An international Chopin piano competition is taking place in Warsaw, Poland, and performances are streaming live on the Internet. There is a nine-hour time difference, so much of the playing is in the middle of the night for me; still, I have seen almost all the archive tapes and many of the recitals.
The preliminary round had 346 players, winnowed to 80 in the first cut and then to 40 on the second day, where each musician presented a 20-minute program for a distinguished jury and a packed house (the audience doesn't even cough except between selections.) Pianists choose from four pianos, a Steinway, a Kawai, a Yamaha, or a Fazioli, the most expensive piano in the world, with a top model costing $400,000. Most choose the Steinway. The top prize for the contest is 30,000 Euros, but each of the ten finalists will get a substantial reward.
I would not like to be on the jury for this competition, though the jurors and I agreed on about half of the semi-finalists. Every candidate is technically flawless; the programs are performed from memory and one hardly ever hears a note error. One thing the jury is listening for is a certain Chopinesque style, especially in the Mazurkas and Polonaises. But the defining requirement is that the listener be moved by the performance.
The tools for executing a moving performance are limited: Beyond the notes, rhythms, tempi and dynamics the composer specifies, the player needs to define the importance of the various elements of the composition. When the composer indicates piano or soft in a place having several notes playing simultaneously, he is specifying an over-all volume. Not all the notes have the same value, nor do all the musical lines and phrases. These are details the artist must decide upon, and the memorable performances are like stories, with a beginning, a development and an ending, high points and interludes. The player who only plays the notes will be accused, as was one contestant, of "sounding like the recording", even though he did nothing particularly wrong.
This is some of the best Chopin playing I have heard anywhere, any time. Almost all the pianists have something to say with their music, but the players I have loved the most were the ones who made me feel I had never heard the pieces in quite the same way before. Nicodemus and I agree on most musical things, and he said it better than I could: In the most profound musical experience, a spiritual truth is revealed.
Of course, mastery of the instrument is a prerequisite.
Because all the finalists obviously could not be Russian, only six of the extraordinary Russian players advanced to the semifinals, cutting two of my favorites. There are three Americans, two players each from Italy, China, Poland and France, and one each from Bulgaria, Austria and Australia. The semifinalists include 13 men and seven women. None of the 15 Japanese players, four Koreans, three Israelis, the Canadian, Croatian, German, Swiss, Armenian or Spanish pianists made it to the list of twenty.
