Another major piano competition has come and gone and this piano aficionado feels his usual mixture of disappointment (why do candidates whom he believed worthy receive less than they deserve?), frustration (why does someone as knowledgeable as he believes himself to be fail so frequently to predict the first-prize, gold-medal winner?), anger (why do so many “qualified” people, i.e., the members of the jury, fail, to recognize what is so obvious to him?) and questions (what – if anything – can succeed better than competitions to identify pianistic talent?).

I would agree that the 17^th Van Cliburn International Competition, which concluded Saturday night in Fort Worth, TX, named six worthy finalists: in alphabetical order, Carter Johnson (Canada/United States), 28; Philip Lynov (Russia),26; Evren Ozel (United States), 26; Aristo Sham (Hong Kong, China), 29; Vitalty Starikov (Israel/Russia), 30; and Angel Stanislav Wang (United States), 22. But I felt that the designation of awards —Sham (Gold Medal, $100,000); Starikov (Silver Medal, $50,00); Ozel (Bronze Medal, $25,000); with the status of Laureates, but no medals, and cash awards of $10,000, each awarded to Lynov, Johnson and Wang — was wrong headed. And while I watched/listened to the competition sporadically from the Preliminary Rounds through the First Rounds, the Quarter Finals, and the Semi-Finals, once the Finals began, I listened to every note of every performance.

Through the first four rounds, there were eliminations that bothered me. The off-beat, but interesting, Magdalene Ho of Malaysia failed to make it past the Preliminary Round in which 28 pianists competed for 17 positions. Then there was the infuriating — and that’s putting it mildly — elimination in the Quarterfinal round of David Khrikuli (Georgia), whose infernal brilliance in the Liszt-Horowitz Rákóczi March matched that of the transcriber and whose performance of Liszt’s Dante Sonata surpassed any I had heard in the more than 60 years since I had first heard the piece in Alfred Brendel’s American debut. And just to mention two more eliminations — that of Mikhail Kambarov (Russia), the ineffable beauty of whose trills in Beethoven’s Opus 111 recalled those of Wilhelm Kempff, or of Canadian Alice Burla whose superb Quarter Final performance of an ingenious and un-hackneyed program of CPE Bach, Faure and Szymanowki should have, but did not, lift her to the Semifinal Round.

And now let us proceed to the most mystifying results of all – those of the finals. Here’s how Steve Wigler would have awarded the prizes. A shared first prize to Vitaly Starikov and Philipp Lynov; a Shared Second Prize to Aristo Sham and Carter Anderson; and a shared Third to Evren Ozel and Angel Stanislav Wang.

Here’s why Lynov and Starikov equally deserve First. Lynov gave the two best performances of concertos heard in Fort Worth in June, and for that matter, perhaps two of the best heard anywhere this season. It was a Prokofiev Second Concerto that equaled any Wigler has been fortunate enough to hear during his lifetime: Those of Malcolm Frager and Vladimir Ashkenazy in the 1950s and ‘60s and those of Yefim Bronfman, Alexander Toradze, Horacio Gutierrez and Evgeny Kissin in the last 50 years or so. Lynov combined near unbelievable virtuosity, unerring accuracy, and unquenching lyricism in a piece whose demand for those qualities equals or surpasses those in the more familiar Rachmaninoff Third. And in Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto, the 24-year-old Russian achieved a lyrical sweep and elegance comparable to those once heard from the likes of Bolet, Arrau, and Richter. 

While Starikov fared better than his no-medal Russian colleague — the Cliburn’s Silver Medal is not exactly chopped chicken liver — he did deserve to share the Gold with Lynov. I can’t think of anyone else who has been nutty enough to choose to perform the Bartok Second in a competition. Not only is it as difficult (or more difficult than) to perform as the Rachmaninoff Third or Prokofiev Second Concertos, for orchestras as well as for pianists, but the infrequency with which it is performed makes it more difficult still. Of all the pieces for piano and orchestra in the so-called standard repertory, I would bet my life-savings that it’s been the least conducted by Alsop, who has a well-earned reputation as a skilled conductor of difficult pieces, and that it’s the least performed by the Fort Worth. Yet Alsop, the orchestra, and delivered an excitingly paced, clearly executed traversal and — despite its dense orchestration and much less than usual in time spent in rehearsal— extraordinarily transparent in its details. It was an extraordinary achievement for all parties concerned and worthy all by itself of a First Prize and Gold Medal.

Starikov’s Schumann Concerto was, for the most part, was a joy to hear. He understood better than most pianists that while Schumann’s compositional style involves an almost complete eschewal of showy virtuosity coupled, paradoxically, to extreme technical complexity, his Romantic style demands a pianist capable of matching the composer’s demands for melodic character and charm with a freedom of rhythm that can respond to some very individual ideas. Starikov is a Romantic virtuoso who is capable of lyricism, sensitivity and un-mannered phrasing. But dependable as he is to the composer’s wishes — there was, for example, some light-fingered work in the slow movement that was sheer ravishment — that also means he can be difficult for a conductor and orchestra to follow. Some of his tempo swings in the slow movement, and also in the final one, that made things, even with Starikov’s wonderful fingers spinning out inhumanly even scales, occasionally uncomfortable for Alsop and the orchestra. Earlier in the competition, Starikov gave a magnificent interpretation of Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes. The notes rolled from his fingers in a melting sequence. He obviously felt that the individual notes are improvisatory and he played them with beautiful control and a perpetually singing tone. I’ve been listening to this piece my entire life and I have never heard it played better. Starikov does not need to win a competition; all he needs is an audience to listen to him.

