Competition is an integral aspect of classical music education, where students compete for coveted positions in orchestras or to pursue careers as soloists. But how are musicians evaluated in these competitions?
In prestigious events like The International Chopin Piano Competition, the evaluation of the participants is “to assess the interpretative skills of each participant in the Competition, taking especially into account the challenges which Fryderyk Chopin’s music poses to pianists, and to award prizes and distinctions to the best competitors.”
Yet, the determination of superior interpretive skills remains a nuanced endeavor. According to Levinson (1987), each musician should be assessed on individual terms, reflecting the notion of artistic autonomy, and advocating for contextualized assessments.
To address this problem, competitions often delegate the selection of winners to panels of esteemed pianists, such as the 17-member jury in the 2015 Chopin competition. Among them was John Rink, whose evaluation methodology emphasized his own experience with the performances, employing himself as a discerning barometer (Rink, 2020). While evaluating a performance Rink was looking for:
a. ‘deep understanding, musical intelligence, sensitivity and the ability to project an individual conception in a convincing, appropriate and highly skilled manner’
b. deeply embedded knowledge of the music that comes from within, which holds up to close scrutiny in terms of what one might expect as a listener
c. whether the performance spoke to him
d. whether the performer had a “personal take on the composer’s music in a uniquely creative instantiation” realizing “one or more aspects of the music’s potential”
While professional musicians may generally share an appreciation for certain aspects of musical understanding, intelligence, sensitivity, communicative power, and individuality in an interpretation, it’s unlikely that they will unanimously agree on the precise degree or quality of these attributes in a particular performance. Musicians are shaped by their individual artistic philosophies and performance traditions, so what one musician considers to be a deeply insightful and sensitive interpretation, another may view as lacking in depth or originality. Rink’s evaluation criteria are therefore very subjective.
In contrast, Håkon Austbø posits in About Quality in Musical Performance a standardized framework for interpretation assessment, comprising six criteria:
1. The performance renders the notes correctly.
2. It follows the tradition.
3. It is historically informed with regard to style.
4. It shows understanding of the composer’s intentions (insofar as these may be inferred from the score and other sources).
5. It witnesses insight into the structure of the work.
6. It is personal and unique.
The criteria reflect a combination of tradition, the preservation of cultural heritage, history, emphasizing knowledge of historical performance practices and stylistic conventions, musical understanding, like reading intentions into the score, and personal aesthetics in order to imbue the music with its own personality and imaginative vision. But the criteria are not that clear-cut either. Especially the fourth criteria, although typical for the more superficial debate about interpretation, is, at least according to Alan Taylor (2020), an impossible request – no one can claim knowledge of deceased composers’ intentions. Also, the final criteria clashes with the other five, which makes Austbø’s point out that competitions tend to foster musicians who play flawlessly and conventionally (traditional) rather than musicians who, as he would prefer, play more personally.
Also, Søren Rastogi, serving as a jury member in the Aarhus International Piano Competition, tried to bridge objectivity and subjectivity by using the following three criteria:
x. Virtuosity, skills, difficulty, e.g. recognizing that Ravel is more difficult to play than Chopin.
y. Dynamic/sound/balance/color control; assessing aspects such as strong pianissimo, graceful crescendo, balance in chords and between elements, etc.
z. Musical/artistic personality; considering the level of communication, coherence, and the power of the interpretation.
Overall, the first two criteria are, compared to Rink and Austbø, more about technical skills, like agility and control. These aspects are fundamental to evaluating a pianist’s proficiency and they are generally recognized and understood within the professional musical community. But the third criteria, focusing on a convincing personality, requires a more subjective judgment.
If a jury were to use one of the three sets of criteria discussed, Rinks subjective, Austbø’s standardized, or Rastogi’s blend of objectivity and subjectivity, the outcome would vary significantly depending on which set of criteria was applied.
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