On the evening of December 2nd, the Concours de Genève returned to the Victoria Hall, this time with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and British conductor Alexander Shelley, for the final round of the 2014 piano competition.  Four competitors remained from earlier rounds and, in contrast to the flute finals the evening before when by coincidence all three players performed the same two pieces, this time the program was more varied.  Only one  work was repeated and, really, who could object to hearing the Beethoven 4th Concerto twice in one evening?

The first pianist to play was Honggi Kim, 25, from South Korea, in the Beethoven 4th.  Initially, his reading struck me as too matter of fact, particularly the opening piano solo which can say a very great deal in five short bars.  However, as Mr. Kim went on, I began to appreciate the strengths in his playing: his respect for the score, his spectacular éclat in brilliant passages — a glittering quality that he never allowed to tip over into mindless virtuosity.  It was lean and clean playing of the very best sort, and it was perfectly clear that whatever Mr. Kim wanted to do, he did compellingly and with commitment.  This did not always work to his advantage, though, because it made all the more obvious the stretches when he wasn’t quite convinced of what he should be doing and he allowed the tight leash he had on the audience to slacken.

Ji-Yeong Mun – First Prize

Next on the program was Pallavi Mahidhara, 27, from the US.  Her concerto was the demanding and virtuosic Prokofiev 3rd, but the odd thing about her performance was that she didn’t really take full advantage of its obvious audience appeal.  The tempos in all three movements were decidedly on the slow side.  She was gorgeous in the lyrical themes (and yes, even in this barn burner of a piece, there are passages of almost super-Romantic lushness).  But this concerto needs to fly and, with the leisurely tempos and beat-laden inflections, it felt mostly earthbound.

Russian Igor Andreev, 26, took the stage after intermission to perform Chopin’s 2nd Concerto and during its long orchestral introduction I was a little alarmed by the slow pace.  Once Andreev began to play however orchestra and soloist began to move a bit and settled into a comfortable tempo.  Critical to any Chopin performance is a certain amount of rhythmic freedom, but this work in particular can easily lead pianists to indulge in excesses that constitute, well, shall we say bad taste?  In Mr. Andreev’s case he was admirably well aware of this and his innate good taste led him in the opposite direction. There was some delightfully sly playing in the mazurka-like sections of the final movement, but as a whole performance it did feel a bit straight-jacketed and that, coupled with a few (very few) too many finger slips may have put him out of the running.

Pallavi Mahidhara- Second Prize

Honggi Kim – Third Prize