The Tchaikovsky Competition announced the names of the winners

The final decisions of the jury of the XVII Tchaikovsky Competition demonstrated the unprecedented generosity of the jury members, who were guided by the regulations only in one of the nominations – the cello. The piano jury turned out to be the most generous, bringing together six pianists on the laureate pedestal and canceling the fifth and sixth prizes, awarding the fourth to Mao Xuanyi (China) and Yeo Soa (South Korea) — pianists who, until the last day of the competition, seriously competed with the current laureates.

Due to the decisions of the jury, which allowed not six, but eight contestants to the final, the time for evening pianist auditions and the number of concerts increased so that the audience left the Great Hall of the Conservatory only by midnight. All three evenings the finalists performed piano concertos with the orchestra, among which the Tchaikovsky concerto was mandatory in the program. The contestants did not take risks and habitually chose the First Concerto. The only one who did not fit into the repertoire canon was Ilya Papoyan (3rd prize), who performed Tchaikovsky’s Second Concerto. On the whole, by the finals, the layouts were clear, but, as always, the most unexpected factors work in a marathon with an orchestra.

This time, difficulties arose with the orchestra itself – with the State Orchestra. E. F. Svetlanova. As a conductor, Valery Gergiev invited the young Alexei Rubin, remembered for last year’s competition of pianists, composers and conductors named after Rachmaninoff. Considering the sprinting pace of the preparations for the competition, when until the last moment it was not known who would participate and what concerts would be played, one can understand the young conductor, who was learning the concertos of Britten, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky II on the go. It is more difficult to understand how an orchestra of this rank could allow so much performance marriage – in solos, in ensembles, in sound quality. Moreover, the orchestra performs most of the scores of the third round on a regular basis. Stanislav Korchagin, who performed Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto and Prokofiev’s Second Concerto, and George Harliono (Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Second Concerto), who literally struggled for every performance nuance in tempo or phrasing, had a particularly difficult time in an ensemble with an orchestra. But the jury took into account the situation: Korchagin won the third prize, Harliono the second.

The generous jury placed two more pianists in second place – Angel Stanislav Wong (USA), a student of the Moscow Conservatory, who shone in the final with the Britten Concerto (D major), and Valentin Malinin, who smoothly and confidently went through all the tours and truly conquered the hall in the final: for his First Concerto of Tchaikovsky, played not in a bravura-ceremonial, but in a lyrical manner, the audience gave him a standing ovation. Many thought that after such a triumph, the first prize would go to him. But those who attended the performances of other finalists understood that there was already a contender for this place – young Sergey Davydchenko, a student at the Rostov Conservatory, incredibly gifted in pianism and, which rarely happens, possessing colossal energy that gives his playing a special inner strength. His First Concerto by Tchaikovsky, although played in a traditional manner, struck with a fresh, bright, sunny sound, not characteristic of the spirit of Tchaikovsky, but which so effectively presented his textbook composition.

In the finale, there was also one who decided to perform the author’s version of Tchaikovsky’s concerto – Ilya Papoyan, who played the Second Concerto without cuts, with a grandiose Andante, which Tchaikovsky himself cherished very much. The fact that the author’s version of the concerto, and not Siloti’s version, was performed at the Tchaikovsky Competition is a rare event. And every time the same question arises: shouldn’t the author’s editions of the composer’s works necessarily sound here? As it happens at other competitions – Beethoven, Bach, Chopin.

In any case, the 17th Tchaikovsky Competition has already ended, and, as the statistician showed, interest in it remains in the musical community. The current competition set a record for the number of views online: almost 50 million views this year against 17 million in 2019. And although the broadcasts were watched from 102 countries, the answer to the question of what concert engagements for the current laureates are now possible in the world does not look so rosy. In Russia, of course, everyone has prospects. The names of the new laureates will be on the poster already at the Stars of the White Nights festival, and the Moscow Philharmonic will include them in the programs of the next season.

Irina Mikhalkina