Cliburn Competition: Preliminary Recital 8, June 4, 2022

—Wayne Lee Gay

Korean pianist Honggi Kim launched the Saturday afternoon session with a set of four Scarlatti Sonatas, creating a smooth singing tone and choral textures in the Sonata in B minor, K. 87. He upped the tempo for the Sonata in B minor (K. 27) and the Sonata in G (K. 13), aiming toward the final Sonata in G (K. 455), an Allegro with a difficult repeated note figure, which he handled to fine effect. After an almost hectic reading of the Hough Fanfare Toccata, Kim moved on to Mikhail Pletnev’s piano solo arrangement of seven movements from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker—a sure-fire crowd pleaser framing Tchaikovsky’s familiar and beloved melodies with attractive pianistic opportunities. Kim pulled this off nicely, most impressively creating an amazing imitation of the sound of the celeste in the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” Rippling arpeggios decorated the “Journey Through Snow,” with a grandly pianistic realization of the pas de deux for a finale.

American Kate Liu presented an unfortunately planned and poorly timed program, beginning with an intensely introverted rendition of Schubert’s Allegretto in C minor. After Hough’s Fanfare Toccata, she meandered through an extra-slow performance of Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 8, with the final Vivace movement providing relief from an excruciating performance. Running considerably overtime, Liu committed the ultimate sin of irritating the audience and the jury.

Jinhyung Park opened with a disturbingly rigid performance of Hough’s Fanfare Toccata. He likewise seemed stylistically off-base in the three movements of Debussy’s Images, Book I: he approached the opening “Reflections in the Water” as if it were Rachmaninoff, and never found a reasonable and consistent approach to pedal in the ensuing “Hommage à Rameau” or “Mouvement.” Likewise, his performance of Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli was marred by the same pedal issues, though he achieved a nicely thunderous effect in the closing passages.

Ukrainian Dmytro Choni opened with a graceful reading of Hough's Fanfare Toccata. Although the ensuing Novelette by Schumann is not one of that composer's best works, Choni found convincing unity via a rising repeated motif. He closed with an elegant rendition of Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata No. 2 in the 1931 version, with impressive voicing (particularly in the slow middle movement) and control of the work's myriad emotions.