A feast of music at the Piano Concerto Competition Semi-final

   Yekwon Sunwoo (South Korea)                                                                       Photograph: John Cole

The semi-finals of the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition brought a feast of music for those of us in the White Rock Theatre last night.  For the laughable cost of £8 per seat we were treated to seven mini-recitals by a quite remarkable array of young players ranging in age from 17 to 27.  There were originally intended to be six in the semi-final, but the judges considered the standard so high that they stretched it to seven.  Each played a small programme of their own devising, for just under half an hour.

Marcin Koziak (Poland)                                       Photograph: John Cole

The choice of music was wide, from Bach through to Ligeti.  The players had deliberately chosen music to demonstrate their range - Marcin Koziak, from Poland, for example, played a Haydn Sonata, followed by Debussy's Prelude La Cathédrale Engloutie and ending with a virtuoso performance of Bartok.  Similarly, Taek Gi Lee, from South Korea, played a Bach Prelude and Fugue followed by a spectacular Fantasy by Liszt.  Asaki Ino, from Japan, gave a beautiful interpretation of Clara Schumann's Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann before thundering through a Berg sonata.  The Russian Ekaterina Litvintseva seemed to prefer power over expressiveness in her pieces by Rachmaninov, Chopin and Prokofiev.

One of the more interesting moments occurred when Yekwon Sunwoo, also from South Korea, played Ravel's Valse.  It wasn't a piece I knew, but it had been played a little earlier by another competitor, Angie Zhang from the USA.  For an eighteen-year-old, she had demonstrated astonishing power - but I found myself wondering, in the course of her performance, what had happened to the dance in the title.  I thought that perhaps Ravel had composed a modernist interpretation of the waltz, which broke in at odd moments.  Then came Yekwon Sunwoo, who played the piece more subtly, so that the waltz rhythm was clear all the way through, with remarkable light and shade - suddenly the music was perfectly Parisian. 

Taek Gi Lee (South Korea)                                 Photograph: John Cole

The two South Koreans and Marcin Koziak go through to the finals on Saturday, with Koziak playing Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, and Yekwon Sunwoo and the astounding 17-year-old Taek Gi Lee both playing Rachmaninov's Third.  Yekwon Sunwoo, 25, has remarkable stage presence and the smile of a schoolboy rather surprised to find himself the centre of attention.  His compatriot Taek Gi Lee packs far more  emotional punch in his playing than you would expect from someone his age.   The comparison between the two South Koreans playing the same Rachmaninov piece promises to make for an interesting evening.  As for Koziak, tall and unassuming, with the classic long hands of the pianist,  his Debussy was very beautiful and I've no doubt he'll bring out the full emotion of Tchaikovsky's score.

I confess to one disappointment.  I'd shepherded Annika Treutler, from Germany, to rehearsal in St. Mary in the Castle and then to the White Rock in the first round.  I was delighted to see that she'd made the semi-final.  She played a Schumann Fantasy very beautifully last night but was trounced by the men.  The standard is, indeed, amazing.

Antony Mair   

The judges                                                                   Photograph: John Cole 

  

Gearing up for the Piano Concerto Competition

The first three weeks of March in Hastings are devoted to the Hastings Musical Festival, which has been going for more than a century.  It's not a festival like those in Edinburgh or Brighton, but consists of a series of competitions for performers in music and dance.   In recent years the jewel in the crown of the Festival has been the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition, which takes place in the first week of March, the final being on Saturday March 8th.

Last year we were in the audience for the final, which was an amazing event.  This year we have foolishly volunteered to help with the running of the Competition, together with about twenty others.  Not, you will understand, in any highfalutin fashion: our tasks will be restricted to guiding contestants from rehearsal venues to the stage of the White Rock Theatre for their performance.  On the night of the final we are likely to be selling programmes.

So today saw the small volunteer army being inducted to the mysteries of the White Rock Theatre, better known for performances by popstar lookalikes and the occasional dire production of classical opera and ballet.  There's the usual labyrinth of backstage corridors and small dressing-rooms, and that strange feeling, when you come on stage, of the auditorium being somehow smaller than you thought it would be.  We were given a slightly bewildering list of instructions by our masters, and I left hoping that I would be able to deliver my charges safely to the venue for their allotted time without accident or mishap.  No doubt all will come right on the night.  At least on the final evening we shall be doing some fairly brainless activity rather than shepherding our virtuosos to the Yamaha grand.  I'm just hoping we'll be able to hear the performances as well.

Antony Mair

Vienna Festival Ballet at the White Rock Theatre

The White Rock Theatre is not a mainstream cultural haven, being given over mostly to musical events at the lower end of the highbrow scale, alternating with stand-up comedy.  But we went along to see the Vienna Festival Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty last night, on the basis that classical music needs to be supported.

If the intention was good, I'm afraid we didn't carry it out fully, leaving in the interval.  Forgive me for being naïve, but I'd foolishly imagined that this troupe came from Vienna.  But no - the Viennese connection stems solely from their founder Peter Mallek, who happens to be Austrian.  The company is based in the UK.  Disappointment No. 1.  As so often happens with budget productions, the music was recorded - Tchaikovsky's beautiful score was reduced to a syrup of ill-defined sounds coming out of giant speakers.  The costumes were so clearly made of thin synthetic fabrics that I was surprised the static didn't interfere with the sound system. 

What of the dancers?  well, they did their best.  I felt they were ill-served by a stage design inspired by Rose's chocolate boxes, and a choreographer who had simplified Petipa's original: the turns were slowed down, the jumps (forgive my ignorance of the proper terminology) got them off the ground, but only just.  In the place of energy in the dancing, we had a lot of smiling: smiles fixed so hard on the dancers' faces that they became more like a grimace as time wore on.  The corps de ballet comprised eight girls, four approaching beanpole status and four diminutive and predominantly Oriental.  Teeth were in full evidence, and in one or two cases an orthodontist would have had a field day.  The Queen perched on a rudimentary throne at the side, paying no attention to the dancers but displaying the obligatory smile.  The wicked fairy Carabosse did quite a good impression of Tracey Emin on point. 

There's only so much saccharine one can take, and I'm afraid we had had enough by the interval.  If Hastings wants to get its coveted award as City of Culture it's going to have to do better than this.  As for Vienna Festival Ballet: I suggest they ditch the classics, get a decent choreographer and some musicians on stage and join the twenty-first century.  Classical ballet doesn't have to be this dilute mishmash of tinsel and sugar: Kenneth MacMillan showed us that fifty years ago.

Antony Mair