THE TRUTH ABOUT PIANO COMPETITIONS // Who Usually Wins? Should You Enter? - A Pianist’s Perspective 

Love your videos, i think that if people spent more time composing new music than in preparing for playing music on competitions that thousands of other people already played and mastered before, classical music would have a lot more variety for us to play, but that s just my opinion, keep going!

this is exactly the case of the last chopin competition.......liu xiaoyu the winner is the perfect one, but you will forget his playing almost soon. not the same for Aimi Kobayashi so to tell one... her preludes and her 2nd movement of the concerto will stay for a long time in your ears as the real art of interpretation , this is my humble opinion. thanks for that wise talk about this topic . take care of you Danae. Paolo from Italy

Competitions are a sttrange thing, you have to know what your limitations are emotionally and psychologically because you’re preparing large programs of repertoire across a long time for ages. It also depends on the influences and what sort of pianist you want to be. Musicians often have to perform in these big concert halls and they don’t always sound acoustically equal especially at the back. Piano playing a few centuries ago was intimate and often played in the domestic salons where improvisation was still all the rage. Even in the 20th century pianists like Backhaus, Hoffman and Lammond were extending/changing the composer’s text by imbellishing the melody or adding in bass notes, preluding at the beginning to introduce the piece etc. I agree that you need an open mind for competitions, but also you have to understand why you’re there to do it and if you can cope with all this pressure of preparing a tonne of repertoire while keeping your interpretation more aligned with the musical details which is hard to do!!! I know that there have been changes to the Leeds competition in 2018-there’s even more pressure now when you have to prepare two different programs, chamber music and two concertos at performance standard and then the jury decides which one you’re going to do and emery round is streamed and reviewed internationally-versus before where you just prepared one concerto and one solo program for each round. Competitions in a nutshell help learn how to prepare efficiently and exposure to performing on unfamiliar instruments.

Very interesting view on the subject! Thanks for sharing this with us. 🙏🏻

I just wanted to say that you're wonderful Danae. I have been watching many of your videos over the last days, you are sharing so much insight and practical wisdom and knowledge in such a well-communicated way. Thank you for this gift!

Great thoughts. You definitely must not enter a competition aiming to win it - that is the wrong attitude. You must approach with a view to learning the pieces, experiencing performing in front of judges and the audience, and using that experience going forward. Also from the feedback from the judges, the learning from hearing the other performers, and it is also a chance to network. As Danae says, music is not a science (or a sport) so you must remember not to be disheartened if the judges choose another winner. Always one man's meat is another man's poison. X

A perfect example is Lisiecki.... He wouldn't get past the first stage of the Chopin Competition....but he has a career....simply because he was a young talent.

Amazing video, agreed with everything you have stated. There are many things to gain in a competition, like meeting the other amazing pianists, jurors and getting feedback about your playing. Going there with a mindset that sees winning as the only way will be pretty harmful considering as you said, even being considered the best pianist there doesn't guarantee you the first prize.

Hi Danae! Thank you for this video. I recently participated in my university's concerto competition and made it to the finals. I was so happy just to give it my best and to have fun sharing the music with the audience. I didn't really care about whether I won or not, initially. It wasn't until after when the results were announced where my colleagues and even some of my professors said that I should have won. It felt like I was living Pogorelich's scandal 😂!!! People saying those things made me question my playing and led me to compare myself to the other contestants, however, your video helped reassure that just because I didn't win does not mean I failed. I'm so glad I found your video! It really helped me recenter myself.

This is so informative.

Every word you said was 100% correct.

Danae Dorken: I agree with what you have explained and I hope our young aspiring musicians will watch your video and take your advice.There is so much more competition these days and I feel sorry that they they have to work even harder.

Tiffany Poon, why, when we could see u 😍 hypnotized by this channel

Bela Bartok said once "Competitions are for horses, not artists."

Very healthy approach and advise on competitions

Excuse me, but since I developed a practice strategy for producing flowing beautiful music, I am the best. Thank u

Thank you very much!This is the best advise I'll pass tо my 8yo teacherless pianista girl that works so hard to participate in competition

you're my hero

I’m looking at having an intermediate level piano competition just within my studio (for the first time). What sorts of things should I keep in mind with such an event?

I plan on entering my local concerto competition in October. It seems like I’m gonna choose Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, but I may settle for something I would have less a chance of messing up (probably Mozart K. 488). This will be my first ever competition, but I’m gonna give it my all. Any advice would be deeply appreciated. After all, commentators are the smartest people in the world lol

Great content, as usual. Which competitions did you participated?

Great pedagogy

Danae, I admire you for your wisdom and intelligence. There are many skilled musicians. However, there are very few skilled and wise & intelligent musicians. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Thomas Hampson are the best examples which I can give. In my humble opinion, you are one of those musicians (pianist especially). All the best to you.

It is a generalization because we all know who Danill Trifonov is :) . I feel sad whenever I watch a competition. I see so many incredible pianists … my dream since I was a kid was to be a pianist. I studied so much and lately I was studying Rach 3 , Chopin’s ballades , Etudes , etc. I never had a good teacher and wasted many hours with wrong approaches … only know by myself and reading many good materials I was able to distinguish . But now, at 31 years old, with a family to take care of, I became a math teacher. As I am also doing graduate school I feel so lost because I cannot find time to practice the great masterpieces of my heart , but I am still finding my way with music … hope I find a direction.

