The second night of finals was certainly less filled with emotion as the first but showcased nevertheless strong contenders, this time supported by an Orchestre métropolitain more awake. (We’ll try to forget that embarassing slide under pitch of the strings in the Rachmaninoff and a propension to invade at all time.)

Lindsay Garritson chose a very seated tempo for her Prokofiev, which gave her the chance to articulate her thoughts in a somewhat architectural manner, that brought to the foreground inner voices. The perpetuum mobile in the second movement was staggering but never became purely mechanical, certainly one of the dangers here. The intermezzo had some finesse but I would have wished that she could have detached herself from the text (as in the last movement) and breath! Throughout her performance, she seemed in her bubble, arched on the keyboard, as if she was afraid to drop notes (she did as a matter of fact stutter in the first movement’s cadenza).

Big deception of the evening, the Russian Yulia Chaplina gave us an insipid reading of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. The metallic quality of her forte which bothered me in her Liszt in the semi-final was more than evident here, as well as her unfortunate tendancy to “kill” the chords as soon as they’re played. The adagio became an endless succession of notes, chimed out rather than regrouped, rocked by erratic rubatos and changes in tempo. Interminable.

South-Korean Jong Ho Won had woozed the audience in the semi-finals but didn’t fully delivered last night. His choice of concerto is partly to blame, as Liszt’s First is not much besides pure virtuosity. I could still hear a very finely crafted quality of sound in pianissimos, well voiced chords, a good sense of phrasing, but double octaves and recitatives lacking direction and his accuracy rate was unfortunately not perfect

A day of welcome rest today for our ears before the gala concert tomorrow night. This is when the names of the Audience Prize (almost certainly Rana) and Best Performance of the McIntyre piece winners will be announced.

First evening of the finals of the MIMC last night, in front of a very quiet audience: all in all, three solid performances, but not equally convincing for me.

Henry Kramer gave us an honest Ravel, but without much fantasy, rather static and vertical, a little as if he chose to stay on his guards. (Maybe he didn’t feel entirely safe with the Orchestre Métropolitain, which demonstrated some weaknesses throughout the evening? The worst is to be feared tonight with Prokofiev’s Second.) The adagio assai, certainly one of the most poetic pages of the repertoire, was pretty but lacked tenderness. Let’s salute though the fluidity of his runs accompanying the orchestra in the last segment of that movement. The whole thing lacked a bit of the “wow factor” element to make it truly memorable.

In just a few seconds, Zheeyoung Moon demonstrated once again  that she possesses a full sonority, never harsh, and phrasing that transmits the essential elements of the text. Her pianissimos are ravishing, her sixteenth crystalline, but her chords were not always fullsounding. Here also, I would have like a hint of madness breathed in the concerto, especially in the fast sections.

As it was the case with her two recitals, Beatrice Rana dazzled. No doubt in my mind: she has admirable presence, technique and clarity of elocution. A true personnality, that reminds me of the young Argerich, minus the devasting incandescence perhaps. Her phrasing is always subtle, the breathing perfectly integrated. Never a moment when sound or attention fails; each note is in its right place, each rest is lived to the fullest and the young pianist demonstrates a remarkable sense of direction. She captivated in the first movement’s cadenza, was always fully invested in the second and proved that technique doesn’t have to be playing a lead role to infuse playing with passion in the third.

The last three contestants to take the stage tonight will have to be more than impeccable to push her away from first place.

You can be part of the action, starting at 7:30 p.m., right here…

First of three semi-finals sessions of the MIMC last night, in front of a packed (and very warm!) room.

I was expecting a lot, structure and subtlety wise, from American Henry Kramer, but am saddened to say that his semi-finals recital didn’t live up to the promises of his Haydn and Chopin from the quarter finals. If his Third Scherzo was convincing (I can only salute the clarity of his left hand!), he gave us a Beethoven somewhat dishevelded and a very static Gaspard de la nuit. Pity…

By a somewhat cruel twist of fate, Italian Beatrice Rana was performing two of the same pieces. Her Ravel was remarkably fluid, had width of breath, without never becoming imprecise rhythmically. I would have liked her to phrase her double octaves in Chopin’s Scherzo bigger and for her sound to be always full, but nevertheless her performance was convincing. With her Bartok Suite, she went completely elsewehere, unhabiting every silence with panache and demonstrating mastery of sonic plans. We’ll hear her for sure in the next couple of days.

South-Korean Zheeyoung Moon picked a nearly kamikaze program, with Schumann’s Humoresque, a difficult because fragmented work to hold in front of an audience. Nevertheless, she demonstrated ample phrasing, evident work on the sound, but one could have wished for more variety when similar material was presented. If her Prokofiev Seventh Sonata was certainly well in place, it was missing some of the madness and sardonic quality essential to this work. A big maybe…

Young Canadian Lucas Porter, the wild card here (having joined the ranks days before the beginning of the Competition) has demonstrated a supreme architectural conscience. After having sculpted the voices in his Bach-Petri (Will the transcription choice haunt him in the end?), he just took apart Haydn’s Sonata Hob XVI. 24 and transformed it in a true gem. (What grace in the slow movement! The room was mesmerized.) Like many, he had penned the Liszt Sonata in. A few blunders in the double octaves and sometimes rough sound may prevent us from listening to his Prokofiev Third Concerto in the final round. Despite all this, I have the strong conviction that he is a true musician, coherent, articulate, and taht he possesses a real vision of the works he plays (perhaps because he is a composer as well). A carreer to be followed…