Two stimulating yet quite different Semi-final round solo performances transpired on Wednesday evening, showing different sides of two pianists, and building on my initial impressions of their artistry.

There was a time in the 20th century when critics and piano teachers looked askance at Romantic piano transcriptions, deeming them out of fashion and in bad taste. To my mind, the real reason for this was that few modern-day 20th-century pianists could come close to matching Romantic keyboard giants in this repertoire such as Hofmann, Moiseiwitsch, Lhevinne, Rosenthal and Rachmaninov. However, all that changed with the emergence of today’s crop of super-pianists, who know no difficulties.

A case in point was Aristo Sham’s opening selection for his Wednesday night Semi-final recital. He sailed through Rachmaninov’s Suite from Bach’s Violin Partita in E major, BWV1006, as if he were the composer/transcriber reincarnated. Sham’s Prelude matched Rachmaninov’s own brisk business-like tempo, angular phrasings, soaring counterpoints and trademark bass-register thrusts. Sham did admit a little more legato into the Gavotte than we hear in Rachmaninov’s old recording, and arguably for the better.

We have no direct evidence of how Rachmaninov might have played a late Scriabin Sonata. But when he gave an all-Scriabin recital in memory of his composer colleague and friend, apparently his firm and grounded pianism stood in stark contrast to the allure and suggestion that characterised Scriabin’s looser style of playing. Suffice it to say that Sham’s Scriabin Sonata No 10 was more structural than sexy, with the thematic and decorative components delineated in multi-dimensional perspective, and the long chains of trills firmly etched. Sham’s compact and rhythmically centered Rachmaninov Études-tableaux, Op 39, similarly focused on musical values over pianistic indulgence, giving shape and specificity to bass lines and inner voices. This applied as much to the first piece’s pressurised ferocity as in Sham’s refusal to gild the lily in No 2, as one often hears. By contrast, he eased his way into No 3’s main theme while pouncing on the downward runs in response. Sham’s march rhythms in the final piece were akin to a chorus line of lightning bolts, whose momentous drive inspired a well-deserved ovation.

Watch Aristo Sham's performance:

Elia Cecino began his recital with Tchaikovsky’s F major Nocturne, Op 10 No 1, which started off eloquently yet became slightly outsized in the heat of the moment. It telegraphed the kinetic disquiet and nervous energy that Cecino appropriately illuminated in the outer movements of Schumann’s Piano Sonata No 1. Interestingly, he held back the triple-metre tempo in the Scherzo’s Trio section, making it danceable for once (pianists tend to run away with the pulse). In Sofia Gubaidulina’s Toccata-toncata Cecino gave the aphoristic flourishes in registral extremes and the dramatic silences equal weight.

Cecino’s precisely varied articulation and harnessed energy paid expressive dividends in the first movement of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata, followed by a central movement marked by the pianist’s lyrical give and take. In a competition environment, where most contestants pound the Precipitato Finale to death at ridiculous speeds, Cecino chose a tempo where the off-beat accents and sophisticated interplay between left-hand octaves and right-hand chords could build on their own steam, thereby generating real musical momentum and gratification rather than exhaustion at the conclusion.

I can only sum up this evening’s performances by quoting from a fellow pianist who posted online: ‘I want to play like that!’

Watch Elia Cecino's performance:

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