After reading the discussion, I became interested and listened to a performance of R. Schumann’s DavidsBT on his channel.
My impression is ( and this is after hearing him for the first time) that this pianist plays at least with fantasy and imagination. I like the whimsical quality here and his flexible phrasing. His pedaling is at the same time his strong and his weak point: he uses it to make nice colours, but at the same he uses it as a cloak to not give away his inability to play really legato with the FINGERS when it’s needed. With Walter Gieseking you have both fantastic pedal effects and legato. And what I’ve noticed again & again with young pianists of the 21st century, there are annoying mannerism that I consider elementary mistakes. He is making a lot of unnecessary noise with his shoes on the pedals, and he is moving his legs/feet at the forte/accentuated passages which I find distracting. Why do current teachers don’t mention these annoying mannerisms to their pupils?
But judging from this performance, I certainly want to hear more!
my man pianopera keeping it real. Respect yo vision.
word, son! kid spittin’ dat realness. disseminating dat secret knowledge.
Just my two cents. 
What worked well in the Schumann was a total letdown in other pieces I just heard him play. Have to agree with ninjaspeeder about Schubert (a nice collection of beautiful details and colors, imaginative but no line at all, quite mannered and a misrepresentation of what I think is the right style, not unlike Horowitz in Schubert but much worse). And not only in Schubert, I thought the Liszt Dante was appalling - actually a sort of tasteless arrangement of the piece. Perfomances like these, spectacular as they may be from a pianistic point of view, give Liszt’s music a bad superficial name.
In short, a huge talent but not my cup of sake…I can imagine that the international jury of a competition will be completely divided with such a guy…
He was a bit of an enfant terrible, and certainly through the glasses of a competition jury. If you want to explore him further I strongly suggest his solo rounds in the CC. Try this, for instance: youtube.com/watch?v=NZuR6fDhaSU Horowitz playing again - and such a sound world…
Fascinating Chopin xsdc - and yes, very much reminiscent of VH.
NOT a competition pianist, not at all!
His Chopin opus 5 was also really good. The piece was on the repertoire list for the 2010 Chopin Competition and I hoped it would leak in to the “standard repertoire” of young pianists (sadly it didn’t). It’s my favourite Style Brilliante piece.
Hey! How did you do that? Embedding videos has never worked anywhere for me on this forum.
I like Bozhanov in virtually any Chopin, although in this particular genre I find it hard not to think of Stephen Hough’s simple excellence. The complexity in Bozhanov’s playing is otherwise his strongest card IMO, with that extraordinary variety of touch he brings to the muzic. There are always several layers of both sound and character going on simultaneously, which helps construct this wonderfully rich and volupuous soundworld of his. Makes all but the most imaginative soundsmiths sound flat by comparison.
You have to take out the s from https:// before you use the tags.
I watched some of his CC videos this afternoon; there really is something there. Shame, the way it worked out for him.
Brilliant! Thanks.
Yes, his Chopin at the CC was memorable. I instantly became an admirer and purchased both of his commercial releases, as each came out. It’s unfortunate that he isn’t recognized for the the unique talent that he is. Even if I don’t love everything that he’s done lately, there is still a searching quality to his art. Ah, one never knows to whom Fortuna will bestow her graces.
I’ve just listened to this as well. It’s the most recent performance of his I’ve heard, but it unfortunately confirms the impression I had from my catch up of him last year. I do think it’s a good performance, but unlike in the Chopin Competition I often thought this felt eccentric just for the sake of being eccentric. In the CC I understood what he was trying to do - across a page of music he played you had the entire spectrum of sounds and colors a piano is capable of, which gave this incredible variety and richness to his playing. It never stood still sonically for a moment. Here however that vision seems more diluted, and what you’re left with instead is a quirkiness which to me at least often doesn’t have a clear function or purpose.
To hear him firing on all cylinders however, try his CC Polonaise-Fantaisie I mentioned earlier - which I’ve also revisited today. Aside from the sheer goodiness of it I’m just endlessly fascinated by the approach he has to music. It’s as if playing the piano for him is fundamentally about controlling and manipulating a body of sound over time in an interesting way. It’s not about melody & accompaniment, it’s not about narrative & character - it’s about the sounds you create and contrast. And who can argue with that, really? For me it really is piano playing 2.0. I think he’s instinctively understood something about music at a very low level, which - together with traditional interpretative thinking of course - causes him to do what he does here.
Interesting analysis / hypothesis, xsdc.
It would be great if Bozhanov uploaded a video from 15-20 years ago. I have the impression he already was a very individual musician as a child.
Bozhanov’s teacher at the Schumann Hochschule (notice the bench):
Hah. This is remarkably interesting to hear. Even if the quality of playing of course isn’t there to the same degree, you can tell he’s thinking about music in the same way. Even in such ultra-pianistic repertoire as these, he plays them orchestrally - where different instruments enter and take over voices from eachother.
10 000 brownie points for the repertoire as well.
Bad analogy perhaps - it’s not really orchestral, but try the third study there (4:00). You can tell he’s clearly not thinking about melodic lines and narrative, it’s rather the sound he creates which is of interest.
Super fascinating stuff.
Seems your analysis of Schenck is quite good, CJ:
translate.google.no/translate?h … schenck%2F
I just re-listened to Bozhanov’s e-minor concerto he played in the Chopin Competition. Especially the first movement is very special, as if he breathes the music. It made me think about that movie where a guy gets a pill so he can use a larger part of his brain capacity. Many interpretations of that concerto come over “distant” compared to Bozhanov.
Anyone ever tried a bench this low? 