The world comes to Warsaw: Frederic Chopin Piano Competition begins with promise of new legend

Warsaw, Oct 3 (PTI) Gallant, ceremonial and incredibly grand: it couldn’t have been any other piece of music but Frederic Chopin’s Polonaise in A major, Op 40 to open the 19th International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition at the Warsaw Philharmonic.

The inaugural concert, a tradition that has largely refrained from playing anything by Chopin, was a medley of piano concertos, beginning with Grzegorz Fitelberg’s orchestration of the 1838 composition and conducted by Andrzej Boryeko.

It was a fitting opening to this year’s edition of the piano competition, which began in 1927 with the same composition. The current iteration, being held from October 2-20, is the closest edition to the centenary of the event in 1927 and is thus being treated as such.

The opening concert on Thursday night brought together four of the competition’s former members - Bruce Liu, Yuliana Avdeeva, Garrick Ohlsson and Dang Thai Son - representing different generations and musical traditions with a suite of piano concertos written by Camille Saint-Saens, Francis Poulenc and Johann Sebastian Bach.

The gala evening, hosted by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute, formally opens the much-awaited piano competition that sees participation of young and promising pianists from all over the world.

Last edition’s winner, Canadian pianist Bruce Liu, began with Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No 5 in F major, Op 103 to a rapturous reception from the audience.

The 1896 composition, “The Egyptian”, known for its genial simplicity was anything but under the fingers of Liu who performed the three movements with an animated intensity - going from blending two contrasting strains in Allegro animato to the full and exotic notes reminiscent of a desert night in Andante to the dramatic conclusion in Mollto allegro.

Avdeeva and Ohlsson, who are also among the jury of the competition, came together for Poulenc’s Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in D minor.

The 1932 composition, which the pianist himself called a step forward from his previous works, known for its conversational interludes between the two pianos and reflects his influence of Mozart.

The opening concert came to an end with the monumental work by Bach, Concerto for four Harpsichord in A minor, BMV 1065 - notable for being an arrangement of Vivaldi's Concerto in B minor, RV 580, which originally featured four violins - bringing all four pianists of the evening together on the stage.

Instituted by Polish pianist Jerzy Zurawlew in 1927, the International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition was borne out of a conversation he had heard on a train in 1925 that disregarded Chopin as “pernicious”, whose music is “morbid, effeminate and unduly maudlin”.

Zerawlew then set about to dispel the “wrong headedness”, according to a press release for the 5th piano competition, set in 1955.

“It was then the (public’s) inordinate, and at times pathological, preoccupation with sport came to my mind. Young people were passionate about, and lived for, sporting achievements. I made up my mind to inject the competitive element of sport into music,” he had said.

For the last century, the piano competition has continued to turn the Polish capital into the global capital of piano music, every five years.

Often likened to the “Oscars” or the “Olympics” of piano, the International Chopin Piano Competition is known for setting gold standards for emerging pianists across the world.

The competition has given the world some of the most noted pianists of the 20th and 21st century, including Martha Argerich, Krystian Zimerman, Maurizio Pollini and Yundi Li.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony earlier this week, Polish minister Wojciech Kolarski read a letter by President Karol Nawrocki who said that for a century, this event has become the start of artistic path for many pianists.

“In the coming three weeks, Warsaw will become the capital of global piano music. We have a phenomenon here, for nearly a century this event is becoming the start of the artistic path for many. It is precisely in Poland, the home of Chopin, during the greatest of the competition of his work that careers of the winners, appreciated by the audience, gain incredible momentum,” Kolarski said.

The competition this year features 84 pianists, from a record number of 642 applications, from 20 countries, mostly from China, Japan and Poland.

The pianists will be tested for their skills and knowledge of Chopin at the auditions by a jury led by Ohlsson, beginning on Friday and ending on October 20. The competition comprises three rounds of five days each.

“This may be attributed to many things but I will stick to musical matters and say that Chopin, like all great composers, has to be played very well. And like all great composers, he presents a series of particular difficulties,” Ohlsson said at the inaugural ceremony on September 30.

During the auditions, the participants will be required to play four compositions from four groups of 26, which include Etudes, Nocturnes, Waltzes and Ballades.

“I think it would be fair to say that a pianist who can play Chopin’s Etudes reasonably well, there isn’t much in the whole piano repertoire from that time or even after that cannot be done,” Ohlsson added.

The competition will culminate in an awards gala and a concert by the laureates on October 21 at the Polish National Opera. The winner of the competition will receive a gold medal and a prize of 60,000 euros.

After the Chopin Competition concludes, a months-long concert tour will begin, during which the laureates will perform in prestigious concert halls across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The tour will be organised by the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in collaboration with the Liu Kotow agency.

Some of the most promising participants this year include returning pianists like Eric Lu from the US, who was fourth prize winner in the 2015 edition; Hao Rao from China who was one of the finalists in 2021; Hyuk Lee from South Korea is also another finalist from 2021; and Eric Guo from Canada, winner of the 2023 Chopin Competition on Period Instruments.

(Manish Sain is in Warsaw at the invitation of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, in collaboration with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute and the Polish Institute in New Delhi). PTI MAH MIN MIN