Unfair Competition

Any readers who watched the live transmissions of the recent 15th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poznań, Poland may have been surprised, if not shocked, when 17 year-old prodigy Mone Hattori, from Japan, was eliminated after the second of four rounds.

Apart from mature and deeply felt renderings of works by Beethoven and Grieg as well as the obligatory Polish composers she had delivered a flawless performance of one the the most pyrotechnical pieces ever written for violin, the H. W. Ernst Variations on The Last Rose of Summer. You can see her here.

When she failed to appear in the third round, the shared outrage was amply voiced by viewers in the chat box that accompanied the live transmissions. The wrongness of the decision was later confirmed by the anti-climactic final round with the survivors turning in limp versions of the obligatory concertos to the bemusement of the audience. With the notable exception that is, of the eventual first prize winner, the very deserving Veriko Tchumburidze from Georgia.

So what went wrong? Hers was not an isolated case. The dismissal of another competitor, Celina Kotz, was incomprehensible to many.

Jury Chairman Maxim Vengerov explained the scoring system in a video for Facebook Violin Channel page. In an attempt to ensure impartiality of the jury members, they were not allowed to vote for their own pupils or for a player they had taught in the last 5 years. It goes without saying that teachers are fond and proud of their best pupils and want them to do well.

However, they were allowed to vote to eliminate a player, in a "yes/no" system apparently inspired by reality TV shows. And this could be where the system failed.

Imagine, if you will, a jury selected from a wide spread of countries each one jealously rooting for their own country or their favourite pupil, with no direct way of positively influencing the outcome of the competition. The only button you can press is the dismissal button. Your only ploy left is to try to see off the competition. And with only ten members it only need two or three to vote down the most obvious danger in the shape of a likely hands-down winner, for the wicked deed to be done.

Further evidence of the way this system can skew results, equally loudly decried by the kommentariat, was the survival to the finals of Vengerov's own pupil, Maria Włoszczowska. Struggling out of her depth through the two concerti, her cheeks visibly burning with embarrassment, her presence could only be explained by the reluctance of the jurors to vote "no" to the chairman's protégée.

Every year, international music competitions and all the top music colleges have to deal with applications from a constant stream of superbly turned out performers from Japan, Korea and China. To most Europeans, putting in five hours a day of violin practice from age three seems somehow inhuman, and a borderline infringement of children's rights. Something it would be wrong to expect a European child to undergo.

Turning out a world-class soloist also represents a sizable capital investment, in teaching, instruments and fancy dresses. And Asian parents are willing to make big sacrifices to pay the price to see their prince or princess on the stage. Are there no limits to how far they will go?

All this give European judges and players a feeling of unfair advantage, and for the more nationalistic among them, a sense of cute overload from an Asian female talent invasion. This shared feeling among the judges means that the hurdles are much higher for Asian musicians.

Perhaps next time, Simon Cowell should be invited to choose the jury. He would never allow such travesties.

As Bela Bartok famously noted "Competitions are for horses, not artists." At least horse races leave little room for doubt about the winner.