Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Playing to Win:
by
2008
Performance is a key issue in cultural sociology. This concept has been central to theories
of social action from Parsons' role theory to Goffman's dramaturgical metaphor. But it
has remained under-developed in the study of cultural forms, even performing arts such
as music. In this study, I develop a theory of music as a mode of social performance that
builds on cultural pragmatics and the performative turn in musicology. This new
competitions in the world of classical music. Despite their proliferation and the ongoing
controversy over their function, music competitions have been neglected by sociologists.
methods. Through the ethnographic observation of five case studies on three continents,
in-depth interviews with participants, and discourse analysis of media coverage, publicity
competitions in the public sphere, the social construction of competitors, the presentation
of musical self, the moral basis of aesthetic judgment, and the cultural contradictions of
the musical public. I argue that music competitions are of great consequence not only
because they control the distribution of symbolic capital in the music world, but also
because they provide a public forum where competing meanings, ideals, and cultural
commitments are negotiated. This study ultimately shows that theories of performance
need to be attentive to the organizational and institutional settings that provide resources
A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of
Yale University
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Lisa Lorraine Helen McCormick
Copyright 2008 by
McCormick, Lisa Lorraine Helen
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 7
Chapter 1: Introduction 9
References 223
List of Tables, Boxes, and Figures
Tables
Figure 2.1: Brochure for the 1977 Van Cliburn Competition Ill
Acknowledgem ents
First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my committee. I have
benefitted greatly from Jeffrey Alexander's guidance, Philip Smith's intellectual prowess,
and Ron Eyerman's enthusiasm for a theoretically robust sociology of the arts. As these
pages will show, Tia DeNora has also been a major influence in my work. Her creativity
and generosity are truly unmatched. Ron Jacobs and Georgina Born were kind enough to
read portions of my work at an early stage, and I have tried my best to respond to their
dedicated to all the things I care about. My colleagues at the Center for Cultural
Sociology at Yale University (especially Julia Zhang and Nadya Jaworsky) and the
SocArts group at Exeter University (especially Sophia Acord, Arild Berg, and Ian
Sutherland) have taught me a great deal. This project bears the imprint of my early
mentors from Rice University at the most fundamental level. Bill Martin awakened my
sociological imagination and sensitized me to the craft of writing. Norman Fischer was
inspirational both through his artistry and in his unfaltering commitment to musical
values.
gaze and provided me with the access and materials I needed. Richard Rodzinski and
Sevan Melikyan of the Cliburn, Anne Rodda of the Michael Hill, Eric de Gelis and
Laurence Langou from CIVP, Steve McHolm and Julie Wright from the Honens, and
Barry Shiffman and Ken Murphy from BISQC were invaluable resources. Laura Ruede
provided expert assistance in navigating the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition
Archive at Texas Christian University. Denise Mail, Robert Ford and Madeleine
Midgley, and Al and Jacqui Randall were kind enough to open their homes to this
itinerant scholar.
I am blessed to have had the support of friends and family throughout this project.
Inna Faliks has never backed away from correcting me or disagreeing with my
arguments, and my work is much better for it. Every step of the way, my parents have
given unlimited assistance of every kind, for which I am eternally grateful. If a greater
debt exists, it is to those I cannot name, the competition participants who took the time to
space but in time (Boorman 1999:29). As Benjamin Britten (1999) once said, "music
does not exist in a vacuum. It does not exist until it is performed" (p. 177). And yet one
seldom gets this impression from the literature in the sociology of music. The problem is
not that performers have somehow been overlooked. An abundance of empirical studies
analyzes musicians in their social contexts across an impressive range of genres. The
conspicuous absence, rather, is the issue of performance. This concept has been central to
social theories of action from Parsons' role theory to Goffman's dramaturgical metaphor,
paradigm" has afforded insights into certain aspects of music-making, but it is not
without its limitations. In my view, the major shortcoming of this framework is that it
misconstrues music as a static object that is produced or consumed, rather than a dynamic
The aim of this chapter is to understand how the field arrived at the current state
of affairs. To begin, I will elaborate a number of factors, some historical, and some
showing the shift in nuance and meaning as it is handed on from Adorno to Bourdieu and
10
across the ocean to the American proponents of the "production of culture" perspective.
music. Through a discussion of these categories, I demonstrate the need for an approach
that addresses music as a symbolic action, and conclude by laying the groundwork for a
They are often charismatic figures, celebrated for phenomenal technical skill, revered and
feared for their power to engage the emotions of an audience. But in scholarship and in
the popular imagination, the ultimate creator of music is the composer, and the musical
work takes precedence over any of its realizations. Accordingly, the composer enjoys an
elevated status while the performer's contribution to music-making is seen as vital but
performer. In the first, she is seen as the composer's "ambassador" while in the second
performer and listener (Dunsby 2004). For better or for worse, the former has been the
more dominant view for the last two hundred years (see Taruskin 1995).
reluctance to entrust his music to someone else can never be entirely extinguished
because his intentions are inevitably at the mercy of the performer's interpretive freedom.
11
Unless he can perform the music himself1 or master a technology that can bypass the
performer, the composer must accept his dependence on others to realize the score and
shoulder the risk of misrepresentation. Stravinsky (2003 [1942]) argued that this situation
[I]n contrast to the craftsman of the plastic arts, whose finished work is
presented to the public eye in an always identical form, the composer runs
a perilous risk every time his music is played, since the competent
presentation of his work each time depends on the unforeseeable and
imponderable factors that go to make up the virtues of fidelity, and
sympathy, without which the work will be unrecognizable on one
occasion, inert on another, and in any case betrayed, (p. 123)
The problem is not just the contingency of live performance, but the uncertainty that a
performer will portray musical ideas "accurately", that is, as the composer had conceived
them. Two hundred years earlier, C.P.E. Bach made a similar observation in his treatise
on keyboard playing: "What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or
playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition. Any
passage can be so radically changed by modifying its performance that it will be barely
recognizable" (Bach 1753 quoted in Dunsby 2004). In other words, the performer has the
power not only to convey musical meaning, but also to transform it. But while both Bach
and Stravinsky were pointing to the decisive role of the performer, the overtones are quite
different because they reflect the musical culture of the author's time. For Bach, who was
1
When the composer does perform his or her music, it rarely resolves this issue. Twentieth century
recording technology has revealed that composers can have strikingly different interpretations of the same
piece on separate occasions. It is also common for composers to endorse others' interpretations as superior
to their own efforts, even when these blatantly depart from markings in the score.
12
betrayal and a dearth of virtue. But for both it remains a problem because the integrity of
minimizing ambiguity in the score. In the most extreme cases, nearly every note is
Boulez. But these are only the more recent manifestations of a trend that has been
evolving gradually over the centuries. One of the more striking early examples is J.S.
Bach's keyboard music. He was chided by his contemporaries for carefully writing out
ornamentation in the greatest detail when preparing pieces for publication, a practice they
found unnecessary and even insulting. Beethoven took this trend a step further when he
used the Maelzel metronome, a brand new invention in his day, to provide more precise
indication of tempi. A few generations later, Mahler was crafting orchestral scores with
directions so specific that he would indicate the string on which a violin passage should
be played, where a slide should be audible between notes, and how many desks of the
But musical texts are rarely transmitted purely through the literate form. Even in
the Western art music tradition, where the written text has considerable authority,
composers and editors inscribe scores with the knowledge that these will to some degree
through live performance (Boorman 1999). The composer can also incorporate verbal
instructions. Most of the time these are expressed informally in conversation, but
13
occasionally, they are written down in personal communications. For instance, W.A.
Mozart included a letter with the commissioned piano sonata (K. 457) to explain the logic
behind his unconventional compositional choices. Today, in an era when everyone writes
for posterity, the common practice is to include a "note to the performer" as a preface to
the score.
No matter how precise the markings or how detailed the verbal instructions,
however, some ambiguity will always remain. Musical notation is by nature an imperfect
the musical work: "the text carries no more than the minimal necessary information for a
new performance. It is not the composition itself (Boorman 1999:406). Composers are
acutely aware of this limitation. Some (e.g., Britten and LutosDawski) see this is as a
blessing and explore its possibilities in their compositional practice. Others, like
The interpretive freedom of the performer poses less of a threat when music is
performance. This continues to be the practice in many popular music genres, but in
Western art music, historical masterworks have come to dominate the repertory. Until
well into the 18th century, however, art music was written for particular occasions and not
for posterity, and like popular musics today, it was a rare and significant honour for a
composer's music to be played after his death. In such a musical culture, composers were
14
never too far removed from performance because it was one of many interrelated aspects
of their professional lives. The most famous figures of this era, such as J.S. Bach, Joseph
Haydn and W.A. Mozart, made their living as church music directors or court musicians.
Duties in this position included the composition of new pieces for specific occasions, but
also the rehearsal and direction of performances in that venue.2 When the composer is
near at hand, the burden on notation is reduced; it functions more as a memory aid than a
medium of communication.
styles of the time. In the Baroque and early Classical period, scores were more suggestive
than authoritative. Notation systems and musical forms allowed ample room for
improvisation. For example, basso continuo (the bass line for ensemble music of all
kinds) was written using the manner of notation called "figured bass" which used figures
and other signs to indicate the harmonies implied, stated, or required in other voices (see
Williams and Ledbetter 2007). A competent player could elaborate these figures at sight.
Musicians of 17th and 18th century were also trained to embellish melodies through the
For example, the terms of the contract entered into by Joseph Haydn with his eminent employer, Prince
Esterhazy, included a considerable number of duties in addition to composing:
"5. The said Joseph Heyden shall appear daily in the antechamber before and after
midday, and inquire whether his Highness is pleased to order a performance of the
orchestra. On receipt of his orders he shall communicate them to the other musicians, and
take care to be punctual at the appointed time, and to ensure punctuality in his
subordinates, making a note of those who arrive late or absent themselves altogether. [...]
7. The said Vice-Capellmeister shall take careful charge of all music and musical
instruments, and be responsible for any injury that may occur to them from carelessness
or neglect.
8. The said Joseph Heyden shall be obliged to instruct the female vocalists, in order that
they may not forget in the country what they have been taught with much trouble and
expense in Vienna, and , as the said Vice-Capellmeister is proficient on many
instruments, he shall take care himself to practice on all that is he is acquainted with..."
(Weiss and Taruskin 1984)
15
improvisation was built into musical forms. The cadenza, a virtuoso passage inserted near
the end of a concerto movement or aria, provided an outlet for performers to showcase
Over the course of the 19th century, the roles of composer and performer became
specialized and the tension between them emerged. The social dynamics driving the
process of specialization has attracted the interest of many scholars. In The Imaginary
Museum of Musical Works, philosopher Lydia Goehr (1992) provocatively argued that a
decisive ontological shift occurred in music around the year 1800 that produced a
completely different musical culture (see also Erauw 1998). Music became something
that could exist apart from its performance, being maintained forever in its textual form.
What caused this radical transformation in music's ontological status was a change in its
social function. Around 1800, instrumental music became a secular religious experience
for the rising bourgeois class. Like the sacred scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition,
canonical musical scores acquired a transcendental status that preserved them from
concept ideology" also reconfigured musical roles. Music composition before 1800 was
Consequently, the composer acquired a mysterious connection to the ineffable while the
performer's creative role was diminished. She was not just playing music; she was
interpreting a text with sacred qualities. No longer considered a creative force in her own
right, she was reduced to a "medium" endeavoring to interpret the composer's will as
the life of W.A. Mozart, Elias (1993) argued that the cultural notion of musical genius,
and the corresponding role of master composer, could only flourish in certain material
conditions. For a court musician like Mozart's father, steady employment and artistic
acclaim depended on the ability to conform to the standards imposed by those of higher
social rank, even if they had less knowledge or talent. But with the development of a free
market for music, a new patron emerged. An anonymous paying public provided the
and ideals. For Elias, the great tragedy of Mozart's life is that he was born at least a
generation too early. His exuberant, independent personality was better suited for a time
in which music was seen as an art, not a craft. But the preconditions for this musical
culture would not be in place until Beethoven's time. For this reason, Mozart can be seen
Adorno (2002a) agreed that the commodification of music in the 19th century
radically transformed the social situation of music. But he did not see it generating a new
source of social power or freedom for the artist. In his view, music's absorption into the
capitalistic process only completed the alienation of music from society. The
(performance) had played a vital role by mediating between the realms of composition
Before the capitalist era, the predominance of tradition in musical performance helped
stabilize the relationship between music and its listening public. But as Adorno explains,
[a]ll this changes with the victory of the bourgeois class. The work itself
establishes its independence and, in a rational system of signs, defines
itself as commodity in relation to society; the tradition of interpreters and
their guilds breaks off with the establishment of free competition... The
intervention of the interpreter in the work, still tolerated in the era before
the definitive reification of the work, becomes an arbitrary and evil
concern from which the rationally designed work must keep its distance.
The history of musical reproduction in the last century has destroyed
reproductive freedom. (Adorno [1932] 2002: 412-3)
the evolution of musical forms and notation styles. Figured bass and the improvisatory
practices of the Baroque and early Classical periods were discarded. Rationalized forms
and notations systems specified more aspects of performance. Details like tempo and
dynamics which had once been entrusted to the performer's taste were increasingly
dictated by the composer. By the turn of the 20th century, even the cadenza was
composed and the art of virtuosic extemporization was lost, bringing the process to its
inevitable conclusion. The interpretive freedom of the performer which was once a
valued part of music-making had become a potential source of distortion to be kept under
control. No longer able to mediate between the realms of composition and listening, the
interpreter was faced with a choice: either submit to the work's supremacy and resign
It is entirely fitting that the one composer who for Adorno represented every evil
performance as the machine-like decoding of texts. For Stravinsky (2003 [1942]), the
ideal performer knew her "proper function" as the "transmitter" of the composer's will.
performance he advocated, which involved "the strict putting into effect of an explicit
will that contains nothing beyond what it specifically commands." He contrasted the
score are variously decried as sins, criminal assaults, and (as above) betrayal. In
ambassador in its most extreme form. The performer's intervention had finally become a
menacing threat from which the rationalized work must be insulated, just as Adorno had
predicted: "It is the conflict of these two principles - execution and interpretation - that is
at the root of all the errors, all the sins, all the misunderstandings that interpose
themselves between the musical work and the listener and prevent a faithful transmission
would insist that they have nothing to do with work-concept ideology or the
version described by Stravinsky. They would acknowledge that this image might still
circulate in the popular imagination and the more old-fashioned disciplines in the
humanities. But it is precisely this ideology, and the interests it serves, that they would
seek to expose through a sociological analysis. For their part, sociologists present
themselves as the champions of the second, more democratic model of the interdependent
triarchical relationship between composer, performer, and listener. But they are not as
19
different from Stravinsky as they would like to believe. As I hope to demonstrate in the
next section, the widespread adoption of economistic language in the sociology of music
has subsumed, not challenged the characterization of the performer as mere "executor"
Since Adorno, work in the sociology of the arts and scholars' own self-
identification has been organized through the dichotomy of production and consumption.
This vocabulary is inherited from Adorno himself, for whom it both characterized and
criticized the social situation of music in a capitalist society. In his analysis, "production"
refers to the composition of music, and the moment of "consumption" occurs when music
which mediated the realms of production and consumption by bringing the musical public
in contact with texts that would otherwise remain silent. In his view, one of the more
employed in his analysis found new life in Bourdieu's oeuvre. Although he would have
denied sharing Adorno's Marxist sympathies, it is well known that he made extensive
(and clever) use of the language of production and consumption, especially in his work
on the arts. As we see in the opening lines of Distinction (Bourdieu 1984), his magnum
opus on class and taste, the guiding purpose of a sociological analysis is described
through economic terms: "There is an economy of cultural goods, but it has a specific
logic. Sociology endeavours to establish the conditions in which the consumers of
cultural goods, and their taste for them, are produced" (p. 1). The concept of
performance, however, is completely absent from his analysis of the artistic field of
cultural production. A contributing factor is that the aesthetic fields that interested him
most, visual art and literature, are not performative in the same sense as music. But the
main reason is his theoretical conviction that social action is determined by the actor's
habitus. Accordingly, Bourdieu was inclined to use the term "reproduction" to refer to
the perpetuation of social inequality, and what Adorno had tried to capture with the same
The production/consumption dichotomy lost all its critical traces when it was
"focuses on how the content of culture is influenced by the milieux in which it is created,
distributed, evaluated, taught, and preserved." Less concerned with the intended
meanings of cultural objects like music, this approach employs methods designed to
productive activity" (p. 164-5). Two categories of scholarship have emerged within this
The attraction of this paradigm is that it offers the analyst a way to think and talk
about art in a way that goes beyond the commonsense view. The refusal to take things at
face value has always been the core of the sociological imagination; its aim is to reveal
that nothing is ever as it seems. To accomplish this end in the study of artistic matters,
21
vocabulary of "art" and its corollaries "artist" and "artwork" and replace them with more
neutral terms like "cultural forms," "cultural producers" and "cultural consumers." By
adopting this vocabulary, sociologists thought they had effectively rejected the ideology
of art, liberated themselves from its terms of analysis, and made these the very object of
paradigm does not transcend the work-concept ideology; it simply reproduces its
object which only exists in two moments - its production and its consumption - the
creative role of the performer and the constitutive nature of performance is bracketed.
Once again, the producers of music (composers) and the objects they produce (scores) are
of greater analytic significance, and those who realize musical texts (performers) are
While this economic framework might succeed in hiding the theoretical issue of
performance, it does not make it go away. For this reason, the production/consumption
dichotomy has been difficult to sustain in practice. To take an example from the
production side, Peterson's (1997) classic study of country music reveals how the music
industry was constantly adjusting their product according to audience's (changing) idea
of authenticity. Similarly, from the reception side, DeNora (2003) has suggested that
music and the listener not be viewed as separate entities, but as mutually configured
only serve to demonstrate that the time has come to shed this paradigm and its limiting
22
vocabulary. Because it lacks the mediating role Adorno provided with the concept of
distorts our sociological lens. Is it not revealing that since Adorno, the sociology of music
has rarely been about music (see DeNora 2004), and that it has been through DeNora's
my view, the cultural study of music can be organized into three categories based on the
operative definition: music as a text, music as the product of a social world or industry,
and music as a resource for social action. This heuristic is intended to highlight what was
purportedly the focus of sociological investigation in the first place - music - and
demonstrate how the definition presupposed determines several aspects of the research
program, from analytical priorities to the choice of methodology. In the next section, I
will briefly describe each category and point to its key contributors before outlining an
agenda for a fourth category that would define music as social performance.
Music as a text
attempts to demonstrate how music can carry social meaning. The primary figure in this
music remains unmatched to this day. With a few notable exceptions (Witkin 1998;
DeNora 2003), sociologists have largely disowned Adorno, having hastily condemned
23
him as a cultural elitist. But his work continues to figure prominently in musicology by
providing a major impetus for the strand of scholarship known as the "new musicology"
(e.g., Leppert and McClary 1987; McClary 1991; Subotnik 1991; Kramer 1993; Solie
1993; Brett, Thomas, and Wood 1994; McClary 2000; Kramer 2002; Brett, Haggerty, and
Ingarden 2006). Apart from the technical language, this literature should find a
sympathetic audience among sociologists for obvious reasons. New musicologists seek to
find patterned similarities between musical and social structures, often flavoured with a
critical edge from a Marxist, Foucauldian, or feminist perspective. While some have
rightly criticised new musicology for its weak theory of social structure and its failure to
articulate the mechanisms through which music has social effects (e.g., DeNora 2003),
the most virulent critique has come from within its own discipline (e.g., Rosen 1994; van
meaning. Musical semiotics (Nattiez 1990; Agawu 1991), musical rhetoric (e.g., Sisman
1993, 2001; McCreless 2002), as well as narrative analysis (e.g., Maus 1997a; 1997b)
and Bakhtinian theories of literary genres and techniques (e.g., Edwards 1991) have also
been explored. These approaches have not received much attention from sociologists, in
part because they do not make as grand social claims as new musicology, and in part
because their methods demand a technical knowledge of music theory that is unusual
amongst sociologists. Adorno was the last of a dying breed in many respects. But they are
nonverbally, draw on shared meanings, and resonate with lived experience is to prove
described in the first category. Leaving the "decoding" of texts to the humanities, the task
here was to bring sociological analysis to bear on the social relations in which "cultural
objects" are produced. This entailed importing insights from non-musical theories and
applying them to the social contexts in which music is created (Dowd 2004). Those who
favored a macro-level analysis assembled under the banner of "the production of culture"
perspective (for an overview see Peterson 1994; Peterson and Anand 2004). Peterson led
the charge, mostly famously in his investigation of the dynamics and complexities of
popular music industry structures (Peterson and Berger 1975; Peterson 1990, 1997; see
also Dowd 2000; Dowd and Blyler 2002; Dowd 2004). Another major figure is Dimaggio
(1982a; 1982b; 1987) who combined institutional analysis and Bourdieu's concept of
cultural capital to explain the foundation of cultural institutions, such as the non-profit
Howard Becker who imported theories from the sociology of work to contexts of musical
production. Rooted in the Chicago School tradition, the "art worlds perspective" (Becker
1974, 1982) proposes that the artwork should be seen as the collective accomplishment of
complex division of labour (both formal and informal) that is organised by social
conventions. Like the production perspective, the art worlds approach stresses the
aesthetic values, interactions, and personal identities of musicians. This approach has
informed empirical studies in a range of scenes and genres, such as Hollywood studio
25
musicians (Faulkner 1971), barbershop singing (Stebbins 1996), jazz (Becker 1963,
2002), blues clubs (Grazian 2003), British rock bands (Cohen 1991), concert music
In this category, music is not just an object produced, but used for a social
purpose. It is a resource for accomplishing a social action, a tool for achieving an end.
The towering figure in this category is Pierre Bourdieu. In his formulation, art is
instrumental in the project of status accumulation. Within the field of artistic production
(1993; 1996), it serves as a resource for obtaining a position, while in the realm of
consumption (1984) it is a resource for distinction. Work in British Cultural Studies has
similarly defined music as a resource, though in that tradition, it is not always in the
service of reproducing social structure. When a cultural object, like music, is deemed
homologous with subcultural values, it is adopted and utilised in rituals of resistance that
express the rejection or enact the subversion of mainstream culture (e.g., Hall and
But music's potential as a resource is not restricted to class acts. In their work on
social movements, Eyerman and Jamison (1998) have explored how songs can act as a
cultural resource for collective action, whether as a source of collective memory, a device
to learn the values and goals of a movement, or as an expression of protest (see also Roy
2002). Also concerning the political uses of music, Stamatov (2002) has stressed the
forms, in his case, the operas of Verdi. On a micro level, Michael Bull has used
26
ethnographic methods to understand urban dwellers' use of music personal stereos and
other sound technologies to transform the experience and pattern the use of public space
as a pedestrian (Bull 2000, 2005) or while driving in one's automobile (Bull 2004). And
finally, DeNora (2000) has contributed insightful analyzes of how music is used as a
While all three of these approaches offer valuable analytical insight, none can
the first category can only gesture to the possibilities of performance, a limitation of
which musicologists are acutely aware. The structure of the text and the intentions of the
author determine the meaning conveyed to a considerable extent, but the score, in itself,
is never complete. As Adorno (2002) once said, the composer's "text is merely a coded
script which does not guarantee unequivocal meaning" (p. 412). It is at best a skeleton, an
elaborated framework riddled with gaps that can only be filled through performance. The
elements while underplaying others, which influences the meaning enacted. No matter
how precise the score, there are always ambiguities and interpretive decisions that the
performer has to make anew, in the moment, with every encounter with the piece. As
3
An important exception to this general neglect can be found in the phenomenological and
ethnomethodological tradition. In a classic article, Schtltz (1951) used the "tuning in" of chamber music
performance as a special case of the intersubjectivity that is necessary for human communication. In Ways
of the Hand, Sudnow (1978) provided an account of learning jazz improvisation at the piano showing that
music is best understood as an embodied "process of doing." Both Schtttz and Sudnow can be faulted for
denying the centrality of the musical text and ignoring the macro-level culture structures, such as codes and
narratives, which shape musical experience. That aside, their emphasis on music as an embodied,
interpretive process pointed in a promising direction, and it is regrettable that microsociology did not
pursue it further.
27
Boorman (1999) explains, "every performance, and every hearing is unique, for each one
information carried by the notation, the conventions which composers applied to the
notation and performers to the execution, the technical and musical abilities of the
performers, the concentration of the listener, and the listener's previous memories or
Scholars can hardly be blamed for their dependence on texts. For all their
ambiguities, scores are relatively stable entities that lend themselves to systematic
and resists translation into more durable forms.4 The problems with analyzing
Teaching manuals and other documents on the craft of music are at best suggestive
because they were meant to supplement, not replace, practical instruction in the
cultivation of taste that can only be gained through practical experience. Few historical
writings address performance issues directly, and those that do often appear
contradictory. Musicologists have spilled rivers of ink arguing over what might appear to
outsiders as the minutiae of performance execution. For instance, a heated debate raged
for a decade over the proper execution of rhythmic alterations such as notes inegales in
Baroque music and the validity of this technique in the performance of works by J.S.
