Day Four: Results Scharpach Competition Cat. 3
Before Denis Azabagic would begin his recital, it was time for the results of the competition in the highest category: the students and the professionals.
It's no surprise that everyone was speculating who would become the winner. It was no football pools yet, but some bets for drinks could be heard around. A bit of gambling: who can resist it?
Personally I tipped number 1 (Antoon Vanderborgt) and number 4 (Tomislav Vuksic) as winners. With regard to number 1, I appeared to be right, with number 4 I lost the gamble.
I cannot leave philosophizing a bit about such a league table and how you would come to that. To me it appears quite a challenge for a jury to issue a well-founded judgement. What are the considerations when you are assessing someone's play? What's the influence of your own musical preferences? Or is the process different from rational assessment: Do you allow the music to come to you, listen to it, feel it and remember the striking qualities and missing aspects? What is the role of the opinion of someone else of the jury?
In my professional world -I am a technician myself- assessment is relatively simple: something is working (that's good but a little too vague), it works according to specifications (that's perfect if you did not spend too much money to meet them), it does not meet specifications (that's serious, how do you explain it to the customer?) or it does not work at all (you f*cked it up, back to the drawing board).
So if you -thinking like a technician- hear a player make some errors during playing, the assessment will be 'Does not Meet Specifications' because the specification is 'On this level you are supposed to play a piece without clearly audible errors'. Simple, isn't it?
Welll... making music is no engineering business (thank goodness!): using technological criteria, I would perform quite poorly as a jury member.
The player's technique and the technology of his/her instrument are for the benefit of music, they should not be a purpose on their own. Consequenly you have assessment criteria which hardly fit in a rational specification. One of these criteria e.g. is the chemistry which emerges as a consequence of emotional transmission on the path composer - player/interpreter - listener.
If someone during his/her interpretation of a piece briefly slips up clearly audible for a listener, this does not mean that we have a fatal error which causes you to drop to the last position in the league right away. Think about this: wat is happening between these slips? Possibly a beautiful example of musicianship with the promise of a brilliant jewel if the player progresses on his/her way with the guitar.
;-) This sounds rather -parental', I must admit. Please forgive a man in his early fifties.
I think the jury faced quite some challenge during the assessment. The list of candidates was a clear sign: two third prizes, two second prizes and one first prize. My impression was that technique was not their major consideration, they clearly had taken into account this promise of the musical jewels of the future.