When the co-chairs of the Carmel Music Society's 1998 Piano Competition, Dottie Roberson and Linda Dowd, stepped to the rostrum on Sunset Center's stage on Saturday afternoon, March 28, to announce the Competition winners, there was perceptible tension in the air. The eight finalists seated in the front row waited with baited breath to hear the decision. But first the judges for the competition, James Bonn, Craig Rutenberg and Frederick Weldy received introductions and acknowledgement for their difficult task.
And, when the announcement of the winners finally came, there was little surprise that 21-year-old Heidi Hau from Los Altos had won the Society's grand prize of a $3500 cash award and a contract to appear on the Society's regular subscription series in 1998-99. Anyone hearing her performance during the competition recognized immediately that here was a young woman who has achieved an impressive mastery of the piano at an early age. In her opening selection, Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 109, she presented the
Vivace ma non troppo in bold strokes with intensity and authoritative musicianship. The following
Prestissimo was as well played as you will ever hear it-nicely styled, technically impeccable and totally convincing. The Liszt
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca started out aggressively and rather too loud, but half way through, Ms. Hau brought the dynamic down to the quieter end of the spectrum and achieved a lovely and moving ending
The two selections by Debussy,
Cloches à travers les feuilles and
Poissons d'or from
Images, Book II represented a milestone during the course of the competition. Here was the first instance of one of the finalists truly controlling the new Hamburg Steinway D used in the competition, and creating a varied palette of beautiful, limpid sounds that projected even to the last rows of Sunset Center. In
Poissons d'or Ms. Hau made the swirling passages look and sound easy (which, of course, they are not).
Her ending selection was a knockout performance of Shchedrin's
Basso Ostinato. Again Ms. Hau made it all look easy. I don't mean to imply that there was anything superficial about her performance. On the contrary, there was a real thrill in observing Ms. Hau taking us for a hair-raising roller coaster ride through some horrendous technical difficulties - we enjoyed the scary ride because we knew we never really were in danger.
When Ms. Hau repeated her performance at the evening awards concert, she achieved once again a solid, masterful performance, except that she added a lovely encore, Debussy's
Feux d'artifice. In the audience to enjoy her triumph were her family and her distinguished teacher, Erna Gulabyan, from Mountain View.
The second prize winner was Timothy Durkovic, age 27, from West Covina. Since Durkovic had been a finalist in the Carmel Music Society's 1994 Piano Competition, it must have been gratifying to return four years later and to be a winner. After his opening selection, a rather glib and over-played performance of the first movement of Mozart's B-flat Major Sonata, K.333, he followed this with an unusual repertoire choice: Liszt's concert transcription of six song by Chopin, which was probably the first time most of the audience was hearing these works. The final two selections Mr. Durkovic played made the strongest impression. The first was George Crumb's "Carol of the Bells" from "A Little Suite for Christmas, A.D. 1979" which called for some startling effects of strumming bass strings and playing notes with the left hand while damping the strings with the right hand. If this sounds gimmicky, it actually was very successful. His ending piece was the great D-sharp Minor Etude, Op. 8, No.12, by Scriabin which he tossed off with elegant abandon.
Third place winner, 23-year-old Anglika Angelova, from San Francisco, demonstrated a skillful sense of program building by starting with two fairly easy sonatas by Scarlatti that she played with elegance and refinement. The two Debussy selections that followed,
Reflets dans l'eau and
Hommage à Rameau showcased her tonal palette, while the final two etudes,
La leggierezza by Liszt and the "Winter Wind" Etude by Chopin demonstrated her formidable technical skills.
Some of the other finalists who did not place still produced some memorable performances during the competition. Lily Popova, age 23, from Altadena, a pupil of John Perry, played an elegant slow movement in Mozart's Sonata in D, K. 576 and an energetic first movement of Shostakovich's Sonata No. 2. Ying Zhang, age 20, from El Monte, played a sparkling
Jeux d'eau by Ravel, and an exciting Prokofiev Sonata No. 3. Sergio Ruiz, age 27, from San Jose played some lovely Scarlatti, a beautifully controlled first movement of Mozart's D Major Sonata, K. 576, and the exciting fugue from the Barber Piano Sonata.
One of the most interesting finalists was the 18-year old Yan Kvitko from Palo Alto. This boy was a powerhouse of violent energy in his fabulous, artistic performance of Chopin's F-sharp Minor Polonaise. Although his Beethoven
Les adieux Sonata was stylistically weak, he gave us a nice performance of Samuel Barber's Ballade, Op. 46, and Scriabin's very difficult etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 42, No. 5.
Tien Hsieh, age 28, from Fair Oaks also impressed the audience as quite a remarkable talent. She opened with Messiaen's
Regard des anges from
Vingt regards sur l'enfant Jesus. Utilizing all the resources of the piano, Ms. Hsieh played this difficult work with considerable success. Her Beethoven
Les adieux also was forceful and musical. What probably prevented her from placing in this competition was her final selection, Liszt's
Rhapsodie Espagnole. This she played with such reckless abandon that she lost the control needed to hold the work together.
This year the Carmel Music Society celebrates the 22nd anniversary of its competition. Unlike so many other competitions, The Carmel Music Society provides an opportunity for the musical community to hear this person one year later in a full recital on the Society's regular subscription series. This is a wonderful feature of which the Society can be very proud. I have no doubt that Heidi Hau will come back next year with and excellent and exciting program.
This is the second concert featuring the Carmel Music Society's new Hamburg Steinway concert grand. It is interesting that all the finalists with whom I spoke thought it was an excellent instrument, but found it difficult to control and actually preferred the practice piano backstage, which was the Monterey County Symphony's Avery Tomkins Memorial Steinway. But it is a tribute to these fine young musicians that they made the new piano sound as good as it did.
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