Vladimir Putin was sitting a few rows in front of me last Thursday evening in Moscow listening patiently to three hours of classical music without interval. I could not imagine David Cameron or HMQ doing the same – Britain’s Got Talent is more their cup of tea.
But then classical music is as much a part of Russian politics as its attitude to neighbours and this was the winners’ gala of the monumental four-yearly Tchaikovsky music competition, which never ceases to be a political event. That was why I went, after all – to see how today’s politics would play on the choice of top prizes, whether Russia would sweep everything, given present geopolitical sabre-rattling and this being Tchaikovsky’s 175th anniversary.
Well, well, this year’s competition proved an utter astonishment. The 15th edition will be legendary, just as Van Cliburn’s victory in the first edition in 1958 is legendary. In a country where ‘the Russian pianist’ is expected to personify world-beating capacity in everything from mighty technique to exquisite fantasy, and where it goes without saying that you start training very very young, the entire orthodoxy of piano training was upended by the emergence of a self-taught Frenchman.
Lucas Debargue, a 24-year-old with specs, an unenthusiastic moustache and a tendency to culotter, who mostly plays in jazz clubs and learns vast Russian piano pieces by ear from other people’s recordings, captivated all with his individual, gossamer musicianship and ended up in the final.
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