听第五届中国国际钢琴比赛后的思考

Some Thoughts after Listening to the 5^(th) China International Piano Competition

一、第一，二轮，初赛与半决赛：选手多，水平高 2010年10月28日至11月7日在厦门举行了第五届中国国际钢琴比赛。这是一次规模盛大、水平颇高的国际赛事。

The Fifth China International Piano Competition was held in Xiamen from October 28 to November 7,2010.This grand event of remarkably high level turned out to be a complete success. Altogether 96 applicants from 19 countries submitted their applications for participation,and after the pre-selections,52 of them entered the competition rounds,with an increase of 18 participants in comparison with the total number of 34 in the previous edition in 2007.The result is obvious:with the same number of 12 contestants as in the last edition to enter the second round,the competition was more severe,which means that among all the contestants 40 will be eliminated after the first round while in the last edition only 22 failed to enter the second round.So in this sense,it was truly a cruel contest.In addition,the general level of the participants was higher than that of the last edition.The majority of them were so well-prepared before coming to the competition that even beginning from the first day,both the jury and the audience could find many strong competitors in the arena. In the final round,musical expression was the top criterion to decide the final places for all the finalists.Interestingly, the final result for the six finalists revealed the aesthetic incli- nations of the jury members,who,like any other jury in today's international music competitions,adopt the same criteria for choosing the winners.Whether a pianist may at last touch the audience or not largely depends on his or her ability to touch their hearts with the performance.This is the very art of piano! The jury,chaired by Chinese pianist Ms Bao Huiqiao,was quite international:except for the president and two other members from China,namely,Wu Ying,dean of the Piano Department of the Central Conservatory of Music and Li Jian,dean of the Piano Department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the rest of the jury were ten members from all over the world,including Germany,U.K.,Italy,France, USA,South Africa,Georgia,Poland,Korea,and Hong Kong,China.Different from the jury of the Fourth China International Piano Competition,the present jury was all made up of new faces,which not only reflects the justice of the competition,but also enriches the diversity and extensiveness in terms of artistic views. In spite of the fact that we have very good piano teachers in China and very advanced teaching theories, some of the views that certain teachers and students still hold perhaps need to be updated.For instance, the German juror Rolf-Dieter Arenas pointed out that'some contestants broke the Guinness Record with the volume of sound when playing Liszt.'This means that they played the music to the extreme extent simply for the sake of striking effects,regardless of the need for the music proper.They did not pay enough attention to the spontaneity and authenticity of musical expression,but rather,laid too much stress on the superficial power of striking hammers, which in fact revealed their formalistic orientation and lack of understanding of the music.It is said that the official Steinway piano tuner for this competition felt so much pain when seeing the pianos being so ruthlessly stricken.In hie opinion,contestants should listen to their music with their own ears and see whether it is beautiful or not.Therefore,it is very necessary to listen to more good music,eithe live music or recordings, and find your interest and taste from good performances, which will then help you improve the level of your teaching or learning,and make your own performance more charming with more self-confidence in yourself.