Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Piano Competitions' Dark Side

I am currently reading Janos Starker's autobiography called The World of Music according to Starker. As you probably know Janos Starker is among the world's best cellists and foremost teachers. He is known to have steadily refused to sit on competition juries due to his specific persepctive on competitions. Here is a quote from a response to a question during an interview:
"I find that the competition system is flawed. As far as I'm concerned, the competition system should be set up such that the preliminary rounds are simply for judging whether a person controls instrumental and musical aspects well. The only ones who should reach the final rounds are those that unquestionably play their instruments at the highest possible level and are unquestionably solid and learned musicians. Then and only then should the element of personality come into play, whether they are doing something different and whether they have something to say.

Competitions clearly don't operate this way because people are winning who are not at the highest level instrumentally, but who advanced through the competition because of their personality. I admire many of my colleagues, but I'm not about to get into arguments about the rules of a competition when lives of young people are affected."

He also recommends that the judges of the final phase be non-cellists. I happen to see alot of wisdom in this approach.
I do think that the progression towards fastest and "showiest" is almost predictable in view of the growing number of well-trained players and the thriving competition circuit. However this does not validate the selection parameters. After all, the highest purpose of technical wizardry is to be placed at the service of interpretation, expressivity and the generation of memorable beautiful music.

Sure the newer instruments made quite a racket, but still it was much softer than we have today. Liszt, Gottschalk, and others played big as well as softly. That was their way to show off. There's still a dynamic range to the music, which seems to be ignored or frowned upon by the competition performers. The old pianos didn't hurt the ears or cause deafness like the modern ones can.

John

If there is indeed a "growing number of well-trained players", then I don't see why that should result in a progression towards fastest etc. I think this assumes the judges have an incredible lack of taste/sophistication/musical understanding. In significant competitions, the judges are virtually all far more accomplished musicians/performers than all but a few on this fourm.

In fact, if all or most of the players have very excellent technique, then I think that could easily make musical aspects of their performance more critical in deciding amongst them.

After listeining to virtually all the competitors in the Cliburn Competition, I cannot think of a single one who fits that descirption.

Which one of the pianists in that competition do you think would fit your description?

I was thinking more of the local competitions and the young crop of students I've seen coming out of NEC. Perhaps the VCC is way above the local yokel stuff that most people see.

There's a former NEC student that I know that ended up with hand injuries because her teacher pushed her to play louder and faster when it was too far beyond her technique. I've lost track of her since her days at NEC so I don't know of her status now. It's too bad if this is what the judges want and what the public likes to hear.

John

Heck, I loved the chutzpah of the guy who actually played the Moonlight Sonata. That took guts. It didn't work out for him, but it was a great risk. Sure got some people talking.

I don't deplore fast and loud playing when the music calls for it. I am endlessly impressed by the technical virtuosity demonstrated by the contestants I saw. I will never be that good.

When I said I was shocked by how few impressed me with their musicality...I didn't mean they didn't play musically. I meant I was expecting to be similarly blown away by their interpretation of the music, as by their technical skills. And what I was shocked by, was that not every one of the contestants blew me away in this regard as I expected. I don't know if I am saying this well at all.

I have an utterly unscientific method of "judging" the musicality of a performance. If the music makes me visualize pictures in my head (as if it were a soundtrack of something), I am touched by the musicality of a performance more than the technical skills of the musician. If I sit there noticing how technically proficient they are, rather than the music itself, then I am not as impressed by their musicality.

As I said, I may not know great art but I know what I like. When I spoke later to those whose knowledge and insight in judging a performance I do trust, I was rather gratified to find that they liked the same contestants I did, FWIW.

I don't think judges or conservatory professors are stupid. I have no more business second-guessing the judges of a piano competition than I have grading an advanced theoretical physics dissertation. Even if I had any business judging, I would not want to. At the level of a top competition, where the baseline technical skills are incredible, what do you judge anyway? Whether you like a particular performer or piece of music is so subjective.

