Violin 2001
In 1951 Leonid Kogan won the
first Queen Elisabeth Competition. Would the fiftieth anniversary session,
with its whirlwind of celebrations and publications, hold up to expectations?
During the night of 27 May 2001, it was there for all to see: the quality
was outstanding, with full honours paid to music, to sensitivity, to sincerity,
to intelligence, to style; the announcement of the prize-winners was greeted
by prolonged cheering.
First and foremost the jury rewarded a moment of absolute
grace: Baiba Skride, 20 years old, quite
simply presented, as a gift, both in the semifinal in the Brussels Conservatory
and in the final in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, the purity, the intelligence
and the radiance of her playing. With her Amati violin of the first water,
Ning Kam, 25 years old, was able to give the
competition audience — hundreds of thousands of listeners and spectators
every evening! — the desire to become better acquainted with Singapore.
Of great charm, Barnabás Kelemen,
barely 23, proved the vitality of the Hungarian school: consolidating his
control of an audience immediately enthralled, his mastery of the instrument
showed an outstanding gift for narration. The young age of Alina
Pogostkin, in fourth position, 17 years old, from Saint Petersburg, already
shows more than promise. In fifth and sixth positions, Feng
Ning and Akiko Ono closed the list of laureates
with brilliance, while the performance of Mikhail
Ovrutsky gave an idea of the potential of the six other finalists. The
Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonie with Georges
Octors and The Belgian National Orchestra
with Gilbert Varga, as well as all the accompanists,
emerged from an exhausting task with increased stature, having fully contributed
to the success of the event: the Competition could not have hoped for a more
royal road into its second half-century.