Review: Leeds International Piano Competition Winner at Philharmonic Hall ****

In recent years the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has become the Leeds International Piano Competition’s house band, accompanying the young performers in their quest for glory.
And part of the main prize is also the chance to play at Philharmonic Hall, with recitals in the Music Room for the runners-up and a full-blown concert with full orchestra for the winner.
Thus, to this blustery Sunday afternoon concert with Domingo Hindoyan on the box and 2024 Leeds winner, Canadian Jaedan Izik-Dzurko - immaculately turned out in black tie, at one of the Phil’s Steinways.
Izik-Dzurko won with Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, but here he opted for Beethoven’s Fourth – seen by many as the most challenging of the composer’s five piano concertos, and one which, while not being the showstopper the Emperor is, instead has a beguiling tenderness.
It’s andante is a lyrical masterpiece and the two outer movements call for real technical skill, particularly the exuberant final rondo.
Hugged within the semi-circle of a chamber orchestra-sized Phil, Izik-Dzurko found a good balance as he caressed the chords of the piano’s opening phrase and moved with ease through the increasingly intricate and speedy solo part which followed the orchestra’s extended ‘interruption’.
While the piano ‘speaks’ first, the concerto is a real collaboration between soloist and orchestra, and the Phil, lightly led by Hindoyan, were a sympathetic partner not only in the opening allegro but also in the softly conversational second movement which eased smoothly into a galloping finale.
Throughout it all, Izik-Dzurko proved a composed rather than showy presence at the keyboard. Still only in his mid-20s, he’s an undoubted talent with particularly fine technique, although while he plays with feeling he’s yet perhaps to fully develop the deep emotional resonance which comes with experience and maturity.

Top: The stage was set for the Sunday afternoon concert at the Philharmonic Hall.
Last autumn, a couple of the Phil’s horn players took a trip over to Mainz to choose a set of four Wagner tubas for the orchestra from Gebr Alexander, famed for its brass instruments since the late 18th Century.
This concert was a first opportunity to try them out, with the quartet of tactile oval instruments (the love child of a French horn and a tuba) joining the wall of brass in what was a punchy, powerhouse performance of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony.
The composer toiled over the work during the last few years of his life, dying before the final movement was completed. Even in its three movement form – the version chosen by Bruckner fan Hindoyan for this afternoon concert - it comes in at a weighty hour.
There was storm und drang of Biblical, Old Testament, proportions in the opening movement as it cycled through its developmental phases, neatly juxtaposed with a luminous and lyrical second (singing) theme introduced through the violins. No post-lunch snoozes likely on this Sunday afternoon!
The machinal scherzo second movement had a real sense of drive and motion, see-sawing between sweet and infernal - albeit in somewhat repetitive fashion, which leaves the middle of the movement feeling slightly becalmed, while the shiny new baritone-voiced Wagner tubas finally made their appearance in a radiant third.
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