Re: WAYLTL 2025!

On Sun, 25 May 2025, DeepBlue wrote:

On Sun, 25 May 2025 5:48:57 +0000, Al Eisner wrote:
>

 On Sun, 25 May 2025, DeepBlue wrote:
>

 On Sat, 24 May 2025 20:53:14 +0000, Al Eisner wrote:
>

  On Sat, 24 May 2025, DeepBlue wrote:
>

  On Sat, 24 May 2025 0:18:46 +0000, Al Eisner wrote:
>

   Magdalene Ho (of Malaysia)

>
  Note however that she was born in the US,
  is (at least half) Chinese, and studied
  mainly in the UK with Patsy Fou. I guess
  the only thing Malay about her is one of
  her passports. ;-)
>
  Cheers!
>

  Looks like she did not make it through to
  the round of 18.  Of the few I watched,
  one I thought quite poor did make it.

>
 I am not entirely surprised. The Clickburn
 is an unfriendly environment and ecosystem
 to pianists who display too much nuance or
 subtlety. It has been going downhill since
 Radu Lupu won in 1966.
>
 To make matters worse, the Clickburn does
 not even provide decent instruments. The
 Stoneway they use has a shallow hollow
 tinny metallic tone.
>
 I am very disappointed.
>
 Cheers!
>

 From Ben Laude, whom I've found to be an
 astute listener:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRQU--cC_vQ

>
Yes, indeed. Ben has good ears. He is also
rather naive about how competitions really
work. The main reason Magdalene Ho was not
promoted to the next stage is that she does
not study (or appears to have studied) in
any of the "top" US conservatories, or with
anyone who is in the jury or even taken a
master class with any of them. Color me
cynical, I don't care.
>
Who are your favorites so far?
>
Cheers!

I'm not doing this systematically, and have only heard a minority, whole
recitals if I can tolerate them.  In the prelims, apart from Ho, I
especially liked Elia Cecino - you might not have, since the central
work was LvB, played rather straight but with considerable lyricism. But I was less impressed by his quarterfinals, in part due to his choice
of program.
Of the six quarterfinals I watched, the mosg satisfying were those by
Piotr Alexewicz and (your earlier choice) Chaeyoung Park.  I would give
an automatic pass to the next round to the pianist whose program
consisted of the Hammerklavier.  I did not listen to it. I also did not
hear either of the two Op. 111's, but if either pianist gets through
I may return to those.
--
                                                         Al Eisner