Since the winners of the XVIII edition of the Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition were announced at dawn last Thursday, the telephone number of
Martín García García
(Gijón, 1996) has not stopped receiving calls and messages. "I am living a dream", the Asturian pianist recognizes from a taxi that crushes through the streets of Warsaw.
"I feel a mixture of extreme emotion and infinite fatigue
... I will need a few days to digest all this." And it is not for less: he has just made history as the
first Spaniard in the final of the famous competition
and, in addition, he has inaugurated the record with a bronze medal and the Special Prize of the Warsaw Philharmonic for the best interpreter of the last round.
This was decided by a jury made up of 17 pianists chaired by Katarzyna Popowa-Zydro, who awarded first place to Canadian Bruce Liu and second, ex aequo, to Italian Alexander Gadjiev and Japanese Kyohei Sorita.
“If I say that the most important thing in these competitions is to reach the final, anyone could think that I am justifying myself, but it is true.
Because
the difference between a fifth position and the first can be two notes ”
, asserts the Asturian interpreter.
“If I feel like a winner, it is because I have given my all in each round and also because the history of the great competitions, such as Chopin, Tchaikovski, Rubinstein or Queen Elizabeth, has shown that all their finalists have ended up having a race to long term ”, adds Martín García.
Martin García García, in the Chopin Contest.WOJCIECH OLKUSNIKEFE
It happened with Maurizio Pollini, whose name and reputation were linked to the Polish composer since in 1960 he won the first prize in an edition chaired by Arthur Rubinstein. Krystian Zimerman broke a record for precocity by winning this symbolic recognition just days before he was of age. And the Argentine pianist Martha Argerich, who also won it, left the jury years later as a protest against the scoring system, not without political interference. "All that has changed," is sincere the Spanish interpreter, who was
selected for the first round along with 86 other pianists.
“Now the competition climate is much healthier. The piano cannot serve as a throwing weapon, but rather as a meeting point between cultures and sensibilities ”.
Since he started studying with Natalia Mazoun and Ilya Golfarb Ioffe at the age of five, Martín García has fantasized about sitting in front of an orchestra. "Although my parents are not musicians, my brother played the piano and I did not detach myself from the instrument, so they decided to sign me up for classes."
She was trained in the heat of the demanding Soviet school that Galina Eguiazarova represented in those years
, a teacher at the Reina Sofía School in Madrid and a teacher of great pianists, like her admired Arcadi Volodos. "From her I learned that aristocratic elegance so far removed from cheap virtuosity that it allows you to delve into the tiniest details of the score, which is what ultimately makes the difference."
In fact, the last edition of the Chopin Competition could have altered the order of priorities with which the soloist's abilities are evaluated.
"I get the feeling that the jury was looking for more than agility and technique
, which of course are taken for granted at some level." According to the pianist, in an increasingly globalized world and with immediate access to hundreds of recordings on the same repertoire, the cult of perfection that is sometimes imposed from the pedagogical system has been losing its validity.
"Music
is an abstract art that
moves in other parameters that generally obey more to a slow and calm assimilation of the score
than to the automation of formulas or styles."
During the final, which was broadcast live via
streaming
, the 24-year-old pianist performed
Chopin's
Second Concerto
. "We are talking about a work of youth that exudes mastery and absolute control of proportions, with a sense of beauty that overflows from beginning to end." Among the hundreds of comments that have appeared these days on social networks, some have agreed to compare his intervention with that of great pianists, including his revered Vladimir Horowitz.
"My feet are firmly on the ground
. I know that I have a lot to improve and that, as Eguiazarova told me, there are always flies that sneak into concerts and recordings ».
It is not the only musical feat that Martín García has starred in this year, who in August was proclaimed the winner of the prestigious Cleveland Piano Competition.
"It could be said that the months of closure of the pandemic have allowed me to consolidate certain technical aspects on which emotion and feeling can then be displayed, but that it is convenient to work separately."
Not for nothing was Chopin's body buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris while his heart is kept in a church in Warsaw.
"I would like one day to be given the opportunity to record
his
Third Sonata
, which in just four movements sums up everything he deserves to fight for in this life."
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