Ewa Tytman-Csiba did some very strange things in the fourth ballade but if you take a step back / zoom out it was a very passionate delivery.
She’s a candidate that probably wouldn’t have made the selection round of the regular chop comp due to her peculiarities that are outside the frame of “acceptable” interpretations.
The dynamic palette in her Revolutionary etude was very tasteful. Good be due to the piano and not the player though.
This is more related to the Rubinstein thread than this one, but since it’s about to Chopin I’ll add it here. CJ asked me last week about who I like in Chopin, since my taste is kinda particular and not necessarily coherent. Just now, I decided to revisit a Fray concert I attended and recorded last year where he played a Chopin group in the first half. Now this Chopin after my own heart, even though I remember not really liking it in the hall? I’d probably only reproach him the tempo in the G-flat impromptu so far. I rarely relisten to recordings I’ve made in less than perfect sound, and I recorded this from the balcony, so I hadn’t listened to it in a year or so. Maybe my taste has changed, or more likely I’m better able to ‘get’ what he’s doing, whereas in the hall my focus was more on ‘this is not how I’m used to hearing these played’.
I absolutely love Fray. I also recorded a concert with him around that time which I also remember as good, although it was marred by a broken string half way through which he didn’t remove!
Played here last week. And for the second time I passed on him. 
Why? What was the rep?
He didn’t play here last season, but I’ll see him in the Goldbergs next year.
Well, with “here” I mean Helsingborg - a 6 hour drive away or something like that. The rep was Mozart 475/457 and Schubert D.959 I think. I bet it was good, but I couldn’t see it matching my already established favourites in the works, and I’m also not super crazy about the music. If it had been in Munich I would definitely have attended, but taking days off, paying for hotels and train tickets… I just couldn’t warrant it. His previous concert there in 2013 was all Bach however, and for that I would have walked down there today if necessary.
I probably wrote this in the other thread incidentally, but I don’t have any particular preferences in Chopin either. I suppose I tend to like that which is creative and intelligent or which captures some aspect of a piece and expresses it strongly, and as such my two favourite recordings of a given work are more often than not polar opposites of one another. I’m not easily offended in music (though Trifonov, Hofmann, Sokolov etc have succeeded on occasion) and can resonate with almost any style, but I have little patience for that which is ordinary, intellectually blunt, or lacking in spirit.
5 minutes! 
I really dislike the sound of the Erard this Chinese girl plays the Oginski polonaise on. It has that sounds-detuned-while-tuned-properly in the higher register.
Yes, true. As they say in the comments she’s clearly a “modern” pianist too. I think she plays well - vivid, intelligent and lots of life - but not much attention paid to sound and tone. This would sound better on a Steinway.
She played the Chopin Polonaise in G sharp minor very “brilliante”, quite enjoyable. The higher (or less slow) tempo also helped a bit. 
So, we opened with a pianist. 
I thought she did well, but I like the colorists better in this competition. It’s clear she’s used to modern instruments.
oth, if she had played a Steinway this wouldn’t have sufficed interpretatively 
Very kawaii 
Here’s one trumofo would have gone bananas over 
Nah, I’ve basically given up on Ms. Trumofo here. Neat and pleasant, but…
The Belgian guy sounded like Brendel playing Chopin, a certain disdain in his interps.
Yeah I thought he was kinda boring tbh. Still best one yet today to my ears.
Found an application video for this competition on youtube:
Ah, she’s up next apparently!
Can’t watch at the moment, but she looks cute in profile (needs to put on 5 kilos at least, however).