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Cliburn 2025 - Philipp Lynov plays Ravel's Miroirs · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:06
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
• 0:10
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:14
  Please consider taking out a subscription to
• 0:17
  The Piano Maven, and you can find a link to do
• 0:20
  so in our episode description. Since we've been
• 0:25
  talking about former Van Cliburn competition
• 0:28
  contestants, on the past few episodes, like Kate
• 0:32
  Liu and Stephen DeGroote, I thought that I would
• 0:36
  focus today's episode on one performance in particular
• 0:40
  from the recent 2025 Clyburn competition, which
• 0:45
  I covered both online and in the hall for Gramophone
• 0:50
  magazine in a daily blog. I had been expecting
• 0:54
  the 26 -year -old Russian pianist Filipp Linov.
• 1:00
  who made it into the finals, to take one of the
• 1:04
  three top final prizes. But the jury had other
• 1:09
  ideas. Anyway, I was especially taken with Filip
• 1:14
  Linov's performance in his semi -final round
• 1:18
  recital of Maurice Ravel's Piano Cycle Mi Roi.
• 1:23
  This was... an incredibly beautiful and very
• 1:28
  refined interpretation, and I've posted a YouTube
• 1:32
  link for the performance, which you can very
• 1:35
  readily access. Although Filip Linov has a rich
• 1:40
  and colorful and full -bodied sonority, he still
• 1:45
  manages to play Ravel with breathtaking transparency
• 1:48
  and with a boundless palette of tonal shadings.
• 1:53
  The opening piece, Noctuel, is a great example
• 1:56
  of what I mean. But when I was listening to Oiseau
• 2:01
  Trieste again, that's the second piece, the scampering
• 2:05
  birdsong effects are anchored by a stronger bass
• 2:09
  presence than I had noticed at first, and these
• 2:12
  very clear left -hand chords that never, never
• 2:16
  weigh the upper register textures down. It's
• 2:19
  a very beautiful performance. And speaking of
• 2:23
  texture, my goodness, what smooth continuity
• 2:26
  and three -dimensional perspectives Leonov achieves
• 2:32
  in Un Barque sur l 'Océan. This is just a glorious
• 2:37
  performance of this piece. And he plays Alborada
• 2:42
  del Grazioso to perfection. His tempo... allows
• 2:47
  the rhythms to completely lock in. He doesn't
• 2:50
  go for super speed the way a lot of competition
• 2:53
  pianists do. And because of this very smart,
• 2:58
  basic tempo he chooses, the differences in détaché
• 3:03
  and legato articulation really register. You
• 3:07
  know, so many pianists treat this music like
• 3:09
  an Olympic event. and where the repeated notes
• 3:14
  are the big show -offy kind of highlight. Yet
• 3:18
  here, the repeated notes are perfectly placed,
• 3:22
  but they're integrated into the whole, and they
• 3:25
  are as much about character as they are about
• 3:28
  technique in this performance. Now, in my original
• 3:33
  blog entry for Gramophone, I wrote that it was
• 3:36
  possible that Linov was not playing softly enough
• 3:41
  in the final piece, La Valle de Cloche. But that
• 3:46
  was based on hearing it online with headphones
• 3:49
  at, you know, four in the morning or whatever
• 3:53
  time it was in Milan. So I was kind of fatigued,
• 3:56
  to be honest. And I wish I had heard this in
• 4:00
  the Bass Performance Hall, because then you could
• 4:04
  tell how all the various levels of piano and
• 4:07
  pianissimo and triple piano were layering and
• 4:11
  congealing in a concert hall environment. But
• 4:15
  I played this performance again through my stereo
• 4:19
  system loudspeakers, and it gave me much more
• 4:23
  of a sense of being in the hall, and it seemed
• 4:26
  a little more three -dimensional and dynamically
• 4:29
  appropriate on my loudspeakers. So, you know,
• 4:33
  I heard it in two different contexts, and there
• 4:38
  you go. Now also, if you watch the video, look
• 4:42
  at Philippe Linoff's hands up close, and he's
• 4:46
  exerting himself with the utmost physical economy,
• 4:50
  as if he knows what the upcoming phrase is going
• 4:53
  to sound like before he actually plays it. So
• 4:57
  do check out this gorgeous performance of Ravel's
• 5:01
  Miroir by Philippe Linoff from his semi -final
• 5:06
  round recital, preserved on video, from the 17th
• 5:11
  Van Cliburn International Piano Competition,
• 5:14
  and you will be glad that you did. This is Jed
• 5:17
  Disler, and you've been listening to The Piano
• 5:20
  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 5:23
  And we will explore some more memorable performances
• 5:28
  from the 2025 Clyburn in future episodes. So
• 5:33
  watch this space as the cliche goes. Take good
• 5:41
  care.