The Finalists

Antonii Barishevskyi – The young competitor from Ukraine played Liszt’s piano concerto No.1 for his first final performance with orchestra. I immediately noticed a particular artistic individuality in his playing, when performing Liszt and later also Rachmaninoff piano concerto No.3. He demonstrated to understand the polyphonic structure of the musical score, but his technical skills were not developed enough to use them with a better knowledge for the interpretation. We come to the conclusion that Barishevskyi is still looking for his own pianistic identity, but his approach to a polyphonic playing could guide him to a good development according to the good old German-Russian piano tradition.

Anna Bulkina – The young Russian lady showed her pianistic character right after performing Liszt’s piano concerto No.1. I missed a certain long-vibrating piano sound, her playing was generally too dry, nevertheless her technique could perfectly fit to Prokofieff’s concerto No.2.
Conclusion: Bulkina’s performance was too accurate, no musical shaping of the Prokofieff’s concerto, her musical expression was just based on a technical aspect. Appropriate to Prokofieff’s style, not for the other works of the wide piano literature.

Tatiana Chernichka – Clear technique, appropriate pedalizing, a good team-work with the orchestra. Chernichka performed well both with Liszt’s piano concerto No. 2 and Rachmaninoff concerto No.3. Sometimes her playing was too “nice”. Rachmaninoff Concerto No.3: her interpretation was not creative enough, her playing remained closed but not intrinsic, which is actually a demanding character particularly by Rachmaninoff.

The “other” prize winners

Three further participants were not admitted to the great final stage of the Busoni competition: Alessandro Taverna, Min Soo Hong, Sun-A Park. It was not difficult to guess their artistic profile just by listening to the orchestral performance with Liszt’s piano concertos. Each of them presented a very personal interpretation of the work, according to a romantic Franz Liszt’s style. Particularly Alessandro Taverna showed sometimes polyphonic playing.

The jury’s decision

The international jury at the last Chopin piano competition in Warsaw 2010 (Martha Argerich was joining the jury), expressed an absolutely incompetent vote by awarding Evegeni Bozhanov only fourth prize. His playing was brilliant, of a high-professional polyphonic technique and a maturity in his interpretations.
We have a similar combination at Busoni competition: the jury, with Argerich as a president and other members as Mrs. Stephanovich, showed again their limited art of voting, especially when they did not recognize the polyphonic signs in Barishevskyi’s or even Taverna’s playing. This led finally to a not-awarded first prize.
Ferruccio Busoni was acclaimed and recognized as the most polyphonic pianist all-time. Right for the Busoni competition I would have wished a jury with a deeper pianistic knowledge.

Do piano competitors want to simply impress the jury, or are they seeking for attention in order to get upcoming engagements through artist’s management, or do they even want to verify their level of stage-fright while performing before an audience?
Each of them will certainly have different personal purposes to decide to go to a competition.

This kind of competitive thinking can be also turned as profitable for the further development as a musician. In fact we can create our own competition in mind to spread the wings of a unique maturing process.
A concert career inevitably involves the performing pianist into a competition with other concert pianists. So we never stop to be compared with our colleagues. But who is the jury in this case? The audience, of course, and maybe the critics as well.

Finally, the true path of this challenge for pianists seems to be only one: being competitive with themselves, working every day to play better and better, searching and researching for new inspiration, improving the communication with the composer, producing an individual standard of excellence.
Pianists! Never be happy of your achievements today, but set them as the essential step to build up your mastery for tomorrow.

2008 A. Rubinstein Competition – Final Round –
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Uri Segal at Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Israel –
Roman Rabinovich, pianist