Word: concertos
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...purpose of the HRO Concerto Competition is to stimulate undergraduate musicians to higher achievement, this year's audition must be judged a resounding failure. All of four people showed up at Paine Hall to play Thursday night, and they were all pianists--a turnout a third as large as last year...
Each contestant was asked to play excerpts from his concerto. Then we all sat and waited for the judges' decision. The way I saw it, two of the pianists could readily have been eliminated. James Richman's performance of the Mendelssohn Concerto in G Minor lacked the necessary technical expertise. The Mendelssohn is one of those piano showpieces with lots of runs and arpeggios and few solid musical ideas. Success depends on virtousity--something which Richman, for all his vigor and musicality, simply did not have...
Tonu Kalam played the Beethoven First Concerto--in a manner that suggested he had better things to do. A difficult work to put across, the Beethoven relies on classical structure and logic rather than flashy passage-work and sweeping melodies. Delicacy and extreme sensitivity are a must, and Kalam revealed neither. Without exception, his phrases were rushed, brusque, and superficial...
...other two contestants presented a difficult choice. Seth Carlin is the most virtuosic pianist I have heard at Harvard. His performance of the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto displayed a near-perfect technical mastery of that demanding score. The runs and complicated accompaniment figures came through clearly without covering the melodic line. Carlin also demonstrated rhythmic control and power that put his playing on a professional level...
...fourth competitor stood out for different reasons. Alan Summers's rendition of the Tchaikovsky First Concerto lacked much of the finesse of Carlin's performance. At many points his playing was messy, especially in passages with rapid octave runs. His habitual humming was frequently so loud as to be annoying. What Summers lacked in elegance, however, was compensated for by his sensitive handling of nuance and phrase. He played with a warm sound and Romantic lyricism that Carlin seldom achieved...