American Protégé presents Summer Gala Concert in Review
American Protégé presents Summer Gala Concert
Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
June 30, 2016
Pianist Blandine Waldmann was presented amid the large gathering of artists that took part in this celebration of AP’s nine years as a competition. She was the thirty-third of thirty-four performers, and perhaps waiting all that time backstage had an influence on her rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Etude-Tableau in C minor, Op. 39, No. 1. The work, composed on October 5, 1916, is turbulent, and Waldmann’s tempo was correct—she caught the agitato perfectly. However, she failed to clarify the singing lines and structure amid the welter of figural notes, and the dynamics weren’t varied enough, therefore the piece sounded a bit jumbled. Some people like their Rachmaninoff that way—mostly adrenaline. She appears to be in her mid-twenties, and her bio states that she is the laureate of many international competitions, but it doesn’t mention any truly major ones. At any rate, Ms. Waldmann can now claim to have made her “main stage” debut in Carnegie Hall, although a full recital would tell us much more about her as an artist.
