Message from the pianist Anton Rosputko:

I feel like I have to write this. You never know what can expect you in your life. According to some information, a fatal misunderstanding happened tonight at the Tchaikovsky Competition.

As YOU COULD SEE in the broadcast, before An Tianxu’s performance, Tchaikovsky was announced, although Rachmaninov was planned first. Then the announcer said “excuse me” IN RUSSIAN and then announced Rachmaninov’s concerto. But as the Chinese pianist doesn’t speak Russian, he obviously thought that they just announced Rachmaninov as the concerto following AFTER Tchaikovsky. For the conductor it was clear since he speaks Russian. So, now his shockingly late first unisono in the first bars can be easily explained – the guy was obviously expecting a longer introduction of Tchaikovsky, around 10 seconds, but heard a max.2-second one of Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody and was about to enter, not even having time to realize what happened!!

The performance was very much worse in all the senses than his previous rounds, but, knowing perfectionism for which Chinese nation is famous for, I am sure the whole nerve system of the guy was hit like after a tsunami, if the situation was like I described! He knows, as we all, that the first impression is VERY influential on the general one, so I guess he was in a nervous breakdown from the very start.

…or maybe he just didn’t prepare the finals enough, but OBVIOUSLY it was just this terrible accidental nightmare.

Life is unpredictable. I don’t know what judges will decide and don’t know if they realized what happened, but I wish him all the best!

Watch here.

What’s Russian for fuckup?

UPDATE: Announcer is fired.

UPDATE: An Tianxu video goes viral

Watch now: A backstage view.