International Piano Competitions, 3 vols.

Takacs, Peter

Competitions are inherently dramatic events: the results are unpredictable; there is a public testing of skills, eventually resulting in one winner and, by implication, a number of "losers"; new world records reflect the extension of the limits of human achievement. These results are objectively measurable, and their visceral impact has been noted since ancient times.

The question of competitiveness in events where aesthetic judgments are involved is far from simple, and has been the subject of passionate debate among devotees, critics, and practitioners of the various arts. The very concept of a "best" pianist, or even of a "best" performance of a Beethoven sonata is ludicrous: one need only compare recorded versions by Artur Schnabel, Sviatoslav Richter, and Malcolm Bilson (to mention three exceptional Beethoven interpreters and noncompetitors) to realize that music lends itself to a fascinating (and perhaps unlimited) number of probings by inquisitive minds, whose "results" are not quantifiable by any commonly accepted yardstick.

A number of reasons, in addition to the dramatic aspect, can be found for both the popularity and proliferation of music competition. In a world beset by highly skilled performers, a victory (or a dramatic loss, viz., Youri Egorov 1977, Ivo Pogorelich 1980) can provide the participant with instant visibility; thus great numbers of young aspirants flock to competitions in the hope of standing out from the crowd. On the social level, many of these events can become occasions for civic participation and pride. Every four years, at each Van Cliburn Competition, Fort Worth, Texas successfully sheds its "cowtown" image and becomes a center for committed piano-loving partisanship--truly a community-wide love affair with piano repertory and the accomplished young pianists who present it. This educational and communitarian dimension may be the most beneficial aspect of competitions, wherein the excitement of the competitive event actually becomes a Trojan horse for the perpetuation and appreciation of classical music.

The photogenic aspects of piano competitions could not escape Hollywood's attention: The Competition starring Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving was released in 1980. The memory of Irving weaving in and out chromatically while playing the all-white-note passagework in Sergey Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto is only the most vivid of the many howlers indelibly etched in my funny bone. There have been sober treatments of this theme, notably Joseph Horowitz's The Ivory Trade: Piano Competitions and the Business of Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991) reviewed in Notes 49 (1993): 1482-84, which takes a probing look at the ambiguities, contradictions, and poignant human dimensions involved in applying an athletic mindset to an intrinsically uncategorizable artistic experience. The questions raised by Horowitz--about the ephemeral nature of stylistic "purity," the programming of contemporary repertory, music as a measurable entity or a marketable commodity, among many others--point to tough issues that demand--and, in some instances, have caused--critical consideration and radical change.

No such sense of urgent inquiry arises on reading (or, rather, scanning) Gustav Alink's International Piano Competitions, a three-volume statistical compilation of data concerning piano competitions dating back to the first one, the Anton Rubinstein of 1890. Of the three volumes, only the first one ("Gathering the Results") makes a cursory claim to be a philosophical inquiry into the ethos of artistic competitions; the bulk of the volume is devoted to descriptions of the various methodologies employed in establishing numbers of competitors, various juries, and other technical matters.

The pleasure and fascination of browsing through the second volume ("15,000 Pianists") are definitely higher than those afforded by reading a telephone book; but, still, one cannot avoid sensing the unmistakable touch of the computer. The peculiar frisson of looking up my own name has to do with translating cold data into the specific details of agony or ecstasy that my early attempts at "marketing" myself engendered:

Takacs, Peter (rum/hun/usa) -

1968 ard I
1973 mary F-P1

Translation: I (a transplanted, and rather naive, Transylvanian) entered the 1968 International Music Competition sponsored by the West German Broadcast Corporation but, unfortunately, did not get past the first round. In 1973, with more experience and a hardened worldview, I entered the University of Maryland International Piano Competition and reached the finals eventually receiving first prize. There is a secret pleasure in leafing through the pages of this volume, looking up old friends, or finding the records of well-established musicians. For example, the extraordinary level of accomplishment reflected in the following statistic has a kind of Olympian simplicity:

Lupu, Radu (rum) -

1965 bh II-Dp.3
1966 vcl F-P1
1967 enes F-P1
1969 leeds F-P1

Radu Lupu, one of the most respected of modern pianists, received a Diploma in the Vienna International Beethoven Competition, then magisterially conquered every subsequent competition he entered (Van Cliburn, George Enescu, Leeds,) on his way to an illustrious career. Volume 3 ("The Results") lists each competition and those involved as jurors or competitors.

A work so chock-full of data is bound to contain a fair number of typographical-errors (e.g., Concours International des Viruoses-Pianistes [sic]: 1:225). Also, given its generally solemn tone, there are some unintentionally funny lines:

However, pianists who start their performance in a certain stage of the competition but stop before completing the programme, have been listed. (They might have been stopped e.g., because of memory lapses or a nervous breakdown, or the chairman of the jury used his right to stop the performance by ringing a bell.) (1:19)

There are also quite a number of mathematical formulas of dubious value, as in this one devised to express the variability of juries in competitions:

[A] quantity 'Var-j' is used which takes into account the number of times the competition was held ('n'), the total quantity of jury-members summed over all n years ('j'), and the total number of individuals serving as an adjudicator in any of these years ('i'):

Var-j = 100*(i - j/n)/(j - j/n). (1:54)

I do not wish to diminish Alink's accomplishment, or his obvious dedication to his task. This is clearly a labor of love: it is published by the author and printed (with private funds?) in Hungary; the photographs, with a few exceptions, are by the author. The book has value as a reference work for competition organizers and for competitors who wish to know the history and make-up of a competition for which they may be preparing. For librarians it will be the first place to look for answers to questions about who competed where and when. But for an understanding of the drama, the human dimension, the lingering ethical questions that continue to attach to these events, and, for that matter, to the fate of the aging but still glorious art of classical music, one simply must look beyond exhaustive charts and mathematical formulations.

PETER TAKACS Oberlin Conservatory of Music