Not that I am any great expert on the subject, but I thought from reading the few accounts of those performers and teachers who did not like the effect competition has had on music, that the main problem with competitions as they saw it, was that risk-takers, far from being the winners, were the ones least likely to win. Performers who take the greatest risks tend to be the ones judges and regular listeners either love or hate. The winners, so this theory go, are the ones who do NOT take risks.

And at any rate...the only truly factual, non-subjective point I made was that my ears hurt. I really don't think your ears should hurt from a piano competition (not in a room that was big enough for the piano anyway). I don't see why the ability to play softly and sensitively should be any more taken for granted than the ability to play fast and loud.

Pianodad's answer illustrates well how the "progression" I mentioned has occured.
Judges notoriously disagree on aspects of musicality. It is one of the mysteries and cruelties of music making and music appreciation. A supreme artist in your eyes may barely register for me and vice versa. In fact in the book I mentioned previously there are plenty of interesting anecdotes about this issue. Artists with as impeccable credentials as Rostropovich, Richter, Fritz Reiner, von Karajan, Argerich have notoriously disagreed when evaluating competitors or other artists. I think that "quantifiable" parameters such as speed, playing difficult repertoire and "virtuosic" (usually transcriptions?) pieces probably end up being the common denominator about which most judges will have to agree. I may be wrong of course but that has been my impression for a few years now.

Are you referring to the Cliburn Competition? If so, which pianists did you find musically deficient? If you were "blown away" by the technical performance of all the pianists. couldn't that just mean you could more easily compare their technique to your own?




You judge musicality as well as technical skill. One judges musicality based on one's musical understanding.


I don't think risk taking per se is necessarily undesirable. If the performer's interpretation or repertoire is unusual, it won't have a negative effect if he can convince enough judges that it is interesting or better yet, terrific. It's possible that if one's interpretation is highly unusual, it could mean not winning a competition if enough judges give enough low votes. It's also possible that a highly unusual but good interpretation could win a competition.



Which competition did you attend? How close did you sit? Which pianists do you think played so loudly your ears hurt and never played softly and sensitively?

Yes, the judges can disagree on musicality. That's why there are a lot of them so the consensus will decide. As you said, in a high level competition most of the contestants have a terrific technique.Excellent technique is a prerequisite, so I think their musicality will be a very important factor.

I think technique is more something that can eliminate a competitor(if they lack it) as opposed to determining a winner.

There were very few transcriptions played in the Cliburn especially if one excludes Petrouchka and La Valse(which despite their difficulties have very little superfluous passagework). Same thing for the smaller IKIF competition I attended.

I actually think the repertoire and number of rounds is what makes the Cliburn so problematic. With all those recitals and all that repertoire, everyone is bound to have good moments and bad. Once you make it past the first round, it starts to seem a bit arbitrary to me.

The VCC is undoubtedly way above a local competition.

I'm sure some of the public is impressed mostly by high virtusity, but clearly some of the public(who have been posting on this thread)are not mainly interested in that. I would assume that the judges in competitions even much less important that the VCC usually have a performance and teaching background much greater than most PW posters. I know this was the case for the IKIF Competition.

Well, since technical finesse does seem to win competitions, I don't know how it could be anything other than the character of judging that drives it.



They aren't stupid - they are earning money and/or prestige. And we have no idea whether they vote their actual tastes, or what their actual internal criteria might be. We can't track the voting of individual judges, especially over the course of multiple competitions. If we could, we might have a better idea of what they really used as measurements. But the competition organizers may know how they vote...hmmm.



Why would it be taken for granted, when most of us know it is much simpler to play fast and loud? The strategy of fast and loud is much more likely to be based on the path of least difficulty.



No, it is not inherent with high level, it is inherent with low levels of performance. "High level" isn't fast and loud (although it is capable of that), it is subtle and profound.



If anything, you've just demonstrated the point that piano competitions are nothing other than sport, and really have nothing to do with art. And maybe that's the way they are heading - but there are still those of us who think that playing classical music is far more than that and is a real art that is intrinsically more valuable than what can be determined in a competition.



