First Prize went to Daniil Trifonov and there is no question that it was richly deserved. This 20 year old, born in Nizhny Novgorod (formerly Gorky) in the Russian heartland, is a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio, studying with emigré Russian pianist Sergey Babayan who I vividly remember hearing practically turn the piano inside out in competition 20 years ago. It’s an interesting combination since they are very different sorts of players. Babayan, the incendiary virtuoso, has somehow had a hand in developing a mellow, rather introverted but angelicly pure musical soul in Trifonov. Not that Trifonov lacks technical voltage – quite the contrary, he’s up to anything, in fact his complete Chopin Etudes, Op. 25 were one of the highlights of the entire competition, it’s just that he’s more Lipatti than Horowitz. Every note he touched was pure gold, but I really think his crowning moment came in what must surely have been one of the loveliest performances of Mozart’s K. 488 Piano Concerto ever given. Compelling, radiant, every gesture in the music lovingly communicated, directly and with perfect naturalness, artfully but without artifice. It simply could not have been better.
Mr. Trifonov came to Moscow to compete in the Tchaikovsky directly from his First Prize win at the 2011 Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv. The double first place finishes will doubtless give some impetus to what at his age is a fairly new career. It’s likely to be a brilliant one.
- Timothy Gilligan for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
http://www.nyconcertreview.com/blog/?p=1588
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