After all, they were the only two pianists to perform original compositions in the preliminaries, and both pieces had been rhapsodies.
It was hard to stop audiences, judges, pianists, and netizens from comparing and discussing them together.
Some netizens even said outright:
The only reason someone with Lin Tian's résumé and background could reach the finals was because he had brought out the same type of piece as Nishikawa Yuuhaku.
Because, aside from some fans,
the vast majority of people, whether pianists or on-site media reporters, believed that "Croatian Rhapsody" was an unquestionable world-class masterpiece, vastly superior to "Nightfall Elegy."
Even if Lin Tian's playing had been somewhat weaker by comparison, that did not change the fact.
Nishikawa Yuuhaku had advanced.
If Lin Tian had not advanced,
it would have looked terrible!
Then the media reports would have become:
"Nightfall Elegy" advanced, while "Croatian Rhapsody" did not.
And they were even pieces of the same type.
If "Croatian Rhapsody" truly stood the test of time in the future,
then for the next several hundred, perhaps even thousand years, whenever someone praised the piece, they would get the same explanation.
Oh, this was that piece which, at its first performance in the 2025 Sakibo International Piano Competition, got beaten by "Nightfall Elegy" and failed to advance.
That would have been utterly humiliating!
It was like God of War 4 beating Red Dead Redemption 2 to win TGA Game of the Year in 2018.
For the next decade, whenever people praised RDR2, they would drag out God of War 4 to beat a dead horse. But no one really bore God of War 4 any ill will; most of the insults were aimed at that idiotic TGA.
Sakibo International did not dare gamble on it.
If "Croatian Rhapsody" really stood the test