Chopin Competition 2025 Discussion

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I know it's a bit early, but if you've seen them, Chopin Competition preliminaries have started! I wanted to see if any of you guys wanted to discuss it on here. 5 years ago I don't think I was into piano enough to watch this stuff so I'm excited it's back.

Here's the first video:

I only watched the first 3 so far. I'll probably be taking this thing slow because it looks like they're releasing pretty quickly. Most of the interpretations seem, unsurprisingly, quite standard and not very interesting, but there are still small differences that you can pay attention to.

Masaharu Kambara's playing was static in terms of the tone, but the rubato in the mazurka was pretty spot on. His other interpretations felt pretty textbook.

The next guy, Masaya Kamei, had a more varied technical range I would say. The etudes were super clean and spot on, and the mazurka went to many different places and was in general energetic and matched the flow of the piece. But again, a kind of textbook scherzo.

Uladzislau Khandohi: powerful and dynamic. The nocturne started a little uncertain but it became powerful in the fast section. His scherzo was bouncy and playful and I think a step up from Kamei's.

All of these pianists were really enjoyable to watch and they all have something going for them, so I'm excited to see how this progresses!