Bach (see Neumann 1981; 1982; 1988; Fuller 1989; Neumann 1994). Until the advent of
4
The performing art that most resists translation into textual form is dance, as the challenge in
reconstructing historical ballets from choreographer's notebooks demonstrates.
28
possibilities (Clarke 2004) and theoretical implications (Cook 2001) of recordings, music
sociology can be accused of the reverse problem. It borders on obsession with the use of
recorded music. One impetus for this fixation is the rejection of Adorno. His insistence
on the superiority of live music-making and despairing over the impoverished experience
Romanticism, elitism, or nostalgia for most contemporary sociologists. The second, more
music suits the economic framework particularly well. Granted, a number of thoughtful
studies (e.g., DeNora 2000; Hennion 2001; Maisonneuve 2001; DeNora 2003) have
predictable, and that the role of technology in the social relation to music and definition
have become distorted by the overemphasis on this form of musical experience. Rather
than approach it as a particular context of performance where the performer and listener
need not be co-present, the tendency has been to treat recording as a distinct
underestimated.
29
support personnel that contribute to the final product. The implication is that they
constitute no more than a stop on the assembly line, contributing their share in production
before sending the object down the line. In Becker's formulation, the central concept is
"convention." These commonly-shared principles and norms constrain and enable action
in the art world; it is in reference to them that choices are made at every phase of the
artwork's construction (Becker 2006). It is convention that dictates the division of labour
between composer and performer and other support personnel, and that coordinates the
materials used in constructing a work as well as the performance style that orients
audience taste. Convention is not so rigid that change is impossible. Practices that are
initially considered deviant often gradually become the norm, as he demonstrates with the
cost. Not only are they more difficult to accomplish; they are also likely to meet
resistance from other members of the art world because they threaten to destabilize the
organizational structure.
With the concept of conventions, Becker moved toward performance, but not far
utility because it is called on to cover too much ground. By including too vast a terrain of
social beliefs, values, and practices, its explanatory value is compromised. Moreover, to
speak of a division of labor between composer and performer is misleading; it does not
30
adequately characterize the collaboration between these roles in the creative process. Just
as DeNora (2003) found that that production is intricately tied up with reception, neither
Aside from the need for greater analytical precision, a more troubling deficiency
in the art worlds perspective stems from a fundamental denial of meaning in artistic
activities. For Becker, social conventions are not symbolic structures. They are merely
Later he continues:
social action, but not symbolic action. Consequently, culture does not participate in the
definition of the situation, but is determined by it. As Martin (2006) argues, in moving
away from the discourse of art to the discourse of work, Becker was able to see
(rather than considering the supposed qualities of the musical works themselves)" (p. 98).
In contrast to Martin who praises this move, I see it as an odd position for a symbolic
31
unmask the artist as ideological mirage and the artwork as mundane object that he fails to
recognize the moral valence of the social conventions that govern aesthetic activity. If
morality were not at stake, why would Stravinsky describe the performer's intervention
in the transmission of the score as a "sin" or a "betrayal"? In the debate over rhythmic
documentary evidence" to protect the music of J.S. Bach from the notes inegales (Fuller
1989:28)?
In my view, the language invoked by these musical actors indicates that defining
conventions is a more serious business than simply facilitating convenience and efficient
coordination. Rhetorical flourish and vivid metaphor are called upon to signal that they
are deeply troubled by these issues. In the lifeworld of music, performance is of central
importance to experts and practitioners not just on the practical level, but a philosophical
one as well. As Dunsby (1995) astutely remarked, "getting all the right notes in the right
order at about the right time is a good start", but beyond those initial steps, any
"entanglement with music" involves facing a series of "riddles" that require reflection,
rumination, and risk (p. 7-8). To this end, countless hours are spent in the rehearsal studio
preoccupied by these decisions not just because they can reduce the contingency
encountered on any performance occasion, but also because it is through their choices
and those that preoccupy analysts. This inconsistency stems from the choice of
Sociologists tend to develop research agendas based on the most powerful conceptual
tools in their arsenal such as networks, occupational structures, and institutions, leaving
to one side the more thorny issues of performance and meaning. To some extent, this
maneuver is flaunted by scholars in the second category. But those in the third category
are not up to the task either. Performativity is still not adequately addressed when music
social action both as a cultural object and an aesthetic material. There is performance, but
not musical performance. Music is considered important only to the extent that it has
I wish to propose a fourth category that does not deny the importance of these
social processes or the role that music can play in them. Rather, it takes the next logical
OVERVIEW
The next chapter introduces the international music competition, the peculiar and
fascinating musical occasion that will provide the empirical site for developing a
33
context, I will discuss its significance in the world of classical music today.
To provide a sense of what it is like to attend this event, I describe the structure of
proceedings, the spaces in which the competition is held, the kind of organizations that
host the event and the people who participate, as well as what happens "behind the
scenes" when competitors are not on stage competing. I also explain the methodological
is carried out from several angles, drawing from a wide range of sources collected over
well as in-depth interviews with competitors, judges, directors, and audience members.
To conclude, I describe the case studies chosen for this study, and the particular
representations. I reconstruct the narratives, symbols, and metaphors used to make sense
of the competition event in the public sphere by contrasting the self-presentation of the
media. Further, I identify two narrative frameworks that guide the construction of the
competition event: a "game frame" that emphasizes the competitive aspect and invites
comparisons with sport, and a "ritual frame" that emphasizes Romantic notions of music
oscillation between these frames, music critics project a counter-discourse aiming to de-
34
legitimize the institution through ironic commentary and debased metaphor. In the final
section of the chapter, I show how each narrative frame guides the cultural construction
of the musicians who perform in the competition event, and how this intersects with other
social performances, especially those of race and gender. I argue that it has become more
investigate how this institutional context shapes musical/social performance through the
following questions: What are the discourses used to describe a successful performance?
How do musicians define what it is to be a "good performer" and how do they try to
embody this in performance? How are musical resources and performer stereotypes
mobilized to present an image of musical genius, and how is this presentation enhanced
(or compromised) by other social performances "given off, such as age or gender? To
whom do competitors direct this performance - the jury, the audience, their peers, or
themselves? To what extent does this environment contradict musical values and
problematise the authentic presentation of the musical self? How does the competition
context affect performative "fusion", that is, the process of cultural extension from text to
performer to audience? The analysis will center on three elements of performance: the
musical actor (the competitor), the means of symbolic production (musical, visual, and
framework of the competition.) Ultimately, this chapter will explain how the inherent
35
Having discussed the competition from the performer's point of view, Chapter 5
turns to the audience and their role in international music competitions. Despite having
the success and legitimacy of the event. It provides a visible symbol of the organization's
importance and the relevance of music in contemporary society. I argue that there are two
in the concert rituals that comprise competition proceedings, the audience also constitutes
a public through engagement in critical debate. To analyze the first dimension, I revisit
show that sociologists have wrongly dismissed his theory of listening. Then I reconstruct
his typology through the terms of social performance to investigate what is really going
observation, personal interviews, and the discourse analysis of online forums, I show that
creates the need for audience members to engage in dialogue and seek consensus about
audience is therefore a public in that participants enforce norms of inclusion and the
supremacy of rational argument. But at the same time, it is a musical public in that the
content of its debates are judgments of musical value. This chapter will show why the
music and civil codes that are both critical to the identity and operation of the musical
36
public exist in tension which each other, and how the "powerless" audience is in fact vital
"You start competing when you're, like, ten [years old]. You do a local
concerto competition, and you do that until you win it. Then you say,
okay, I've won this. Now what's next? Some kind of regional competition.
And then some kind of national competition. You just keep moving up."
(Interview with Competitor 1)
"My teacher had this mentality that competitions are like the lottery. The
more applications you fill out, the more lottery tickets you're casting out,
and the bigger chances you have of winning. That also has the effect that
the more applications you cast out, the more you're rejected, and the more
you get used to rejection. The sooner you get used to that, the better
musician you'll become." (Interview with Competitor 2)
If 19th-century musical culture was defined by the public concert, our own time
will surely be remembered as the era of the competition. Contests have become a fact of
life in music worlds of all genres. Amateur singers in a women's barbershop chorus are
just as likely as members of an aspiring professional string quartet to remark that they are
in them. While the degree of institutionalization varies, competitive events are also a
common practice in a variety of popular music styles, from the "battle of the bands" in
hard rock to the combative improvisations of freestyle rap. The sold out crowds at the
final rounds of live competition events and the popularity of televised music contests
suggest that competitions have also become a standard musical experience for listeners.
In recent years, the reality television phenomenon American Idol has drawn a weekly
audience of 20 million viewers and over 30 million for the season finale in the United
States alone (Strachan 2008), while the live broadcast of the annual Euro vision Song
Contest has attracted an estimated global audience of 110 million (Sherwin 2006).
While the obsession with competitions is fairly widespread across genres, it is
most established in the world of classical music. Anyone who took music lessons as a
child is likely to have had firsthand experience with the standard pedagogical practice of
entering novices in local competitions within a year or two of beginning their studies. For
some, the experience of public evaluation will extinguish any desire to continue their
studies and firmly plant the notion that any music-making should be left to professionals.
For others, this first encounter launches a competition career that extends from early
the typical pattern for promising young musicians is to be entered in small events hosted
by public schools, music conservatories, or festival programs before moving up the ranks
of the larger events organized and coordinated by national organizations (e.g., the
Canadian Music Competitions and the Kiwanis Music Festival in Canada, the National
Guild of Piano Teachers and the American String Teachers Association in the United
States) until reaching the ultimate tier of international competitions. In contrast to other
fields, such as figure skating, where a practitioner's competition career ends when one
entering competitions into the early stages of a professional career. Competition prizes
have become such a staple in promotional media and resumes that one would be hard-
pressed to find an artist's biography that does not boast a string of them in the list of
of music and demonstrated the need for a new perspective that approaches music as a
competition, the unusual musical occasion that will serve as the empirical site for
developing this new perspective. To my surprise, sociologists have had little to say about
competitions despite the staggering number of them and the perpetual controversy over
their function and influence in the music world. This oversight is difficult to explain. It
might be that competitions were mistaken for public recitals because at first glance, the
two do not appear to be all that different. Similar repertory is performed in the same
venues following the same concert rituals; even the audience etiquette is identical (though
subject to stricter policing by ushers and fellow listeners.) But if the lower average age of
performers were not enough to catch the eye of a sociologically-inclined observer, the
curious addition of an awards ceremony at the conclusion should have snared their
attention. As I hope to demonstrate in the chapters that follow, there is much more to
music competitions than first meets the eye. A sociological investigation of this musical
institution is a worthy pursuit not only because of its intrinsic interest, but because of the
understand the complexity of social performance and the role of the arts in sustaining
civil society.
predecessors, I trace the phases of the modern competition's development from its
emergence, through its proliferation, to the standardization that is still unfolding. This
provides the background for the second part of the chapter where I compare two
approaches for the sociological analysis of this musical occasion. To cement further the
case for a cultural approach, I explain why the production perspective would inevitably
result in a reductive analysis and outline the analytical model for a performance
perspective. Having stated my theoretical position, I move onto methodological concerns
in the final section of the chapter. Here I introduce the sample of competitions I attended
over the course of this project and describe the combination of methods I employed to
Music contests have a long history, especially for singers. Prizes were awarded
for poetry, music, and drama at the city festivals of ancient Greece as early as the sixth
century B.C.E. In medieval France, the troubadour tradition evolved into musical
societies called puis that held song competitions at annual festivals on the feast days of
patron saints. The puis flourished until the 17th century and were imitated in Germany by
the Meistersingers, music guilds that required that apprentices participate in singing
these public performances, the singer who performed with the fewest errors was awarded
a silver chain decorated with coins that he would keep until his title was challenged at the
next concert (Brunner 2008). A similar tradition of competitive singing in Wales dates
back to at least the 11th century. At festivals announced as early as a year in advance,
bards would gather from around the British Isles to discuss professional duties and
compete against each other for a chair in the King's court. This tradition, which in the
18l century came to be called eisteddfod (literally, "a session"), continues to this day
(Boyd 2008).
It was during the 18th century that public contests between rival solo
instrumentalists started to capture the public imagination. Many of these musical duels
41
are quite famous because they involve some of the most distinguished figures in musical
history: G.F. Handel and Domenico Scarlatti on the harpsichord and the organ, J.S. Bach
and Louis Marchand on the organ, and W.A. Mozart and Muzio Clementi on the
pianoforte. Over time, these minor episodes have been built up into epic tales in which
bitter rivalries erupt, false idols are toppled, and the artist's destiny is foretold (see e.g.,
Schonberg 1987[1963]; Horowitz 1990). But like all good legends, these tales contain
more cultural truth than factual basis. For example, the Handel-Scarlatti encounter
orchestrated by Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome did not produce a decisive victor. Scarlatti is
said to have immediately conceded Handel's superiority on the organ. But when it came
to comparing their harpsichord playing, those in attendance were divided. Neither was the
drama of this encounter heightened by any sort of animosity. The surviving evidence only
suggests that they shared a mutual professional respect. For his part, Handel went on
artist" and his "sweet temper". Scarlatti returned the esteem in equal measure. When he
happened to pass the masked Handel playing at the Venice Carnival, he paid him a
compliment, insisting that "it could be no one but the famous Saxon, or the devil" on the
harspichord (Plantinga 2008). As for the Bach-Marchand contest, it might very well be a
pure fabrication. What little evidence survives suggests that the duel was to take place at
the court in Dresden, but that Marchand skipped town before J.S. Bach had even arrived
(Higginbottom 2008).
of wills evoked by the imagery of the duel. This contest was arranged by Joseph II on
Christmas Eve 1781 to entertain his distinguished guests, the Grand Duke and Duchess of
42
Russia. Both musicians were asked to improvise, to play some of their own compositions,
and to perform some other sonatas at sight. Like the Handel-Scarlatti duel, there was no
clear victor. But it might be for this very reason that the contest generated a bitter rivalry,
at least for Mozart, who might never before have encountered anyone remotely as
mechanicus" who "plays well as far as execution with the right hand goes" but "has not a
charlatan, an accusation which did irreversible damage to the artist's already declining
encounters between prominent musicians as decisive battles. In some cases, these were
carefully-staged events where virtuosi were pitted against each other for the purpose of
duels involving Beethoven, which helped him earn his reputation as a great improviser
(DeNora 1995). But in other cases, 19th-century audiences simply read contests into
events that were neither structured nor intended as such. For example, in 1816, the great
violin virtuosi Paganini and Lafont traded solos in a public concert in Milan. This event
humiliating defeat. As far as the, two violinists were concerned, a contest was never even
flattering tones about Lafont, praising his artistry and beauty of tone. Nonetheless, the
story of his defeat persisted long afterwards, frustrating the violinist enough that 14 years
later, he published his account of the story insisting that he "was not beaten by Paganini,
43
nor he by me" (Schwarz 2008). This would not be the last encounter between musical
been the tone of the event or the intention of its organizer, Princess Belgioso (Gooley
2004).
The reason why these encounters were interpretively inflated into decisive battles,
and why they have such enduring appeal, is that there was always more at stake than
simply determining who was "better" than whom. Duelling musicians can, and often do,
serve as representations for something much larger than themselves. More than innocent
entertainments, musical duels and the narratives that describe them, dramatize the
aesthetic, political, and social tensions of their day. As Gooley (2004) explains:
The narratives through which these contests are related all thematize rival
musical idioms and performing traditions of their times. Handel
represented the church style against Scarlatti's court style. The Bach-
Marchand contest [...] was a narrative about the ongoing battle between
the galant and contrapuntal styles. Clementi and Mozart staked out claims
for the two major keyboard schools of the time [...] while Lafont and
Paganini juxtaposed the two dominant schools of violin playing, (p. 18)
When aesthetic debates align with social divisions, duels become imbued with political
overtones. For instance, in referring to Clementi as the "holy Catholic church" in the duel
with Mozart, the emperor transformed him into a symbol of Rome and Mozart into a
representative of Vienna and the empire. Similarly, the Beethoven-Wolffl duel was
music championed by the old aristocracy and a more dilettante ideology advocated by
more marginal members of the social elite (DeNora 1995). And finally, the encounter
44
between Liszt and Thalberg dramatized warring factions of the Parisian beau monde with
Liszt standing for the "aristocracy of talent" and Thalberg the "aristocracy of birth"
(Gooley 2004). As we will see, present-day music contests take a radically different form
from these legendary musical duels, but they continue to invite the same multi-layered
bureaucratic institution where young performers from several nations participate - did
not appear until the 1890s. The Anton Rubinstein International Competition, founded and
organized by the famous virtuoso pianist in 1886, is generally agreed to be the first of its
kind (Cline 1985). The international music competition therefore emerged in the same
historical moment as similar institutions in other fields, such as the International Olympic
Committee (1894), the Venice Biennale of International Art (1895), and the Nobel Prizes
(1901) (English 2005). Indeed, like the Olympics, the original idea behind the Rubinstein
competition was for it to be held every five years in a different country. Though grand in
its vision, the Rubinstein proved to be short-lived. Only five cycles were completed in St.
Petersburg, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna before it folded with the outbreak of World War I
and the Russian Revolution. The Rubinstein might have dissolved, but the idea of the
international competition took hold. During the interwar years, a handful of similar
organizations sprouted in various places around the world, including the Naumburg
Competition in New York (1926), the Chopin Competition in Warsaw (1927), and the
exploded. In the immediate postwar period, they proliferated at such a rate that by 1957,
45
and resolve disputes. Over the last fifty years, WFIMC membership has grown steadily
from the original 13 to 122 member organizations.1 Many of the most famous
competitions in the world today are WFIMC members, such as the Tchaikovsky, the Van
Cliburn, the Leeds, the Chopin, the ARE), the Paganini, and the Busoni competitions. But
determine the precise number of active competitions across the globe. One measure of
their abundance is a directory that lists over 650 solo competitions held in 58 countries
for the piano alone.2 To help aspiring pianists navigate this complicated terrain, a second
assistance and advice to musicians and competition organizers" as well as post "news and
rumors".3In any given calendar year, it archives the application requirements and results
The WFIMC has also precipitated and facilitated the gradual standardization in
the field. When the Federation was founded in 1957, music competitions were not just
variable in quality, but generally disgraced by recurring corruption scandals. For this
reason, one of its primary objectives has been to promote a positive image of
1
Membership figures are drawnfromthe 2008 WFIMC Yearbook, available online at www.fmcim.org.
Accessed March 1,2008.
2
www.alii.org/~afn39483. Accessed March 20, 2006.
3
http://www.alink-argerich.org/. Accessed February 10,2008.
standards. To this day, the following conditions must be met for two cycles in order to
Organizations that violate these conditions, fail to pay their membership fee, or have a
prolonged absence from the annual general assembly, may be excluded from the
Federation by majority vote of all members. While its influence might be limited to the
policing its own members, the WFIMC nonetheless represents a valiant attempt to
replace local charismatic and traditional authority with universal legal-rationality in the
aesthetic realm.
proceedings and the requirements demanded of competitors. The typical format consists
of three rounds with each concluded by an elimination, though a few organizations divide
4
(2005) "Statutes of the World Federation of International Music Competitions"
47
the first round into two segments. In each stage, the candidate is challenged to meet a
different sort of requirement. For solo instruments, the first round usually consists of
with a final concerto round with orchestra. Every round is heard by a distinguished
period was to devise a repertoire list detailing the choice of works that could be
performed in each round. Competitors would submit their selections in advance of the
competition. Although candidates were expected to prepare all of their selections in their
entirety, it was unlikely that the jury would hear the every piece from beginning to end,
especially in the first round. Much like in an examination or an audition, the practice was
for the jury to indicate how much of each selection would be heard, reserving the right to
interrupt at its discretion either by speaking to the candidate, ringing a bell, or (as was the
practice at a string quartet competition in Asia) turning off the stage lights.
Since the 1990s, the trend has been to abandon the audition format in favor of the
recital ritual. Candidates on the circuit today can expect to play all of their selections
from beginning to end in all rounds, which is one of the reasons why preparing for a
competition has become a major endeavour; candidates must build the stamina necessary
to play up to four complete programmes in the space of a few days. A handful of piano
competitions have taken the recital simulation even further by abandoning the repertoire
list altogether (e.g., the Gina Bachauer, the Cliburn, the Honens). Granted, time limits are
still imposed, guidelines are often provided,5 and repertoire is still restricted for the
5
For example, the Honens application book includes the following recommendations: "Technical mastery
of the piano is expected of all competitors. While the choice of music which primarily displays virtuosity is
48
chamber music and concerto rounds. But the idea here is to grant candidates the same
freedom they would have as a professional musician, thereby allowing the jury to judge
their programming decisions. This radical change has been favorably received by jurors
and competitors alike, but competitions for other solo instruments (e.g., violin, cello,
flute) and for ensembles (e.g., string quartet, brass quintet, piano trio) have not followed
suit, continuing instead to publish repertoire lists along with the rules for participation
(for an example, see Box 2.1). Logistical reasons are certainly a factor in this decision;
solo violin competitions, for example, must be able to provide accompanists who are able
to play whatever the candidate selects. But aesthetic principles are equally important. It is
through the composition of the repertoire list that a competition communicates what kind
of performer they seek,6 and determines the criteria through which candidates will be
compared and evaluated. The list for the Rostropovich competition, for example, reflects
its namesake's dedication to new music by requiring all competitors to perform a piece
of course acceptable, the competition strongly advises and encourages applicants to include in all their
programs some pivotal works of the piano literate which are as demanding intellectually and emotionally as
they are technically. [...] Applicants are advised to consider each solo performance a concert, and to design
programs with the same care and on the same principles as for a short public recital.[...] Applicants are
reminded that 2006 marks the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth..." Application Book for the Fifth
Honens International Piano Competition, revised October 15, 2005.
6
Competitions that have abandoned repertoire lists can still communicate their artistic values in the way
rounds are structured. For example, the Honens director feels they attract a different pool of candidates by
requiring chamber music in both the first and second rounds.
7
Indeed, many have suggested that a latent function of competitions has been the expansion of a concert
repertory that was in danger of stagnating. After investing the time to learn a piece for a competition, many
performers incorporate it into their repertoire, thereby introducing audiences to the music of a lesser-known
avant-garde or living composer.
49
A -Jean-Sebastien Bach : Prelude (obligatory) and other movements (choose from) one
of the six Suites for Solo Cello (without repeat)
• Ludwig van Beethoven : Cello Sonata op. 102 for piano and cello n°l
• Johannes Brahms : Sonata for cello and piano in E minor op. 38
• Robert Schumann : Ftinf Stiicke im Volkston op. 102 for piano and cello
B - ONE OF THE FOLLOWING
• Serge Prokofiev : Sonata for cello and piano, in C major, opus 119 (2nd et 3rd
movements)
C - Franghiz Ali-Zadeh : work for solo cello, composed for the Competition (about
seven-eight minutes) (commissioned by musique nouvelle en liberie)
The score will be sent to the competitors one month before the rounds start.
The final round will take place at the Theatre du Chatelet on Saturday 19 November
2005, with the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Janos Furst.
however, is the role they have come to play in the world of music and the broader cultural
sphere. Music competitions are important institutions. By awarding a prestigious title and
careers in a fiercely competitive industry. But competitions are more than just launching
pads. They also provide a public forum where competing ideals and cultural
commitments are negotiated. Competitions are occasions where different segments of the
musical public can debate the qualities of the ideal performer, the legitimate basis of
51
aesthetic authority, and the future of classical music. This is why they are so often the
focus of controversy, not only in the music world, but in the broader cultural realm.
Despite their importance in musicians' lives and their visibility in the public
competitions. Had they not escaped the attention of sociologists, they would most likely
have been analyzed through the "production perspective," a framework which has
dominated the sociology of the arts for the past twenty years. It is easy to imagine how
such a study would have proceeded. Drawing from Bourdieu (1984), ([1980]1993),
([1983] 1993), Dimaggio (1982), and Peterson (1994), this account would argue that the
controlling the distribution of symbolic capital (i.e., prestige), the competition would be
seen as a mechanism for elite musicians to fill their own ranks, thereby producing a
(amateurs in the derogatory sense.) This distinction would be said to rest on the illusion
that competition winners possess a "rare talent" that, upon closer inspection, is revealed
to be a product of a social background and specialised training. The analysis would reveal
that performers who win competitions are those who demonstrate qualities that represent
and preserve the institutional structure. For this, they are rewarded not just with monetary
prizes, but "consecration;" they are invested with the economic and symbolic capital
necessary to launch a professional career. Ultimately, it would be argued that the function
of competitions is to construct belief in the rarity of talent and create a scarcity of "great"
52
performers that will sustain a market in which only a few professionals can demand
exorbitant fees.
characteristics most likely to win the most prestigious prizes or produce the best career.