Goldrichtige Worte!

i have one of my biggest concerts yet in just a matter of hours! im playing grade 5 piani and im really scared because im 12, is there any tips you could give me?

Aww pretty gentle babbyy

And try not to let the process of choosing one of three or more pianos before the first round distract you.

So true with the least offensive player comment. Also, who knows what sorts of dealings go on in the shadows. I feel like top prize winners are almost guaranteed top standing in the next competition they enter. I.e. tchaikovsky to chopin or vice versa

I agree with you for the most part, but I think the information you provided SHOULD make you want to avoid national piano competitions! Like you said, it's totally arbitrary who wins, and the only benefit you get is the "excuse" to master a piece and perform it live. That's all the vast majority of non-winners get out of it, right? Real artists perform live regardless of whether they're in a competition or not, so they have no excuses! I say ONLY enter a competition if you truly don't give a $#!% whether you win or not. If being "the least offensive" is the criteria for winning 1st place, I'm happy to lose that competition lol.

I entered amateur competitions. Of course, it has nothing to do with building a career. If we take seriously, entering competition will improve the quality of our playing. But most people enter amateur competitions just for fun. It is an ok reason too! But for our piano playing improvements, it will not be beneficial.

For me - and this is entirely my own opinion - the ne plus ultra example of a botched piano competition came in 1980 when Ivo Pogorelić (no less!) did not advance to the final of the Chopin Competition! (Martha Argerich - who knows a thing or three about pianistic genius! - resigned from the jury in protest… and Paul Badura-Skoda nearly followed her lead, stating that "It was unthinkable that such an artist should not make it to the finals."). It appears that the Soviet Block officials (very much in control of Poland at the time) demanded (DEMANDED!) that a North Vietnamese pianist win the contest! And - right on schedule! - Dang Thai Son (who???), from Communist Hanoi, WON THE COMPETITION! What an outrageous and infamous farce… and a farce that has cast an irreversibly black “shadow of doubt” on ALL piano/violin/singing competitions since. Piano competitions? HUMBUG! Mike D.

Winners also need to be mature enough to handle a concert schedule and high pressure venues. If one is not ready, getting savaged by the critics at the Wigmore Hall or the Carnegie Hall early in your career with the press spotlights shining on you may destroy your confidence for good. Unfortunately the culture nowadays is such that competitions are a necessary evil. Kissin is the exception. Lang Lang and Yuja Wang to a lesser degree.

How about Daniil Trifonov? He didn't win the Chopin competition but became a famous pianist.

The key to success is having a Bösendorfer lol

I would say they are important if you win and not so important if you don’t 😌

There are competitions with Music by Men Composers eg Chopin Liszt.. Tchaikovsky.. Rachmsninoff But none by Best Concert pianists Clara Schumann..Fanny Henselt Amy Beach.. Lilli Boulanger Aren't music competitions a hype for only Men COMPOSERS??

But let's face it... the Pianists who advance to the late rounds in these major competitions really are the best of the applicants... it's usually very apparent from the beginning who will advance to the late rounds and even the final rounds.

Probably corruption, I'm my own jury, you are my champion ✨

Lang Lang and Wang had a teacher, in the US, that didn't want them to do competition, because it takes too much time. People can be professionnal.. they don't motivate me. I go on because I think it is not possible to play so wrongly. I like Cziffra on Gnomenreigen, but not on all the répertoire. I juge how they play, no because you have a name. I noticed people worked hard, but for me they have no talent! When, in an international compettion, pianists play a mazurka or a valse which doesn't sound like it should be, before putting their personal style, they could work on basics. Everyone is not Liszt, Chopin or Paganini/Haydn.

first off, you should define what "perfect" and "personal" is, because it's not clear how the two exclude each other

What about small kids competing say from 8 years old? Russia has a good way to make competitions for kids, fun. Pogo was the only one in that example who got a Deutsche Grsmmophone $$ ,contract. Lol😆

Say no to competitions unless the standard of Richter in the 20th century is re-instated. No one is required to play with Conviction, power, authority in classical music! All is required is fluffy anxious technique just passing by on stage with little to spare on interpretation. This includes everyone I have listened on youtube, smfh.

For the record, Claude Debussy never won the composition contest "prix de Rome", yet, he is considered a great talented composer... sometime it is the jury that is the loser, ask Martha Argerich...

To my knowledge not one of the current best jazz pianists have ever participated in these competitions and they're not about to.

As I didn't know about the Pogorelich strory, I found videos of him playing Chopin and it is awful. Martha was wrong. With me, he wouldn't have passed the first round!

Woke?

Music Interpretation is subjective but in classical music it is grounded in the score, which is objective and unchanging. So I don't agree with 'inoffensive' vs 'extreme'.If one plays a cresc whereas the score says decresc it's not extreme, it is objectively wrong, even more if you play staccato when the score says slurred, for example. Pogorelich was not extreme, he was objectively wrong. That's why he was eliminated.