Cliburn Competition: Preliminary Recital II, June 2, 2022
—Wayne Lee Gay
Some unusual repertoire came to the fore at Thursday afternoon’s preliminary session of the Cliburn competition, with sorties into the French baroque and a little-known twentieth-century Ukrainian-Russian composer, as well a triple dose of Haydn.
Canadian Jonathan Mak opened the proceedings with Haydn’s Sonata in A (Hob. XVI:46), producing a substantial reading of the three-movement work, particularly entrancing in the lean textures of the middle movement, a serene momento of the Age of Reason. Mak also presented the most convincing performance of Hough’s Fanfare Toccata so far in the competition: he alone of the performers in the morning and afternoon sessions of the day caught on to the “fanfare” element, producing a light but brilliant tone at key moments, reminiscent of trumpets.
Mak closed his bid for advancement in the competition with Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Corelli, a final pinnacle of solo piano music from that composer’s post-Revolutionary exile. Mak echoed the serenity of the Haydn Sonata here in the opening statement, and navigated smoothly through the golden thread of variations, with fine command of resonant effects.
Russian pianist Anna Geniushene opened her program with Haydn’s Sonata in D, presenting the work as if conducting a séance, sometimes barely touching the keys and carefully considering each note in a performance that bordered on the eccentric but was nonetheless convincing (and warmly greeted by the audience). Following the Hough piece, she launched into the eight Etudes Tableaux of Rachmaninoff’s Opus 33, literally “pictorial etudes,” each evoking a sense of mood or place. (Rachmaninoff for the most part declined to reveal the exact picture or scene he had in mind, leaving that to the listener’s imagination.) A somewhat risky competition choice because of the huge variety of technical and emotional demands, the set worked beautifully for Geniushene, allowing her to give full rein to her wide palette of pianistic colors and show off her broad and impressive technique. High points of her performance included a spiritually intense rendition of the third etude, in C minor, rising from a whispered but nicely projected pianissimo; the triumphant sixth etude in E; and the thunderous roar of the eighth etude in C-sharp minor.
After intermission, American Andrew Li gave the day’s second performance of Haydn’s Sonata in D. (Doubtless neither Li nor Geniushene expected to go head to head with this competition rarity.) Li presented a somewhat more conventional interpretation than Geniushene’s, but still managed a delightfully personal, and even, at times, surprising rendition. After his reading of the Hough work, Li presented himself as an old-fashioned powerhouse virtuoso, first with Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrouchka, which he pulled off with aplomb and faster-than-lightning finger work. The final work of his program, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, provides a platform for unadulterated showing off with plenty of bravura and a touch of humor as the final theme goes through athletic contortions; Li tired a bit by the end of the performance.
Belarussian Denis Linnik presented the most unusual repertoire of the afternoon, opening with three short pieces by French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, “Dialogue of the Muses,” “Whirlwinds,” and “Happiness.” He followed with twentieth-century Russian-Ukrainian composer Alemdar Karamanov’s Variations for Piano, an ultimately bland piece vaguely influenced by American jazz. To his credit, Linnik was the first performer so far to play the Hough Fanfare Toccata from memory—no mean feat. His performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano, in the revised version from 1931, did little to raise him out of the pack, with his best moments coming in the slow middle movement.