An analysis of professional career paths would identify barriers in the career progress of
funding sources of music competitions would be investigated, and the composition and
committees to create and sustain prestige would be articulated. Ultimately, this analysis
would demonstrate the role of music competitions in reproducing cultural capital and
While this kind of undertaking has its merits, the production perspective could
only ever produce a partial and problematic account of the music competition. Its
conclusions are so easily predicted because they are logical outcomes of its theoretical
presuppositions. Because the production perspective has bracketed meaning, it could only
ever see the music competition as an opportunity for status accumulation, whether it was
the hopeful competitor or the wealthy patron volunteering to sit on the board. Because the
production perspective understands music as an object rather than a process, it could only
ever see the music competition as an institutionalized strategy for increasing the value of
53
a cultural and commercial commodity. In the end, the production perspective's reduction
production or consumption in this context. Neither would it offer any insight into the
context, material interest, or power. This approach is based on cultural pragmatics, the
the potential for symbolic communication to integrate groups while still acknowledging
observers; the means of symbolic production; mise-en-scene; and social power. In order
inter subjectivity of ritual, all of these elements must come into alignment, a state referred
to as "fusion". Performances that fail to achieve fusion come across as contrived and
frames and incongruent social positions undermine authenticity, trust, and understanding.
Social performance theory has been most frequently applied in the analysis of
political events (e.g., the September 11th attacks (Alexander 2006), the
South Africa (Goodman 2006), Willy Brandt's kneefall at the Warsaw Memorial (Rauer
2006)). But its analytic utility is hardly limited to the political sphere (see for example
the sociology of music in more general terms. In the following section, I will provide a
basic schema of the approach and relate each element of performance to the specific
context of the music competition. This cursory description is intended to provide a sense
of the framework that orients my analysis. In the chapters to come, each element will be
The theoretical innovation at the core of my project can be stated quite simply: I
concert, display for others the meaning of their social situation" (Alexander 2004:529).
This process can be analyzed through the elements that compose a social performance. I
improvised, or attributed. Scripts are intelligible or even compelling to the extent that
they invoke background symbols and organize them into coherent sequences; in
concretizing collective representations, they supply actors with acts and motivations that
particularizing and dramatizing the background cultural structures that constitute the
cognitive, moral, and emotional universe inhabited by both actors and audience (p. 530).
In musical performance, scripts are the musical texts realized into sound by
musicians. The standard practice in classical music is for these texts to be written down in
the form of a notated score. Like the thespian's script, the score is also a two-part
symbolic reference. The sheet music for a Bach Minuet or a Paganini Caprice provides a
set of instructions for the performer indicating the sequence, speed, and combination of
sounds to be played. But at the same time, the musical materials and techniques
employed in the piece, such as form, instrumentation, rhythm, and harmony, convey
referred to as "the music itself or "the musical vernacular." It is through our familiarity
with purely musical collective representations that we can distinguish a waltz from a
march from a lament, or that we can appreciate a humorous piece without the assistance
But as sociologists are always quick to point out, musical texts do not completely
determine meaning because they are never performed in a vacuum. Rather, they are
the grand opening of an Ikea store, or a music competition. The environment in which
music is performed introduces its own set of collective representations that may or may
not bear any relationship to the musical texts being realized, but will nevertheless shape
the musical experience for both the performer and the audience. For example, one of the
from the world of sports. The Cliburn, the Rostropovich, and contests of similar stature
56
are invariably described as a "musical Olympics" in which champions from around the
world vie for the title. The contradictions and consequences of applying sports metaphors
to musical performance will be explored in the next chapter. But the "game frame" is
never the only symbol system at play. Entrants must embody cultural notions of musical
genius to capture the audience's attention, win over the jury, and gain recognition. The
genius scripts most frequently engaged by competitors, and the resources needed to
Actors
This element refers to the flesh-and-blood people who project meanings and enact
the patterned representations encoded in scripts. In theater as in social life, the aim of an
actor is to "fuse" with the text. By developing competence in a range of skills, they strive
In musical performance, actors are the creators of music, the composers who
invent musical scripts and the musicians who realize them in various ritual contexts.
Through rigorous training and countless hours of practice, they develop skills in the craft
musical meaning effectively. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Western art music
texts is rarely the same person who composed them; indeed, they are often separated by
57
In music competitions, the central actors are the competitors who perform to the
best of their ability and strive to embody performance ideals. As in every occasion for
musical performance, they aim to fuse with their chosen musical scripts so completely
that the music appears to flow from them and the details of execution come across as
social construction of the actor; with every cycle, they reconsider the role of the
performer in this aesthetic tradition, articulating and revising anew what constitutes an
authentic and effective performance. As such, they necessarily draw attention to the
Audience
the script and evaluate the effectiveness of the performance. As in all interpretive
Audiences can be absorbed or distracted, and they can possess varying degrees of
voluntarily will have a different relation to the performance than those that are coerced,
The intensity and quality of the audience's engagement will also vary. An actor
can execute a performance flawlessly, but still fail to inspire psychological identification;
observers might merely understand the script on a cognitive level without being
convictions. In spite of this unpredictability and occasional fickleness, the power of the
audience over the fate of the performance should never be underestimated. Their role is
not merely to receive, but to complete the performance and secure its meaning. It is
possible, for example, for the audience to subvert a performance and transform it in
emotionally to the "wrong" part of the script and leave the actor little choice but to pursue
a different track.
present in the concert hall, imagined in the practice room, or, through recording
technology, completely removed in space and time from the original performance
context. Depending on the occasion, the musical genre, and the historical period, the
audience gathered for a performance is more or less cohesive. This is not just a matter of
going on. An actor facing such an audience must either find a way to communicate so
effectively with them that these boundaries become unimportant, or select which
This is certainly the case at music competitions where the audience is both highly
fragmented and stratified. As one would expect, the listeners who most preoccupy
competitors are the judges. This audience segment holds the most power during the
competition event because they determine who will be eliminated and who will advance
to the next round. The criteria guiding this decision are set out by the competition
organization (i.e., the director and the board of trustees) which comprises another coterie
of influential listeners. But these are not the only attendees who can provide opportunities
for competitors. Concert presenters and agents regularly attend competitions to listen to
prospective guest artists and clients. Yet another group with a professional interest in
While critics' accounts are read with skepticism by competitors and professional
who follow results for enjoyment and travel great distances to take in the performances
live. These listeners, who typically have an extensive background in music, can be
spotted by the dog-eared scores they casually carry into the concert hall, or the detailed
notes they scribble in the margins of program books. Sitting alongside them are the
casual listeners, such as the friend of the competitor's family who came to demonstrate
support, or the first-time concert-goer who read about the event in the paper and came out
of curiosity. Another audience segment even more invested in the results of the event is
composed of patrons, who hope the object of their civic pride will gain national or even
international significance, and volunteers, such as the host families, who come to develop
a personal relationship with the competitors who are their house guests. In addition to all
these listeners who are physically present in the hall, another segment of the audience
watches from afar. Geographically distant observers engage with musical performances
and participate in the event through newspaper coverage, radio broadcasts, internet
segments with considerably different motivations for participating and resources for
interpretation. The audience's role in the event, and the relationship between its diverse
This element concerns the environment and the material objects actors need to
mount a performance. On the most basic level, the performer needs a stage, a physical
space that facilitates communication and reduces the chance of interruptions and other
interventions. Once the actor has procured a stage, symbolic equipment might be
acts.
A musical performance can occur just about anywhere. While the art music
tradition has since 1800 favored the purpose-built concert hall, functional musics have
occupied a greater variety of venues (e.g., taverns, churches, battlefields, city squares,
churches.) More recently, recording technologies from the loudspeaker to the iPod have
made it possible for music to take place in any social situation. We have come to take the
ubiquity and mobility of music for granted. But when these technologies were first
introduced, many composers objected to them on the grounds that they uprooted music
from the traditional venues that solidified the ritual context. While their objection might
61
have been shortsighted, they were right to point out that venues are never neutral. In
every performance, whether mediated or live, the setting influences the meanings
displayed and interpreted. Each venue has its own architecture, which facilitates or
discourages certain practices, and its own history, which will usher in its own set of
associations and frameworks. Part of the musical actor's skill is in assessing the potential
their symbolic projections. For classical musicians, the most important is the musical
instrument itself, but meanings are also given and given off through visual means,
including dress, demeanor, and gesture. Beyond the walls of the concert hall, musicians
can cultivate other resources to enhance their image as an artist and incline the audience
in capturing their ideal interpretation of a musical text. The advent of the internet, along
with ongoing innovations in software, has made the production and distribution of sound
recordings increasingly inexpensive. This development has upset the industry structure
that dominated the better part of the 20th century, but at the same time, it has also
provided musicians with yet another set of resources for the creation and projection of
meanings.
In Chapter 4,1 will discuss the various forms of symbolic production marshaled
by musicians in their effort to embody performance ideals. But competitors are not the
only ones performing in the context of a music competition. The organization hosting the
event is also presenting itself to a diverse and segmented audience that includes peer
62
institutions, the professional music world, the civic community, and the wider public. To
construct and display its desired image, they recruit a staff with the requisite skills, such
Mise-en-Scene
Having selected their texts, claimed a stage, and gathered the necessary means of
symbolic production, actors then engage in dramatic social action. Until the script is
brought to life, it remains merely an encoded text; the meanings must be projected - "put
however, is that enactment always involves more than the script indicates.
In musical performance, this is known as the issue of style. A musician can play
all the right notes in the right order at the right time, but still fail to realize the text in a
execution but still not feel "right." While scholars have filled the pages of academic
journals arguing over the "performance practices" of ancient music, the quest to capture
and codify this ineffable quality is hardly restricted to historical repertoire. For example,
musicians struggle to master the idiosyncrasies of musics from different cultures (e.g., the
Hungarian rhythms in a Bartok string quartet) and aesthetic traditions (e.g., the sway of
an Argentine tango.)
63
audience expectations and the actor's performative techniques which are in turn
constrained by the setting and the possibilities structured in the text. It is in this sense that
particular segment of the audience (the jury) accepts the aesthetic choices made in the
Social Power
The final element takes into account the unequal distribution of power. The
economic, and status hierarchies, and the relations among its elites" (Alexander
2004:532) Certain texts can be altered or forbidden altogether for a perceived threat to the
status quo. The legitimacy of some performers can be taken for granted regardless of the
stage they claim, while others are denied access to even the crudest means of symbolic
production. Social power also determines who can make symbolic projections, who is
different groups might invoke their own symbol systems to interpret a musical
performance, but they will not necessarily be considered equally legitimate. Social
collective representations and facility with certain interpretive practices (Bourdieu 1984).
64
The musical actor's source of social power is reputation. Those whose names are
recognized can legitimize obscure texts, consecrate unknown persons, and gain access to
other realms of privilege (Bourdieu [1983] 1993). Audiences also exercise social power
by endowing certain performers with symbolic value while denying others esteem
venues and engaging the best sound engineers to make a new recording. But musicians
structure. This institution claims for itself the authority to distinguish performers with
unusual levels of symbolic power. But this authority is neither unquestioned nor
permanent. The method and purpose of competitions is constantly debated in the music
world, and as every director is painfully aware, the legitimacy of each organization rests
on the prestige borrowed from the jury and the reputation accumulated by their laureates.
And then there are the music critics. These interpretive authorities are independent of the
candidates as well as the competition organization. Through their own means of symbolic
production, critics can disseminate their own interpretations and intervene in the
finally, the event itself is characterized by an unusual power structure. The recital ritual
typically places the musical actor in control of the performance. But this is not the case at
competitions, however much they bear a surface resemblance. As mentioned earlier, one
segment of the audience, the jury, is endowed with the authority to declare which
performances are successful by producing a ranking and declaring a winner. The
in Chapter 4.
CASES
my next task is to describe how I put this analytical framework into practice. For the
competitions in the genre of classical music and attended five selected cases (see Table
2.1). While all the competitions I observed are members of the WFIMC, the selection
this diverse field. First, I wanted to observe competitions for particular instruments. Two
piano competitions are included because this is the discipline most heavily dominated by
contests. The piano is also over-represented because it is currently considered the solo
virtuoso instrument par excellence, with the violin a close second. The cello, my own
instrument, is included in the sample not only because I am intimately familiar with the
repertoire, but also because of its ambiguous status. Historically, the cello has generally
played a supportive role in providing the bass line in ensembles. But with the help of a
few champions, like David Popper in the 19th century and Mstislav Rostropovich in the
20th century, the cello has been gradually establishing itself as a solo instrument in its
own right. I was interested to see how competitions and players cope with the relative
display. The string quartet competition is also unusual, but in a different way. Chamber
66
music is defined by cooperation and intersubjectivity, and it is often said that players are
drawn to this lifestyle precisely because it shuns the virtuoso mentality. How, then, does
sample was also designed to include cases from three continents. Because competitions
are often identified as a mechanism of globalization in the music world, it was important
to strive for a global sample to assess the degree of standardization and homogenization
that has actually been achieved. And finally, the sample includes younger and more
established competitions at the centre and the periphery of the music world.
In the next section, I will provide a brief description of the five competitions
detail is necessary to convey the distinctive personality of each event and to provide some
sense of what it is like to attend them. It is important to stress, however, that these cases
were not selected for the purpose of conducting a conventional comparative analysis
(Ragin 1987). Instead, I follow Wagner-Pacifici's (2000) strategy in which she analyzed
a series of selected cases to "extract the essence" of the standoff. In my case, I strive to
The Cliburn is best described as the quintessential music competition for the
of success for aspiring pianists, and there are few competitions as well-known in the
classical music community or by the general public. A long-time member of the World
group of music teachers and citizens of Fort Worth, Texas to celebrate Van Cliburn's
victory at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, an achievement made all the more
significant because it occurred at the peak of cold war political tensions. Since its first
cycle in 1962, the quadrennial competition has become a major civic event for the city of
Fort Worth, gradually cultivating a devoted local audience for piano music. It has also
built a sizeable army of dedicated volunteers. The program book for the most recent cycle
listed seven volunteer committees coordinating hundreds of people in a range of roles and
68
activities such as entertaining the jury, ushering for concerts, staffing the gift shop,
monitoring the practice pianos, chauffeuring competitors, jurors, and their entourages
around town, and "backstage mothers" to comfort competitors and resolve any crises
While the Cliburn competition is restricted to pianists between the ages of 18 and
30, its reputation and its generous prize9 invariably draw an impressive number of
more manageable number of competitors (typically 35) for the event in Fort Worth.
Through the 1980s and 90s, the 150 or so candidates who made the first cut were invited
to perform recitals that were videotaped. Although the best equipment and engineers
were organized for these recording sessions, jurors insisted this was no substitute for the
live concert experience. Since 1997, arrangements have been made for the screening jury
to travel to five selected cities around the world to attend all the pre-selection recitals.
These concerts are open to the public free of charge, and have succeeded in attracting an
appreciative audience. But it is the competition in Fort Worth that draws the biggest
crowd, with ticket packages ranging in price from $300 to $1400 USD selling out months
Audience members attending the 17-day competition are in store for a demanding
schedule. The official proceedings alone require considerable stamina; those wanting to
hear all the candidates in the first round are effectively volunteering for approximately 8
hours of intensive listening a day. If this is not enough to sate their musical appetite, they
can also attend a host of ancillary events. During 12th cycle, the Cliburn organized
9
In the 2005 competition, first, second, and third prize winners were awarded $20,000 in addition to
concert engagements around the world.
symposia on a range of related topics, a film festival screening the documentary
Museum of Modern Art. The music department at Texas Christian University also hosted
concurrent programs for young artists and music teachers attending the competition,
organizing master-classes with jurors and performance opportunities in those few time
For the first ten cycles of the Cliburn, the preliminary and semifinal rounds were
held in the Ed Landreth Auditorium at the department of music on the campus of Texas
in 1949, offered a fine acoustic. But it failed to inspire music critic Joseph Horowitz who,
after attending the eighth cycle, described it as a disappointing venue that, "with its plain
walls and gray metal seats covered in red velour, [looked] more like a high school
round invariably attracted a larger audience, this stage of the competition was held in the
Tarrant County Convention Center Theatre which offered a larger stage for the orchestra
and approximately 1800 more seats. But the bigger venue came at the expense of the
acoustic. Horowitz (1990) complained that the "pale, dry, and soft" sound was further
In 2001, the Cliburn abandoned the university campus and the convention center
to take up residence in its new home, Bass Hall, which was entirely privately funded by
Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass (inheritors of the Sid Richardson oil empire, long-time
patrons of the arts, and former board members of the Cliburn Foundation). A major
70
impetus driving the construction of this hall was the desire to build a world-class venue
for the Cliburn competition. Indeed, Edward P. Bass, chairman of Performing Arts Fort
The hall can be justifiably deemed a success according to this and a host of other
measures. Since its completion in 1998, it has garnered over two dozen architectural
awards. It is credited with being a crucial element in the revitalization of the downtown
area. Visiting artists rave about its fine acoustic. And judging by its ubiquity on local
postcards, it has been adopted by citizens of Fort Worth as an icon of the city.
scale and its form. Designed in the style of a ^-century European opera house, it
occupies an entire city block in downtown Fort Worth. Any visitor to the hall is
immediately struck by the pair of 48-foot limestone angels gracing the grand facade,
silently heralding the structure's importance with golden trumpets permanently raised to
their lips. The corner entrances open into an atrium illuminated by art deco chandeliers
and framed by white marble staircases that lead visitors up to the performance space. The
2,056-seat concert hall, studded with crystal light fixtures and crowned by an 80-foot
diameter fresco-painted dome, rivals the opulence of the exterior. While the style of
architecture deliberately looks to the past, the facility is otherwise thoroughly modern,
outfitted with state-of-the-art audio and visual technology. Audience members who might
71
have lingered too long during intermission in the gift shop or at the bar can watch the
conveniences are tastefully incorporated into the design of the hall so that the 19th-
century opera house feel is not disrupted. The television screen, for instance, is mounted
But the official proceedings taking place in Bass Hall are not all there is to the
Cliburn competition. It has also earned a reputation for the Texas hospitality it extends to
all participants. The most recent cycle was launched by two lavish parties that took place
on the same evening. Audience members were invited to an opening gala dinner at the
lavish Renaissance Worthington Hotel honoring the jury and candidates for $125 a plate.
To further augment the grandeur of the occasion, President and Laura Bush were listed
on the invitation as honorary chairmen. Meanwhile at the "drawing party", the main order
could have been accomplished in a dry, bureaucratic manner is instead done in style. As
The four and one-half acre estate of John and Lesa Oudt was the idyllic
setting.... Upon entering the pea gravel driveway dividing the superbly
manicured grounds overlooking the Trinity River, there is no clue of
surrounding Fort Worth, much less the fact there is a grocery store less
than a minute away. The 1927 brick Tudor house is long and narrow (kind
of like a famous pianist who lives in the neighborhood) and is situated on
the lawns for the least wind resistance, John Oudt explained to me. Across
the driveway, stairs lead down to the pool and guest house, where I began
my exploration... The living room of the guest house is also a trophy
room displaying magnificent African antelope, an Ibex and a water
buffalo. But the attention here was on the competition pianists who were
having their feet measured for a pair of authentic, Texas style cowboy
boots.. .Behind the main house was a tented area where the dinner was
served to about 120 guests, mostly the 35 pianists and their host families,
72
plus a dozen or more media people.. .Early in the evening the level of the
affair was set by the wines being offered in the guest house and at dinner:
a 1995 Mondavi Cabernet Reserve, a '98 Chateau Neuf du Pape, a
sumptuous 2002 Puligny Montrachet, among others. The dinner meal,
capped by black and white cookies shaped like musical eighth notes, met
the standard deliciously. (Cliburn blog, May 19, 2005)
Competitors got the opportunity to break in those custom-made cowboy boots at the
ranch party held during the break between the semi-final and final round. After the rodeo,
volunteers and competitors feasted on Texas barbeque and two-stepped into the night to
While some critics (see Horowitz 1990) have complained that the Cliburn's
elaborate social calendar was in danger of overwhelming the original purpose of the
competition, the participants I spoke with during the 2005 competition vehemently
denied that this was the case. One patron, who had over the course of her lifetime been
involved in seven cycles including the inaugural competition, defended receptions and
parties in terms of their ritual and pragmatic functions. She described these events as "the
lifeblood of the organization" that not only fostered a sense of community among
volunteers and sponsors, but offered competitors an important opportunity to hone their
networking skills which would be a valuable asset in their future careers.10 This
that will surface repeatedly in the chapters to come: competitions incorporate a diverse
To understand the competition world, the sociological observer must widen her lens
Calgary, Alberta would strike many as an unusual home for a classical music
competition. Like Fort Worth, it is seen as a "cow town" famous for oil and ranching, as
clustered in Ontario and Quebec. Municipal and provincial governments in Alberta have
lived up to the urban cowboy stereotype by consistently undervaluing the fine arts; when
comparing the arts funding of Canada's provinces and territories, Alberta has ranked 11th
out of 13 (Yedlin 2006). Despite this meager support, Calgary's arts institutions have
But in the last decade, Alberta has been experiencing the strongest economic
growth ever recorded in Canadian history due to the large-scale development of oil sands
projects in the Northern part of the province. Between 2002 and 2005, the nominal gross
domestic product rose 43%; in the same period, the average annual growth rate has been
12.7%, approaching that of China (14.8%) (Cross and Bowlby 2006). As a result, Calgary
has been rapidly transformed into a major urban centre. Along with traffic jams, upscale
restaurants, housing and labor shortages, and unprecedented inward migration, Calgary
has also witnessed its local cultural institutions gather momentum. Poised at the center of
The Esther Honens Calgary International Piano Competition and Festival (later,
renamed simply "Honens") was founded in 1991 and is named after a local philanthropist
and music enthusiast whose $5 million gift secured a viable endowment for the
organization. While it has since developed successful concert series and outreach
74
programs, its central event and guiding purpose continues to be the 16-day triennial
competition that is open to pianists between the ages of 20 and 30. Despite being
relatively new, it has surpassed the longer-running Montreal Competition to become the
The Honens has a lot in common with the Cliburn: an unflinching commitment to
cities around the world, the practice of lodging of candidates in private homes, a
rationalized voting system, and the organization of concert opportunities during the
second and third rounds for unsuccessful candidates. These similarities result in part from
membership in the WFIMC and in part from the legacy of Andrew Raeburn, director at
the Cliburn in the 1980s and then at the Honens in the following decade. But the Honens
insists it is not a "Cliburn North." In fact, one would be tempted to describe it as the
"anti-Cliburn" piano competition if it were not for the amicable relationship between
directors. What distinguishes the Honens is the artistic philosophy it espouses. As they
explain in all of their promotional materials, they aim to discover the "complete artist"
In other words, they are less interested in the typical competition winner, the flashy
technical whiz that competitions like the Cliburn have been identifying and trumpeting
with predictable regularity for the last fifty years. Instead, they seek a musician who can
do more than dazzle the audience by playing the old warhorses faster and louder; they
want someone who is equally dedicated to chamber music, who can inform the music
they perform with knowledge of historical and cultural context, and who can engage
improvisation.) It is perhaps a measure of their success that they have been criticized for
In addition to its artistic philosophy, the Honens has also introduced several
innovations in the design and structure of the event, many of which speak directly to
criticisms frequently aimed at competitions. Chief among them is the composition of the
jury. The Honens endeavors to find judges who are currently enjoying an active
performing career. While the jurors they select might not always be household names,
they can boast a younger than average jury with a higher representation of women than
any of their peers. They can also take pride in addressing the criticism that juries are
increasingly populated by "professional jurors", that is, judges who are not circling the
globe to play concerts, but to judge competitions. The concern here is threefold. Firstly,
these jurors are accused of promoting the same kind of musician in every contest, thereby
11
http://www.honens.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24. Accessed March 2, 2008.
12
Private conversation with Steve McHolm, Honens director, October 21,2006.
76
leaving the concert stage, these jurors have lost touch with what it is like to perform,
thereby diminishing their authority. Thirdly, for some, being a long-standing member on
denigrated not only because they are suspected of engaging in quid pro quo politics; they
are also seen as having exploited a position that should be approached as a service
reluctantly if not begrudgingly undertaken (much like the Speaker of the House in the
British parliamentary system), distorting it into an opportunity for personal gain and self-
aggrandizement.
collaborating artists and the commissioned composer in deliberations and voting, and a
three-season career development program as part of the prize for laureates. And finally,
further demonstrating their commitment to artistic integrity, the Honens is one of the few
competitions in which every competitor enjoys the opportunity to play two full programs
before the first elimination. While some bureaucratic efficiency is sacrificed, this
that after investing considerable time, money, and energy to participate in a competition,
they play for a mere ten minutes only to be eliminated in the first round. While the judges
do not always need to hear the candidate a second time to arrive at a decision, the
For the 2006 competition, the first prize winner was awarded a cash prize of $35,000 CAD, the second
prize winner won $25,000 and the third prize winner won $17,000.
77
competitor can at least have the satisfaction of having a second chance to make an
impression.
For the first few cycles of the competition, all rounds were held in the Jack Singer
Concert Hall, a downtown venue with the capacity to seat 1800 people. But once the
Rosza Centre was built on the University of Calgary campus in 1996, the Honens
relocated to its 384-seat recital hall (named after the Canadian composer Sophie Carmen
Eckhart-Gramatte) for the first and second rounds. Despite being a less convenient
location, most sessions attract enough audience members nearly to fill the hall, which
enhances the musical experience as much for the performer as it does for the audience.
