Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993 TAG: 9304140059
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PIANO CONTESTS, BAH!
GYORGY SANDOR says musicians can't be judged - and then he judges 'em in' some of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world.To hear him talk, Gyorgy Sandor sounds like the wrong guy to judge a piano competition.
The distinguished pianist, who is the principal judge for this weekend's 13th Bartok-Kabalevsky International Piano Competition at Radford University, says piano contests foster boring, if competent, musicianship.
"There are innumerable [contests] and the final results are not good. What they are judging is the lack of mistakes. They expect reliable and predictable performers who play in the expected conventional style," said Sandor in a recent telephone interview from his New York City apartment.
"Piano competitions are not per se commendable. Music is really something that personally has to be liked or disliked, and you can't rank somebody fourth or fifth or sixth. Great pianists have not been contest winners," he said.
Whoa! Then what's he doing with an annual job as judge of the final level of the Bartok-Kabalevsky Competition?
Well, call it a rescue mission. Sandor, who regularly judges the most prestigious piano competitions in the world, said he tries to counteract the prevailing preference for bland predictability.
"I cannot turn around [an entire jury], but sometimes you can rescue a talent with originality and spontaneity and who plays in an impressive way. I'm looking for people who could enter the concert field and concertize, and not the standard musician," he said.
For the record, Sandor says the Radford competition is "a very wonderful thing, because it is for all ages and especially for youngsters and it has literature that's not often played. Bartok is too complex for the children, but Kabalevsky wrote some fine children's music."
The event begins with a master class taught by Sandor at 3 Friday afternoon. The class is free and open to first-place winners of the lower levels of the previous year's competition. Thomas Michael, the winner of the 1992 adult-level competition, will give a recital Friday night at 8 in Preston Auditorium.
Preliminary competition begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in the Powell Hall piano studios, and the final competition begins at 1:30 p.m. in Preston Auditorium.
The final stage is in recital form and is free to the public. Thomas Michael will co-judge the final level.
The piano contest began in 1981 to commemorate the 100th birthday of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok. Sandor, a friend and protege of the composer, recorded a critically acclaimed series of Bartok's complete works for piano.
The competition later was expanded to honor the Russian composer Dmitri Kabalevsky who, as Sandor observed, wrote much music accessible to younger players.
This year there are 75 contestants, some as young as five years old. They have come to Radford from 15 states.
The early stages of the competition will be judged mostly by musicians from Virginia colleges and universities. Two former adult-level winners, Salvatore Moltisanti and Victoria Fischer, will be lower-level judges.
Although he will teach one class himself, Sandor's comments on master classes are as acerbic as his observations on contests in general. The typical master class is "short and superficial," he said. "With only a couple of hours and half a dozen or a dozen people, you can't go into much depth.
"What you can do is call attention to certain elements in music which maybe later on they can pay attention to. There are a lot of technical problems with most performers," he said.
"Tendonitis, for example, is a symptom of bad, forced practicing, and you see lots of performers who suffer from it. I try to show them how to practice in a natural, unforced manner.
"And I try to emphasize that music is an expression of the human being that's as uninhibited and spontaneous as possible; therefore, technique, which is the tool for expression, must be cultivated in a natural manner. Interpretation is a matter of personal taste; technique is not."
Sandor is a regular judge for the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, the Liszt-Bartok competition in Budapest, the Maria Callas competition in Greece, and others.
He also maintains a heavy concert schedule and records frequently. He has played in Greece and Turkey this year and is scheduled for concerts in Germany and Italy. He also is about to sign with Sony for a second complete four-CD series of Bartok's piano works and expects to be in the studio in July.
But even this weekend's losers can count on Sandor's sympathy. "It's discouraging for young pianists when they're flunked out of a competition," he said.
He speaks from experience. Though long acknowledged as one of the world's great pianists, he was eliminated from the Franz Liszt competition in 1931 and the Vienna competition in 1932.