JAVS Summer 2014

Each of the semifinalists next played a full recital (not exceeding fifty-five minutes) over the course of Wednesday and Thursday including a sonata, solo Bach, another Primrose transcription, the first movement of Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio, and the commissioned work, Christian Colberg’s Aldonza . Written as the second movement of his Viola Concerto, Aldonza was presented here in a “chamber version” for solo viola with string quintet, with the composer conducting. Each movement of the concerto is based on a character from Cervantes’s Don Quixote , and the composer explained in a note that: “Aldonza” is the real name of the woman Don Quixote called “Dulcinea.” This concert piece depicts her as she truly was and not as the romanticized vision Don Quixote saw. Unlike the first and the third concert pieces, the second has at its core a sense of freedom, almost unstructured and cadenza-like. An apt description, the work’s musical language and free-flowing style captures the peasant-like nature of Aldonza while also suggesting the “inner beauty” that inspires Don Quixote. Considering its effectiveness in this reduced chamber version, perhaps Colberg will continue to allow performances with this instrumentation.

PIVC judge Caroline Coade makes notes during the competition (photo courtesy of Dwight Pounds) My recollection from having watched the streamed semifinal rounds of the 2011 competition was that performances of Mozart’s Divertimento were generally very good, while performances of solo Bach were less impressive (with Wolfram Hauser’s interpretations being far and above the rest). For the 2014 competition, the reverse seemed true: solo Bach was quite outstanding in both the semifinal and quarterfinal rounds, while Mozart’s “Kegelstatt” Trio seemed a bit lacking. Still, each semifinalist displayed such technical facility and musicianship that the judges surely had no easy decision in selecting the three finalists. But, late in the evening of Thursday they announced that Manuel Vioque-Judde, Cong Wu, and Zhanbo Zheng would advance to the final rounds on Saturday.

V OLUME 30 S UMMER 2014 O NLINE I SSUE

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