Jaana said:I don´t remember what it was called, it just remained in my mind as a beautiful and lyrical performance. She may have had a white costume and it definetely was a short programme. Sasha got silver medal in US nationals that year, I believe. As far as I remember she won with that short programme over Kwan. Next season she was injured and did not participate in US Nationals.
Marjaana
Kwan fell on her triple toe in that competition. The piece was commonly called Albinoni's adagio (more accurately Giazotto's adagio) In 1945 Remo Giazotto discovered a music fragment from Albinoni in the Dresden State Library while he was working on a biography. Based on this fragment Giazotti composed the adagio
I think that was the only time I sensed that Sasha skated with some soul, since then all her programs came across rather cold.
I do not believe in bravura vs lyricisim. IMHO true bravura performers have PERFECT technique, and there are only rare few who have perfect technique. IMHO Sasha does not have perfect technique to qualify to be bravura. To me perfect technique is not important, soul and humanity are the key. Heifetz may qualify to have close to perfect technique. Sometimes he forgot to put in the soul, and his bravura left me cold, but when he was soulful e.g. Bruch's violin concerto and Bruch's Scottish fantasy (some of the technically easiest pieces) the music was out of this world beautiful.
It is not a matter of lyricism either. One of the greatest performace in my book was Oistrakh's interpretation of Shostakovich violin concerto. He was not particualarly lyric, but Oistrkah put his soul into the piece, and you can hear him sweating blood, with close to perfect technique to boot. Contrast that to Hahn's interpretation of the DSCH violin concerto, where she executed with superb technique, and leaves me cold asking where is the soul, where is the humanity?
To me therefore, it is not a choice of bravura or lyric, but whether a performer is willing to sweat blood for the soul and humanity to add to the lyric or bravura.
Back to Sasha, it really is not that important whether she is fiery or lyric, skating is still a sport, it is still about edges, jumps and spins.
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