Postcard from… ST PETERSBURG

First-prize winning cellist Zlatomir Fung played to his strengths in Shostakovich’s Second Concerto

Four of the six finalists in the cello discipline of the 16th Tchaikovsky Competition were good enough to have walked away with first prize, even if it was clear why the judges opted for the American Zlatomir Fung (pictured right). In every sense, in St Petersburg we were a long way from the respective drama and controversy of the violin and piano finals taking place in Moscow. The result reflected it. The winner chose not a showpiece (as far as any cello concerto can be such), but a simmering, unsettling and predominantly quiet work – the second of Shostakovich’s concertos. At the concert hall named after the same composer, the audience appreciated Fung’s risky choice and was visibly moved by a performance that proved there wasn’t so much risk after all.

He was only the second finalist to be treated to a rhythmic handclap from the audience, after that for the Russian Anastasia Kobekina the previous evening (she was placed third).

Choosing the right repertoire is strategy in itself, and with the Shostakovich, Fung played to his strengths – among them the sort of ability to control the score’s slow-burn agenda that you would normally associate with one beyond his years (at 20, he was the second-youngest finalist after 17-year-old Yibai Chen from China). With no orchestral introduction to steady his nerves and settle a not entirely concentrated audience in sweltering St Petersburg, he crept into the concerto’s opening bars with steel, plotting the first movement’s long line with poise and patience. He was on top of the atmosphere in the curious dance with the tambourine at the start of the finale, and his care with expression meant he came out of it fighting, with yet another tone colour to show us.

Many would have suspected something special was on the way following Fung’s performance of the prescribed work, Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. Of all the contestants, Fung appeared the least eager to please as he played with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, extending their yawning opening gestures with an accomplished nonchalance bordering on the louche. It was a performance in which the soloist prioritised his own enjoyment – which is fine if you have the nerve for it, and he did. Fine also if you have the quality of sound, and that Fung most certainly does have: a cultivated, deep yet unforced voice blessed with a legato that persisted even in the cadenzas, where Fung allowed us fleeting glimpses of his passionate soul. Sometimes, that legato could compromise clarity and accuracy: in the final variation, his tuning wavered.

For those who would have liked more red blood, there was another finalist who provided it while retaining soulful composure and boasting something of Fung’s delectable sound. Kobekina (24) offered up an Elgar Cello Concerto with simmering passion and real architectural strength – linking up the concerto’s varied ideas where the orchestra could appear unconvinced or even confused (there was one unanimously incorrect entry from a group of wind players). Kobekina is a player with huge potential and almost overwhelming sincerity. She gave us surely the most reactive Rococo Variations, cocking an ear towards the winds, shifting colour and interpreting more overtly, though it came after an admittedly stiff start.

Second-prize winner Santiago Cañón-Valencia breathed colour and humanity into his cadenzas

Third-placed Anastasia Kobekina played Elgar with simmering passion and strength

IT WOULDN’T HAVE SURPRISED ME HAD FIFTH-PLACED 17-YEAR-OLD YIBAI CIIEN WON OUTRIGHT

The top three finalists happened to play consecutively, and it was second-placed Santiago Canón-Valencia (24), from Colombia, who preceded Kobekina on the middle evening of three. Bejewelled with multiple finger rings and with his black hair bound tightly in a bun, he cut a dashing figure on the stage of the St Petersburg Philharmonia’s Grand Hall and enjoyed posing for photos with the competition’s legions of young followers after his performance – for a good deal of which his eyes were apparently fixed closed.

Canón-Valencia may be a natural performer on and off stage, but his Rococo Variations trod a central line that shied away from revelatory exposure, of himself or of the score, and couldn’t match the conversational lightness of Fung’s performance. The Colombian got his teeth into Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, retaining a certain beauty of tone in the first movement but conveying the all-important claustrophobia at the same time. In that respect, he could give the impression of wanting more confrontation and imposition from the St Petersburg PO and Nikolai Alexeev, a restrained conductor from whom less sometimes really is less. Canón-Valencia got his way in the cadenzas, into which he breathed variegated colours and true humanity, and by the conclusive chasedown he had even managed to cajole the orchestra into bringing him something of a fight. But it was easy to conclude that the Colombian simply wasn’t in his preferred environment, as much as he sucked up the attention of the competition’s youthful fans.

The all-cellist jury chaired by Clive Gillinson – it featured Mario Brunello, Myung-Wha Chung, Karine Georgian, Ralph Kirshbaum, Mischa Maisky, Truls Mork, Daniel Müller-Schott, Sergei Roldugin, Tsuyoshi Tsutsemi, Jan Vogler, István Várdai and Jian Wang – might have been on the lookout for a ready-made soloist rather than exceptional potential, as there was plenty of the latter in the lower-placed finalists. It wouldn’t have surprised me had fifth-placed 17-year-old Chen won outright. He is a player of huge charisma, prone to demonstrative gestures and clearly aware of his talents. His choice of the Prokofiev Symphony-Concerto – a piece that needs its soloist to be more than a soloist – reinforced as much but showed that, despite a big sound and huge presence, he was prone to occasional bluster and was often a stranger to intimacy.

He is certainly one to watch, as is Finnish Senja Rummukainen (another 24-year-old at the time of the competition), who played straight before Chen on the opening night of the finals and whose own sotto voce sound reinforced the sheer heft of his. I have heard Rummukainen before, in delectable chamber music and small-scale concertante performances; she has lots to offer the world stage but there is no doubting that the scale of her sound counted against her here in both the Tchaikovsky and in Dvořák’s Concerto.

She was positioned sixth. We heard the Dvořák, too, from fourth-placed South Korean Taeguk Mun (25), who opted to play his concerto first and the Rococo Variations second. Like Rummukainen, he used the slow movement’s bewitching poise to cast a spell over the large hall. But his tuning was shaky in the faster passages.

If he wanted to clear his head before the divertissement footing of the Tchaikovsky, it worked. His performance was warm, sensitive and humorous enough even to raise a smile and some lightness from Alexeev on the podium. No mean feat.