competitons influence for a pianist's career

[pianogalning]

Hi,

I heard rumours that Horowith (or Rubinstein im not sure, always mix them up! ) only competed in ONE competition during his long life. In this competiton, which I can recall the name of, he only came second. The winner? An unknown pianist from eastern-europe! The norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes only competed in ONE competition as well. When he was 14, he played in the youngest class in the norwegian national competition. The shared the first place with another pianist.
What I try to say, is that compared to earlier, it now seems like competitions are the only way of making a career. What is your wiews on this?

Hauk

[dinosaurtales]

I think the obsession with competitions and competition winners is a great sadness to all of classical music.  Even though competitions have been going on a long long time, the requirement to "win" in order to have any career at all seems fairly recent.  There are so many negative consequences to this I can't list them all, but a couple:

1.  There are many performers who love the music and simply play like they love it.  I will probably never get to hear them play because that trait may not be "what it takes" to win competitions.  They'll never be seen on the recital circuit.

2.  The teachers (and I see this one! as an adult student who really wants to do this) are completely focused on attracting young students who have competition winning potential.  The better the students do in competitions the "better" the teacher, at least in reputation.  There will be no room in their schedules for a student, old or young, who wants to work and learn about music for any other purpose.  It also makes it tough to find teachers who are excellent, but will take on such a student - if they really are good, they usually get sucked into the competition frey.

3.  The audience is obsessed with the winners to the extent that our local recital series here in Portland has at least half of the players as "young artists".  Well, I am sorry, but even though they play "fast" and "loud", they still play like kids.  Some things in music simply require some aging to take effect. 

4.  The judges (and my teacher is one of these) become focused on what it "takes to win" and she is more obsessed with difficulty factors and notes missed than anything else.  What a shame.

With any luck the true musicians (I may be being mean, but I am starting to think of it that way) will still find positions at universities where they can enlighten students who love it.  It's unfortunate that k-12 teachers get no respect when they really provide the guiding light for kids who may learn to love music.

[practicingnow]

I think the obsession with competitions and competition winners is a great sadness to all of classical music.  Even though competitions have been going on a long long time, the requirement to "win" in order to have any career at all seems fairly recent.  There are so many negative consequences to this I can't list them all, but a couple:

1.  There are many performers who love the music and simply play like they love it.  I will probably never get to hear them play because that trait may not be "what it takes" to win competitions.  They'll never be seen on the recital circuit.

2.  The teachers (and I see this one! as an adult student who really wants to do this) are completely focused on attracting young students who have competition winning potential.  The better the students do in competitions the "better" the teacher, at least in reputation.  There will be no room in their schedules for a student, old or young, who wants to work and learn about music for any other purpose.  It also makes it tough to find teachers who are excellent, but will take on such a student - if they really are good, they usually get sucked into the competition frey.

3.  The audience is obsessed with the winners to the extent that our local recital series here in Portland has at least half of the players as "young artists".  Well, I am sorry, but even though they play "fast" and "loud", they still play like kids.  Some things in music simply require some aging to take effect. 

4.  The judges (and my teacher is one of these) become focused on what it "takes to win" and she is more obsessed with difficulty factors and notes missed than anything else.  What a shame.

With any luck the true musicians (I may be being mean, but I am starting to think of it that way) will still find positions at universities where they can enlighten students who love it.  It's unfortunate that k-12 teachers get no respect when they really provide the guiding light for kids who may learn to love music.

Ditto on most of that...

Well, also to be considered is the obvious fact that most competitions are for young pianists, and let's face it - how much of a mature artist can you really be at 22?  (No offense to the 22 and under crowd) - so naturally the judges resort to counting the right notes.  But the truth is, at that age, there is no way of telling at that point who will later grow into the great artist when they are 35 years old - there's alot of years to grow between 22 and 35, and some do, and some don't. 
I believe that if there were competitions for the over 30 crowd, then we would see some really special winners, artists with alot to say, and technique to back it up.

(The pianist refered to in the original post was Rubinstein, btw)

[march05]

i have a quote of horowitz giving his view about competitions. this is from a wonderful book called 'Great pianists speak for themselves':

"The artist himself must do the launching of his own career. He has to prove what he can do for himself. You play a concert; you go into a second. In other words, you keep playing. Then the reputation develops and grows. I have never been in a competition in my life. I played some of my earliest concerts to almost empty halls at first, but then with each concert the halls became fuller and fuller. It's much better that way. When you win a compeition, you're known, and much is expected of you right away. The other route allows you to grow and develop a reputation."
-Horowitz