There are those final days when everything turns out differently than expected. First you're stuck in traffic in Brussels: a serious accident and then a fire. A parking spot? Yes, found one at that magnificent cathedral, exemplary of Brabantine Gothic. Still making it to the hall in good time… What will it be today, for a real winner with the bearing of a winner, honestly? We haven't heard one like that so far. Not yet but…
Stella Chen (USA, 13.07.1992)
Stella Chen opened the evening, like all candidates, with the prescribed work composed for this competition, Fidl, by Finnish composer Kimmo Harola. I can't tell you much about it other than that this already experienced violinist lacked affinity with the work. She played the notes on her instrument, sometimes not quite correctly, but okay, we understand that, especially the opening measures of this work are somewhat difficult for everyone. You would need much longer to study it than just a handful of days.
Unfortunately, in my view she also didn't connect with the dramatic narrative of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. Sometimes she was on the right track, but soon she played too loudly, with jerky bow entries in the many fast virtuosic passages that she also rushed through. I fear she missed her chance. So be it and you know it, it's a snapshot during a competition, and not with the first and foremost, and the participants are people. Nerves and such.
Photo: The Violin Channel
Timothy Chooi (Canada 17.12.1993)
Whether the composer was in the hall today, I don't know, but it can't be otherwise than that he was sitting on the edge of his seat listening, wherever. Actually, Timothy Chooi is the very first candidate who gets more out of Fidl. He truly 'fiddles', adds his own accents, plays with the piece, is personal and inspired and yet shows serious fidelity to the score. Despite minor flaws, I'm already putting a 1 (with a question mark) next to his name.
That question mark can probably come off now – and so I'm prognosticating thus even though I promised not to – because, oh, the way he interpreted that same concerto by Tchaikovsky, you can only do that if you get into the composer's shoes. Yes, goosebumps and deep emotion. A thousand words are not enough to express all that far-reaching Beauty, that great Feeling, that Slavic Melancholy.
The dialogue with the orchestra and the conductor was there and how! Timothy Chooi drew the conductor along, the orchestra became a top ensemble. How it can change with a snap of the fingers! Yes, what this porcelain boy does is play Violin, masterfully! It's more than that, he and his violin are the extension of the music, of the score, of what music makes into the extra dimension that heals a person. More words may follow after the prizes are announced…
Photo: © Den Sweeney