2/3 1990 Tchaikovsky Competition - Documentary

00:00 Sarasate: Concert Fantasy on Carmen - David Kim, Akiko Suwanai, Jean-Marc Varjabedian-Phillips, Evgeny Bushkov
07:02 Bushkov - “I don’t like the idea of competitions.
08:30 Public poetry, overcoming difficulties.
10:35 Scriabin’s piano
11:35 James Gibb & Daniel Pollack, Controversial Student
12:20 Liszt: Transcendental Etude B minor, “Feux follets” - Boris Berezovsky
15:51 JG & DP - A piano was gifted to the conservatory. Jury controversy.
17:40 Tchaikovsky: August from “The Seasons” - Enrico Pace, Italy
18:44 Round Two elimination Announcements (Two Italians in the finals!)
20:57 June 30 Round Three Begins: 12 pianists & 12 violinists
Bribery accusations.
21:17 Gidon Kremer - people burdened by everyday problems
23:00 Tchaikovsky: Concerto in D - Evgeny Bushkov, Akiko Suwanai,
28:29 Kevin Kenner, concerto rehearsals

From the NY TImes Review
The program was written and directed by Bill Fertik, who also filmed the competition in 1982 and 1986. But where Mr. Fertik's earlier programs showed Moscow to be a comparatively placid and orderly, if somewhat militarily dominated, city, the backdrop of this year's installment is the chaos of a society in disintegration. Soviet soldiers, fixtures of the earlier shows, are scarcely to be seen. Instead, there is a picket line of striking musicians, a street poet shouting anti-Communist verses, and passers-by who are eager to complain about their Government.

"The nightly news has inured Americans to stories of disarray from the Soviet Union. But allegations of corruption at competitions have been infrequent. The first inkling that something is amiss comes during a contestant's dinner, when one of the accompanists announces "the scandal of the day," and tells of finding the North Korean juror, Pac Co Sun, coaching one of his competing students between rounds. Although it is not unusual for jurors to have students among the competitors, jurors and their students are supposed to keep their distance during the contest.

Later, James Gibb, a British juror who teaches piano at the Guildhall School in London, tells of being approached a few weeks before the contest by a contestant's uncle who wanted his niece to have some lessons. Mr. Gibb gave her a lesson, and says that when it was over the contestant's uncle handed him a sealed envelope. In it, he found $1,000 in American bills, which he returned.

When he arrived in Moscow, Mr. Gibb discovered that other jurors had given the niece lessons as well, although he said in a telephone interview on Thursday that he was unable to determine whether any of them had been offered, or accepted, unusually high fees. His suggestion that the pianist be disqualified was rejected by the majority of the jury.

Nor was it the end of the matter: Yevgeny Malinin, a Soviet juror, announced that the contestant's father had donated a new Hamburg Steinway piano, worth about $88,000, to the Moscow Conservatory, where the competition was held. And to muddy the waters further, the judging rules were altered so that, unlike previous years, jurors would not know how many points their colleagues gave to each contestant.

Here Mr. Fertik's documentary drops the ball. Apparently in the interest of stressing the music rather than the scandal, this intriguing story is interrupted several times as the camera returns to the stage, and eventually it peters out inconclusively.

The pianist at the center of the controversy is not named in the program, leaving the viewer to wonder about all the women who played. In an interview last week, one of the jurors, Daniel Pollack, of the University of California, identified her as Hae-Jung Kim, a 25-year-old Juilliard graduate. Mr. Fertik said last week that Miss Kim was not shown in the documentary.
Nor is Miss Kim given an opportunity to tell her side of the story. She could not be reached for comment, but her sternest critic, Mr. Gibb, said on Thursday that he believed Miss Kim had been unaware of what her father and uncle were doing on her behalf. "The shame of it," he added, "is that she was a very competent pianist, and might have gone as far as she did on her own merits, had this not come up."

Nor does the program say what became of Miss Kim, although since all the piano medalists were men, it was clear that she did not win. She was, Mr. Gibb said last week, eliminated in the second of the three final rounds.