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Which is:




This is one reason why I despise music competitions...

This was reportedly how Van Cliburn won the first Tchaikovsky competition. One of the jurors, Sviatoslav Richter, gave Cliburn all 10's and all the rest of the competitors all 0's.

The whole thing sounds very questionable.

I look forward to hearing more from Fei-Fei Dong. I found her playing at the Chopin competition very interesting - even with a few slips of the fingers.

I wonder how many Liszt Sonatas and Prokofiev #2s we get to hear this quad!

-Daniel

While what you say about Richter's scoring seems to be generally held as true, that doesn't mean it caused Cliburn to win the Tchaikovsky, i.e. someone else would have won if Richter hadn't given other competitors 0.

Also, Richter wasn't a teacher with a vested interest in a particular competitor.

BTW, somebody should say.....

These aren't the "finalists," they're the contestants. (I see that Fnork was just quoting from the blog, but the blog has it wrong.)

Back to the discussion: I'm surprised there's so much feeling like what's being expressed. I wonder if it's representative of what the music world at large thinks. I sure hope not. Competitions are imperfect, and many people think they're inherently terrible -- but for what a competition is, I just fail to see anything in the Cliburn that's close to the corrupt and scandalous kinds of things being said here.

It seems to me that a teacher who has students participating in a competition should automatically be ineligible to be a judge in that competition at any level because objectivity is compromised. There is an inherent conflict of interest. It is a principle in many other areas -- law, business, science. Not sure why it is so foreign to music .

Although perhaps not the perfect solution, I agree with this. As has already been pointed out teachers, even if teachers are not permitted to vote for their students, there are other ways of influencing the outcome in favor of their students and so the conflict of interest cannot be eliminated.

Are there any competitions that have tried this approach?

How things have changed....

Fanny Waterman, founder and chairman of the jury of the Leeds Competition since its inception in 1963, was very embarrassed when her pupil Michael Roll kept getting through each round as favorite, and eventually won that first competition, despite her trying to get the jury members not to give him first place....

Caesar's wife must be above suspicion ...

Mark, if the italian economy keeps going down this fast they won't even have the strings on the piano to play by next month. :-\
:-p :-p :-p

I'm not so sure Richter gave ALL contestants lowest marks with the exception of Cliburn. Richter's attitude seems to have been similar to what Charles Rosen discusses in "Piano notes: The world of a pianist" - that when he listens to a competition, he's giving a vote either in favour or against a concert career. In other words, what may seem completely "fine" and "average" at a normal music conservatory examination is of no relevance, hence Charles Rosen argued that if he'd give a decent mark (say, 6-7 out of 10) for a conservatory examination, he still would go for a lower mark for a similar performance in a competition situation.
I by the way studied with a pianist who participated in the very same competition where Cliburn won - while my teacher didn't get to the finals that time (he was in semi), he was on friendly terms with Richter after the competition. As far as I remember, they exchanged letters and so on.

It is also true that in many areas, this "connection" is simply impossible to avoid, especially within smaller "circles". To give an example, my dad has a professor position since many years in a university where he has been working for several decades, and when that job position was first opened, he not only had personal contacts within these small university circles (the job position was offered in his hometown, after all), but there were also people within those circles that knew his qualities very well and wanted him to get the position. What, then, was the solution when they needed to announce the job offer, if a certain person was on their mind already before the application process itself? It's rather simple - you look in advance at what 'specific' qualifications the person you are already interested in has in his/her CV, and you put these in the job offer announcment. It's a way of guaranteeing that one job applicant will stick out among the many that you might receive.

Perhaps this sounds a bit simple-minded, but I do think there's a fair amount of truth in it, within smaller circles in particular. I know several cases of people getting university positions in such ways.

Relating this to competitions isn't too difficult - the small circles are there, people go and take lessons from teachers privately or during summer courses/festivals and then they end up in competitions where the same people are judging them. It's somewhat surprising how the same names keep reoccuring among competitions worldwide. In the documentary "Why competitions", Geoffrey Swann made the observation that he had several colleagues during a competition (Busoni perhaps) who went STRAIGHT to Leeds right after that competition to judge, after which they also went to the Chopin competition. It's not entirely uncommon.

One solution regarding having teachers and their students in the jury is that if a jury member gives a plus to his or her own student (assuming there's a plus/minus system), it does not count unless the majority of the other jurors agreed with it.

Juilliard is a name familiar to everyone for sure, buth whether or not that name signifies the Highest Possible Standard among young musicians today I cannot really tell. Though I have heard some fabulous musicians coming out of this school, I can also say that there are pianists from there that supposedly "succeed" in the competition circuit but that I'd never bother to hear in concert. That includes some Juilliard names on the list of contestants of the 2013 competition.

I can offer you a few observations though - a friend of mine, brilliant pianist and competition winner here and there, studied with the very same teacher at Juilliard and Hannover (he switched to the former mainly because his teacher quit in Hannover), and said that this teacher had a better piano class in Hannover than in Juilliard. Also, did you know that the school in america that receives the LEAST donations among former students is...Juilliard?

It seems the discussion here just died...in any case, now that we are talking big piano competitions - the candidates for Queen Elisabeth later this year were recently chosen as well. It's probably a competition I'm more interested in following overall rather than Van Cliburn. But let's see...

I don't think it "died." I think it's more like the discussion was complete for now, maybe until the next stages of the competition.

What makes you prefer QE? Last competition there were some great moments, but also some "meh.." performances if I remember correctly. I did enjoy Kuzhukin's performances though, and thought he was a rightful winner (unlike that disaster at 2009 Cliburn.) But I don't see Kuzhukin discussed at all in the States - too bad. I hope he's doing well overseas.

-Daniel

I met Fanny Waterman the other day. She told us how she is extremely adamant that in the Leeds competition the judges are forbidden from discussing their thoughts with each other at all, they must deliberate in absolute silence and secrecy, and apparently in the past she has fired people for breaking these rules. I don't know how much truth there is in this, but it did seem very important to her that the process be as fair as possible.

It seems to me that removing Kaplinsky alone from the jury would address 70% of the problem, including most of the appearance of wrongdoing. A situation that is too complex for a perfect solution can still lend itself to partial remedies.
Moreover, refreshing the Jury would not be a bad strategy for this competition.