Garrick Ohlsson talks about Chopin and Chopin Competition

At the conference inaugurating the 19th Chopin Competition, jury chairman Garrick Ohlsson – winner of the 8th edition of the Competition in 1970 – spoke about the difficult tasks of the jurors, the method of judging the participants, and Chopin’s music.

‘At the time of Chopin’s life – said eminent pianist – the piano was an instrument that was developing. By the end of the 19th century, long after Chopin’s death, maybe let’s say in the last years of the life of Liszt or Brahms, we had modern pianos almost identical to what we will hear in this Competition.’

‘Chopin himself changed the development of the piano and what can be done on the piano. The instrument was developing, composition was developing, technical advances were happening, and he was the greatest composer and genius who understood what could be done with new pianos in terms of sound and also human capability.’

‘For a pianist who can play the Chopin etudes reasonably well there isn’t much in the whole piano repertory from that time or even after that cannot be done.’

‘In other words, Chopin established a basis and almost a human limit for what can be done with 10 fingers on a piano.’

‘And this is one of the greatest challenges for the Jury. (…) We are looking for excellent technical development, superb sound, musical understanding, sophistication, finesse, heart, and that extra something magic.’ 

‘Chopin is perhaps, of all the great composers, the hardest and emotion-driven.’

‘We on the jury have to not only have our ears clean and fresh and be able to analyse, but we also actually have to listen for the particular personal poetry that a candidate can bring to this music without distorting it beyond what each of us think is a reasonable dimension.’   

‘Just as we try to be fair it's also impossible to eliminate the inner unconscious feelings – really – we have about how a piece of music should be played. So, we have also the danger of: we hear the two notes and something inside us says: Oh NO! or Oh YES!’

Garrick Ohlsson said also that it’s only natural that the 17 jury members will not always agree. ‘And that's maybe a fine thing’ – he summed up.

We invite you to listen to the entire speech on our YouTube channel.