The first Blacktie National Piano Competition, open to pianists under 25, has been under way since the beginning of the month. The first two rounds, of solo repertoire, took place at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, a "preliminary" round under a national jury, the "semi-final" round under a larger, international one.
The full jury reassembled at the NCH last night, when five players contended for the £5,000 first prize, assessed through performances with a not always comfortable-sounding RTE Concert Orchestra under Colman Pearce.
The 25-minute time limit made for difficult repertoire choices, and only two players opted for pieces which were delivered complete. David McGrory (20) played Liszt's Concerto in E flat, a repeat of his choice at February's RTE Musician of the Future Competition. As before, he avoided any sense of let-it-rip response, but although his playing was tidier this time around and the thoughtfulness of his approach remained rewarding, his playing overall seemed less interesting than before.
Adrian Murphy (18) played Ravel's Concerto in G with directness and confidence. He was quite at home with the music's extrovert nature and showed no hesitation in grasping the big moments. However, the exposed solo at the start of the slow movement was pallid and its distinctive, haunting character eluded this solid but not quite searching enough young player.
Aoife O'Sullivan (22) played the first movement of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto. The opening, perhaps due to nerves, was too matter of fact, but she produced much nicely-turned passagework with often rounded tone. Rhythmic security, however, was a recurrent problem and I found the tendency of her fingers to run away with the music rather unsettling. Ruth McGinley (21) offered the second and third movements of Rachmaninov's Second Concerto in a performance that I found unusually prosaic.
David McNulty (19) chose the opening movement of Brahms's First Concerto, the most obviously daunting challenge of the evening. From his very first entry (confidently amending the tempo set by the conductor), he handled the piece with a sense of musical mastery and a fine grasp of Brahmsian gravitas. It may well be that some of the spaciousness was born of caution, but, if so, the imposed restriction was always bent to productive musical ends.
In a popular decision, the jury unanimously awarded first prize to McNulty, with Murphy second, McGinley third, and O'Sullivan and McGrory as joint "runners-up". The special £500 prize for the best performance of a work by a living composer went to Adrian Murphy.