The lobby space of the building has also been put to good use. Before every session, two
laureates run a pre-concert lecture series entitled "MSL 3.0" (the acronym standing for
"Music as a Second Language") which audience members can attend free of charge to
Cellists know better than anyone that international competitions for their
instrument are not only rare, but that they are much less visible than their piano
counterparts. For these reasons, the Rostropovich is all the more remarkable. While it
might not be as well-known as the Tchaikovsky, it is one of the most coveted prizes in
the discipline.14 This competition owes its status to its much-loved namesake, Mstislav
In addition to concert engagements, the first prize winner is also awarded €12, 000. The cash prize for
second place is €8,000, and for third place is € 4,500. Even more attractive, however, is the unofficial
mentorship the first prize winner receives from Slava himself.
78
Rostropovich,15 cellist and political dissident who captured the world's attention first in
1974, when he defected from the Soviet Union and denounced the regime's treatment of
artists, and again in 1989, when he travelled to Berlin to play Bach suites as the wall
came down. In contrast to Van Cliburn, Slava played a major role in the competition that
bore his name, acting as chairman of the jury until his death in 2007. In this role, he was
responsible for assembling the jury and commissioning a composer for the imposed
piece. His participation greatly benefitted the organization. Slava's historical significance
drew more media attention than similar events enjoy. His association also attracted the
interest of musicians. Many who otherwise avoid the competition circuit have made an
play for the maestro. It remains to be seen how the competition will fare without his
imposing presence.
The first cycle of the Rostropovich was held in 1977 in La Rochelle, France as
part of a contemporary music festival founded by journalist and music critic Claude
Samuel. The idea for the cello contest came from Samuel, who approached Slava to lend
his name and his support.16 When the festival folded shortly thereafter, the competition
moved to Paris to come under the umbrella of the Concours Internationaux de la Ville de
Samuel has been director since 1981. With this relocation, the Rostropovich entered a
crowded field. Paris becomes a hotbed of competitions every fall; from September to
15
For the sake of clarity, I will refer to the competition as "the Rostropovich" and to the man as "Slava,"
the widely-used variation on his name which means, appropriately, "glory."
16
Samuel also collaborated with Slava and his wife, singer Galina Vishnevskaia, in the 1983 publication of
Entretiens avec Mstislav Rostropovitch et Galina Vichnevska'ia sur la Russie, la musique, la liberti (Paris:
Editions R. Laffont) about the couple's defection. The book was translated into English in 1995.
79
November, up to four cycles take place. Two of these are likely to be CIVP contests; in
disciplines as diverse as contemporary piano, jazz piano, flute, organ, instrument and
bow-making, harp, and trumpet. Paris is also the home of the Long-Thibaud Competition,
which alternates between violin and piano, as well as the biennial Nadia and Lili
the jury; Luciano Berio, Iannis Xenakis, Henri Dutilleux, and Witold Lutoslawsi sat
alongside cellists Raya Garbousova and Pierre Penassou. Since joining the CIVP, the
Rostropovich has reduced the representation of composers on the jury while retaining its
the most recent cycle, the only exception to the all-cellist jury was the distinguished
luthier, Etienne Vatelot. He has the additional duty of inspecting each candidate's
instrument and recording his assessment in a booklet for the jury's reference in
deliberations. Unlike piano competitions, which provide the instrument for contestants,
string players must arrive with their own..This matter will be discussed at greater length
in Chapter 4.
Like the Cliburn and the Honens, the Rostropovich has had to institute a live
screening round in four cities around the world to select competitors from the initial pool
of applications. The record number of applications received for the 2005 cycle has caused
the administration also to consider lowering the age limit from 33 to 30 years of age.
17
All CIVP competitions are members of the WFIMC, but the Long-Thibaud and the Boulanger are not.
80
member explained, this was unsatisfactory, not only because of the variable quality of
recordings, but because they encountered fraudulent submissions. For instance, one
applicant attempted to pass off a dubbed professional recording as his own. This could
have been intended as a subversive act - musicians who are frustrated with the
iconic performers would be able to meet their standards - but it is unknown whether this
1R
particular applicant was testing that theory or had simply resorted to dishonest methods.
The screening jury also grew frustrated with recommendation letters that convey very
little useful information. For example, a cello professor from France recommended his
students with a photocopy of the identical letter (Validire 2005).19 While some candidates
are exempt from the screening round on the basis of previous competition success or a
strong CV, the vast majority were invited to be heard live in Washington, Paris, Moscow,
or Tokyo in auditions that were open to the public. The screening jury was composed of
the tireless Slava, who attended auditions in every city, and two cellists from the host
country. In contrast to the Honens and the Cliburn, where most candidates at the
screening round can expect to be turned away, the preliminary elimination for the
Others have tested the theory. A pianist once submitted a recording of Rubinstein under a false name to
see if he could get into the competition named after him. The application was rejected, but since rejections
are never supported by reasons, it is unknown whether the jury recognized the icon's playing or if indeed
Rubinstein himself did not measure up.
This incident resembles an anecdote related to me by another director. In that case, a music professor sent
a single letter to the competition listing all the candidates he wished to recommend. When the director
contacted the professor to explain why this was not adequate and why these candidates would be removed
from consideration, the professor threatened to boycott the competition completely and chastised the
director for failing to realize how lucky he was that he had considered letting his high-caliber students
participate at all. In both these cases, the music professors believed that their names carried enough
significance that they were recommendation enough. While English (2005) would interpret this exchange
as a power struggle between institutions over who can distribute symbolic capital, I would argue instead
that it is a clash between a pre-modern guild system mentality(the conservatory) and modern legal
rationality (competitions).
81
Rostropovich is not as severe. From an initial pool of 211 candidates from 43 countries,
95 cellists were invited to Paris for the first round. In the end, 77 arrived to participate.
The first round of the 2005 Rostropovich was held at the Conservatoire National
de Region de Paris in the eighth arrondissement. This venue was chosen for both
symbolic and practical reasons. Symbolically, it is located in the heart of the city's
musical life. The neighborhood, whose streets are named for the great European cities,
was built at the same time as nearby St. Lazare Rail Station, a frequent subject of
Monet's paintings. One could not find a higher concentration of things musical anywhere
else in the city; rue de Rome is packed with instrument makers and sheet music dealers.
These businesses set up shop shortly after the Conservatoire, then under the direction of
Gabriel Faure, took over an old Jesuit school on rue Madrid in 1911. Since the
facility in la Villette in 1990, the building on rue Madrid has been renovated and
purchased by the city for the Conservatoire National de Region de Paris.20 It is also the
The rows of practice rooms in this building are a necessity for the Rostropovich which
does not (and, reasonably, could not) provide accommodation for competitors in private
homes. In contrast to Cliburn and Honens competitors, who stay in the best homes and
are chauffeured to and from the competition, most Rostropovich candidates stay in one of
the affordable pensions suggested by the competition, all of which are a stone's throw
from the Boulevard Peripherique, the ring road which geographically and symbolically
marks the boundary between the city proper and the suburbs. Rostropovich competitors
are responsible for getting themselves to the competition on time, at their own expense.
For first-time visitors to Paris, the task of traversing the city for a 10am session can be
round which took place in the 500-seat amphitheatre at the infamous Opera Bastille. This
ultra-modern facility stirred controversy during its construction in the 1980s when an ill-
timed resignation from Daniel Barenboim and Chirac's tenure as prime minister
interfered with Mitterrand's plan to mark the 200th anniversary of the storming of the
Bastille with the unveiling of this $300 million structure (Greenhouse 1988). The dust has
since settled, and while it might not be one of Paris' most loved buildings, it provided a
fine acoustic for the competition. It did not, however, provide enough seating. At the
evening sessions, dozens of audience members waited in the lobby hoping that someone
would leave early. If they did not make it in to hear a particular candidate, they missed
their chance; the hall did not have closed circuit televisions installed to broadcast
Travel and accommodation expenses are reimbursed only for those candidates who advance to the
second round. Meals are not provided.
22
A competitor who had to play first in the morning session said he woke up at 5am in order to have
enough time get to the concert hall and warm up. This is an unusual schedule for concert musicians who are
accustomed to performing in evening concerts.
23
According to one respondent, the Tchaikovsky competition handles accommodations in the same way.
Unfamiliar with Moscow's subway system, she got lost on the way to the competition. She became so
nervous about being late for her own performance that she left her teacher's bow on the train. While she
made it just in time to play - she literally unpacked the cello and walked right on stage - the bow was never
recovered.
83
But there was no shortage of seating for the final round. This was held at the
Theatre du Chatelet, a historic, 2500-seat concert hall on the right bank just east of the
Louvre in the first arrondissement, which was considered the largest venue in all of Paris
when it first opened in 1862.24 By coincidence, all six finalists chose to play the first
Shostakovich concerto with the Orchestre de Paris. More cynical observers speculated
that they all wanted to be eligible for the €2500 special prize for the best performance of
the Shostakovich concerto, but they could equally have been motivated by the chance to
play the concerto for its dedicatee. The 10-day competition was concluded with a
concert des laureats and awards ceremony in the same hall. After the mayor and a host of
other dignitaries finished distributing the awards, Slava spontaneously grabbed the master
of ceremony's microphone to end the event with an impromptu speech (related through
It was during this concluding concert that the difference between European and
public service. This is not surprising when one considers their main funding source. The
city of Paris only recently reduced its financial support from 95% to 70% of the overall
budget for this event; this cycle was the first for which they needed sponsors to meet their
costs (Bance 2005). But while some of the prizes might now be named after banks and
businesses, the director still sees the competition as a gift to the people of Paris. For this
reason, they do not charge admission for the first and second rounds, and the most
expensive ticket for the final round was €15. The director also integrates the competition
into France's institutions of musical education. In contrast to the Cliburn, which does not
24
At the turn of 20th century, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Richard Strauss and Debussy conducted many of their
own works in this hall. http://www.chateIet-theatre.com/chatelet.php?lang=fr Accessed June 12, 2008.
84
allow children under twelve in the hall, the most conspicuous presence at the concert des
laureats were the hordes of children bussed in from conservatories around the country. In
the pauses between competitors, I was delighted to listen to a child seated in the row
behind me quiz his younger brother about the instruments of the orchestra and highlight
what made each performer's interpretation different. Furthermore, some of the children in
attendance were later selected to play for members of the jury and to perform with the
resort, but because it has no need to "sell" either the event or the instrument to attract a
When it comes to naming competitions, the usual sources are performers (e.g.,
Menuhin, Cliburn, Maria Callas), composers (e.g., Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Bach), and
host cities (e.g., the Leeds, the Cleveland, and the Sydney piano competitions.) The
named after its initiator and main benefactor. Michael Hill is the owner of an
international chain of jewelry stores who became a household name in New Zealand
catchphrase ("Michael Hill, jeweler.") But the profession that made him rich and famous
was not his first choice. As a young man, he dreamed of becoming violinist. While
circumstances did not allow Hill to pursue a career in music, he never lost his passion for
25
Author unknown. (2005) "La valeur n'attend pas le nombre des annees: Concert de jeunes Aleves en
prdsence des membres du jury du Concours Rostropovitch." Le Violoncelle. Issue 17, December.
http://www.levioloncelle.com/revue.php Accessed June 13, 2008.
85
enough amateur violinist that he frequently appears as a guest artist with the Auckland
Philharmonic and collaborates with the country's top tier of professional musicians
The idea for the competition came to Hill in the summer of 1999. After
violin competition in New Zealand. Adams related his interest to the Philharmonia's
general manager, Anne Rodda, who wasted little time in approaching him formally to
pursue the idea. Within a few months, they had reached an agreement. The competition
would be a biennial event open to violinists under the age of 30.26 Hill would provide the
lion's share of the $500,000 needed, while the Philharmonia would organize the event
under Rodda's direction (Rasmussen 2001). Apart from providing the inspiration, the
jeweler has also left his mark on the prizes awarded. In addition to a $40,000 cash award,
a professionally-engineered recording and a concert tour of New Zealand, the first place
winner also receives a Rado Superjubile watch and a gold pendent designed by the patron
himself. At the awards ceremony, these are bestowed by none other than the Rt. Hon.
The inaugural cycle of the Michael Hill was held over Queen's Birthday weekend
in June 2001. From the beginning, a pre-selection panel has scrutinized submitted
recordings to select the 18 candidates to be flown to New Zealand, all expenses paid, to
participate in public stages of the competition. With every cycle, the number of
26
The age limit has since been lowered to 28 years of age.
86
applications has climbed, rendering this an increasingly arduous task. The inaugural
competition received 60 completed applications. By its third cycle, the number had risen
to 88.
In terms of its structure, the Hill parallels the Honens in a number of respects.
Firstly, the competition is divided into four stages, and every candidate is guaranteed to
play in the first two. These are the solo rounds in which competitors perform
unaccompanied Bach, the commissioned piece, a virtuosic work, and a sonata with piano.
The third stage is a chamber music round in which the candidates perform with members
of the NZ Trio. This is where a second parallel with the Honens can be found. While this
string disciplines. The Michael Hill introduced this round for the 2005 cycle partly to
facilitate the selection process; the juries for previous cycles had found it difficult to
narrow the field from 18 to 3 candidates on the basis of solo repertoire alone. But the
chamber music requirement also reflected the philosophy of the competition's artistic
criteria that would identify and reward a well-rounded musician who, like the Honens'
"complete artist", possessed a keen musical intellect, versatility, and interpersonal skills
over and above extraordinary technical competence.27 The final similarity between the
Michael Hill and the Honens is the smaller-than-average jury. While the Cliburn
assembles twelve jurors and the Rostropovich the round number of ten, the Honens and
One of the more unusual aspects of the Michael Hill is that it changes location
part way through the competition. The first two rounds are held in Queenstown, an alpine
resort town nestled in the Southern Alps on the South Island. For the chamber music and
concerto rounds, the competition relocates to Auckland, the country's most populous city
situated on the top of the North Island. This arrangement is not entirely in line with the
patron's wishes. Originally he had envisioned an event that would attract great violinists
from around the world to his hometown of Queenstown. But it proved logistically
unfeasible for the small mountain community to host every round. Even if the funds
could be raised to transport the Auckland Philharmonia to the South Island for the
concerto round, there would still be no venue in Queenstown with a large enough stage to
Regrettably, the two-city compromise came at the cost of dramatic tension. The
Auckland Town Hall has been near capacity for the finals of every cycle, but it never
develops the magic of the Queenstown rounds. For the Auckland audience, the concerto
round is hardly different from any other guest appearance with the orchestra; they were
not there from the beginning to follow competitors through each stage and anticipate the
outcome. The compensation, however, is that the two-city arrangement transforms the
competition into an object not just of civic but national pride. This is no small matter in a
country whose largest city casts a long shadow in the cultural landscape.
The Queenstown rounds of the competition are housed in the Memorial Hall,
which provides a perfectly adequate space for solo and chamber music performances. But
its location next to the rugby field, and immediately adjacent to the locker room, presents
its own problems. For the inaugural cycle, the competition had no choice but to schedule
88
its sessions around rugby matches so that sound leakage would not disrupt proceedings.
That art had to accommodate sport would come as little surprise to New Zealanders,
especially when it comes to the beloved game played by the All Blacks. Rugby occupies
a highly sacred status that, like ice hockey in Canada and baseball in the United States,
unites the country and inspires patriotic sentiment. But it is ironic that rugby should have
interfered with the violin competition. While only a minor headache for the
administration, this episode encapsulates the preponderance of sport in the kiwi public
imagination that helped motivate its patron to found the contest in the first place. As Hill
commented to a reporter, "this is a country noted for its legendary sportspeople. If only
The Michael Hill is not the only music competition in New Zealand; Christchurch
regularly hosts the Adam International Cello Competition, and the multi-disciplinary
Young Musician of the Year has enjoyed a high profile. But the violin competition is
unique in the Southern hemisphere, and it enjoys the distinction of being the first in New
Zealand and the second in Australasia to qualify as a member of WFIMC. Director Anne
Rodda knew from its inception that gaining membership in the Geneva-based
organization was critical in securing the legitimacy necessary to put the event (and by
extension the country) on the map. She need not have worried quite so much; its novelty
did much to guarantee its success. A major draw for candidates is the opportunity to visit
the remote country, which the administration clearly recognizes, or they would not
feature the landscape so prominently in all their promotional materials. Even more
important, however, is how the competition's novelty infects the audience with
enthusiasm. Not a trace of cynicism can be detected; they seem to share in, rather than
89
deride, the founder's dream of discovering the next Heifitz. Even the critics temper their
disagreements with the jury by returning to the same refrain: "let us not forget that the
most important thing is that this competition exists" (Dart 2003). Such is the luxury of
geographic isolation; having not yet encountered scandal or disappointment, there is little
to discourage confidence in the institution. In this way, the Michael Hill is a throwback to
the excitement that must have fueled the proliferation of competitions in Europe and
String quartet competitions are almost as rare as those for cello. Of the 10
WFIMC members listed in the chamber music discipline, only 4 are for string quartet
alone. The Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC) stands out among
this group, but not just because it is unique in North America. It is special because of its
location. The competition takes place in the mountain resort town of Banff, Alberta
which boasts many of the same tourist attractions as Queenstown. But in addition to
stunning scenery, alpine air, and glacial lakes, the small community nestled in the
Canadian Rockies is also home to the Banff Centre, one of Canada's premier institutions
for arts and culture. The government-funded facility houses an ever-expanding array of
programs in literary, new media, visual, and performing arts. In the music world, Banff is
known as a haven where musicians escape for summer master-classes with legendary
pedagogues or for extended residencies to pursue long-term projects. But for one week
every three years, the Centre becomes saturated with string quartet players and
90
aficionados who are more interested in listening to chamber music than in exploring the
mountains.
The idyllic, isolated setting is one reason why this competition comes closer than
most in achieving the atmosphere of a festival. Another contributing factor is its genesis.
The BISQC was originally intended to be a one-off event to celebrate the 50th anniversary
of Banff Centre in 1983. Of all the submitted proposals, the competition was chosen for
its connection with the institution's identity and tradition. At that time, the string quartet
program was among the most successful summer courses in the music division, having
earned a reputation across North America and beyond. The BISQC, then, was not an
independent initiative in search of a venue like most competitions, but an idea that grew
institutional culture. The Banff Centre strives to create a protected zone for emerging
artists where their needs are the highest priority, and the BISQC did its best to avoid
being an exception. In consultation with the music faculty, the organizers aimed to create
the most positive experience possible for participants. From all accounts, they were
successful, and not just as far as the competitors were concerned. The auspicious
occasion was attended by a few hundred audience members and broadcast across the
country on CBC radio. It was not just well-received; it "prompted the largest flood of
appreciative letters in the program's history", which convinced the administration that the
With some modifications, the BISQC s structure is essentially the same as it was
at its inception. Eligibility is restricted to quartets whose members are under the age of 35
91
on the first day of the event.28 The age limit is slightly higher than solo competitions to
take into account that quartets are formed at a later stage in a musician's career. Like
many of its peers discussed above, the BISQC assembles a preliminary jury to listen to
submitted recordings "blind" and select the groups that will be brought to Banff, all
expenses paid. But in contrast its solo counterparts, fewer competitors are admitted; a
maximum of 10 quartets are invited to attend. Repertoire requirements define the stages
preceding the first and only elimination. At the 2007 cycle, these were divided into a
recital round (Haydn and Bartok), a Romantic round, the Canadian commission round,
and a Beethoven or Schubert round. Like the Honens, the BISQC ensures that
competitors do not travel all the way to Banff to play for 10 minutes andfindout that
they did not make the first cut. Every group performs five complete works before the jury
deliberates. Moreover, the four groups who advance to thefinalround are guaranteed a
prize.29 In 2007, the jury produced thisfinalranking through an adapted version of the
From the point of view of the administration, holding the competition at the Banff
Centre solves nearly every logistical headache that could arise. Accommodations and
meals are easily provided for participants in the conference facilities. Rather than seeking
host families who can accommodate four guests at once, competitors stay on campus
where they can rehearse through the night and only run the risk of disturbing the bears.
28
Some chamber music competitions use the average or combined age of members to determine eligibility.
The reason for insisting that all members meet the age limit is to exclude groups composed of an
established player and his or her pupils.
29
For the 2007 cycle, the first prize included $20,000, a quartet of bows by Canadian bowmaker Fracois
Malo, a European and North American concert tour managed by the Banff Centre, and a residency at the
Centre to record a compact disc. The second, third, and fourth place winners were awarded cash prizes of
$12,000, $8,000, and $5,000 respectively.
Neither is there any need to rent a hall; the director has the luxury of choosing between
the smaller recital hall and the larger auditorium for competition sessions. With all these
needs met at the Centre, the competition need not bother with renting shuttle buses once
participants arrive. A further advantage is that these facilities are all staffed with sound
engineers, stagehands, ushers, and box office handlers, so there is no need to raise and
train an army of volunteers like the Cliburn or the Honens. The BISQC could very well
While the Centre helps it run smoothly, the resident audience lends the event its
intensity. Attendees can purchase special residency packages which give them the option
of staying on campus for the length of the competition and taking their meals alongside
jury members and competitors. This is in marked contrast to competitions like the
Cliburn where the jury is carefully segregated and the listener's best chance of meeting a
audience continuity through the duration of the event. The ratio of listeners who attended
the first round to those who attend the finals is higher than any other competition in my
sample.
Even more impressive is the audience continuity over the years. Introductions at
meals usually begin with a proud declaration of how many cycles one has attended.
Returning audience members bring more than their T-shirts from previous years; they
also carry over their loyalties for returning groups they believe might have been wrongly
overlooked by the last jury. With a devotion that sometimes borders on the fanatical, the
30
Private conversation with Ken Murphy, founder of the BISQC September 27,2007.
93
resident audience faithfully attends every performance and ancillary event. Even the
jurors have been surprised by the degree of audience enthusiasm. When a judge was told
to expect a full house for his lecture on Webern on the last day of the 2007 competition,
he thought the director was kidding; mention of the early 20th century avant-garde
composer usually acts as a deterrent. But the prediction was accurate. Like every other
lecture that week, one had to arrive 15 minutes early to have any hope of getting a seat. In
one sense, the competition has suffered as a result of its success. Chamber music is best
experienced in an intimate performance space. But due to its popularity, the competition
has no choice but hold every round in the 959-seat auditorium to accommodate a growing
audience.
This is not to suggest that the BISQC has been free of controversy. At the 2004
cycle, a competition poster was defaced so that the word "international" was crossed out
and replaced with the word "American". The accusation was not entirely baseless. In five
of the six previous cycles, the winners had been American. What might have caused even
more frustration in 2004, however, was that all three groups from the U.S. advanced into
the finals, and one of them ultimately won (Littler 2004). But this incident was minor
compared to the audience revolt that nearly erupted three years earlier. The 2001
controversy concerned a lyonnaise quartet that had developed a strong following in the
audience but did not advance to the finals. The audience was not shy about expressing its
disapproval. The morning after the deliberations, one judge was overheard at breakfast
muttering that he thought the jury was "going to be lynched" (N.A. 2001).31 The judges
31
While this juror was exaggerating, unpopular decisions sometimes result in threats of violence. At the
2005 Cliburn, the police were notified after a judge on the preliminary jury received threatening phone
calls.
94
remained unharmed, but the episode has never been forgotten. It has evolved into a
legend proudly passed on to new attendees. In one version, members of the audience are
said to have organized their own final concert in a different hall on campus for those who
For all this audience enthusiasm and agitation, the administration refuses to
institute an audience prize. Current director Barry Shiftman avoids the practice on the
grounds that it absolves the audience of responsibility. When BISQC awards a prize such
finding sponsors and doing the work required to secure those engagements. An audience
prize deserving of the name should be no different. If listeners feel that a group is
especially deserving of recognition, they should promote that group to their local
chamber music society. In the long run, a performance opportunity and the chance of a
return engagement are much more valuable to a quartet than the title of audience
favorite.32 But even before Shiftman came on the scene, the administration was
uncomfortable with the idea. While they would never dispute that anyone can enjoy
music, they would not agree that anyone can evaluate it. When assembling the seven-
member jury, organizers seek the most accomplished musicians who have dedicated their
lives to learning, performing, and teaching the string quartet repertoire. In their
estimation, an audience prize would both insult the panel and undermine their authority.33
In this respect, BISQC is not following the populist trend visible amongst its American
counterparts. South of the border, audience prizes have almost become standard. Some,
32
Conversation with Barry Shiffman, August 20,2007.