From Starikov and Lynev, the curve of the performances took a somewhat downward curve. Carter Johnson is an emotionally generous pianist. While he did not win a medal, he certainly deserves to be a Cliburn Laureate. His Ravel Left-Hand Concerto stood out — if not as extraordinary as the one that Seong-Jin Cho delivered earlier this season with the BSO — still easily among the best of the many I have heard. It had dramatic depth and an unfailingly powerful and unhesitatingly individual voice. His take on Prokofiev’s Second Concerto began with unexpected charm, but failed in strength and momentum as it proceeded. This seemed especially the case on the following day when Lynov performed the same piece. If one may use a metaphor from competitive swimming: Johnson played the piece as if he were a topflight collegiate swimmer in a 400-meter race; Lynov played it as if he were a hungry 1000-pound shark who had just sighted an unsuspecting tuna.

The jury obviously preferred the American-born, trained, and NEC educated Evren Ozel and the American-born-and-Russian-trained Angel Stanislav Wang. Ozel took a Bronze Medal for Third Place; and Wang, while now a Cliburn Laureate, left without a prize. But I would rank them equally. Each played an excellent Beethoven Fourth Concerto and each gave-a-less-than-stellar reading of Russian warhorses: The Tchaikovsky First Concerto (Ozel) and the Rachmaninov Third Concerto (Wang).

Wang may have been born in the United States (his father had emigrated from China and his mother from Russia) and hence, an American citizen, but he plays like a Russian. He was sent to Moscow as a 10-year child and attended its Central School for exceptionally musical gifted children and, after graduation, attended the city’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where he continues to study with Natalia Trull.

Like all Russian pianists, he is exceptionally well-trained. The sound is beautiful, but powerful. One could describe it as warmly upholstered. The interpretations of which his Beethoven Fourth reminded me were those of Clifford Curzon about 45 years ago and of Radu Lupu about 20 years later. Like theirs, Wang’s was incredibly slow, but so beautiful that one never wanted it to end. The slow movement (Andante con moto) seemed barely to “move” — except to move the emotions. Wang has a touch so beautiful and so delicate that he renders the melodic line through control of touch and dynamics. Those plaintive, feather-weighted chords affect the emotions of a listener as powerfully as if they were an elephant’s tread, but their eloquence is as silent (and as beautiful) as a cat’s. He allows the finale to erupt in joy and thanksgiving, without ever sounding rushed. Like Curzon and Lupu — while not in the least imitative of them — Wang is an artist who makes silences sing. Earlier in the competition, his noble and aristocratic account of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and his beautifully colored treatment of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition showed how persuasive he can be in other kinds of repertory. In Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto, his final public performance in Fort Worth, one concluded that this particular concerto will probably not be among them. But he’s a great talent and I harbor great expectations for him.

In the same final round Evren Ozel’s revealed himself to be a different pianist who achieved similar results. Ozel filled Beethoven’s Concerto No. 4 with exquisite details, chose a perfect paced, and evinced an experienced professional’s ability to communicate his ideas to and to collaborate with a conductor and orchestra. It was a wonderful performance, but I had the feeling I had heard it many times before — from pianists as diverse as Serkin pere, Fleisher, Goode, Bronfman, Uchida, and Perahia and nearly every other pianist of stature. He centered every note and hit its target; he linked every beautiful phrase to its predecessor and to its successor, yet it all sounded utterly conventional. Earlier in the competition, Ozel performed some superb Bartok and his performance of a major Mozart concerto (No.25, K.505) may have been the best in the competition. He may not have been as memorable as Wang, but ― initially, at least ― he may be prepared for the bigger career. It will not be based, however, on Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No.1. I can’t figure out why he chose to perform it, it did not advance him beyond the Bronze medal, and aside from demonstrating that he can play all the notes, it did nothing for him ― or for the composer.

This brings me to Aristo Sham, the 29-year-old from Hong Kong, who seams to have enormously impressed everyone—except me. Part of his appeal may simply that he does everything with a kind of machined precision that nobody else ― not even Starikov ― possesses. He plays the instrument with almost uncanny perfection. Every other pianist I heard during the competition made a mistake somewhere. Wang dropped a few notes in his Beethoven Fourth. Ozel played Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit with polish and imagination, but even he experienced a moment or two of discomfort in Scarbo; Sham rolled through it easily, making it sound as easy to perform as a Bach invention. Other pianists performing concertos with Alsop experienced a second or two of troubled ensemble; Sham demonstrated seamless communication with Alsop, as well as with her players. He never failed to achieve moments that can be described as chamber music-like intimacy when the score called for it, as it does, for example in the tender duet between the piano and principal cellist in the third movement of the Brahms. If Alsop’s musicians made it possible for Sham to play with confidence, he provided precisely the same level of security to them. He remained steady, without dramatic ups or downturns, in passages as notoriously difficult such as the rapid, legato, sotto voce, double octaves in the Scherzo of the Brahms. Whether in Mendelssohn’s demands for agility or those of Brahms for weight, Sham unfailingly balanced poise and nuance. Sham always seemed cool and collected, making it possible for the audience to enjoy themselves without feeling any anxiety whatsoever. In fact, calling attention to all of these positive attributes makes me wonder how it’s possible that I did not enjoy Sham’s performance more than I did.

But, in recalling your days in school, do you remember how irritating it was when the nerd in the front row always had his hand up to answer the teacher’s questions and how annoying it was that it always seemed to be the correct one. Sham is that nerd…or genius.

Even the most gifted performers occasionally make a mistake – if they’re entirely human.

Ed. Note: This review has been edited post publication.

Stephen Wigler has a peculiarly geekish interest in the piano and in pianists. He has served over the years as a staff music critic in Orlando and Baltimore.