Daniil Trifonov wins the Artur Rubinstein Competition!
I have been so busy writing my latest book on Edward Cahill (in a way dying to life in order to create it) that I have not been able to follow the Rubinstein competition in detail. However I sat up late last night to watch the finalists on that incomparable television channel Mezzo. Trifonov played the Chopin E minor Concerto Op. 11 with all the ardent love, sensitivity, grace and classical style that I had expected of him from his performance of the same work in the Chopin competition here in Warsaw last year. His interpretation of the Romance-Larghetto movement brings one close to tears - all of the romantic, illusioned yearning that young love is capable of - the finest I have ever heard including Lipatti and Pollini (just after his win of the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1960). I was overjoyed at this result. This win absolutely confirms my conviction that Trifonov was one of the greatest Chopin players in Warsaw (see my extensive October 2010 posting on my Chopin 2010 blo