G.P.

When I was a student in St Petersburg, a city of 5 million inhabitants, there was always a dilemma to which concert, opera or ballet to attend and which not, since every day there was a big selection of classical music events to choose from. With Paris it's the same - you are afraid to check the billboards since there is so much to hear and you would rather not know what you will be missing! This time also I had to make some tough choices.

I of course had to be there when maestro Kurt Masur conducted his last concert with the Orchestre National de France this year. It was a beautiful performance of Bruckner's 3rd symphony, also known as the "Wagner Symphony" because of its dedication to Richard Wagner. It was played in the beautiful Theatre du Chatelet where the only problem was the occasional low sub-bass noise caused by the metro lines below the theatre.

The next day I attended a concert of Ensemble Intercontemporain for a virtuosic and hilarious account of Berio's Recital I for Cathy. The soprano playing the big role was Canadian Measha Brüggergosman - brava to her!

Mlle Orliac and the ensemble at the Cité des Arts auditiorium

At the Cité des arts, where my lodgings are, there is a lot of interesting events and exhibitions going on as well. This time there was an international harp competition, and I went to listen to the finals. The finalists were all very young, two from Japan, one Korean and one French. They all played Ravel's beautiful Introduction et Allegro pour harpe, quatuor à cordes, flûte et clarinette, plus a voluntary solo piece.

Mlle Maiko Enomoto departs the stage

I don't claim to be expert in harp playing, but in my opinion all finalists were really skillful players. There was a big difference in their way of playing as to expression, attitude, energy, etc. and I thought the jury would have a tough task deciding which kind of a performer they would prefer over the others.

Mlle Reine Takano takes the bow

The Korean Jimin Lee was calm and fluent but too un-dramatic to my taste. After her came the 19-year old French Coline-Marie Orliac, whose performance was on the contrary very dramatic and full of contrasts.

My preferred candidate was the Japanese Maiko Enomoto who played most elegantly (am I prisoner of a stereotype of an elegant and fairy-like harpist you might think). Her hands moved with incredible grace, and reminded me of a pair of doves flying and changing direction in perfect synchronization.

All four finalist prize-winners left to right: Reine Takano, Coline-Marie Orliac, Maiko Enomoto and Jimin Lee

The last finalist, also from Japan, was Reine Takano, whose performance was no doubt most energetic, but I thought it was also the most nervous. The jury decided to give no first prize, the second went to Takano, third was shared between the French and Korean, and my favorite was unfortunately left the fourth prize...

The last night before I flew back to Finland I listened to some beautiful Schumann at the Cité played by my compatriots Ulla Soinne and Ursula von Lerber. It was a lot of music in the end, but I still missed Leonard Slatkin conducting Tchaikovsky's 5th, Boulez conducting Firebird (though that you can still see on medici.tv) and a performance of Mendelssohn's Elias which would have been nice to hear since I need to study that work for January when I will be assisting Kurt Masur and ONF in the opening of the Mendelssohn year 2009.