33
Conversation with Ken Murphy, September 27,2007.
like the William Kapell piano competition in Maryland, have gone even further by
instituting a volunteer jury.34 It is ironic that in a province famous for grassroots politics,
METHODOLOGY
observation and qualitative interviewing. Like the members of the Chicago School who
first combined them, I found these complimentary methods the most effective way to
"illuminate[e] both the culture and the biographical particulars of members' worlds"
(Warren 2002: 85). By ethnographic observation, I do not mean that I entered these
regional, and national-level competitions over the course of my own musical training,
both as a soloist and in chamber music groups. Because I already have a good sense of
these statuses did not give me unlimited access. For example, I was never admitted to the
jury room for any of the closed deliberations, and I was rarely allowed to sit backstage
during competition proceedings. But this vantage point allowed me to see more of the
competition than I ever could have as a competitor preoccupied with preparation for
diversity of participants over the course of the event. Rarely did I have to initiate these
conversations through which I became acquainted with patrons, music teachers, host
first ethnographic foray, I made the discouraging discovery that the worst time to talk to
had naively assumed that I would arrange for onsite interviews, not only because it would
be more convenient for respondents, but also because the experience would still be fresh
in their minds. Once I arrived at the competition, it did not take long for me to realise my
mistake. The vast majority of competitors I approached for interviews politely suggested
I contact them once the competition was over, because they preferred to focus on their
preparation as long as they were still in the running. Unfortunately, I could rarely follow
through on such invitations due to the expense of traveling to their various home
Judges and directors were even more difficult to reach. Elites in any institutional
sphere are protected from outsiders by a series of barriers and gatekeepers, which
presents unique research challenges (Odendahl and Shaw 2002). Esteemed musicians, for
officers who deny entry to uninvited guests; those more advanced in age are especially
97
likely to entrust all their administrative affairs to agents, spouses, or assistants who filter
incoming messages and protect their personal contact information. In the institutional
context of the competitions, the first barrier preventing my access to judges was the
stratified geography of the concert hall (Johnson 1995). The Cliburn jury, for example, is
thoroughly insulated from interactions with other audience members through the
architecture of Bass Hall; judges are seated in their own balcony box, they enter and exit
through a separate entrance, and they are shuttled to and from the hall in private cars
organized by the competition. Rules and procedures also render the judges' circle
impenetrable. Many competitions forbid members of the jury from discussing the
competition with anyone while it is in progress to protect them from conflicts of interest
competitors or performances amongst themselves, though this is for different reasons that
will be discussed elsewhere.) The greatest barrier preventing access to directors, on the
other hand, was their schedule. While they all graciously welcomed my interest, it was
obvious that they could have spared more time (with fewer interruptions) in the interim
When logistics were not an issue, it was the sensitivity surrounding the topic that
musician who does not have a strong opinion about their function. But not everyone feels
free to share their thoughts. The classical music world is not that large to begin with, but
smaller. I encountered many musicians who felt strongly about the topic and wanted to
obligations and personal ties, competitors worry about their reputations. As one
respondent cautioned, withholding names would not be enough to ensure anonymity; the
respondent's instrument and nationality, along with their manner of speaking, would
often provide enough information for peers in the music world to discern a subject's
especially reluctant to speak frankly about competitions because they recognized their
words would be self-damaging, no matter what their fate had been in the competition. If
they had acquired a prize, pointed criticisms would come across as disingenuous. But if
they had been unsuccessful, any negative opinions voiced would acquire the bitter tinge
of sour grapes.
respondents who have no connection with my sample of case study competitions. This
data collection beyond the competitions I was able to attend, thereby strengthening the
improved considerably when I described the purpose of the interview, and framed my
competition. In so doing, I departed from the standard research guideline that instructs
(Weiss 1994). What I found, however, was that when I did not set up the conversation
(Kvale 1996) in this way, the respondent would often deliberately redirect the interview
interventions, whether diatribe or defence, invariably provided the most lively and
Over the course of my research, I collected 45 interviews (see Table 2.2 for a
affiliation with the WFIMC or its members, and that their cooperation or refusal to be
interviewed would have no effect on their relationship with any competition. This
practice both satisfied the ethical requirements of the institutional review board and
Directors 7
Competitors 16
Other participants 6
(e.g., hosts, competition staff, audience members)
Total 45
Apart from two exceptions, all interviews were "one-shot" conversations lasting
between 45 to 90 minutes. With the respondent's permission, they were recorded with a
digital device. Because musicians handle recording technology every day in their
during the interview, I also wrote fieldnotes on the tone and content of the "strip" of
conversation that occurs once the stop button is pressed and the official interview is over
(Warren et al. 2003). Recorded interviews were subsequently transcribed for coding and
While talk is only ever imperfectly translated into textual form (Poland 2002), the
most salient challenge I faced in transcription was the speech of respondents who were
not speaking in their first language. Participants in international music competitions are
unusually cosmopolitan; most are both well-travelled and multi-lingual. Out of respect, I
interviewed francophone subjects in French to the best of my ability. But with all other
subjects, conversations were carried out in English, regardless of the respondent's first
language. While this did not greatly hinder our communication in conversation, it did
pose a problem when it came to transcribing which I resolved by adopting what Oliver et
transcription, this approach aims for a full and faithful transcription, but it is more
concerned with accuracy in the interview's substance than the intricacies of geo-ethnic
analysis. While the "translation" of accented speech into Standard American English
also adopted the practice of identifying respondents by number when quoting directly
101
from interview transcripts rather than use the standard convention of assigning
pseudonyms.
in the everyday lives of subjects, the ethnographer herself becomes a research instrument
(Emerson and Pollner 2001). Her body influences entree and shapes interaction by
conveying socially meaningful characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, class, and
sexual orientation (Warren 2001). As predicted by the methodology literature, gender and
age greatly influenced my access to respondents and shaped my rapport with them in
interviews (Benney, Riesman, and Star 1956; Riessman 1987; Williams and Heikes 1993;
Arendell 1997; Warren 2002). I found that competitors, who are for the most part in their
20s, could easily relate to me as a peer, often because they could identify with my status
came to interviewing judges and directors, who are for the most part men above the age
of 60, these same characteristics became a liability. The large age differential often
advisee interaction for the duration of the interview. To establish this more patriarchal
exchange. But fewer amenable options were available to me in the field where my age,
gender, and sexual orientation made me "fair game" in the eyes of some men (Warren
invariably expressed relief when I described my musical training; the tone of voice would
change, or they would chuckle about being able to skip over facile explanations they had
developed for non-musicians. Some even confessed they had been sceptical about a
sociologist's ability to handle such a project with limited knowledge of classical music.
insider status throughout the interview. This practice departs from another of Weiss'
(1994) guidelines which advises that self-disclosure be avoided and that interviewers
provide only brief answers to respondent's questions. When interviewing elites, however,
subtle communications of expertise are crucial for maintaining authority and ensuring a
productive exchange (Odendahl and Shaw 2002). For example, I found that name-
dropping, both of personal musical contacts and events I have attended as a musician,
evading my questions.
Chan 1990) that motivate action and guide interpretation. This involved collecting a
distribute to recruit competitors and attract audiences. The second source, and by far the
largest, was the local, national, and international media coverage courted by competitions
to increase their visibility in the broader cultural sphere. A third source was the internet;
for discussion and debate on the internet in online forums and interactive weblogs. While
the amount of material available depended on the resources, accessibility, and notoriety
of each competition, I made every effort to collect all the physical and online materials
available for each of the cycles I attended, supplementing those whenever possible with
items from the organization's archives. Altogether, these sources provided a wealth of
CONCLUSION
In this chapter I presented a new perspective for the sociology of music that
context I have chosen to develop and elaborate this approach, and outlined the
With this conceptual background in place, the analysis can begin. First I will consider
how the event is presented and perceived in the public sphere. Then I will turn my
attention to the performers and the difficult task of presenting one's self in this
institutional context. To conclude, I will consider the role of the audience and explain
how this controversial institution fosters the critical engagement necessary to sustain civil
society.
Chapter 3: Representations of the International Music
Competition
international music competition despite its intrinsic interest and sociological significance.
It is time to back up this claim. Competitions are an unusual environment for musical
performance for three reasons. First, they are occasions designed to examine and
celebrate effective musical performance. They provide a forum for the musical
and rewarding of "good performers", a designation that implies moral worth as much as
musicianship and technical skill. In a setting that closely resembles the recital ritual, the
performer is challenged to demonstrate that they are the embodiment of the performance
interpret competitors' performances. It is perhaps for this reason that it is not unusual for
segments of the audience to disagree about which performer is most deserving of first
place.
Music competitions are also public and publicized events that unfold through a
series of stages (typically three) in which the performer is presented with a variety of
competitions is a first round of solo recitals, a second round of solo recitals and chamber
music, and for the final round, a concerto with orchestra. A gala concludes the
punctuated by three elimination rounds and concluded with a celebration. The tripartite
middle, and end) within which recital rituals, and narrative construction, takes place.
The third distinctive feature of music competitions is that they are an occasion for
musical performance where the stakes are unusually high, and yet ultimately it changes
very little. Like Geertz's (1973) Balinese cockfight, they are an intensely meaningful
focussed gathering, a site for deep play. The music competition is a cultural framework, a
structured context within which musical and social performances are enacted and
1982), failed social performance, or 'fused' ritual (Alexander 2004). Rather, it is the
But for the sociologist, the most intriguing aspect of this institution is its ongoing
struggle for legitimacy, which is what I will explore in this chapter. Through a discourse
frameworks that guide the construction of the event and the interpretation of competitors'
performances. I also trace the critical challenge to the idealized representations of the
event, and decode the gender ideologies implied in commonly-used metaphors. For the
purposes of analysis, I will focus on the Cliburn. As one of the most visible competitions
examined two sources of data. The first source is published materials and public
programme books, film documentaries, press releases, documents posted on the official
website, and speeches delivered at public ceremonies. The second source is the media
coverage of the Cliburn in newspapers, special interest publications, on the radio, and on
I analyze two aspects of this discourse. The first is the cultural construction of the
event, which involves the definition of this musical occasion. I identify two idealised
profane and the other on the sacred narrative level. These are contrasted with the realist
meanings, and the emphasis of one narrative level over the other, is never fixed because
addition to the event, I also examine the cultural construction of the competitors who
mundane and mythical levels that correspond to the profane and sacred representations of
the event. On the mundane level, the interpretation of musical actors intersects with other
forms of social performance, such as gender. On the mythical level, we find the legacies
Despite the obvious tripartite tournament structure, the meaning of the music
competition is neither inherent nor self-evident. Like all social facts, it requires cultural
107
construction. This is accomplished through metaphors and narratives that dramatize the
cultural codes that resonate with the performance community. For the organization
image of the competition to its relevant audience which includes aspiring musicians,
professional musicians, pedagogues, music critics, the musical public, the general public,
Every music competition seeks to make its presence known in the public sphere
through various media. The Cliburn, however, has had both the resources and the desire
the Cliburn circulates print materials worldwide and prepares radio programmes for
broadcast in North America and Europe. Since the 5th competition in 1977, it has also
and screened in local film festivals. Like many of its peers, the Cliburn has developed an
elaborate website for posting information about the competition and archiving audio
software. But the Cliburn is perhaps the first to explore other possibilities on the internet,
such as hosting an interactive weblog,1 posting video clips on YouTube, and developing a
audience for the event, the Cliburn has incorporated a range of media technologies.
1
The Cliburn's experiments with internet technology were successful in attracting a large audience by
classical music standards. By the end of the semi-final round of the competition, it was estimated that
10,000 separate users worldwide had registered to watch the competition broadcasts, and over 16,000 had
read the blog (Borland 2005). Two music critics were hired to write the weblog, which attracted a dedicated
following. At the climax of the competition, a single posting could provoke as many as one hundred
responses.
108
During the last cycle of the competition, those unable to reserve a seat in the hall could
broadcast of the competition projected onto a movie screen that had been installed in
nearby venue (Kennedy 2005).2 The Cliburn's cultivation of media forms has not only
competition proceedings around the world, whether in real-time or after the fact.
organisation communicates idealised meanings of the event that operate on two narrative
levels. On one level, the competitive aspect is emphasized. Here it is stressed that the
event is carefully designed to test skill and endurance by placing extreme demands and
intense pressure on the performer. As such, it offers a mechanism for identifying 'the
best' - those who posses both extraordinary talent and the stamina to take on an
international career. When operating on this narrative level, the Cliburn Foundation
describes the competition as an occasion for "the cream to rise to the top."3 This attitude
is perfectly in line with the founders' vision of the event as 'a living testament to the
career.'4 After all, the Cliburn is named after the quintessential competition winner, Van
2
This measure was initially introduced to accommodate young children who are not allowed to attend live
performances, audience members who could not obtain tickets for sold out performances, and members of
the public who prefer a more casual concert experience. It has since developed into an attraction in itself,
with ticket holders sometimes giving up their seats in the hall to take in part of the performance on the big
screen. During intermissions, it is common to see audience members trekking back and forth between the
two venues.
3
Private conversation with Richard Rodzinski, Director of the Cliburn Competition, June 3,2005.
4
http:www.cliburn.org/page 116. Accessed May , 2005.
109
Cliburn, the Texan who won the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in Moscow
at the height of the cold war. Van Cliburn enjoyed instant success following his victory:
New York threw him a ticker tape parade, Eisenhower invited him to the White House,
and his calendar was suddenly crowded with concert engagements with major orchestras.
The Cliburn Foundation hopes to recreate this phenomenon for a new generation
of pianists. For this reason, the first prize is carefully designed to include all the
concert engagements, a contribution towards domestic and international air travel, a new
concert wardrobe from an upscale department store, a recording on a respected label that
is distributed worldwide, and a substantial cash award.5 On this narrative level, the
ultimate purpose of the event is "the discovery of the world's finest young pianists"6 and
their introduction to the musical public which includes not only an adoring audience, but
respected critics and concert presenters as well. Take, for example, this excerpt from the
5
For the very first Cliburn Competition held in 1962, the first prize was $10,000, then an unprecedented
amount for an international music competition. For the 12th cycle of the competition in 2005, the cash
award for gold, silver, and crystal winners is $20,000. The jury also distributes a number of discretionary
awards.
6
1 am drawing phrases commonly used in the competition ticket brochure and competition history, all
available on the Cliburn website. Some quotations drawn from specifically from
http://www.cliburn.Org/page/116 accessed May 3, 2006.
110
time, we trust, one that will offer the jury a joyful sense of fulfillment.7
because it is believed to be fair and democratic. Rules governing the procedure for
application, the choice of repertoire, and voting are devised and enforced. Applicants
demonstrate their "worthiness" not only through their artistry, but also through a personal
statement describing what they hope to achieve by entering the competition. Throughout
the competition proceedings, there is a sustained and visible effort to maintain the
impartiality of the jury. For example, in 12th competition, a jury member excused herself
from the panel when seven of her pupils were selected as competitors. These gestures are
essential for the competition's success because they affirm a commitment to fairness. A
competition can be democratic only to the extent that competitors advance solely based
winning does not only create dramatic tension; it also supports the competition's claim to
legitimacy.
When operating on this narrative level, a symbol is frequently borrowed from the
world of sports: the Olympics. This is an effective metaphor for many reasons. Like the
accomplished young musicians from around the world, and they are a high-stakes contest
of skill and endurance where competitors strive for perfection in performance. At the
Cliburn, the Olympics metaphor is further specified and reinforced through a number of
7
The jury handbook is made available for download on the competition website (www.clibum.ora.^ It is
therefore accessible to the public, demonstrating an effort by the organization to be transparent about its
rules and procedures.
Ill
releases, flags of the countries represented in the competition adorn the space where the
competition is held, and the first, second, and third-place winners are awarded gold,
silver, and bronze medals.8 For the 5th Competition in 1977, the Cliburn Foundation went
so far as to use the Olympics metaphor in a literal manner in its print publicity. The
official competition poster and programme book featured an image of the winners'
athletes through history - from Jesse Owens in Berlin 1936 to Nadia ComDneci in
Montreal 1976 - leading up to the 1977 Cliburn in Fort Worth where the next "legend"
could be found (see figure 2.1.) The same year, jury member Alberto Ginastera got
caught up in the metaphor, declaring to The New York Times: "these young pianists
1977:D27).
It was only for the 12 competition that the bronze medal was renamed the "crystal award."
On the second narrative level, however, the competition organisation
seamlessly connected, and there is cultural extension between performers and the
audience. When operating on this narrative level, the Cliburn Foundation claims
1990:162). Every four years, it transforms Fort Worth not into the Olympia, but
the '"Mecca of the classical music world' where some of today's most promising
pianists gather to reveal their immense talents." Audiences are offered the
"privilege of hearing some of the world's most promising young pianists." They
of "electrifying piano playing" that is "always met with thunderous applause and
competition fade away. The jury's deliberations no longer matter, the memory of
previous performances dissolve, and the listener no longer tries to predict the
9
The Mecca reference is quoted from a Boston Globe article on the front page of a brochure advertisin
ticket subscriptions for the 12th competition, accessed July 4, 2005.
http://www.cliburn.Org/pdfs///2005%20Brochure%20February%20version.pdf
113
collective effervescence.
shifting from one narrative level to the other over the course of the event. When operating
at the mundane level, they compare the difficulty of performers' repertoire, predict
winners, and speculate about the jury's criteria for evaluation. When operating on the
mythical level, they rush out to buy a recording of an inspiring performance, and wait
But these idealised meanings are not accepted by everyone in the performance
community. In the late 1970s, music critics began publishing virulent critiques of the
competition phenomenon in major papers and specialist trade magazines. As one of the
largest and most famous competitions with the most generous prize, the Cliburn was a
favourite target. Shortly after the 5* competition in 1977, an article in The New York
Times headlined "Triumphs and Turmoil at the Cliburn Competition" declared the first
prize winner a compromise choice who was "literally played off the stage" by the second-
place winner at the gala (Ardoin 1977:D27). A year later, Harold C. Schonberg (1978)
dared to ask if competitions were actually good for music. The criticism built momentum
through the 1980s. A feature article in Clavier, a trade magazine, warned piano teachers
of the dangers of the "competition syndrome" (Weirich 1984). At the close of the decade,
114
campaigns, outlining the five simple rules competitors should follow to successfully
"sway" a jury. The next year Joseph Horowitz (1990) published a book-length critique of
sport that it becomes hard to stop" (p. 17). By 1994, the climate was such that Edward
Rothstein (1994) declared in The New York Times that "winning a music competition has
become a liability" (p.21). The critical attitude toward competitions has hardly abated. In
a recent review of a festival featuring several competition winners, Jeremy Eichler (2005)
Competitions are for horses, not artists. That was Bartok's famous opinion
on the matter, and he was probably onto something. Debate about musical
competitions has been around as long as the modern competition itself.
Can something as complex and subtle as a musical performance be judged
like a track and field event? And what exactly do we measure when we
try? (p. B9)
they argued that music competitions were inherently arbitrary and unfair. While an
organisation like the Cliburn might strive to be democratic, it cannot resolve the problem
that jury members never agree on what constitutes artistic excellence. Therefore, the
results will always be arbitrary, no matter how careful the deliberations; in any given
fair, jury members often resort to concentrating on objective aspects of performance, such
as speed, accuracy, and volume, which can be singled out and tallied quite easily. But
these are hardly the qualities of musicianship that matter the most. Artistry is neither
quantifiable nor objective, and for that reason, the ranking system used in competitions is
Furthermore, the voting procedure frequently fails to reward the most worthy artist. In the
yes-no voting system used in the early years of the Cliburn and in many other
competitions, risk-taking performers tended to split the jury and get eliminated early. As
a result, the performers most likely to win were those who simply generated the fewest
objections. It might not be their intention, but the Cliburn was effectively punishing
best, major competitions had only helped raise the level of mediocrity (quoted in Weirich
1984:26).
Secondly, competitions were criticised for their failure to discover the next
generation of great artists. Writing in 1990, Horowitz was moved to emphasise the
following statement with italics: "Not since Krystian Zimerman won the Chopin
competition in 1975 has a gold medal launched a major career." He pointed to various
predecessors", the diminishing influence of political rivalries with the end of the Cold
War, and the proliferation of competitions (1990:66). Ten years later, there had been little
change. New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini (2001) issued the following
complaint during the 11th cycle of the Cliburn: "With striking regularity, Cliburn gold
medalists [have been] anointed in Texas with much fanfare and sent on tour amid great
promise only to drop from visibility: pianists like Ralph Votapek, Vladimir Viardo and
Jose Feghali. Quick, name the winner of the last competition, in 1997. Stumped? It was
Jon Nakamatsu. (I had to look it up myself)" (p. 19). While it might strive to recreate Van
Cliburn's meteoric rise after winning the Tchaikovsky, the Cliburn had failed to find his
116
"successor" and had succeeded only in "stirring up pseudo-excitement." But the Cliburn
was hardly alone in this respect. With a depressing regularity, major competitions around
the world were producing laureates who never became household names.
The third accusation was that competitions had actually done more harm than
good. They were bad for performers because sensitive players were likely to crumble
under the pressure. Only the more egoistic musicians could play such a Herculean
(Ardoin 1977: D27). They also produced an unhealthy obsession with the first place title
and with youth. Many expressed concern about the psychological setbacks experienced
by non-winners who had to recover from the devastation of "only" placing second
(Schonberg 1978: D17). Young pianists considered their career over if they had not
collected a handful of first place titles before they were 25 years old. In other words, the
music competition was not fostering young talent, but destroying it, and while it might
claim otherwise, it was decidedly not in the service of music. Bernard Holland (1989)
Together, these criticisms combined to create a realist counter-narrative that described the
competition not as a mechanism for discovering and promoting the next generation of
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entrenching a system that rewarded empty technique and virtuosity over substance and
expression. Competition events did not promote the "true" musical experience of fused
ritual performance; they degraded music by turning it into sport. Through the declaration
commercial reality where concert promoters were only interested in booking champions
sure to pack the hall. If this succeeded in attracting a wider audience for classical music,
it was for all the wrong reasons. This counter-narrative presented a serious challenge to
the competition's idealised meanings because it came from within the performance
community. Music critics were a particularly important audience for the competition's
self-presentation. Because they share the same cultural codes, they are more likely to be
sympathetic with their intentions. They also possess the expert knowledge necessary to
evaluate competitors and dispute the deliberations of the jury. But most important, they
not only within the performance community, but in the broader public as well.
over the 1990s. The strict repertoire list was abandoned completely, leaving nearly all
programming choices to the competitors. To reflect a philosophy of equality at the top, all
three finalists were awarded similar concert engagements, a recording for the same label,
and a cash award of the same amount. The yes-no voting system was replaced with a
thereby protecting controversial competitors. The rules were re-written to allow ties; as
many as four gold medals could be awarded in one competition. The Olympics metaphor
disappeared from advertising materials, and the flags that had once adorned the concert
stage moved to the lobby. The competitive aspect of the competition was downplayed
and the mythical level emphasised through the introduction of a new metaphor - the
"festival" - which continues to be the metaphor of choice for competitions around the
world. In every brochure and throughout the programme booklet, the Cliburn was touted
discourse, now polluted, was also avoided in public speeches during the event. At the
awards ceremony for the 10th competition in 1997, the Chairman of the Jury, John
Giordano, carefully avoided the word "competition" in his address despite the fact that he
was announcing the ranking of competitors and distributing prizes: "The jury
deliberations were very difficult in every phase of the festival because of the extremely
high level of the...the competitors from the...the...the very first stages, the screening
stages all the way through the finals."10 The Chairman's hesitation mid-sentence is
revealing. The metaphor guiding the interpretation of the competition event must
harmonise with the cultural construction of its participants. In this respect, the festival
metaphor might offer a favourable substitute for "competition", but it does not carry a
corresponding alternative for "competitors." Perhaps it is for this reason that a new
metaphor, the "job interview", was beginning to surface during the 12th competition. If
this becomes the predominant metaphor, it would indicate a return the mundane narrative
10
Transcript of 10* cycle proceedings held at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition Archive,
Tape 416, p. 4.
119
musical as well as other social meanings; their musical performance is at the same time a
can be identified in this coverage: music critics and general media. Both tiers are engaged
the same publications. But while music critics draw primarily from an expert knowledge
of music for their interpretations, the general media tends to focus on other symbolic
physical gestures, facial expressions, and dress) or in social performances off-stage. Like
constructed on two narrative levels: the mundane and the mythical. On each narrative
level, the role of competitors and their social performance is interpreted through a
On the mundane narrative level, musicians are portrayed as rivals fighting for
their survival in the contest. In both local and international papers, the Cliburn has been
120
referred to as a "duel in the sun" (Brown 2005), a "musical shoot-out" (Ward 2001)
where pianists go "head-to-head" for the top prize. These combat metaphors are not just
references to Texas cowboy culture; piano competitions have been referred to as duels at
least since Beethoven's time (DeNora 1995). If not through combat metaphors, the rivalry
is portrayed through metaphors from competitive sports. While the Cliburn Foundation
might have retreated from any overt equation of music and sports, these metaphors
(Madigan 2005: IB), Cliburn pianists are therefore the athletes determined to triumph
and obtain the trophy cup. In interviews, they are asked about the gruelling practice
regimen they have endured in the months leading up to the competition (Greenaway
2005) and the personal rituals that help them prepare psychologically for their
made explicitly:
Muhammad Ali told his opponents, and the world, "I'm so bad I make
medicine sick." There are only two Greats, he boasted. "Britain and me."
