Jaeden Izik-Dzurko accomplished what neither Charles Richard-Hamelin nor Bruce Liu had achieved before him. He is the first Canadian winner of an instrumental edition of the Concours Musical International de Montréal, after a 2e Concerto of exceptional Brahms in the final, Thursday.
Failing to have been able to assign a 1er Ex-aequo prize, the jury has decided. Gabriele Strata, the Italian with the magical touch is obviously second and Anthony Ratinov is the very logical 3e Price after its dazzling 3e Concerto by Prokofiev.
It is not to diminish anyone’s value to note that despite the high general level, Izik-Dzurko and Strata were evolving on another planet, musically and artistically. Their age (25 years for the Canadian and 24 years for the Italian) will allow them to shine again elsewhere. Izik-Dzurko has just been admitted to the Leeds Competition, which once honored Radu Lupu. That would be the icing on the cake. As for Strata, it has a very good profile for Chopin 2025.
The wrong choice
Musically, the second evening of the final of the Concours Musical International de Montréal (CMIM) will have kept all its promises, offering us a surprise almost on the same level as that of Anthony Ratinov the day before, with the Concerto by Derek Wang’s supercharged Tchaikovsky.
The American literally “smashed” the concerto with incredible panache in often furious tempos. It is a shame that the chef Xian Zhang was content to continue her little routine job, as if she were accompanying the candidates from the day before. It was, for example, obvious that the great orchestral interlude of 1er movement had to be much more accelerated because Wang would attack faster.
There are three main things to say about this performance. First of all, the dry and “vertical” touch of this pianist does not really interest us. He did not interest us in the “Hammerklavier” Sonata in the semi-final (and we considered that it was not because he had played this difficult sonata that we should qualify him). It does not concern us any more the day after this final. On the other hand, this Derek Wang has courage to spare, he is greedy for music, which he sinks into with his full teeth, and he has healthy thoughts on tempos. Third point: he is the “square” that we talked about in our report yesterday. He plays Tchaikovsky as a pianist, he plays it straight and at tempo. In doing so, he puts the worm in the fruit in relation to certain choices of Strata: we do not need to think of Schopenhauer at the slightest arpeggio in this music!
Basically, Strata, the great artist, pays for his poor choice of concerto. He is 2e Price. It is also part of the “ game » to pay for such obvious errors in this way.
The best and the worst
As for Thursday evening, the candidate who fell short of expectations was Jakub Kuszlik in a 2nd Concerto very flat Rachmaninoff. A dish of nuances, phrasing and ideas. Think about how many times the left hand could emphasize an idea. But nothing came. There were more ideas in one measure, the 80e from 2e movement, of Tchaikovsky’s Strata, as in all of Kuszlik’s Rachmaninov. In short, the little doubt born from an insipid Debussy during Kuszlik’s first round was transformed into a big 35-minute confirmation mobilizing a full orchestra.
Between Wednesday and Thursday, the duel at the top between the two great artists of this edition, Gabriele Strata and Jaeden Izik-Dzurko, kept all its promises. It would have been quite fascinating to see them both compete in the 2nd Concerto by Brahms, chosen by Izik-Dzurko.
Here too, little help from a sluggish chef (2e movement) and an orchestra less involved than Wednesday (in Rachmaninoff too, but we understand them), Izik-Dzurko not only mastered the 2nd Concerto by Brahms (a little sparkle in the resumption of the exhibition from 2e movement), but he interpreted it with sensitivity and intelligence. What is remarkable is that the strong remained strongto leave a “notch” above the fortissimosand that the dolce did not slow down too much. The highlights of the Canadian pianist’s performance are the 2e very movement appassionato (and what is pianissimo also remains appassionato which is very rare!) and the 3e movement with a weightless touch.
We had already said it in 2022, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko is one of our very great pianists. He is a runner-up to Charles Richard-Hamelin and Bruce Liu, he is clearly above Kevin Chen or Tony Siqi Yun. He outclassed JJ Bui in this contest. “ No comment » on Jan Lisiecki who was a phenomenon but has never really impressed us since he launched his career. On the other hand, we would really like to listen to Tony Yike Yang again.
In any case, a major competition and a very large tandem of winners.