Van Cliburn International Piano Competition; No. 3; Part 2

<v Speaker>[Hans-Christian Wille and orchestra play Beethoven's piano concerto number 2 in B-flat major, Opus 19] <v Steve Allen>And that, of course, was the piano concerto number 2 in B-flat major, Opus 19

<v Steve Allen>by Beethoven. The soloist was Hans-Christian Wille from the <v Steve Allen>um, with, I should say, the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra conducted by Stanisław <v Steve Allen>Skrowaczewski. [applause] A good extended round of applause, <v Steve Allen>if you can hear. <v Steve Allen>Mr. Wille enters again to bow. <v Steve Allen>And that is a final round performance from the Van Cliburn International Piano <v Steve Allen>Competition coming to live in Fort Worth, Texas. <v Steve Allen>Hans-Christian Wille is one of 6 finalists in the 1985 Van Cliburn competition. <v Steve Allen>Each is performing 2 concertos in this last round. <v Steve Allen>These finalists have been selected from the 36 pianists that began in this <v Steve Allen>demanding competition exactly 2 weeks ago. <v Steve Allen>We're close to the end now. And tomorrow we'll have the winners' ceremony <v Steve Allen>and the announcement of the competition's top prize winners. <v Paul Hume>Hans-Christian Wille will return on the second half of tonight's concert to play the <v Paul Hume>Prokofiev third piano concerto with the Fort Worth Symphony, again, led by Stanisław

<v Paul Hume>Skrowaczewski. And I noticed that as far as statistics go, Mr. Wille is playing the <v Paul Hume>shortest amount of music of any of the finalists. <v Paul Hume>And in the second half of our concert tonight, the final contestant, Mr. Bianconi, <v Paul Hume>is playing the longest amount music, which, of course, doesn't need to have any effect on <v Paul Hume>the judges at all, or for that matter, on the uh it has nothing to do with quality music. <v Paul Hume>It's just a pure statistic. And another statistic which I brought up today is that this <v Paul Hume>is the second Clybourn, the second time in which there'd been no U.S. <v Paul Hume>contestants in the finals. <v Steve Allen>Hm. The uh music itself, to my very unsophisticated opinion, <v Steve Allen>did not have some of the flashy <v Steve Allen>emotional dynamics that have brought the audience to its feet <v Steve Allen>following the works by some of the other composers. <v Steve Allen>It seemed to have more dignity, more lightness, more grace, and <v Steve Allen>afforded the pianist, of course, much opportunity to show his expertise,

<v Steve Allen>which I thought was dazzling. <v Paul Hume>Wille- <v Steve Allen>How do you feel about that? <v Paul Hume>Wille started playing in public at the age of 6, which puts him right there with the <v Paul Hume>other pianists we've heard this week. <v Paul Hume>He's, of course, 27, which is what the top age of any of the contestants in the finals. <v Paul Hume>And I thought he did a good job on that, though, he had some real problems in the cadenza <v Paul Hume>and the first movement, and again, in the finale. <v Steve Allen>Well, we're listening to the finals of the 1985 Van Cliburn International Piano <v Steve Allen>Competition coming to you live from the theater center of the Tarrant County Convention <v Steve Allen>Center in Fort Worth, Texas. This program was made possible by grants <v Steve Allen>from the Mobil Oil Corporation and Tandy Corporation, RadioShack. <v Steve Allen>I'm Steve Allen. And with me is Paul Hume. <v Steve Allen>In a few moments, we'll be hearing from our second finalist Philippe Bianconi of <v Steve Allen>France. He will play the Mozart C minor concerto with Stanisław <v Steve Allen>Skrowaczewski and the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra. <v Paul Hume>Let me give our listeners a little background in Mr. Bianconi.

<v Paul Hume>He lives in Paris. He was born in Nice. <v Paul Hume>He has studied with 2 of the most famous names in French piano literature, <v Paul Hume>Gaby Casadesus, who's the well-known pianist and the widow of the great Robert Casadesus, <v Paul Hume>and before that, Gabriele ?inaudible? <v Paul Hume>who's been making a great number of records that have come to this country lately, not <v Paul Hume>entirely, but quite largely of French music. <v Paul Hume>Mr. Bianconi, at 25, is right at the very middle average age of the finalists <v Paul Hume>in this competition. He won the first prize in the Casadesus International Piano <v Paul Hume>Competition, which is a rather younger competition, but one that is rising rapidly <v Paul Hume>in the level of importance of these contests. <v Paul Hume>He also was a finalist in the Munich competition, of which- in which we said Mr. <v Paul Hume>Wille was a winner 2 years before Mr. Bianconi entered that. <v Paul Hume>He is playing the Mozart piano concerto number 24 in C minor. <v Paul Hume>His chamber music was the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, and in his <v Paul Hume>preliminaries, he prepared that Mozart sonata, a sonata, the last sonata of Beethoven,

<v Paul Hume>the Opus 111, one of the Liszt Mephisto waltzes and some Debussy. <v Steve Allen>In the competition requirements for the first concerto, the finalist must choose <v Steve Allen>from 1 of 3 Mozart concertos or the Beethoven second concerto. <v Steve Allen>Now, why is the choice so limited? What do we learn about these pianists and their <v Steve Allen>specific pieces? [applause] <v Paul Hume>Well, these are great classic concertos, and we can say more about that after we hear <v Paul Hume>this next one. <v Steve Allen>All right. Here is now Philippe Bianconi, if you can tell from the audience's applause, <v Steve Allen>followed, of course, by our conductor Stanisław Skrowaczewski. <v Steve Allen>In a moment, we'll hear the piano concerto number 24 in C Minor, K <v Steve Allen>491.