Believing in oneself does not guarantee success, but beliefs drive behavior
and behavior affects performance, whether it's sports or making that
journey alone to center. Concert pianists mentally prepare for competition
much the same way successful athletes do. They understand the
importance of self-confidence. [...] Yang, the youngest here, gives herself
a pep talk. "I'm going to play this the way it should be played. I'm going
to show how it's done. I have to believe "I'm It." (Casstevens 2005: 4BB)
Although music critics are generally critical of this narrative level, they also help
they were game strategies, pointing out the challenges they present for each individual
121
performer and the possible advantages and disadvantages they could bring. For example,
in a section revealingly entitled "Today's Players", the local paper offered a brief
background on each competitor and a summary of their repertoire in the style of the
As in sports, physical feats are applauded. At one point in the 12th competition, a
journalist measured the speed of pianists' hands in the fastest passages with the same
device used to measure the speed of a baseball pitch or a tennis serve (Ward 2005).
DeNora (2006), we can trace the cultural equation of pianism with masculinity back to
Beethoven. Many women enjoyed active performing careers during Beethoven's lifetime,
but few performed bis piano repertoire. Women were reluctant to perform his music
because it demanded the embodiment of new musical techniques and a visceral approach
philosophical discourses about the sublime and popular scientific notions, Beethoven was
"mesmerising" his audience. DeNora argues that Beethoven's body became inscribed in
his music, transforming the musical performance of his revolutionary repertoire into an
object lesson in agency. But not everyone could be cast as a Beethovenian performer:
"The new forms of musical display [required in Beethoven's piano repertoire], and the
agencies they implied, not only excluded women from the heart of the musical canon;
they also celebrated a currency of bodily capital (appearance, physique, comportment and
This legacy is reflected in the history of the Cliburn competition. In the first
eleven cycles of the competition - a period spanning nearly forty years - there were only
two female gold medalists, Christina Ortiz of Brazil in 1969 and Olga Kern of Russia in
2001. In Kern's case, however, the gold was shared with a male competitor, Stanislav
Ioudenitch. The media coverage of Kern is particularly interesting because it reveals the
conform to standards of femininity, but her musical performance must display the desired
level of masculinity. Kern obviously managed to strike this balance. When it came to her
musical performance, she was lauded for her athleticism and "described as one of the
fastest, loudest and most powerful players in this competition" (NPR 2001). Kern herself
acknowledged and appreciated that her performance style was described in masculine
terms:
123
Romantic piano repertoire. Competitors in the 11th competition were given a choice of
five pieces by living American composers for their semi-final recital. But before the
scores were distributed, all traces of the composers' identities were removed and replaced
with numbers. When discussing how she chose from among the several commissioned
When I saw the scores, I think that it must be composer man, not woman,
because the music very strong. [...] I like the freedom and this type of
technique and everything. And after that I know that this is woman, I was
so surprised, and I think "Uh-huh. She's like me." (NPR 2001)
Here we can see Beethoven's legacy. Even in the 21 st century, performers still approach
Kern might have shown masculine strength in virtuoso repertoire, but her femininity was
Kern's musicality radiates off the stage and saturates the hall, and it is
joyously alive, immediately communicative, fragrantly sensual, and
almost visual in its intensity. Whatever it is - call it star quality - music
likes Kern the way the camera liked Garbo.11
While both gold medalists that year had returned to compete a second time, Kern's
11
(Ronald Broun of the Washington Post) quoted on http://www.cliburn.org (Accessed May 1, 2005)
124
femininity:
What a difference four years can make. After being eliminated in the
preliminary rounds of the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano
Competition, Olga Pushechnikova went home to Moscow and underwent a
complete makeover. [...] Late last month, with a new last name derived
from her mother's maiden name, with more musical maturity and
competitions notched on her belt, with a new coiffure, a glamorous new
wardrobe, and a marriage, a divorce, and the birth of a child, Olga Kern
came back to Fort Worth. This time, at the 11th Van Cliburn Competition,
things were different. Now a blonde favoring off-the-shoulder gowns, she
became an instant audience favorite. [...] As for her physical appearance,
Kern admits, with giggles, that being a blonde is more fun. When she
competed in the 1997 Van Cliburn, her unremarkable coiffure featured
medium-length dark hair with bangs parted in the middle. She insists that
the black was "an experiment". [...] In addition, Kern says that after the
birth of her son she "changed her figure -1 hope in a good way."
Certainly, the red spaghetti-strap and black one-shoulder gowns she wears
in competition photos reveal few figure flaws while emphasizing the
positive attributes. (Pfeifer 2001: C14)
Four years later, Kern was still remembered as much for her concert attire as for her
aggressive athleticism:
Kern took chances. She outlasted the men in the traditional gigantic "boys
only" repertoire of Liszt, Barber and Balakirev. She played a little faster.
She dressed the part, right down to the famous red jacket she wore in the
finals. [...] Most important, she played better than any of the men. (Gay
2005: P9)
conventional femininity in every other aspect of her gender performance on and offstage,
from her physical appearance and comportment to her sexual orientation. Or, to put the
performance was neither a substitute nor a distraction from the desired musical meaning.
It is likely that Kern's gender performance drew so much attention because at the
125
time, female finalists were still very rare. There are signs, however, that the trend of
male-domination in piano competitions may have come to an end. In the most recent
cycle of the Cliburn, more women than men were chosen to compete, more women than
men advanced to the semi-finals, and there was an equal gender division among the six
finalists. One music critic predicted that this would be "the last Cliburn competition in
which a female majority will be cause for comment" (Gay 2005: 3AA). This remark rings
pianists. In the 12th competition, gender had been eclipsed by race. As was often
remarked in the press, the unprecedented female majority was also predominantly of
Asian birth or descent, and for the first time, the largest national contingent was from
China. Asian pianists placed well throughout the competition. Half of the twelve semi-
finalists were from mainland China, and in the finals, a Chinese woman placed third
while the silver medal was awarded to a 19-year-old Korean woman. While some had
anticipated the 2005 competition to be "the year of the woman" where audiences would
see the "softer side of the Clibura"(Gay 2005: P9), it became the year that Russia's
domination began to wane and China became cast as the saviour of classical music
(DMN 2005; Gay 2005). In this context, the interpretation of Cliburn pianists'
musical/social performance was complicated not only by gender, but by race, although
12
In the past, ethnicity was the dominant framework for interpreting musical/social performance at
competitions. Musicians were easily identified and classified as representatives o f national schools' on the
basis of technique and style. At the 12th cycle of the Cliburn, however, the discourse surrounding pianists
became racialized. For example, candidates representing the United States who were of Chinese heritage
were not seen as 'Americans' or even 'Chinese-Americans' but as 'Asian.' It is too early to say whether
this is a temporary or permanent development. The ethnicity framework could return through expanded list
of'national schools' that includes Chinese, Korean, and Japanese schools, but the globalization of music
education is more likely to continue eroding these categories until they become an anachronism.
126
For the most part, musicians resent the mundane level of narrative construction
for its frequent portrayal of music as sport. As the gold medalist of the 12 competition
game" (Bahari 2005: 3AA). To make matters worse, these narrative constructions do not
fade with the conclusion of the competition. The 2001 co-gold medalist, Ioudenitch,
complained that he could never escape athletic representations during the three-year tour
that was part of his prize: "What I fundamentally didn't like about [the tour] was that the
presenters were expecting the Van Cliburn winner to be closer to a sportsman; it was how
athletically you played that mattered. [...] But this is not a sports competition. I really see
this considering the player to be a sportsman as an insult" (Marton 2005: Dl). For
musicians, athletic representations are not only insulting because they degrade the
musical ritual to spectacle; they are polluting because they distort the musical ritual. By
emphasising rivalry and physical contest, they reduce musical performance to a physical
display and distract the audience from evoking the proper symbolic framework for
interpretation - music.
narrative construction. Occasionally, there is a shift to a mythical level where the results
of the competition become trivial and the rivalry dissolves. Here, the musician is no
strategic move in the battle for the top prize, but a cultural communication so effective
that the fragmentation of the audience is overcome. The musician is celebrated as a "great
127
performer" capable of an effortless embodiment of musical meaning; she does not merely
"play" music, she "lives" it. She is one of the "chosen" capable of going beyond the
mundane details of the score to access the "eternal truths" contained in timeless
2005:60-61). Through her artistry, the interpreter conveys these ineffable "truths" to the
One would expect music critics to be the least likely to participate in the mythical
construction of Cliburn pianists. The realist counter-narrative framework that guides their
performance in what they consider a contrived and problematic context. And yet,
most cynical group in the performance community because, like every other segment of
the audience, music critics are seeking a performer who transcends the profane context of
the competition and provides an opportunity to abandon profane discourses. Take for
... There were those soft moments and pauses in her Bach, when everyone
in Bass Hall stopped breathing. And there was that moment when she
reached back in history and asked, "Why not take a chance?" and
concluded her performance of Reminiscences de Don Juan by doing what
Liszt would have done: she improvised a new ending. Whether or not she
takes a medal at the 2005 Cliburn, Yang showed a glimpse of what we
hope piano performance will be like in the 21 st century: imaginative,
technically brilliant, connected to the audience and historically aware.
(Gay 2005: 3AA)
the performer to captivate the audience (the collective holding of breath), the performer's
improvised ending to a famous virtuoso piece), and the trivialisation of the outcome of
the competition. Others stress the effortlessness with which the elements of performance
are fused: "[she] mak[es] everything she does on stage look almost too easy" (Ahles
2005: 4BB). A teacher similarly described his student's fusion with pride: "He lets the
music happen. He doesn't force it [...] He, the instrument and the music all become one"
(Bahari 2005: 1 A). Others stress the musician's connection to the other-worldly,
sometimes in a very literal fashion. For example, in an interview with Arizona public
radio, Olga Kern was asked to recount a dream in which she was visited by the late
Rachmaninoff and enjoyed an hour-long lesson on a few of his pieces (KNAU 2001).
On this mythical level, the sports and combat metaphors are replaced by the
archetype of the genius or child prodigy. In this narrative framework, the musician's life
is re-interpreted through the ideals of the performance community. The narrative itself
"gift" or unusual ability that manifests itself so early in the musician's life that it cannot
be the result of instruction. This endowment from nature is identified as the quality that
separates the dedicated but ordinary musician from the "interpreter" or "true artist." As
An aspiring pianist may sit before a score and commit to memory all the
instructions the composer has offered in his blueprint, but those notes will
mean little if they fall on barren ground. It is not easy to define what that
"ground" is, but less difficult to determine whether that "ground" exists at
all in any given person. There are individuals who are simply born with
innate musical aptitude, the fertile ground as it were. (p. 33-4)
13
In this section, I have drawn from Steve Sherwood's ritual structure of the artist biography that is based
on Kris and Kurz (1979). See Sherwood (2006).
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demonstrated to be one of the few chosen to be born with this transcendent musical gift.
For example, anecdotes like the following can be found in the programme biographies
and press coverage of every Cliburn finalist: "When Piano was 3, his godparents gave
him a toy white-and-red keyboard. He pounded away at it for four years, before the
family acquiesced to the inevitable and arranged for lessons. Six months later, his teacher
asked to talk to his parents. She told them that their son needed a piano in the home ~ and
a better teacher" (Autrey 2005: 4BB). Similarly, the announcement of the gold medalist
for the 12th competition printed in newspapers around the world began with these lines:
"When Alexander Kobrin was a toddler in Russia, he played happily with his toys as long
as he could hear music. When the radio was turned off, he cried. So his piano-teacher
father taught him how to play when Kobrin was about 5" (Brown 2005).
The second recurring motif is the genius's calling to art as a vocation. Here the
artist recognises that talent is not just a gift, but a responsibility, and that sacrifices must
be made for its cultivation. We can see both of these motifs in the promotional biography
Here Yang is very obviously constructed as the child prodigy, showing an immediate
14
Excerpt from the Program booklet of the 12th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, p. 111.
130
i
affinity with her instrument, acquiring high-profile concerts at an unusually young age,
and gaining admittance into the Juilliard pre-college division, one of the most prestigious
conservatory programmes in the world. These are all attributions of talent and markers of
prestige but, at the same time, they imply her dedication to her art. The mention of
visual artists, the calling to art as a vocation is provoked by a single encounter with a
master or masterwork followed by a period of seclusion and obscurity in which the artist
develops his own style. In musical narratives, however, devotion to one's calling involves
a prolonged and intimate relationship with a master-teacher who provides the artist with a
solid musical foundation while coaxing out individual artistry (see for example Madigan
For those who possess (or are possessed by?) this gift, however,
recognition of their musicality is just a prelude to a lifelong journey. A
unique bond is established between the gently guiding music teacher and
the student, during which the talent is allowed to unfold. Following the
initial honing of basic skills, the voyage turns into an evermore solitary
one as the musician begins to plumb the very depths of his soul to listen
for a voice, if one exists at all, able to recognize and to communicate
something beyond the score, (p. 33-4)
In other words, the role of the teacher is to guide the artist in finding her own method of
accessing the '"eternal truths" in music and to help the artist develop an original voice to
communicate these to an audience. These are the sacred aspects of performance to which
the teacher orients the artist: "[My teacher] just sort of led the way for me to see that
music is what it's all about, not competitions or winning or being famous" (Madigan
2005: 4D).
Eventually, the years devoted to cultivating talent come to fruition. This brings us
131
to the third narrative motif, the rise to prominence, where the genius gains public
recognition. This could take the form of a medal at a prestigious competition, a string of
applause. Public recognition takes so many forms because each segment of the audience
visible both to other audience members and other audience segments. And while these are
not unrelated, the artist rarely enjoys all of them at once. Regardless of how many forms
the young artist acquires, however, it is the rise to public prominence that provides the
fitting conclusion for the narrative construction of Cliburn pianists. Since they are young
optimistic and heroic tale of promise and potential. We are spared the inevitable fall from
grace that is the next narrative motif in the sequence. Here the artist would be denigrated,
suffering through failure and solitude in equal proportion to the success and recognition
that was just enjoyed. But in the construction of competition pianists, the ritual structure
of the artist's biography, which follows a "rise and fall" scenario, is effectively cut short.
And by omitting the pessimistic phase of denigration, the artist's sacred status is only
further enhanced.
CONCLUSION
following way:
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These narrative frames reflect the ambivalence that characterises the event. It is at once
game and ritual following the distinction made by Levi-Strauss (1966 [1962]):
Music competitions are games in that they engender asymmetry through contingent
events, chance, and talent. In competitive sports this is achieved through a series of
matches, while at music competitions, it is a series of recitals. In both cases, the result is
the same. From a group of selected candidates who are equal - they are all subject to pre-
defined rules and have the same chance of success - an ultimate winner is declared. This
the terms of the profane narrative frame, only the zero-sum game it ultimately unveils is
But music competitions are not only games. At the same time, they are ritual-like.
anthropological sense (Small 1998; Kingsbury 1988). They are highly structured
environments for cultural communication in which the performers and the audience have
a shared understanding of the intention, content, and intrinsic validity of that form of
symbolic interaction (Alexander 2004). Prestigious competitions like the Cliburn strive to
recreate the performance conditions of the formal recital because they seek musicians
who can create a union with the audience in similar circumstances. From a performance
when all the elements of performance become seamlessly connected, the fragmentation of
the audience is overcome, and cultural extension from audience to performer is achieved.
For Levi-Strauss, it is the effect of play that determines whether it is a game or a ritual.
Even competitive sports can be treated as a ritual. Among his examples are the Gahuku-
Gama people of New Guinea who would play as many football matches as necessary for
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both sides to reach the same score (Levi-Straus 1966 [1962]). By this definition, the
status of music competitions should be clear. But as we have seen, they never definitively
infused with notions of the sacred. This is especially true of instrumental classical music,
which remains strongly associated with 19th-century ideas of the sublime and
from the game to the ritual frame, or back again, over the course of a particular music
competition because this process involves a discursive shift from profane to sacred
narratives.
would have called "expert listeners," the game frame inspires ironic commentary and
debased metaphor. Music critics in particular have tried to undermine this representation
of the event, invoking a polluting discourse to associate the competition with everything
that is reviled by the music community. Therein, they describe performers as victims of
this evil institution; having been corrupted, they become mechanistic (soul-less technical
For other segments of the audience, the game frame is not profane and pianism as sport is
general news coverage of competitions. The fused performance with which the general
public identifies is the conquering hero and musical champion, especially if the pianist
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was acting as representative of their own country. In the case of the Cliburn, the awe-
inspiring image is of Van Cliburn himself, returning triumphant from the Soviet Union
and being celebrated in the ticker-tape parade on 5th Avenue. But as we have seen, when
this narrative framework employs symbols and tropes from the masculinized realms of
sport and combat, it engages gender ideologies in the interpretation of bodily display and
musical meaning. This poses a unique problem of performance for female performers
who must juggle contradictory cultural expectations regarding musical virtuosity and
conventional femininity.
For their part, competitors and the music community are constantly seeking to
jettison the game frame because for them, it is not the competition that creates the
musical hero. The fused performance they are seeking is a musical one that conjures the
sacred and transcends the competition. This is certainly the aim of the performer, who
conveying it to their audience in such a compelling manner that it trivializes the context
of performance.
production and reception. Under the influence of Bourdieu and the production
perspective, the sociology of the arts has tended to assume that high art automatically
enjoys legitimacy as a result of its institutionalization. My findings suggest that this is not
the case; status and legitimacy are negotiated through ongoing, contingent social
Durkheimian concept of the "sacred," which recasts engagement with the arts as ritual
and debates over artistic value as endeavors to protect notions of the good. The case of
the music competition demonstrates that battles over legitimacy are not restricted to the
excellence, spill out from the concert hall into the larger public sphere.
Chapter 4: The Presentation of Musical Self
The competition is perhaps the most Goffmanian of institutions in the art world of
come under the microscope, and the effectiveness of performance carries serious
public labeling process in which there are only two available outcomes. Either they
become a laureate, which signals to the general public that they are a good performer who
could become known as one of the great talents of their generation. Or they become an
also-ran, which can compromise both their reputation and their identity as an artist.
If this risk were not enough cause for anxiety, competitors also have little
knowledge or control over the process of evaluation that results in their final ranking.
Jury deliberations are closed and the calculation of scores remains secret forever,
shrouding the evaluative process in mystery. All the performer can be sure of is that the
audience is unlikely to practice tactful inattention if they slip while conveying a fostered
impression, because it is those slips that provide the jury with unambiguous justification
for their elimination. For better or for worse, the labels bestowed on candidates at the
conclusion of each competition are only temporary. Those fortunate enough to receive
the title of laureate know it enters its half-life as soon as the competition holds the next
cycle. In those short years that they carry the unstable symbol of competence, the
performer must continue to convey the right impression in quite different musical
environments. And as many laureates come to learn the hard way, the competition prize
often pushes audience expectations unrealistically high, and critics' expectations unfairly
low.
analyzing different strategies of performance and forms of musical agency in this most
treacherous of musical environments. I will begin by discussing the impressions that can
available to the performer. To use Goffman's (1959) language, these impressions have
the potential to define the competition situation in the performer's interest, inspiring the
jury and the audience to see the musician as the clear winner so clearly beyond such
bureaucratic exercises that they even break the apparatus of the competition. Or, to use
symbols that guide the interpretation of social performance and increase the chance of
fusion between audience and performative text. I will then move on to discuss the
symbolic equipment and other means of symbolic production at the performer's disposal
to convey these impressions. To conclude, I will discuss what it is about the competition
that tends to thwart these strategies, and undermines efforts toward fusion on the part of
the performer.
PERFORMING GENIUS
While it is true that the concept of genius, not to mention Art, is a product of
modernity, the cultural logic of artistic genius has a much longer history. It is an
historical moments. This cultural continuity was persuasively demonstrated by Kris and
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Kurz (1979) who showed the striking uniformity of historical accounts of artists' lives in
the West stretching back through the centuries: "From the moment when the artist made
his [sic] appearance in historical records, certain stereotyped notions were linked with his
work and his person - preconceptions that have never entirely lost their significance and
that still influence our view of what an artist is" (p. 5). For example, some of the
recurring motifs in artists' biographies include: the chance discovery of the artist's talent
at a very young age by a distinguished person; the overcoming of obstacles put in the way
of the prodigy's chosen profession; the artist's ability to imitate nature so perfectly that it
is mistaken for reality; the artist's use of virtuosity to embarrass critics or take revenge on
miserly clients. Stereotyped episodes such as these are often told through the literary
device of the anecdote. Like jokes, anecdotes have a "point" that is not only pleasurable,
but also makes the prominent person, or social type, more understandable. It matters very
little whether an anecdote is true in any particular case, because it serves a different
Kris and Kurz were primarily concerned with the myths and legends pertaining to
painters, sculptors, and architects, but musicians are hardly exempt from this interpretive
process. The cultural construction of the musical artist is more complicated, however,
because the musical artist has been split in two. In previous eras, the competent musician
was proficient in both composition and performance. But in the 19th century, musical
practice was transformed and musical creation was divided into two specializations. This
had partly to do with the increasing complexity of musical notation. But it had even more
the early decades of the 20th century, the separation of performer and composer was
complete, and it remains the standard practice to this day. This division of musical labor
presents a problem of performance for both musical actors. For the composer, the lack of
presentation of their text. For the performer, they must convince the audience that they
have fused with the text's meanings and are transmitting these so perfectly in
performance that they "play as if from the soul of the composer".1 This problem is further
of musical genius has been completely taken over by the composer. Music scholarship
has actively contributed to this cornering of the genius market, as much thrall to the
genius is now thought to be populated only by master composers. How we have come to
history. Take, for example, two of the most famous icons of musical genius, Mozart and
Beethoven. Today they are seen as exemplars of the highest level of musical creativity
because of their compositional achievements. They are widely recognized as the creators
of masterpieces that are among the greatest achievements of Western culture. (This is
"culture" in the old-fashioned, elitist, Arnoldian sense.) But in their lifetimes, both were
1
J.A.P. Schulz, "Vortrag," (1775/92) in Sulzer, Allgemeine Theorie der Schonen Kiinste, quoted in (Hunter
2005)
141
recognized as much for their extraordinary talents in performance as they were for
composition.
I would like to reclaim the notion of genius for the performer by drawing attention
acclaim and admiration in the world of classical music today. My intention is not to
collective representations that continue to define the role of the musical performer for
both the audience and the musician. My discussion will centre on four cultural scripts: the
prodigy, the fire-breathing virtuoso, the conquering hero, and the intellectual. This is not
meant to be an exhaustive list of all performer tropes,2 but a cursory examination of those
The prodigy
Whether it is in math, chess, or music, the fascination with child prodigies is their
precociousness; they are miraculously able to perform well in a highly demanding field at
a level that is far beyond their years. Musical prodigies usually demonstrate this
superlative musical skills which often serve as premonitions of what the child is expected
to become.3 For example, the archetypal musical prodigy, W.A. Mozart, is said to have
2
For an unsystematic yet vivid discussion of many other performer tropes in the history of the piano, see
(Schonberg 1987[1963]).
3
1 take Feldman's (1986) point that although there is an "intuitive connection between them" (p. 16), the
terms "prodigy" and "genius" should not be used interchangeably. He distinguishes prodigies, who show an
extraordinary capability for an existing field, from geniuses, who are credited with transforming a field
both fundamentally and irreversibly. He argues that some prodigies may become geniuses, but that this
142
transcribed an entire mass from memory after hearing it only once. What makes the
prodigy's performance so compelling, however, is that their ease and facility with the
instrument does not necessarily reveal a consciousness of what they are doing. For this
reason, the less-convincing prodigies are accused of merely being over-rehearsed through
parental coercion; at worst, they are decried as less than human, "trained monkeys" or
"wind-up dolls." But the more convincing prodigies are awe-inspiring precisely because
To use Kivy's (2001) terms, this places the prodigy firmly within the "passive"
notion of genius that comes from Plato. Here, creativity is not an act of will, but a
temporary madness. The poet's inspiration is a divine gift that happens to him. In this
state, the poet is not himself, but is, essentially, "possessed." There is a necessary loss of
self or personhood: "the god speaks through the poet; so it is not the person of the poet
but the 'person' of the god that makes the poetry" (p. 73). The same notion is reflected in
however, the association with the divine had more sinister overtones. Often described as
which omens are drawn".4 Although prodigies are no longer associated with prophesy,
they can still acquire the aura of a sacred figure. For example, Sand (2000) describes how
audiences responded to the young Yehudi Menuhin with "a frenzy that the music world
transition is contingent on exogenous factors. While I appreciate the desire to pin down a precise definition
for each phenomenon, this is exactly the essentializing concept of genius that I do not wish to employ or
refine. In contrast, my focus is the common associations and "intuitive connections" that amount to cultural
constructions of genius.
4
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition.
has not seen since, rushing up to him at the end of the performance, desperate just to
Centuries later, Schopenhauer adapted the Platonic notion of genius for the
modern age, stripping it of its supernatural overtones while preserving the idea that feats
of creativity come from the loss of self. For him, the genius shared the madman's
inability to function in the mundane aspects of everyday life. But rather than being
possessed by a god, it is the object of knowledge into which the genius loses himself.
