The 2024 Hamamatsu Competition took place at ACT CITY Hamamatsu from November 8 to 24; Manami Suzuki, who swept through a sheaf of prizes, made this recording at the same venue in February this year, showcasing repertoire that was part of her journey to not only to overall winner (“champion”; I seem to remember the same term is used in China), but also to the audience and chamber music prizes. This disc was released on Friday, January 18, 2025 (aka last Friday); two days later, Sunday July 20, Suzuki returned to ACT CITY to perform Mozart’s D-Minor Concerto (K 466) with the Hamamatsu Symphony Orchestra under Shimpei Sasaki (link, in Japanese).
This disc is part of Suzuki’s prize (as well as this Orchid disc, there is all a London debut and an Asian tour). She says:
In ACT City Hamamatsu Concert Hall, a place that holds wonderful memories, I undertook the first recording I have ever made. These are the expensive and moving works that I performed in the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, including the Schubert Sonata D 894, a work that changed my life. I m very happy to present a miraculously beautiful music world that is extremely important to me.
I am thankful to have had the opportunity to make is.recording in such a splendid setting. It is my sincere hope the the music will touch the hears of many people.
Suzuki makes her London debut in January 2026. As winner of the Hamamatsu Competiion, she follows in the footsteps of the likes of Rafal Błechacz, Sergei Babayan, Alessio Bax and Alexander Gavrylyuk. She triumphed over 87 competitors (themselves honed from 638 applications) from 26 countries.
Situated between Tokyo and Osaka, Hamamatsu houses both Yamaha and Kawai headquarters.
The Bach Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor, BWV 891 (1738) begins with a limpid Prelude poor to a more resolute Fugue subject . Suzuki offers a musical take, the fugue notably varied. Here’s the Rubicon:
… and here’s her performance doing the competition:
Hamamatsu. 0:00 – Prelude No. 22 in B-Flat Minor 2:45 – Fugue No. 22 in B-Flat Minor
It is a whole world to Szymanowski. Métopes, Op. 29 (1915: the title refers to panels in a Doric frieze). This is one of the composer’s most elusive works. It is broadly Impressionist, but with his own, most Scribe-like signature, tits nowhere more evident than in the first piece, “L’Ïle des Sirènes”:
Suzuki finds a Scriabin-like volatility at times in “Calypso”:
Nausicaa, daughter of the King of Phaeacia, danced for the shipwrecked Ulysses as he awoke from slumber after being cast up on another beach. “Nausicaa” is the title of the final movement, a teasing dance that seems to oscillate between Scriabin and the Berg of the Op. 1 Piano Sonata. Wroth noting the preternatural evenness of Suzuki’s scales, perhaps!:
Haydn, like Mozart, leaves nowhere to hide. Here’s Suzuki in competition mode in Haydn’s Sonata in G, Hob. XVII:6, a video that also includes Szymanowski and Chopin’s Etude Op. 10/5:
Th recoded performance is incredibly neat, offering trills in the first movement of utter perfection. The first movement is short (2″55); which puts the onus on the longer Menuet and Trio (again, tight trills and ornaments). Suzuki does convey a sense of exploration here, but there is also a sense at times of being a bit too careful. The Adagio is very beautiful, though, and it melts into the sparkling finale, with masterly finger work from Suzuki. Here are the disc videos:
So far, so good. Very good, but with elements of competition palying: all present and correct, moments of insight, good programming. But it is the Schubert that shows Suzuki is.a worthy winner. This is a cripplingly hard sonata to interpret, with its vast firs movement, marked, “Molto moderato e cantabile”: the challenge is to maintain the thread, the momentum, in a plateau of G-Major calm. And how Suzuki succeeds: this is one of he finest performances of this sonata. Here’s the first movement:
Suzuki gives the music space, and finds both beauty and a sense of momentum in the Andante. She moves her sound to deeper territory, too, allowing Schubert’s rich bass writing to speak. Perhaps I would like just a bit more sense of arrival at the recapitulation; but the close of the movement is miraculous.
Certainly, Suzuki has the harmonic awareness to caress the theme of the Andante into existence, and she honour Schubert’s strong contrasts in this movement:
Suzuki finds contrasts aplenty the Menueto, too; it is the Allegretto finale, though, that, like the first movement, reveals Suzuki’s maturity, its playfulness tempered by a sense of matters more profound. Nothing, not one note, is superficial:
The Schubert was performed as part of the Third Stage of the competition also; this stage included a chamber music performance, her Mozart’s Piano Quartet, K 493 as well as the Bach and Szymanowski that later made it to disc.
20th November 2024 ACT City Hamamatsu Concert Hall W. A. MOZART / Piano Quartet No.2 in E flat major K.493 J. S. BACH / Prelude and Fugue from WTC Ⅱ in b flat minor BWV891 K. SZYMANOWSKI / Metopy Op.29 No.1 Wyspa syren F. SCHUBERT / Piano Sonata No.18 in G major D894
An auspicious beginning to what will be a fine career, I am sure. The disc is available at Amazon at he random price of £12,86 here. iDagio below; to there is also a digital release from the competition below that includes Suzuku’s Beethoven Third Concerto finale, and a Fauré Valse-Caprice by Suzuki:
