document.write("") document.write('') document.write("") Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition The Piano Wars
by Rudolph Chelminski A couple of years ago, in Brussels on assignment for Smithsonian , I took a stroll along the rue de la Régence from the Royal Palace and the Royal Museums, and within a couple of minutes I came upon the Royal Conservatory of Music, a typically imposing Bruxellois edifice of cumbrously unidentifiable (but presumably royal) style. Smithsonian (March 2000) I could hardly have come to a better place than this, because placing in the eponymous Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition , founded 50 years ago by Belgium's gracious, music-loving sovereign of the moment, skyrockets the careers of talented young soloists in four disciplines: piano, violin, singing and composition. Every four years one of the disciplines comes around again, and hopeful talents from all over the world flock to Brussels to try their luck. While most competitors are in their mid-20s, at least one, the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, got in at 16, and the guillotine of the selection committee falls at age 30. The focus is on youth, then, but not babies. Lupu was an exception, explained Cécile Ferrière, then secretary-general of the competition. "We don't want prodigies," she told me in her sunny office opposite the great music barn. "This is the most grueling of competitions, and we demand artists who have reached a certain maturity. We look for more than the circus act of pure technique alone. We're not impressed by Liszts. We get plenty of them in the first elimination round." | |
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