The problem is that first-rate technique is rather common and isn't really very interesting except to others who are working on it, and their teachers. Real honest-to-goodness personal interpretation and music-making with deep insight into the music is what is rare. Competitions value the first, and not the latter. But that points up another problem of competitions - the pianists are typically not musically mature.



The recent Van Cliburn totally disproves what you just said. One of the winners can't be considered objectively because of disability, but the other was possibly the single least venturesome pianist there. He was simply highly competent, basically quite musical but not offering any special insight, and really stood out mostly for not standing out. Probably the safest choice the judges could possibly make out of that field.

How do know that the blind can't be considered pianist objectively? It's entirely possbile the jury bent over backwards to make sure that this pianist wasn't given any special consideration because of his blindness.

I don't think any of your criticsm of Zhang is valid either. Why do you think he was the "least venturesome" and why is being venturesome important? I don't think one has ever had to play unusual repertoire or have some highly unusual interpretation of a work to be a great pianist. I don't understand why you call his playing as merely "highly competent". I think he played some of the most difficult and important pieces in the piano literature masterfully.

I agree 100% with everything above.

Why do think this was a great risk? The first movement may be played by too many beginning amateurs, but I think it is quite rarely performed in competitions and professional recitals.

wr,

That fact that YOU think Zhang was a safe conformist choice does not necessarily make it so, though I respect your opinion on the matter. Even if it were true, the fact that one can find examples of competitions where the 'play-it-safe' musician won does not change the basic argument I'm making. You know, I'm sure there have also been cases in which somebody bet the favorite on every game in the NCAA pool and they actually won the prize. That doesn't make betting the chalk an optimum strategy in a winner-take-all situation. Whenever there is a statistical distribution determining outcomes and a single winner (or very small number of winners), the winners are unlikely to be the ones who play the odds right down the middle.

By the way, in a multistage competition like the Cliburn the best strategy to follow may vary from stage to stage. Conformism may be a better strategy in the opening round where you can be among the top 32, but NOT the optimal strategy for winning the final prize.

It's just my opinion, of course, but playing something every teenaged pianist attempts (and often mangles) displayed a certain adventuresomeness. There is a reason why it is so seldom heard on the circuit. Pieces like that have become an odd combination of icon and saccharine. Exalted and cloying at the same time. I suspect his choice raised some eyebrows. And I suspect that may have been part of his purpose in choosing it.

So are triple jumps in ice-skating. Try putting together a performance today that relies primarily on beautiful, graceful, and slow footwork and body gestures as the primary elements. Peggy Fleming in 1968 may have been the last.

You have to demonstrate your chops, even if everyone else seemingly can do it. Actually, I wonder if that should be taken for granted. I freely admit that I couldn't judge these things. My technique isn't good enough to understand whether there are weaknesses in the playing.

I think what I'm arguing is that there IS room for style and interpretation, but that technical mastery is a common coin that must be played as well. Much of the criticism of 'fast and loud' may be off the mark. Everybody must play some fast and loud things to have their technique evaluated by the judges, but it may not be the only thing on the table, despite the assertions often made by disgruntled judges whose choices didn't win consensus.

.... and this is an entirely different issue from the incentive problems and conflicts of interest that are also a feature of modern competitions.

BTW, have you noticed that reasonable people here can stake out opposite positions on something as basic as whether or not judging should be blind. This should tell us how difficult some of these issues are. There are potential costs to most of the reforms as well as benefits. The same is true for whether or not judges should be able to sit down and talk about things. Plusses and minuses.

When I was at the piano museum on Saturday, Michael Frederick talked about this desire among piano students to compete. Winning is no guarantee of a future of fame or fortune, regardless of the recording or gigging benefits that come with the prize. Most winners fade into anonymity when the following year's winner is crowned.

He said that his teacher would ask his students what they wanted to play and if they said "I want to play zzzz because I want to win the 'whatever' prize" then the teacher's answer was "Do you even remember who won it 5 years ago?" Most often the answer was no.
K