Classical music isn’t usually thought of as a spectator sport, but sometimes it comes close.
That’s because it has its share of immense, global competitions every several years, like the World Cup or the Olympics. Participants train as if they were elite athletes, with superhuman focus and skill, preparing hours of music, even though many of them end up performing only a fraction of it. But victory, when achieved, can be just as glorious as a gold medal.
One of the most prestigious of these events, the International Chopin Piano Competition, is happening now. Nearly a century old, it takes place every five years in Warsaw; this edition’s final unfolds Saturday through Monday, beginning each day at noon Eastern, with concerts featuring the prize winners Oct. 21-23. And it can be watched from anywhere.
Many former winners will be familiar to fans of classical music: titans like Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and Krystian Zimerman. More recently, the top prize has gone to Seong-Jin Cho and, in the last competition, Bruce Liu. Both emerged with a global career and a Deutsche Grammophon recording contract.
Even if you aren’t familiar with the competitors going into this year’s final, you probably will be soon.
What is the Chopin?
Every music competition has its own identity. The Queen Elisabeth Competition is known for requiring participants to learn a newly written piece for the occasion, while the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition’s repertoire is dauntingly vast. The Chopin is all about, well, Chopin, Poland’s most famous composer.
The competition is always scheduled around the anniversary of Chopin’s death, Oct. 17, and features his music exclusively. With one exception: It’s a tradition to honor him with a concert of Mozart’s Requiem, which he requested to be performed at his funeral.
Pianists apply to the Chopin with a video recording of six of the Op. 28 Preludes, two of the Études, a choice from a selection of Nocturnes and additional Études, and a Ballade. That is just the beginning, with more specific repertoire required for each of the additional rounds, adding up to about three hours’ worth of music to memorize.
For the final round, participants will have prepared the Polonaise-Fantaisie (Op. 61) and one of Chopin’s two piano concertos.
Who is competing?
This year’s edition started with 181 competitors, who need to have been born from 1995 to 2009. Most came from China, Japan and South Korea, which together had 106 pianists in the running, followed by 10 from Poland and seven from the United States.
From there, 162 took part in the preliminaries, a number that has since been winnowed down to 84, then 40, 20 and, for the final, 11. Of the remaining pianists, many still come from East Asia. Poland is represented by one competitor, Piotr Alexewicz, 25. There are also two Americans, Eric Lu, 27, and William Yang, 24, both graduates of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
In the end, one will win a top prize of 60,000 euros (nearly $70,000), which is relatively little compared with the earnings that could later come with an international performing career.
How are they judged?
The Chopin is judged by a panel of 17 pianists. This time, their chair is Garrick Ohlsson, who won the competition’s gold medal in 1970. The judges must be experts in the poetic idioms of Chopin’s style, and despite the inherent subjectivity of interpretation are tasked with being impartial.
Competitors are scored on a scale of 1 to 25, with 25 being “perfect.” Occasionally, opinions creep into the process. Argerich came back to the Chopin as a judge in 1980, and quit in protest when Ivo Pogorelich was eliminated. Some on the panel found him eccentric, and she thought he was a genius. He ended becoming a star anyway, though he has never stopped polarizing audiences.
How can you watch?
Performances take place at the Warsaw Philharmonic concert hall, which has nearly 1,100 seats. But far more people can tune in to broadcasts on Polish radio and television, as well as on the competition’s website and YouTube channel, which includes a live chat populated by fervent spectators from around the world.
Those video livestreams are where most of the competition’s audience tunes in, with the last edition drawing tens of millions of viewers. The schedule for the final round is on the Chopin’s website, along with information about the prizewinners’ concert next week.
Pay attention to the pianists onscreen. The next time you see them, it may be at your local concert hall.
International Chopin Piano Competition
Watch live and past performances at chopincompetition.pl and on YouTube.
Videos via Chopin Institute and TVP.
Produced by Josephine Sedgwick.
Joshua Barone is an editor for The Times covering classical music and dance. He also writes criticism about classical music and opera.
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