional struggle descended into a lot more struggle during the second movement before emerging most successfully in the (apparently least tricky) third movement, getting more out of the dynamic markings than any of the other four Henze-performances I heard. If he had only forgone the circus trick of playing the piece from memory he might have made yet even more out of the work. With brilliance to his tone and playing, he threw himself at the Brandt-piece, which might have been thoroughly impressive had it not been marked by too many mistakes and slips. His confident, perhaps too-confident, demeanor on stage meant a calm, no-nonsense, gimmick-free presentation and he thankfully desisted from the eye-rolling before notes, as if hitting the next one depended more on the grace of G_d above than the musician himself. Too bad the brilliance eventually detracted more than it added, because the ears sought (in vain) differentiation, subtlety, and occasional softness… something trumpets are in fact able to deliver.

Takashi Shinozaki (Japan) performed the same works as his Hungarian colleague. Very colorful with the soft mute in the Henze Canzona, with soft and true pianissimos and harmonica-like sounding flutters, he turned in the most interesting second movement of the Henze, falling short only on the last few bars where the diminuendo from ffff to ppp came out as a move from mezzoforte to mezzopiano, at best. The Brandt, performed with a different trumpet, was not 100% on pitch, largely note-correct, but didn’t sound internalized (understandable, that, actually), and altogether taken a touch slower and seemingly more nervously than his predecessors did.

More tomorrow from the Organ & Oboe semi-finals.

Ionarts-at-Large: From the 2010 ARD Competition, Day 15 - Flute, Final

Winning Prizeless

Ivanna Ternay (Ukraine), who turned in the best concerto performance of the competition with her Mozart in the semi final. In the final on Sunday night, too, she emerged as the most promising, most satisfying of the participants, which was (at last) meaningful in the flute finale, because all four competitors were very good.

Competitors like Sooyun Kim, who started with the Penderecki concerto (written in 1992) with the Munich Radio Orchestra under Marko Letonja accompanying. Except that Penderecki’s work is not mere accompagnato, it’s really a concerto grosso with embedded woodwind concertino plus obbligato flute. The soloist blends seamlessly in with the woodwind chirping, once airborne he or she is then left alone for a bit before echoes of strings catch up with the flute again. Sparse textures with a little percussion include the flute more as part of its virtuosic tapestry rather than having the soloist in front of mere background music. It’s a difficult concerto to win an audience prize with, because it doesn’t go for effect, but musically it’s terrific. Sooyun Kim’s performance made the concerto come across nicely, but perhaps with the flute part just a wee too incidental and her style a little mechanical. Sooyun Kim came third and won the prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work by Bruno Mantovani.

Le petite Rampal?

Loïc Schneider—a recurring regular at competitions, which goes to show how hard it must be to establish a successful solo career with that instrument, when only one, two top players per generation are needed—doesn’t know the word mechanical. He also doesn’t know the word restraint, as his showy, entertaining, but borderline flamboyant performances show. That 1970s sized white collar carefully arranged over his suit jacket made him look less the hipster flutist or cool cat than it made him look like he got stuck in a little sailor suit. [The photographer evidently reigned it in in the picture to the left.] The concerto he picked, Rodrigo’s (a Galway commission from 1978), is equally flashy, with many large jumps of an octave and more, and in every way the opposite from Penderecki’s piece. Take away the soloist from Penderecki’s concerto and you are left with a neat little concerto grosso. Take away the soloist from Rodrigo’s concerto and you are left with empty musical phrases and simplistic (if effective) string arrangements that barely come to life with some solo flute pasted on top. The music-per-minute ratio of the work is shockingly low, but the appeal to the audience undeniable. (Leave it to Galway to know what moves the masses.) The critique of the concerto is not to take away from Schneider’s awesome control he has over the instrument, or how admirably he articulated and navigated the empty phrase-cliffs. Only his tone, too airy for me, leaves room for some criticism. Mr. Schneider won the first and audience prize.

