Comparative performances are really not for me . A performance stands of falls for what it can communicate in the moment it is born. There are so many wonderfully trained pianists, more than there have ever been, that in order to offer a helping hand it is necessary to go through an elimination process. It is like being in the circus arena where the daring young man on the flying trapeze gets the jackpot.

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The International Competition Circuit may give a list of precious opportunities to the top prize winner but it also gives a platform to so many young artists who can be seen worldwide via the live streaming. There are artists who do not have the necessary experience but do in fact have enormous talent and like good wine just need time to mature. Eric Lu and Kevin Chen have both won many top prizes in prestigious competitions and the final duel at the Chopin Competition was always going to be between the Leeds winner and the Rubinstein winner. The scale tipped in Eric’s favour on this occasion but there were many memorable performances from artists that in that very moment did not have the ingredients that experience in the Circus arena can bring. I am thinking of Jacky Zhang who I had heard a week before he went to Warsaw and I really thought it was a bit premature but that it would be a stepping stone and first experience of the world that awaits outside his student refuge . My God when he stepped onto the platform in Warsaw I and many others were completely bowled over by such masterly performances that I would have give him the Gold medal as I am sure Chopin himself would have. A career though is made up of so many factors which in the following round he demostrated his inexperience to cope with an International jet setting career. Diana Cooper, Ruben Micieli and Gabriele Strata were denied a place in the final even though they had given some truly memorable performances. I did not intentionally follow the competition, as comparative performance is not for me, but I did hear voices raised over the exclusion of David Khrikhuli from the final. Since that exclusion he has been offered many engagements one of which was today on the doorstep of Chopin’s birthplace and his career is surely secured even though the jackpot had been denied him and it might take longer to gain that place that his talent truly deserves.

Today I listened for the first time to this young pianist who had become a topic for discussion and the gossip that abounds in all competitive fields. Today I heard a great artist with playing of mastery and a poetic understanding where a scrupulous attention to Chopin’s indications was filled with the unique personality of a great artist. Playing on Chopin’s doorstep filling the rarified air with aristocratic sounds of ravishing beauty and good taste. The refined good taste that Chopin had acquired having left his homeland with a heavy heart, but a heart that is always present in his music and that after his untimely death at only 39 was returned to where it had always belonged.

Today’s concert may have been short but it showed a pianist who had completely mastered Chopin’s unique originality. A genius who had created with the advent of the sustaining pedal a completely new sound world where the piano could become an orchestra. Bach’s ’48 were always on Chopin’s piano and were the anchor on which Chopin’s genius could flourish and grow.

Opening with Chopin’s mightly F sharp minor Polonaise that precedes only in number his Polonaise Héroique.A dramatic drive of passion mixed with lyricism always with artistocratic authority. Resolving the central episode with remarkable musicianship as the polonaise lived with the subtlety of a ‘canon covered in flowers.’

The G flat Impromptu surely one of Chopin’s most refined outpourings of French elegance. Sentiment without sentimentality where the beautiful tenor melody unwound with a beguiling sense of freedom and refined elegance.

The waltz in A flat op 42 with its teasing rhythmic syncopation and the brilliant outpouring of jeu perlé. Playing of weight as he delved deep into the keys with poetic curiosity. An exhilarating ending of grandeur and showmanship ending with the question mark of a genius.

The Mazurka in A minor op 39 n. 1 was played with quite extraordinary sensitivity and a kaleidoscopic palette of colour with its extraordinarily whispered ending.

The B flat Scherzo was played with great fantasy and remarkable artistry and a technical mastery always at the service of the music. A beauty to the central episode that gradually grew in intensity and brilliance but was always part of an architectural whole. Such was the vision of a musician that this well worn warhorse could appear as newly minted with a dynamic drive of burning intensity and a bel canto of glowing radiance.

A beautiful simple flourish to the opening of one of Chopin’s most poignant creations. The Nocturne in B op 62 , full of chromatic counterpoints but always with a bel canto of subtle radiance and beauty. Trills that were merely vibrations of sound and streams of notes that were explosions of poetic meaning.

There was.a clarity and beauty to the quixotic elegance of the Fourth Scherzo. A subtle brilliance of jeu perlé and a sense of architectural shape played with a dynamic drive only relieved by the exquisite beauty of the central episode. Played with a bel canto of glowing radiance before taking flight again to the grandiose final page of exhilaration and excitement.

An unexpected encore was really the highlight of an exceptional recital .

The last movement of the B minor Sonata is a tour de force technically for any pianist but when it is played by a superb musician it becomes a quite extraordinary build up of tension bursting only on the last page with the triumphant declamation in the left hand, with the right hand involved in a intricate web of notes. Such was the mastery of this artist that he even gave a knowing smile as he drew this tour de force to a breathtaking conclusion .