Schopenhauer also drew a stronger connection between the genius and the childlike. For
him, both share the liberation from the "dominance of will" (p.75). Echoes of this notion
persist in the present day. Prodigies are commonly described as "born to play", as though
they were essentially helpless toward the compulsion to master the instrument: "If you
have a child who is in this world to play the violin, and you decide this child is not going
to learn to play the violin—you have killed that child, if not physically, then certainly
rather than divine. A Faustian genius, the fire-breathing virtuoso's aim is to make music
whose "magical powers" (i.e., superhuman virtuosity) inspire both adoration and fear
(Kris and Kurz 1979). Extraordinary technical skill and the physicality of music-making
are used to startle and astonish the audience. Musical experience becomes a matter of
5
1 must thank competitor 7 for this wonderfully evocative term.
144
"shocking the listener, making him hear as he had never heard before, of taking over his
musical senses" (Sennett 1977:201). This has often involved a more cavalier attitude
towards musical material for two reasons. First, the score is not believed to have a direct
affinity to the music; it is the musician who, like a magician, brings the music to life
(Sennett 1977:199). Second, the gymnastics and contingencies of enactment are the real
focus of the performance. Spectacular effects and feats of virtuosity enhance the
immediacy of experience while the sheer force of personality overwhelms the musical
material. The same music played by anyone else simply is not the same piece. As Liszt
famously quipped, "le concert, c'est moi." The less-convincing of this type are accused of
being charlatans peddling cheap tricks and pandering to vulgar tastes. But the more
convincing virtuosi force even the most skeptical critics to concede that their
The archetypal fire-breather is the 19th century violinist Niccolo Paganini, who
not only revolutionized violin playing, but became the gold standard by which all
successive virtuosi were measured. Indeed it was after seeing him perform one night in
Paris that the nineteen year old Liszt set out to become the "Paganini of the piano", and
that label was applied to him for most of his career (Gibbs 2006). Although Paganini's
international career lasted only six years, in this short time, he became a legend. In
6
Weber (2004) has recently argued that the term "charlatan" only acquired decisively negative
connotations in the 19th century when a repertoire identified as "classical" attained canonic status and a
hierarchy of taste distinguishing "serious" from "light" was established. In the previous century, it was used
pejoratively by learned musicians to describe itinerant, self-trained musicians whose success threatened
their professional status. See (Weber 2004)
145
addition to his peerless technique, which he demonstrated to full effect in his own
All his work on stage was focused on drawing attention to himself. The
audience at a typical Paganini concert might witness the violinist break
one, two, or finally three strings on his violin, so that by the end of a
difficult concerto, all the notes were being played off a single string. [...]
Paganini liked to appear suddenly in front of the audience from a hiding
place within the orchestra, rather than waiting in the wings offstage; once
visible, he would wait one, two, or three minutes, staring silently at the
audience, bringing the orchestra to an abrupt halt, and all at once begin to
play. Paganini loved best to start with a hostile audience, ready to boo
him, and then reduce them to blind adulation by the force of his playing,
(p. 200-1)
From the moment he burst onto the concert stages of Europe, Paganini had a
strong association with the macabre. Many of his signature compositions were based on
gothic themes (e.g., Le streghe "The witches"), or acquired suggestive nicknames (e.g.,
Caprice no. 13 was known as "Le rire du diable" ("The devil's laugh")). These noir
references were further dramatized through his physical appearance, which had become
gaunt and cadaverous after suffering from many illnesses, including wasting disease. Off-
murder and imprisonment, and of profound sorrows and destitution" (Gooley 2005).
After his death, his diabolical image was further cemented; between his reputation for
immorality and his refusal of last rites on his deathbed, church authorities refused him a
7
Gooley has recently explored the possible influence of comic opera and Italian theatre on Paganini's
performing identity and compositions during his formative years (1795-1815) in Italy. He argues that the
image of Paganini that has dominated music history is actually a reinterpretation of the theatrical dimension
of his music coloured by German Romanticism and mediated by the culture of the Bildung; before 1828,
reviewer tended to employ neoclassical references and metaphors. Gooley shows that when properly
understood, Paganini in his comic mode is also demonic. Through theatrical devices such as imitating
animal sounds and human voices, Paganini, like a magician, "conjures out of the wooden box a multitude
of mimed voices that have a phantasmic quality because they are semi-articulate, half-heard, fleeing and
reappearing, laughing, and crying." (p. 416) See (Gooley 2005)
146
Christian burial until the Grand Duchess of Parma finally intervened. While his musical
history was decisive: "With his gaunt and gangling appearance and his demoniac
Superhuman virtuosity does not only appear in diabolical form; it has also been
described through the symbolism of the machine. This discourse emerged at the height of
the Industrial Age, especially in reference to the piano, which served both as a metaphor
and agent of capitalism and instrumental rationality in its design, production, and
distribution. But it was not just the musical instrument that was represented in this way:
Clearly, the image of the artist as magician is not confined to a traditional or religious
cultural context. Indeed, the machine metaphor has kept it alive to this day, although
instead of the pistons and cogs of the steam engine, today it is computer technology that
reckoned with. This type of performer is a powerful figure that dominates the instrument,
147
masters the repertory, and commands the audience's attention. To borrow Kivy's (2001)
terms again, these characteristics place the hero within the Longinian concept of genius in
the Kantian mode: "genius as nature's rule-giver to art" (p. 118). In marked contrast to
the Platonic genius who is passive and "possessed", this performer is an active
"possessor" of power and agency who makes things happen. The hero's music results
from the sheer force of will, which often entails breaking the rules of musical and social
convention. Accordingly, the less convincing performers of this trope are accused of
being self-absorbed and reckless egoists, brutish tyrants, or delusional divas. But the
more convincing are lionized for communicating their noble spirit which puts the listener
The archetypal musical hero is Beethoven, in both the music and the man. As
Burnham (1995) has shown, the hero trope has dominated critical and scholarly
work has been understood as the ultimate expression of the conditions of selfhood
because its heroic quality is found on three levels. Firstly, it is a portrayal of heroism,
"The Man Who Freed Music", single-handedly revolutionizing Western music. And
enlists the listener's identification to such an extent that it becomes her own victory.
While social resources and cultural transformations provided fertile ground for the
"given the rule to art" on the same level as Beethoven. The values of his heroic style have
148
become core values of music: "For nearly two centuries, a single style of a single
compositional logic and of all the positive virtues that music can embody for humanity"
(Burnham 1995:xiii).
narrative (Gray 2002) in which he overcomes his deafness to become the most important
composer of all time. But the interpretive work of establishing this master trope in his
biography was not accomplished purely through his reception history; Beethoven also
helped construct himself as a heroic agent in his personal and professional life. In a
famous letter to his brothers from 1802 (commonly referred to as the Heiligenstadt
Testament because of its writing style), he expressed a heroic resolve to overcome his
affliction.8 He also cultivated a distinctively aggressive and visceral style of playing the
piano that challenged aristocratic notions of decorum (DeNora 2006). His rebelliousness
flouting the rules of social etiquette. Anecdotes about his rude behavior abound,
describing not only his cruelty toward servants and condescension toward fellow
musicians, but his arrogance toward the aristocracy as well. His unconventionality
"...Born with a fiery Lively Temperament susceptible even to the Diversion of Society, I soon had to
keep to myself, pass my life in solitude, if I attempted from time to time to rise above all this, o how
harshly then was I repulsed by the doubly sad Experience of my bad Hearing, yet I could not say to People:
speak louder, shout, for I am deaf, alas how could I acknowledge the weakness of a Faculty which ought to
be more perfect in me than in others, a Faculty I once had to the highest degree of Perfection, such
Perfection as only few of my calling surely have or have had—o I cannot do it. Therefore forgive me if you
see me withdrawing when I should gladly join you. My misfortune afflicts me doubly, since it causes me to
be misunderstood. [...]But what Mortification if someone stood beside me and heard a flute from afar and I
heard nothing; or someone heard a Shepherd Singing, and I heard nothing. Such Happenings brought me
close to Despair; I was not far from ending my own life—only Art, only art held me back. Ah, it seemed
impossible to me that I should leave the world before I had produced all that I felt I might, and so I spared
this wretched life..." Translation reprinted in (Weiss and Taruskin 1984).
149
In the 19th century, the hero trope was commonly rooted in a militaristic symbolic
of Napoleon (Burnham 1995). Popular virtuosi were frequently found to resemble the
military icon's face and figure, including violinist Alexandre Boucher, who did actually
bear some resemblance (Kawabata 2004), and the pianist Franz Liszt, for whom this
claim was more of a stretch (Gooley 2000). That today we are unable to recognize any
physical resemblance between Liszt and Napoleon, and would find such a claim
preposterous, only serves to demonstrate the power and historicity of culture structures. It
was also in the decades following the French Revolution that the "warhorse" metaphor
emerged in musical culture. This term continues to be used, especially in the context of
interpretive and technical demands on performer. Gooley (2004; 2000) argues that this
term has actually drifted to the musical work from its original source, the performer,
whose dramatic and virtuosic performance evoked battle imagery quite independently of
representations have otherwise faded from the world of classical music. But the hero
remains a powerful trope, because it has been taken up through other symbolic
frameworks, such as sports (see chapter 3). We are hardly lacking for contemporary
artist-heroes. Two famous images will suffice for examples. First, there is Van Cliburn
being given hero's welcome of a ticker tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City
on his return from the 1958 Tchaikovsky competition. The second is the political
150
dissident Mstislav Rostropovich playing Bach Suites all night at the fall of the Berlin wall
The intellectual
intellectual's approach is one of reverence: "the text is the only guide to what the music
should be" (Sennett 1977:198). The intellectual lives by the mantra of "letting the music
speak for itself. To impose one's personality, or take liberties with the markings, is seen
as hubris. A near fanatical obsession with faithfulness to the score drives the intellectual
to control every interpretive decision. Nothing is left to chance or whim because it would
experience. Ideally, the performer reveals the truths contained in the score, thereby
transporting the attentive listener. While the more convincing of this type are hailed as
brilliant minds, the less successful are accused of alienating the audience with their dry,
emotionless performances.
performance (see Taruskin 1995), this type of performer has been the cult figure of the
20th century. The most famous examples are pianists: Glenn Gould, Alfred Brendel, and
accurate blueprint of the architecture of the music. Color, charm and emotion mean less
than a stringent exposition of the form and relationships of a piece. The modern style
takes Stravinsky's injunction to heart: don't interpret me, just play the notes as I have
written them" (p. 482). Although anything that smacks of entertainment is banished from
concerts, audiences flock to these solemn occasions, listening "as though attending a holy
These four scripts should be understood as generalized tropes that can be creatively
engaged, not cookie cutters that straightjacket or pigeonhole the performer. Each
musician must individualize the script according to their skills and the available
expressive equipment. Those who do not sufficiently adapt the role, or who emulate too
authenticity. Imitation may be the most sincere form of flattery, but when it comes to
"There are a lot of people I know who formulate their repertoire around an
icon, like Horowitz, or Cliburn, for example. A lot of people are so
influenced by Horowitz, they want to do everything he did. I always think
that's a little strange, personally." (Interview with competitor 2) 9
9
As explained in the introductory chapter, I will adopt the bureaucratic practice of using numbers to protect
the anonymity of the competitors I interviewed.
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pre-determined number of scripts a given performer can take on; different tropes can be
engaged in different contexts, or in different phases of the performer's career. Indeed, all
of the performers discussed as archetypal examples engaged most if not all of these four
tropes during their lives; perhaps this is why they remain such prominent figures in music
to engage a single genius trope for the duration of the event. Even if they are entirely
convincing with a particular script, they run the risk of being branded as one-
dimensional.
some scripts are more amenable to transition than others. The fire-breathing virtuoso and
the conquering hero, for example, are extremely compatible tropes with overlapping
meanings. Virtuosity gives the fire-breather the power to dominate or "mesmerize" the
listener (DeNora 2006), while the hero's habit of breaking social convention can bring
the performer's morality into question. Goethe suggested a strong connection between the
two when he remarked that both Paganini and Napoleon shared a "demonic" quality that
with a built-in expiration date that, once passed, leaves the performer little choice but to
The flexibility of the script is not the only factor affecting the transition between
tropes; the audience must also be inclined to accept the change. If the performer was
especially effective in portraying a particular script, she risks being "type-cast" by the
public. To convince the public to see her in a new light, she must foster a new impression
material things required to make vivid symbolic projections. Goffman referred to this as
and a white coat are props that help an individual produce a convincing performance of
symbolic production generally fall into two categories: musical and visual.
Unlike a singer whose instrument is her own body, the instrumental musician
relies on technology (the musical instrument) to produce her "voice". For pianists, this
logistical nightmare, they have no choice but to adapt to whatever instrument is on stage
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and make the most of it. In competitions, the organization running the event is
responsible for providing and maintaining the instrument to be used in competition. This
but it has the advantage of leveling the playing field. Recently, it has become common
for larger, more prestigious competitions to provide a choice of pianos from different
manufacturers (e.g., Hamburg and New York Steinways, Yamaha, Bosendorfer etc.)
When this is the case, the process of selection is treated with utmost seriousness. Each
competitor is allotted a short amount of time to try every instrument in the venue where
the competition is held. A competition official monitors the time with a stopwatch and
records each competitor's selection. The practice of providing competitors with a choice
disadvantage candidates from abroad who are unaccustomed to the kind of piano
commonly used in the competition's home region. But it does little to alleviate the
pianists' occupational hazard. Twenty minutes is hardly enough time to gain familiarity
with an instrument. The pianist will not know until well into the performance what the
piano can do, and in the hours leading up to that moment of truth, the performer can only
String players, on the other hand, have the luxury of bringing their own
instruments to competitions since they are relatively portable. But this is not necessarily
to their benefit, because not all string instruments are created equal. Competitors realize
inferior quality. For this reason, many borrow better instruments from teachers or violin
shops. In the interest of fairness, some competitions have begun to take into consideration
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that not every competitor will be playing on a Stradavarius and that ignoring this
disparity would introduce a bias against competitors from countries where economic or
political conditions have made decent instruments hard to come by. The Rostropovich
inspection" at the beginning of each cycle. Upon arrival, every competitor's instrument is
inspected by the competition's luthier, much like the medical examination that precedes
copied and distributed to the rest of the jury for consultation in deliberations. The
selecting a competitor to receive the use of a high quality instrument for up to three
years.11
given the most thought is the choice of repertoire. First and foremost, competitors must
this reason that competitors take so much care in selecting musical texts. A skilled
meanings contained in the score, a sensibility for the style, and an ability to adjust to the
musical environment in which it will be performed. If any of these is found lacking, the
performance is likely to fail. When selecting what to play in a competition, the performer
also has to take into account a host of other factors: what repertoire has been overplayed,
what is currently "in their fingers" at performance level, what can be resurrected quickly,
what best features their technical and musical strengths, and what will show greatest
11
The cello awarded in the 2005 competition was by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, dated 1852, on loan from
the Le Fonds Instrumental Francais.
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range of their abilities. And when weighing up these factors, they must bear in mind that
they are not just playing for an "ordinary" audience of "real people" as competitors call
them, but for a jury whose level of technical expertise is presumably high. I say
"presumably" not out of spite, but because jury members do not always play the
instrument they judge. Those who do are not necessarily more sympathetic with the
competitor's plight for having "been there"; an intimate knowledge of the repertoire and
instrumental technique can make a juror even more sensitive to the constructedness of
fostered impressions.
Performers often select certain repertoire to cue the judges who they believe will
effectively, the musical texts performed must support the desired image, supplying the
performer the appropriate meanings with which to fuse. This is why repertoire choice is
so important. For example, a pianist wanting to come across as a fiery virtuoso will do
better to program repertoire that is full of dramatic contrasts and that showcase visibly
impressive acrobatics. Often this is not the most profound music, but it is effective. As
"There are some pieces that are just good for competition. Like, for
example, the second Kabalevsky cello concerto. It's a really stupid piece.
But a lot of cellists have figured out that it's excellent for competitions,
because it starts out with all these pizzicatos, and it's really intense. Then
there's all this fast stuff. It's like, "Rrrrr, fast! Rrrrr, fast!" And everyone's
like "oh, wow!" because they haven't heard it before. They're like, "Oh!
They're playing this interesting piece, and it's so impressive!" (Interview
with competitor 10)
"That's why so many pianists play Islamey, which is the biggest piece of
garbage in the world. But everybody puts it in their first round because it's
the hardest thing ever written. It's just a piece of trash, but it's really
impressive. And if somebody can hit the notes in that piece, wow. There
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are some pieces which are known to pianists that if you play them
perfectly, it's an automatic ticket into the next round. If you miss a note,
it's an automatic ticket out of the first round. That would be like the
Brahms Paganini Variations. It's one of the hardest solo pieces,
technically, out there. If you can play it perfectly, you pretty much
guarantee you'll get into the next round." (Interview with competitor 2)
other hand, the program will contain quite a different assortment of music. Flashy or
Schoenberg or Boulez, or take the risk of performing a single work that is as demanding
But to describe repertoire choice purely in these terms exaggerates the strategic
aspect, and reduces the complexity of meaning involved in deciding what to play in
competition. Programming involves not just the selection of musical texts, but also their
arrangement into a meaningful sequence. One respondent described the program of a first
round recital:
"I programmed those three pieces because they were related. They were
all in the grand Romantic spirit, but also, the first piece ends on a G. And
the second piece begins on a G. The second piece ends on a B-flat major
chord. And the third piece begins enharmonically on the same thing. In the
history of performance, Rachmaninoff produced this generation of pianists
that would modulate between pieces. They'd end a piece, and they'd
probably bow, and then they'd start in the key that they'd finished and
work their way to the key of the next piece, and then they'd start the next
piece. So there's some kind of precedent for having that sort of harmonic
link between the pieces. And probably nobody was listening for that or
noticed it. But I noticed it and I enjoyed it." (Interview with competitor 7)
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This excerpt demonstrates how programming holds multiple layers of meaning. On the
surface, the program the competitor was describing was quite conventional. It brought
together three works from the golden era of the solo piano literature. Because pieces in
the "grand Romantic spirit" provide a mixture of poignant and virtuosic writing, they are
ideal (and popular) choices for a competition environment. But the program also held
together on a deeper level. The succession of pieces was determined by a musical logic,
specifically, the beginning and ending tonality of each work. While admitting this was
probably imperceptible to most audience members, the performer felt it added another
dimension to the program. It was also personally meaningful because it aligned him with
Even more revealing than the performer's choice of repertoire, however, is how it
texts. Due to the inherent ambiguities of notation, musical scores are not a series of
instructions that can be followed to the letter. Although Adorno used the misleading term
"re-production" for musical performance, even he recognized that the musical text is
"merely a coded script which does not guarantee unequivocal meaning"(Adorno 2002:
412). Performing music is inherently and necessarily an interpretive act. It requires the
ability to grasp patterns of musical signifiers in an abstract manner and realize them in a
contingent performance situation. This is not simply a matter of refining motor skills and
coordination of motor sequences with the analytic capacity to interpret musical texts.
Indeed, an appreciation for the fundamental connection between the two is the basis of a
musical training. For musicians, the technical aspects of musical performance are never
simply practical solutions to navigating an instrument. They are the means through which
principle applies equally to every technical decision, from bowings and articulation, to
Because each piece requires countless decisions of this kind, the presentation of a
"The sound you create should be transferred from inside of you. It should
be your voice that is transferred to music. And if it's so, it's kind of
personal, and that's really good. That might be really unique, which is the
most important thing. The sound you produce should be, you know, your
own voice." (Interview with competitor 4)
This is true even of string quartets and chamber ensembles who present a
"A group needs to have a unified sense of self as an ensemble when going
into a competition environment. That's harder than going in as a soloist.
That's also why most groups don't sound good the first year. They haven't
figured out yet who they are, what they sound like, and what they believe
in. That's important to take into any performance situation, but
particularly a competition where they're judging you and they want to
know who you are. If it's unclear, then they probably won't want to hear
more of you." (Interview with competitor 12)
Sometimes the musical text provides opportunities to reveal aspects of the self
The investment of self in musical performance, however, means that the elimination from
"I feel like I show my personality and who I am when I play. It's very
much me, it's very honest. So if they don't like it, to me that means they
don't like me. So I take that very personally." (Interview with competitor
9)
"[After being eliminated] I was really depressed for about a week and a
half. And I didn't play the violin for a while. These things are so
depressing if you don't do well. Everybody takes them differently. I think
people get depressed, especially really intense people. How could you not?
You take it as a self-worth issue."
In earlier years, many competitions used a curtain to obstruct the jury's view of
the candidates and identified competitors with numbers, as is the current practice in
orchestral auditions (Alink 1990). Today, music competitions are never blind. Even the
pre-selectians, which used to be conducted through submitted audio recordings, are now
commonly videotaped. It is therefore not just the aural aspect of musical performance that
is put to the test in music competitions; the visual element, and all of its complexity,
comes into play as well. Leppert (1993) has correctly argued that the visual element in art
Leppert makes this connection in his research by analyzing the representation of music-
making in visual art. In the following section, I will attempt to make the connection by
not the only ones guilty of overlooking the visual means of symbolic production.
Classical musicians are just as notorious for downplaying this aspect of performance.
"simultaneously transparent to the work and vividly present to the audience" (Hunter
nuance, not the theatrics of visual display. When asked about the visual aspect of
"I don't think about it too much. I've always had the impression that girls
had to think about it more because they have more choice as far what they
can wear. I mean, guys just wear suits and tuxedos. Some of them wear
strange things. There's a French pianist who always wears red socks or
something with his black tuxedo. I'm personally not interested in making
those kinds of statements. I just try to do whatever's traditional...nothing
to distract from the music." (Interview with competitor 7)
"The judges are not looking for some kind of circus type to perform or to
make people laugh. They want to find somebody who's sending a message
which is impossible to deny. But the question is: how do you send the
message? Through throwing your hands around, fancy dresses, or a
haircut, and making this your most important thing? Because the judges of
good competitions are world-class musicians and professionals, I think it's
really difficult to convince them with superficial effects like dresses or
smiling all the time. You can do it, but it's dangerous. Because they are
serious musicians themselves, and they're looking for natural music,
mostly." (Interview with competitor 4)
Through comments such as these, where the visual is trivialized and gimmicks are
condemned, competitors are trying to show that they are serious musicians whose highest
priority is the "music itself - what Green (1997) calls the "inherent" meanings of the
score, and what I have called the musical system of collective representations. But even
the staunch purist will begrudgingly concede that the audience relies to some extent on
gestures and facial expressions to interpret musical meaning, whether or not they should.
Studies in the psychology of music suggest that this is in fact the case, and that
performers neglect the visual dimension at their peril. For example, Williamon (1999)
demonstrated through a controlled experiment that an audience will score the identical
solo cello performance lower when a music stand partially obstructs the view of the
performer. Neither is the jury's evaluation immune from the influence of the visual. Da
Costa Coimbra and Davidson (2001) found that physical appearance figured as strongly
judgments about the performer's personality and sense of self based on the non-verbal
information displayed through "stage presence" - her manner of walking on stage and
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bowing, her body's demeanor in the physical labor of producing sound, her style of dress,
Some would interject at this point to argue that the visual dimension is more
important for singers than for instrumentalists, and that the jurors of vocal performance
are perfectly justified in examining the body of the singer because that is the instrument.
Others, like Green (1997), would point to the cultural expectation for singers to have
visual appeal. I have found, however, that the visual element is just as important in
instrumental performance. Instrumentalists themselves read a great deal from the non-
verbal communication of the performer, and use this information to anticipate the quality
"A juror once told me that he could often tell who would make it to the
next round and how people were going to play just by the way they
walked onstage and bowed. Yeah, just by the confidence that was
displayed. I don't disagree, actually. A lot of times you see somebody
come onstage and you just know it's going to be good. [Laughs] And
sometimes you see somebody come on and bow and you just know it's
going to be terrible. [Laughs] And then there are those times when
somebody is completely unpredictable, when their playing blows you
away and you never thought it would." (Interview with competitor 2)
This remark suggests that even though occasions for classical music performance are
highly ritualized (Small 1998), the manner in which prescribed actions are performed can
communicate a great deal about the performer. But this communication is not just
directed towards others. The meanings displayed through stage presence are performed as
"If the competition is in a small room with just the jury present, I wouldn't
bow. But I would walk out as if I were on stage, like I was about to bow.
Because it helps me too. All of that helps me feel, like, okay - this is "go"
time! This is not casual. This is for real. And I feel like anything I can do
to make the judges feel confident in my playing is only going to help me. I
just want to do whatever I can from the beginning to put them at ease so
that they sit back and be, like "Oh, this is going to be good!" Because
then, before I even start, it gives me a little bit of an edge. They're not
waiting for me to screw up because they don't think I'm going to."
(Interview with competitor 10)
Concert traditions are among the first lessons of a musician's training, which
typically occur in early childhood for pianists and string players. After learning the
format of the ritual (e.g., entering and exiting the stage, how to acknowledge applause,
incorporating the advice of teachers and by imitating admired performers. For example:
"My very first teacher gave me certain pointers that I still keep to this day.
Like for example, when I'm walking out on stage, I don't run to the piano
as if it were a security blanket. I shouldn't feel vulnerable just walking.
