This is almost my dream finals. I'm crying in relief that Wang and Evren made it.
I'm gutted for Elia, that's the one person I wish still made it. For someone to play with absolute intensity and leave every last drop of your energy on stage like that is so very rare.
With Evren the only slight cause for fear was some dicey moments in Scarbo but he is too wonderful of an interpreter of too much different music to let him walk.
Piotr vs Starikov is a really good demonstration of how the QF affects things. Starikov I think played one of the very best QFs (that part in Liszt jeux d'eau a la ville d'este might be the single most sentimental/tender moment in the entire competition) but only a solid SF (or. I could be underestimating it. Playing the Schumann symphonic etudes and Chopin op 25 etudes in the same competition, a few days apart, is kind of a crazy feat). On the other hand Alexiwicz was for me a borderline semifinalist from some flawed QF interpretations and had no leeway. Taking a slower tempo in the Schumann fantasie 2nd movement was the wrong move, you cannot play that so safe there.
Park is a very interesting case because to me she is probably the most skilled virtuoso (if not her, she, Sham, Cai are all very close as the technical monsters with ultra difficult repertoire). Yet nearly everything she played that overlapped with others, I think she was on the worse end of the comparison. Sham played a cleaner Hammerklavier and I think held the whole thing together better/made the middle movements not a drag (and going in raw, no warmup, in his QF), while she botched the opening despite having the warmup via the Scriabin sonata no 9 played right before). Wang had access to more colors and orchestral qualities in Debussy and Stravinsky-Agosti to the point I felt he had access to his own custom piano no one was allowed to choose. Only in the Mozart d minor concerto did I think she arguably have the edge over Wang but only because Wang had more small mistakes.
I don't know the Prok 8 at all (frankly I switch off usually when it gets played), but possibly the jury preferred Lynov's to her performance in the prelims. So individually she seems like she would hold her own or have a slight edge over anyone individually, yet she had collectively the most repertoire played by 3 others that she might've been surpassed in. Still, I thought she'd make the finals.
And oh my God Aristo is such a menace, this may be the first time I've seen someone like him just nuke the field between his Gaspard and Hammerklavier. If Evren was not so exceptional in everything else I think he might fall victim too, his Gaspard didn't match up to Aristo's either.
Lynov's Miroirs was fantastic too, the une barque sur l'ocean was just heartbreakingly beautiful. It's weird because he's mostly played repertoire outside my tastes where I see his qualities with regard to phrasing and color and dynamics and control but not necessarily emotionally connect if you know what I mean. But I can tell if he played more repertoire I liked he'd easily be one of my favorites.
But I'm not going to pretend anymore. I straight up need Wang to win this, he's just so unlike any other pianist I've come across in any competition (I've watched so many Tchaikovsky/Chopin/Leeds/Van Cliburns over the years). He's just different. I will buy 3 pandas from the gift shop if he wins gold, otherwise I refuse to do so.