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Piano Competitions Piano competitions have given the world the names of the most talented young musicians. Many successful careers in music started after winning or even participating in piano competitions. Such piano-playing legends as Alfred Brendel, whose scholarly approach aroused some aesthetic controversy; the Canadian Glenn Gould, whose recordings of Bach won great acclaim, the Americans Van Cliburn, Andre Watts, and Murray Perahia, and the Russian-born Vladimir Ashkenazy, later a citizen of Iceland, have all participated in various piano competitions (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia). Most of the piano competitions have started in the beginning of the 20 th century and were commemorated and named after composers and other famous personalities.
The Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition is one of the oldest events of its type in the world, and enjoys great prestige and universal renown. The initiator of this competition was Prof. Jerzy Zurawlew (1887 - 1980), an outstanding Polish pianist, teacher and composer (Barbara Niewiarowska). The first Chopin Competition took place on 23 - 30 January 1927 in the concert hall of the Warsaw Philharmonic. The next Competitions in 1932 and 1937 were also held there, at a five-year interval, in accordance with the rules of the organizers. The 1942 Competition was not held owing to the Second World War, and the Competition could not be continued until several years after the war.
The first postwar and the fourth International Frederick Chopin Competition took place in 1949, in the Roma concert hall, which is still standing in Nowogrodzka Str. , the temporary home of the Warsaw Philharmonic and the Opera. The Competition became the culmination of the Chopin Year, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the death of this great composer. The next Competition was organized six years later, in 1955. This change to the traditional five year-cycle was caused by the reconstruction of the Warsaw Philharmonic Hall, which was promoted soon afterwards to the rank of a national institution. From 1955 onwards, the Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition has been held in the National Philharmonic Hall every five years without a break.
The Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition is a multi-stage event, which, owing to the constantly growing number of candidates, lasts on the average over ten days. Pre-war Competitions were composed of two stages, the fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth of three stages, the seventh, ninth and consecutive ones of four stages, with the last stage as the Competition finale. The auditions are public, and only in the 1949 competition the jury was separated from the participants by a screen, and did not see the pianists or know their names, only the third stage was public. The rules of the Chopin Competition provide for a certain number of main prizes and a Polish Radio special prize for the best performance of the mazurkas. In 1960, a special prize for the best interpretation of a polonaise, awarded by the Frederick Chopin Society in Warsaw, was introduced permanently into the Competition, while in 1980, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw funded a special prize for the best performance of a concerto. Interpretations of works, which are granted special prizes, are classified separately, outside the general list of prizes.
Apart from the prizes set out in the rules, and awarded by the Competition jury, there are also the traditional so-called additional prizes. Financial and material awards are funded and presented by private persons, institutions and societies to those competitors who gained entry to the second stage of the Competition. During the first Chopin Competition, the jury was composed exclusively of representatives of the Polish music world. Organizers of successive events have invited the most outstanding musicians and pianists, both Polish and foreign to be members of the jury. The Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition is one of the single composer piano competitions in the world and is always devoted to the performance of music by this one composer. It is important to note that this feature makes it not only possible to follow the interpretations, judge the technique of the participants, and obtain information about the current level of piano performance in general and Chopin interpretation in particular, but also provides an opportunity to observe the changing attitude towards the Chopin oeuvre and particular music forms.
The Competition programs include the majority of the music genres created by Chopin, both from his youthful period and from his maturity. Only a few genres are not played at all; others are included or excluded from consecutive Competition programs or transferred to various Competition stages. Another prominent event in the world of classical music is Queen Elizabeth competition. In contrast with the Chopin competition, it was designed as a competition for young virtuosos with extremely broad-ranging programs that included contemporary music.
This allowed for the technical and artistic maturity of the candidates to develop and their careers to launch. The competition originated in Belgium in 1937 and was known as the Ysaye Competition. The first sessions included only unpublished violin set works. After a radio broadcast, the competition immediately found an audience of loyal music lovers. The second competition was held in 1938, this time featuring the piano. Although, the prizes were overall equally distributed, this competition showed the significant dominance of the Soviet school.
In spring of 1950 Queen Elizabeth was finally convinced to give her name to the competition. Since its foundation, the competition was considered to be not only among the most prestigious ones, but also among the most difficult. Queen Elizabeth competition is held in four categories: violin (since 1951), piano (since 1952), composition (since 1953) and singing (since 1988). Sessions are held every four years for each category. The juries of the Queen Elizabeth Competition are not only highly qualified professionals, but are truly legendary personalities. For the period from 1951 to 2002 they designated 33 First Prize winners, regardless of whether their judgment was confirmed by posterity or not.
The jury president coordinates the work of every jury. Moreover, he is the go-between for the prestigious judges and the crowd, publicly thanking the royal family for its presence, the orchestra for its dedication throughout the six consecutive evenings, and announcing, in an indescribably electric atmosphere, the final result in the course of a Saturday night. A great organizer, Marcel Cuvelier, director of the Competition and incidentally also director of the Societe Philharmonique de Bruxelles, first filled this role. The Queen Elizabeth Competitions are also famous for the places where they are held.
The first is the Royal Brussels Music Conservatory. This Italian-style concert hall, designed for pure music with a stage rising in tiers up to the Cavaille-Coll organ, is a dream venue for a chamber music concert or a recital. The second place is the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. This functional and elegant building was inaugurated in 1939 in Waterloo as a higher institute for music teaching, in which the pupil-residents studied the piano, the violin, the viola, the cello or composition.
The third and final venue is the O Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, which is one of Queen Elisabeth's great artistic projects. Piano competitions for many years provided an extremely broad palette of emotions for music lovers: passion, joy, sadness, commitment, argumentation, communion with music, in spite of all the reproaches or reserves one might have from time to time. Above all, they are a slice of life in which culture seems to gain a little ground on the crises, troubles and conflicts. Bibliography: Barbara Niewiarowska, The Frederick Chopin International Piano Competition, Article, Piano & Keyboard, May/June, 1999. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, The Famous Piano Players, Article, Microsoft Corporation, 2002. web - Queen Elizabeth Music Competition Informational Web-Site web - Chopin International Piano Competition Official Web-Site web - general information on piano competitions
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