Welcome to MSDN Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

The quintennial International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition will be held later this year, and I was reminded that the awards for "Best performance of a mazurka" and "Best performance of a concerto" have not been awarded since 1985. Simply put: Nobody since 1985 has been good enough to deserve it.

The year 1995 was a particularly bad year for Chopin-lovers. The judges for Competition XIII concluded that none of the 130 entrants deserved any of the four big-name prizes.

  • First prize - not awarded.
  • Best perfomance of the mazurkas - not awarded.
  • Best performance of a polonaise - not awarded.
  • Best performance of a concerto - not awarded.

(This wasn't the first time the judges refused to award first prize. It happened five years earlier as well.)

Published Friday, June 10, 2005 7:00 AM by oldnewthing
Filed under:

Comments

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Friday, June 10, 2005 11:30 AM by alanpa
I think this is a pretty common practice in music competitions - even at much lower levels of competition. Many years ago, I was one of the judges in the Washington state high school solo competition, and in the area I was judging, we didn't award a first prize. From my discussions with the other judges (and from the quality of performances), it seemed to me it was a common practice.

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Friday, June 10, 2005 11:55 AM by tsrblke
Funny, I always thought "Best [whatever]" at a competition was refering to "Best of the people we have." This is a large competition, so I'd assume all the players are at least good. This would be like if the Olympics suddenly decided no one deserved the gold medal and just didn't award it. (To those who would say "sometimes they don't award the silver or bronze" Remember in those cases mulitple golds or Silvers are given out in place of that)

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Friday, June 10, 2005 12:40 PM by Trey Van Riper
This sounds like the continuance of a distubing trend in poor musicianship.

Or, perhaps, a signal that that face of music has shifted significantly, to the point where people do not feel it is worthwhile to pursue that style of performance.

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Friday, June 10, 2005 1:37 PM by Michael J.
<quote>
Funny, I always thought "Best [whatever]" at a competition was refering to "Best of the people we have." This is a large competition, so I'd assume all the players are at least good. This would be like if the Olympics suddenly decided no one deserved the gold medal and just didn't award it.
</quote>

If goal of Olympics were to go further and further from competition to competition, then there would not be any reason to award results lower than max(all_olympics_results). Really, what is the point to compete at the same sports and to show all the same results? Say, a man can jump over two meters now, what is the point to give an award if all participants could not make two meter mark?

Football, or tennis or basketball is not just sport, it is show, so it makes sense to play it again and again. Fighting or yoga or jogging is not sport, it is either self-defense, or self-improvement, or just plain exercise. But jumping over the bar raised two meters up, is neither a show nor an exercise, it is the race for better result. Which probably made sense during cold war as a non-military encounter of superpowers. But now it just does not make any sense.

No improvement - no award, it should be that simple. And because human abilities did not really improve in past two thousand years or so, there is no need to compete again and again. We know that jumping over two meter bar is possible, should not we stop doing that and do something more creative?

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Friday, June 10, 2005 4:32 PM by Greg Bowers
I think the point of this is that in order to claim to be a winner of such and such music competition one should have attained a certain level.

To put it another way - one must attain the level of first place rather than simply beat the competition on that day.

I guess this is why we have to make do with scratchy old recordings of the likes of Rubinstein if we want to hear how these pieces could/should be played. It certainly would be nice to have the greatest conductors and musicians in DDD, but I wonder if anyone can attain those levels again.

On a side note, I wonder if the "Carmack" Competition would have trouble awarding first place?

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Saturday, June 11, 2005 12:30 AM by memet
No improvement - no award, it should be that simple. And because human abilities did not really improve in past two thousand years or so, there is no need to compete again and again. We know that jumping over two meter bar is possible, should not we stop doing that and do something more creative?
</quote>

I will play devil's advocate because some part of me wants to agree with you, while the rest of me is shocked by both of you.

The problem with what you're saying is that it's extremely elitist and it has a tendency to stagnate any field... the arts especially, but let's take the example of high jump.

Take a look at this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_jump

See how the original high jump technique was the 'scissor'. See also how it evolved into the "Eastern Cut-off" and then to other things like the "Western"... But it eventually came to the "Fosbury flop", which evolved from a then "outmoded Eastern Cut-off".

Another example is Formula 1 racing. Technically, the speeds should get faster and faster right? wrong. The F1 federation does everything to limit the speed of the cars...
I also remember back in around '98, ferrari introduced a V8 engine, and quickly decided it wasn't good and went back to the V6.

I think all of these things make for a motif: progress isn't always straight and up. Sometimes progress demands back tracking. And if you deprive the incentive to keep on competing, the only thing you're really doing is honoring your past laureates...
You might as well give up now.

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Saturday, June 11, 2005 6:28 PM by Matt
Chopin's piano works are probably some of the most difficult pieces ever, though. He's never written an easy piano piece, I don't think.

# re: Maintaining high standards...

Saturday, June 11, 2005 9:58 PM by Mike
Raymond opened the door for this:

What if there was an OS competition...

With similar rules? A jury that knew operating systems?

Just a thought... Personally I think Raymond would smile in the background. :-)

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Sunday, June 12, 2005 1:00 PM by Michael J.
<quote>
Another example is Formula 1 racing. Technically, the speeds should get faster and faster right? wrong. The F1 federation does everything to limit the speed of the cars...
</quote>
I would say, for about last 20 years or so, Formula 1 is more show, than sport. Innovative features, like computerized transmission, like aerodinamic skirt, or a huge vacuum machine to create downforce, they were banned.

But even as show it is not good anymore. There is no more tire change, which was fun to watch. No slick tires. No crazy turbos. I stopped watching F1, it is no fun anymore. It was great in late 80-ies.

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Monday, June 13, 2005 6:25 PM by memet
<quote>But even as show it is not good anymore.</quote>

Micheal J: you've obviously not followed Micheal Schumacher for any period of time. I remember having watched a slo-mo clip of him going through a chicane... probably .4 seconds worth of footage. I watched that clip over and over and over... just couldn't get over the genius of that driver.

Aside from that, I don't know what you're talking about, tire changes and pit tactics have been essential in not a few but many races in the past couple of seasons.
And electronic speed control and break control are easily dismissed as being unfair aids to the pilot, but when you research what they actually do, you realize they're just as much of an aid as having power steering. No matter how good the power steering, it is never going to win you a race.
(Just to give you an idea of what electronic speed control does, it is a computer mechanism which makes sure the torque of the engine is where the driver wants it to be. Torque varies with the RPM, so for example, before ESC, drivers would 'pump', or repeatedly push on the gas pedal as they were breaking into a curve so as to keep the engine reved up high enough that coming out of the curve the torque would be sufficient. It's just that now a computer does _some_ of that work - ie, instead of the pedal just connecting to the fuel line, it connects to a computer and means pedal half depressed means I want half the available torque).

Indy car racing, is boring on the other hand. But F1 has never been better.

All of course, IMHO.

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 12:19 AM by AdiOltean
>>> Chopin's piano works are probably some of the most difficult pieces ever, though. He's never written an easy piano piece, I don't think.

Maybe the prelude no. 7? It is a delightful little piece which is easy to learn (with a little effort of course :-).

# re: Maintaining high standards at the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 4:30 AM by Moi
(F1) MichaelJ, you might want to start watching again. For whatever reason, the competition is tighter this year than it has been for ages.
New Comments to this post are disabled
 
Page view tracker