The youngest participant in the finale, Daniela Koch, choose another different work, one by Jindřich Feld. This one—which I had never heard before—was commissioned by Jean-Pierre Rampal, another flute-lion and it’s quite pleasing… a sort of mild-mannered Bartók-meets-Martinů, with a slow movement that sounds like the opening of Brahms First symphony looped. The finale has its stretches, seemingly incorporating two more slow movements, and if Koch couldn’t excite me here, I was perfectly willing to place blame on Feld more than the soloist, especially since her tone was particularly beautiful. And while Mlle. Koch might be eight years younger than Schneider, but with her technique she was hardly an outsider in the finale, having just last year left him behind herself as winner of the Kobe International Flute Competition. This time she came second.

ionarts-Coverage of the ARD International Music Competition 2010 • Flute Final Semi Final • Cello Final Semi Final First Round • French Horn Final Semi Final • Piano Duo Final

At last came Ivanna Ternay, and thankfully she, too, performed the wonderful Penderecki concerto—and not entirely unexpectedly a notch above Mlle. Kim’s performance. A tone easily as solid as that of the orchestra’s clarinet, air-free and pure gives her an inviting quality that is even through all registers and dynamic gradations, but never employed in the service of sameness. She put the flute just a little further up front in the concerto, without changing the collaborative character of the concerto. Dynamic gradations were rich and varied; everything seemed even more alive. When I noticed that she performed with the music (I almost hadn’t, and my colleague didn’t at all, so absorbed was he in the music), I was delighted: What a gutsy move, what a wonderful nod to the realities of performance and memorization.

Music-Rules. Not.

As early as after the first round of cellists I had wanted to write a piece about how the ARD Competition could root out the idiotic habit of not playing from the score by requiring that notes be used, and in a way Ternay's performance seemed the answer even before I got to write about it: the sure-fire winner of the competition showed that having the notes in front of oneself could be a plus; showed that she wasn’t afraid of being mis-judged for using them. From Sviatoslav Richter to Alexandre Tharaud—great artists who insist(ed) on avoiding the circus trick of playing ‘from memory’—I sensed an air approval surrounding Ivanna Ternay. Alas, I didn’t count on the jury (who all ‘needed’ the score to follow all three concertos) and the rules of the ARD Music Competition. “No score may be used in the performance of a concerto.” Consequently, Ivanna Ternay got no prize at all. We learn from this the following: It is better to perform a work badly from memory (I’m not referring to Mlle. Kim, but a hypothetical bad performance) than to perform a work absolutely wonderfully… from the notes.

This, of course, is perverse. Sure, they love their rules, those Germans. Obviously more than music. But that much more than music? If the rule had been put in to prevent some amateurish, insecure performance of a concerto (hello, cello semi finals!), then it might be vaguely understandable. But as it is, isn’t it just the dead-on confirmation that music competitions are about everything, just not music?! How can perhaps the most musical, most successful performer be excluded on grounds of using the music? Rules have been bent in the past at the ARD competition; when the organizers didn’t like the jury’s decision, for example, they created a new special prize to suit their own purpose. It would be hard to believe that the rules could not have been bent here, too.* More importantly, the rule should be changed. Not only is it not at all desirable that people need to perform works—new or old, accompanied or solo—from memory. It is actually undesirable that they be taught this post-Liszt glamorama circus trick as somehow being essential to proper music etiquette. I doubt that any competition, not the ARD or any other, will any time soon go the desirable step and suggest their participants use music under all circumstances, but I do have some hope that the organizers here (a wonderful bunch, really) realized the mistake that the current rules on their books have ‘forced’ the jurors to make.

As far as Mlle. Ternay is concerned? May her no-prize be something akin to Ivo Pogorelich’s no-prize at the Chopin Competition (without the eventual descent toward total dysfunction, of course). As for the rest of the players, it’s almost unfair that no-prize should overshadow their achievements, seeing how they—all six flutists that got as far as the semi final, really—were the elite of the 2010 Competition.

All pictures courtesy ARD International Music Competition, © Sigi Müller (modified where deemed necessary)

* Edit. Two further points: In last year’s violin final, the performers also played from the notes, upon explicit request from the conductor (smart man). So far, so good, but someone in the audience saw fit to launch an official complaint with the federation of music competitions, which in turn officially admonished the ARD Competition.
And Mlle Ternay was given that same BR Klassik prize I mentioned as having been created specially to suit their purpose. That redeems the competition on two counts: namely that they obviously felt they really could not bend the rules this time and that they obviously tried to ameliorate the situation with their own prize. Still, now I we can wonder why the anti-musical rule wasn’t changed last year, when they knew it could be potential trouble.