Also, I always smile when I bow. Even if I have a bad performance, I
make sure that I smile to the audience to acknowledge them, as if saying
"thank you very much for listening." It's not supposed to be the smile of
"I performed really well; hence I'm going to smile now." It should be as
though it doesn't matter if it was a bad performance. There are people who
frown after a bad performance, and it puts the audience in a solemn mood
too." (Interview with competitor 6)
By the time they reach the stage of international competitions, these mannerisms have
become almost second nature, which explains in part why competitors invariably insist
But as one respondent perceptively remarked: "You have to be natural, but it's not
easy to be just natural, right? You have to become natural, through the experience of
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hundreds of concerts and competitions" (Interview with competitor 4). In other words,
Performers can hardly be blamed, however, for marshalling out a discourse of naturalism
because it is essential both to their claim to authenticity and their aspiration for
performance genius. These are again an inheritance of Romantic aesthetics. The notion
that the performer should be able to grasp music's expressive content instinctually, or by
spontaneity and instinctive sympathy to other aspects of performance. For example, one
meanings to various gestures, as though stage presence were a form of picture acting:
"Some people, who have too much time on their hands, analyze what kind
of signals you're giving to the audience. Like if you bow away from the
piano, you're being a little more self-centered. Whereas if you bow with
your hand on the piano, you're acknowledging the fact that it's not just
about you, but the piano is also part of the picture. Then there are the
signals you give when you're actually playing the piano. It got a little too
technical, so I don't even remember - 1 can't really care too much about it.
But I heard that when you're playing and looking up and to the right,
you're paying attention to the musical things you want to come out of your
performance. While if you look up and to the left, you're listening more to
your sound and making sure that your technique is right. Something of
that sort, I can't remember. I wasn't sure I bought into it, but it's
interesting." (Interview with competitor 6)
approach on the grounds that it was mechanical and calculated. The onus is on the
performer to do more than manipulate the audience by pointing to certain meanings; they
But the performer need not worry quite so much about becoming too calculating,
because a great deal of visual symbolic production is beyond their control. As Goffman
"given" and unconsciously "given off', and the audience typically relies on the latter to
gauge the reliability of the former. Along with dress, facial expressions and other
manipulable devices of stage presence, the performer's body is itself a text that is read by
the audience. The expressions given off through physical and social characteristics can
either reinforce or compromise the image conveyed by the performer. For each of the
genius tropes discussed above, there is a cultural expectation of how the performer should
look. And although they are never set in stone, certain visual signifiers help the performer
For the prodigy, the critical sign of credibility is a small body. As one respondent
recalled:
"I started playing the cello when I was three, and I did some smaller
competitions in my town. I think it was good for me in some ways. It
made me more confident because I would win them. And I think I won
them because I was.. .little, basically. I was sort of like a freak show,
because I was just so small!" (Interview with competitor 10)
The delicacy of the female prodigy's body is often further emphasized with a carefully
manicured appearance. This produces a doll-like effect which we can see in Sand's
(2000) description of thefirsttime she saw violinist Sarah Chang, then six years old, at a
"Sarah was wearing a white party dress, white stockings, and white patent
shoes, and had her hair tied back with a pink satin bow. She was tiny and
totally charming." (p. 161)
The smallness of male prodigy's body, on the other hand, merely emphasizes the tender
age of the performer, making their effortless execution of demanding repertoire all the
more astonishing (or disconcerting). For example, one respondent marveled at a prodigy
"I saw a YouTube video of this kid - he was eight years old, and he
played like he was thirty-five! His feet were still dangling from the chair,
and he was playing this Liszt piece with such facility and artistry. It was
right after my lesson. And I was thinking - why am I watching this? I want
to quit. Because if there are eight year olds out there who can play like
this, and I'm struggling to get my lesson repertoire ready in time, I mean,
why am I doing this?" (Interview with competitor 11)
Sometimes the cultural expectations for the prodigy trope are so strong that they are
forced on performers against their will. For example, violinist Joshua Bell complained
that the press kept printing articles claiming that he was fourteen even after his eighteenth
birthday (Sand 2000:157). But no matter how much the public wants a young prodigy,
this sort of fiction can only be sustained as long as the performer's physical appearance
supports it.
For the fire-breathing virtuoso and the conquering hero, the performer's physical
characteristics serve merely to underscore the body language that displays the defining
meanings of each trope. For this, the performer is almost entirely dependent on the
properties of the musical instrument to provide the opportunity structure for meaningful
visual display. Historically, the piano and the violin have held the greatest symbolic
potential. In the 19 century, the piano served as a perfect metaphor and vehicle for
could replace an entire orchestra; "on no other instrument except the organ (where issues
of portability and repertoire limited the possibilities) could one person impose his or her
will more completely on the music" (Winter 2004:17). As discussed earlier, DeNora
(2006) has argued that Beethoven subverted aristocratic values and provided an object
lesson in heroic agency by demanding a more visceral and aggressive approach to the
keyboard in his piano repertoire. Liszt continued this legacy by taking violent
performance choreography to a whole new level: "By amplifying vertical gestures into
the keys, introducing stormy embellishments, and mimicking the musical drama with
domination and triumph that invited listeners to imagine the performance as a battle, the
virtuoso as a valiant warrior" (Gooley 2000:62).12 For the violin, it was the ballet of the
bow arm that evoked power, military heroism, and masculinity for 19 century audiences
consumed with the cult of Napoleon. The new "Cramer" bow design, which was
straighter, longer, and sharper-tipped than the previous model, was easily transformed in
the popular imagination into a rapier or sword wielded by the violinist like a general
19th-century counterparts, but the significance of the musician's performing body has
12
Beethoven has a well-deserved reputation for being the "keyboard strangler" whose ferocious pounding
of the keyboard invariably damaged the delicate wood-framed instruments of his day. It is less well-known
that Liszt was just as notorious a "string-breaker" and "keyboard-shatterer". When he performed in public
concerts, Liszt kept two pianos on stage because one instrument was unlikely to make it through the entire
performance. For contemporary accounts of Liszt's creative acts of destruction, see Gooley (2000).
169
hardly diminished. Other instruments, such as the bassoon, the tuba, or the triangle, might
be as difficult to master as the violin or the piano. But because they have a limited
possibility of gestural display, or have associations with symbolic codes that are at odds
with the virtuoso image, they compromise performer's claims to this trope. The organ is
an interesting case in point because it was once a great virtuoso instrument. Today,
however, the organist has a great deal more difficulty engaging the fire-breather trope.
This is in part because of the organ's association with the church, the demonic's semiotic
opposite. But it is also because the placement of the organ console usually hides the
performer from the audience's view. The instrument with the least chance of engaging
the virtuoso trope, however, is the kazoo. Indeed, the ridiculousness of this scenario has
been realized by Peter Schickele under his satirical compositional persona, P.D.Q. Bach.
But the instrument is not the performer's only resource for producing spectacle.
Dress can also provide potent signifiers for the fire-breather trope. Contrary to
conventional wisdom, flamboyant wardrobe has not become the exclusive reserve of
popular entertainers like Elton John or Liberace. One respondent described a veteran of
piano competitions who was not afraid to exploit playfully this aspect of his appearance:
13
To protect his identity, the pianist's name has been changed.
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some people. Others who know him a little better think it's charming. But
there's one thing that's for sure about Alexander, which is that the visual,
his character, his poise, and his personality completely affect the way that
audiences perceive him. [...] Alexander without his visual is kind of hard
to imagine. He's the ultimate performer with his wardrobe and his
gimmicks and everything. You can't just stick him on a cassette tape and
say "this is Alexander" because that's not really who he is." (Interview
with competitor 2)
While few competitors take the visual element as far (or as literally) as "Alexander", this
connection between the musical text and concert dress: the (Slavic) performer wore a
Dracula costume to play a piece about the dance of death. On a more abstract level,
however, "Alexander" was conveying the fire-breather image, and in this endeavor, he
could not have devised a more fitting tribute for the archetypal virtuoso who composed
that musical text. Instead of a cape, Liszt would throw his gloves and his handkerchief in
front of the piano as he entered. This sort of gesture, as well as Liszt's distinctive use of
his body while playing the piano, polarized the audience just as effectively. And just as
Schumann wrote of Liszt that he had to be seen as well as heard "for if Liszt played
The intellectual trope might not require the same sort of theatrics as the fire-
neglected and conscientiously denied. For this trope, typical signs of credibility include a
slightly unkempt or bookish appearance, or, even better, eccentric habits. For example,
Glenn Gould's off-stage eccentricities contributed a great deal to his legendary status. A
recluse who would sleep through the day, Gould refused to shake anyone's hand for fear
of contamination, and would continue to wrap himself up in a beret, ear muffs, a scarf,
overcoat, and leather gloves throughout the summer months. But eccentricities are hardly
confined to off-stage behavior; the intellectual can also display an expressive body
language at the instrument no less theatrical than the fire-breather. Gould, for example,
would sway, hum audibly, and beat time with his free hand while playing. These
mannerisms can come across just as dramatically (or affected) as those of the virtuoso.
"The greatest is when pianists vibrate. That crosses the line. It annoys the
heck out of me. You can't vibrate on a piano! And they say "Can't you
hear it?" No! You can do it on a clavichord, because the hammer
mechanism actually touches the string. But on a piano, it's more like an
idea to help you envision or hear the phrase." (Interview with competitor
11)
Some intellectuals, however, eschew exaggerated body language, keeping a still body at
the instrument and using an economy of motion to produce sound. This sort of highly-
expressive signifier of the modern, severe, puritan style this performer wishes to
represent. The fact that so many are "blind" to the signification of the intellectual's visual
performance does indicate its absence. Rather, it serves to demonstrate how automatically
musical meaning, which should render the social characteristics of the performer
irrelevant. But the effects of gender and race cannot be avoided, especially in live
performances where the audience can gaze on the body of the performer. As Green
(1997) has argued, the gender of the musical performer is not merely an extra-musical
association; it enters into the interpretation of musical meaning, becoming intrinsic to the
listening experience. Male and female musicians have a different relationship to their
audience because the bodily display involved in the performance of music is enmeshed in
gender ideologies.
In Green's view, the acceptance of women in public musical roles has depended
institutionalized gender roles. Although the degree of gender exclusion varies according
to a host of factors including the type of instrument, the performance context, and the
style of music performed, some general patterns can be identified across genres and
historical periods. The female singer, for example, has been the most socially acceptable
natural, desirable and dangerous" (p. 54); because she makes music with her own voice,
she remains "subjected to the vicissitudes of the body" (p. 86). The female
musical technology offers instead "a femininity which controls, a femininity which
alienates itself in an object and impinges on the world" (p. 54). The male instrumentalist,
gender only provokes comment when he enters a performance context that is overly
competitions, where the masculinized realms of sports and combat have become the
Female competitors are well aware that their gender is not only "visible" to the
audience, but that their physical attractiveness factors into the listener's experience. As
"I think that appearance is so important. If people are tone deaf in the
audience, which is a lot of people, you have to make them want to look at
you for some other reason. So if you look bad, I mean, then you're just
done! [Laughs] Then no one wants to look at you! [In terms of
performance clothes] I try to find something that is fashionable, looks
good, makes me look good, makes my body type look good, but is not too
sexy. Because I don't like that either. A little bit is okay. [...] I was happy
though that a lot of the girls [in this competition] wore pants because I was
worried about the fact that I wasn't wearing a dress or a skirt." (Interview
with competitor 9)
This competitor's remarks also resonate with Green's argument that women can
compensate for the disruptive effect of performing instruments through a bodily display
that affirms femininity. Indeed, since the 19 century, successful female instrumentalists
have been described as beautiful women and fine players. Apparently, then, competitor 7
(quoted above) was right; the visual aspect of performance is more of an issue for
appropriately feminine appearance, the performer can draw more attention to her bodily
display, which often compromises her authority as a serious musician. Listeners tend to
doubt the ability and the commitment of the female performer who comes across as
investing too much effort in her appearance. Visual presentation is therefore a complex
"I never know what to wear [in competitions]. Because I want to show
respect, and be formal. But sometimes you're playing the first round at ten
in the morning. You don't really want to wear just pants and a shirt, but
you don't want to wear your ball gown either, you know? Because it's ten
in the morning! And if there are two rounds on the same day, do you
change? Or do you wear the same thing? Because sometimes people say
that of course you change, because it's a different round, and it helps give
you a mental distinction between what had just happened and what is
going to happen next. But then you wonder if the jury is thinking
[grumbling] 'this is not a fashion show.'" (Interview with competitor 10)
femininity must be found. In terms of their playing, female musicians garner praise less
for being genderless at the instrument than for achieving a desirable combination of
"Everyone has told me I play like a man. That I look feminine, that I look
lovely at the piano, and that I sound like a man. On my good days. On one
hand, I take it as a compliment. On the other hand, I say no! I sound like
me, not a man or a woman. But honestly, there is a degree of truth to that,
I'm sorry to say. There is a type of playing that's very nice and pretty and
emotional, but it's very powerless." (Interview with competitor 14)
This competitor's comments indicate that the gendering of musical performance runs
much deeper than physical appearance and bodily display. The influence of patriarchal
legacies. In her discussion of Marie Pleyel's exceptional career in mid-19th century Paris,
Ellis (1997) shows how this pianist similarly elevated herself to the status of "honorary
man". Through her playing, Pleyel produced an image that "conformed] to the Romantic
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control and passion" (p. 377). Critical response was so enthusiastic that reviewers "ran
out of superlatives" to describe her playing (p. 359). But if Madame PleyePs acclaim so
great that she was often favorably compared with Liszt, why has she not enjoyed the
same legendary status? No doubt the careful reader will have noticed (perhaps even
resentfully) that up to this point, all of the archetypal performers discussed have been
male. This raises an important question: is this an accident of history, or are images of
For some time, feminist scholars have argued that traditional images of genius
ought to be rejected on the grounds that they are contaminated beyond repair, having
been used for too long to entrench and justify male domination (see Battersby 1989). In
terms of musical genius, some tropes have certainly been more culturally available to
women than others. Among the genius scripts discussed here, those described as
celebrated female prodigies are as abundant as contemporary ones (e.g., Nannerl Mozart,
Fanny Mendelssohn, Midori, Han-Na Chang). Female musicians have had also moderate
success in engaging the virtuoso trope.15 As Ellis (1997) has shown, 19th-century (male)
female pianists. In their reviews, metaphors describing the female pianist as a prophetess
or priestess were hardly in short supply, suggesting that women were considered suitable
15
Indeed, the term virtuoso, used to describe female musicians of extraordinary talent, came into use as
early as the 16th century. Adding more evidence to Green's (1997) argument, the professional singers in the
concerto delta donne of Duke Alfonso II of Ferrara were among the first women to acquire this
designation. While the term virtuoso referred to extraordinary talent in composition and performance in
male musicians, its female counterpart, the virtuoso, refers only to performance. See (Harris 2007).
176
vessels for musical truth. But such praise was directed mainly to the performance of a
status.16 When women attempted to "translate the oracle of such Gods as Beethoven,
Mendelssohn, etc.," they were usually accused of putting on airs and ridiculed for
17
Romantic aesthetics provide some cultural support for the female musician in the
role of vessel, but the same cannot be said for the role of creator. For this reason, women
have encountered much more difficulty engaging genius scripts that present her as a
powerful agent and possessor of will, a pattern most powerfully demonstrated in the
composition has been the most gender exclusive of musical roles because it emphasizes
the "cerebral" aspects of music: "once women begin to compose, it is hardly any longer
the body that features in the activity at all, for composition involves a metaphorical
display of the power of mind. This cerebral power conflicts with patriarchal constructions
of femininity to the extent that, when it is harnessed by women, it produces a threat to the
sexual order" (p. 88). The same can be said of the intellectual trope, which similarly
emphasizes the power of the mind in the interpretive creativity of the performer as well
Male pianists also specialised in Classical repertoire in the 19* century, but they too occupied a degraded
status. Ellis (1997) quotes an intriguing article from 1861 in which music critic Gustave Chouquet used the
intriguing term "fingerless virtuoso" to describe this kind of pianist, ranking him third in a four-tier
hierarchy of professional competence. (First in his estimation was the virtuoso who composes, followed by
the virtuoso who only performs others' compositions; the Classical pianist was superior only to the
accompanist, an entirely supportive role.) The image of the "fingerless" virtuoso is a striking contrast to
caricatures of Liszt with grotesquely elongated fingers, or Dantan's bust of Thalberg with octopus-like
hands that had sprouted extra fingers. This suggests to me that the pianist's "fingers" could function as a
symbol of virility and masculinity. See (Ellis 1997).
as the objective approach in performing. A woman engaging this trope therefore risks
Nowhere are gender ideologies more apparent, however, than with the hero trope.
In the 19th century, the cultural resistance to the heroic female performer stemmed in part
from the gendering of certain musical instruments as female. A woman performing the
violin or the piano in a public setting risked evoking the taboo of homosexuality
(Kawabata 2004) or hermaphroditism (Ellis 1997), a danger that could only be attenuated
if she was seen to be imitating (though not embodying) a masculine display of strength,
power, and virility. But such meanings were best displayed through musical texts that
feature military and heroic topoi. And as we have seen, this repertoire was generally off
limits for women pianists on the grounds that it demanded a physicality that
compromised feminine decorum (2006; DeNora 2004), and was simply beyond their
performed the tremendously popular military concerti of the day, but only one earned
herself the title of "Joan of Arc" amongst the "Scipios, Alexanders, and Napoleons of the
violin".19 Otherwise, the sight of the female violinist was unsettling for 19th-century
If the female performer was seen in terms of conquest, it was in terms of her
sexual power. A woman could conquer her audience through coquetry, her musical
18
The boundary between gendered repertoires was not just informally produced and policed; it was also
institutionalized in music education. As Ellis (1997) describes, the Paris conservatoire selected quite
different works for the competitions that concluded each year of study.
performance becoming an "act of seduction" (Ellis 1997). Since the concept of coquetry
In musical performance, the successful coquette was said to possess a masterful control
over emotion in herself and others. She could arouse feelings in the listener through the
sincere portrayal of emotion without giving into excessive sensibility, a quality that was
also attributed to the fire-breathing virtuoso: "his extraordinary powers give him the
appearance of spontaneous feeling and the ability to arouse momentary feeling in others"
manipulating the audience, or being overly emotional. If the association with such
feminine traits were not enough to undermine her authority, the insinuation of
calculation, a cardinal sin in the era of Romantic aesthetics, was equally polluting. Again
there is a striking similarity to the virtuoso, whose authenticity was brought into question
that in reference to female soloists, the hero and virtuoso tropes were elided, producing a
AN UNFELICITOUS CONTEXT
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"Fused performances" (Alexander 2004) are those rare occasions when all the
elements of performance fall into alignment and meanings are conveyed as effortlessly as
they are interpreted. In musical performance, fusion requires two reciprocal processes: a
cultural extension of musical text and musician to the audience, and a psychological
identification of the audience with the performer onstage. As far as the performer is
concerned, the first part of the equation is their responsibility. To this end, performers
spend endless hours in rehearsal refining those elements of performance in their power.
Practicing, however, is merely improving the odds. While the means of symbolic
production can be organized in the privacy of the practice room, experimentation with the
mise-en-scene can only occur in front of an audience. Every performance occasion will
present its own set of contingencies. It is for this reason that competitors avoid
performing new repertoire in competition at all costs. This is not merely an issue of
accuracy. Fusing with a text involves an intense familiarity that can only be developed
over time:
"I think a piece can be played in perfect way once the piece becomes you,
yourself. But it takes time. I have to feel with a piece as though I
composed it myself, somehow. I just have to know it so well. Then I can
say my word in the competition with this piece. But if the piece is new,
every performance is a new experience, and different things happen in
different performances. Once you've been on the stage with this piece ten
times, there are certain things you already know, like your own concept of
this work and its place in the whole program." (Interview with competitor
4)
"One thing I would not play in competition is something that is not battle-
tested. That means it's been through its one or two bad performances.
Maybe it doesn't have a bad performance, [laughing] but you know what I
mean. It's been through those awkward moments. Any piece that is in that
category should not be played in competition. I mean, what's the point if
you want to play your best? That's why people recycle pieces over and
over again." (Interview with competitor 12)
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The challenge, however, is that even when "recycling" repertoire, the performer must
never give the impression of being overly-rehearsed. The performance should relate a
spontaneous quality:
"[For this upcoming competition] I'm going back to all the old pieces I've
played in the past. When you haven't played a piece for a while, you have
to go back and start from the beginning, learning all the notes to make sure
it's secure. But at the same time, you have to try to keep this freshness in
your mind about the piece. Because even though you've played it for so
long, it still needs to sound fresh. It can't sound like it's been practiced,
and that you've played it for so long. It needs to sound new and
invigorated." (Interview with competitor 11)
Over and above fusing with the text, the performer aims to establish a connection
with the audience. To this end, they develop a heightened sensitivity to audience
response. While the listener need not always be at the forefront of her mind, the
performer is constantly interpreting and reacting to the quality of the listener's attention
as she is playing:
"If you're playing something slow, or something soft and introverted, and
people start making noise, you think that they're not interested. So you do
something interesting to get their attention. Or maybe you play softer. But
if they're very quiet, and everything is quiet, then it's a wonderful feeling.
Somebody told me once that a standing ovation is not the greatest
compliment an audience can give. The greatest compliment is silence
while you're playing. Then they're really listening." (Interview with
competitor 7)
"When you're making a special moment, the audience responds and sends
their vibes back to you. When you feel that, you want to be more creative.
Because when you play a concert, you can either play note perfect or you
can take chances. You decide in a split second whether you can do well
enough without taking chances, or if you want to do something that is so
special that it would make a unique, unforgettable moment. It's the
difference between a good concert and a great performance. That happens
probably one in ten concerts. And it depends on the audience. If they don't
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respond, if they just sit there, even if they're quiet, you just don't get the
vibes and you just don't feel the atmosphere. There's no adrenaline going.
You can play a perfectly fine recital, but it won't be special." (Interview
with competitor 3)
While this respondent described the cultural extension to the audience in terms of
processes:
body and its processes in relation to musical elements. In his mechanistic model
performer because it undermines fusion by altering the normal power dynamics of the
concert ritual. The jury, not the performer, has the power to define the situation. In
competitions that adopt the proceedings of auditions, the performer's loss of control over
the mise-en-scene is most extreme. Not only is a repertoire list imposed to restrict the
choices of texts that can be performed; the jury also decides how much of each selection
will be heard, and in what order. Indeed, until the 1990s, the chair of the jury often had
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the right to interrupt performances at any time by ringing a bell. The adoption of the
recital ritual grants more control to the performer, but the power dynamics remain tilted
in favor of the jury. The validation that normally comes with a ticket-buying audience is
cancelled out by the jury whose results ultimately determine whether the performance
Indeed, the jury's results are sometimes so powerful that they can retroactively de-fuse a
performance. Every competitor can tell a story about a first round performance in which
they felt they played their best and received an enthusiastic response from the audience
only to be eliminated the next day. In the struggle to interpret this contradiction,
competitors cannot help but doubt if their experience of fusion was only on their part, or
the jury also draws unwanted attention to the constructedness of the performance, not just
for the audience, but for the performer herself. Regardless of the competition's format,
flow as a "process of delimiting reality, controlling some aspect of it, and responding to
the feedback with a concentration that excludes anything else as irrelevant" (p. 54). As he
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explains, flow involves a "lack of dualistic perspective" where action is perfectly merged
with awareness; it is interrupted "when awareness becomes split, so that one perceives
the activity from 'outside'" (p. 38). The competition context is an environmental
condition that often produces exactly this interruptive effect, problematizing the flow
"It's difficult because you don't play in competitions everyday. Once you
do, you think it's so important because it might change your career. But all
these thoughts are actually killing you, which is not so good. The
atmosphere at competitions makes you think "I'm beingyWgec/. I hope
they like me, I want to be liked." Your every note is heard. If something
happens, like you play one wrong note, you think you're going to get
kicked out. All these thoughts come into your mind." (Interview with
competitor 4)
"There are times in competition when I feel like it's a recital, where I feel
like I'm playing for an audience and there's an energy with them. Those
times I play well. But [chuckles] it can be hard to get the idea of the jury
out of your mind when you play. As musicians we're often pretty harsh
critics on ourselves. We wouldn't be where we are if we weren't. So it's
hard while you're playing to make yourself stop analyzing and not kill
yourself 'for missing that low F in the Hammerklavier fugue!" (Interview
with competitor 7)
Many competitors admit that to a certain extent, the competition/recital distinction might
can be warmly receptive, and one's playing should have the utmost integrity and
commitment regardless of the occasion. But experientially, what sets apart the
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competition from every other musical environment is the weight of the jury's (auditory)
stare.
The awareness of judgment and the anticipation of results cause a great deal of
frustration because it leads many to compromise their own musical values. In an effort to
regain some of the control they have lost, competitors often become calculating, catering
"With a competition you're adapting the repertoire to what you think the
jury will want, and that kind of sucks. If I want to give a recital, it's up to
me. I do what I want. I'm not programming something for a specific set of
people. I'm just doing exactly what I want to do. Whereas for a
competition, I'm thinking, "Well, I can't do that because they might think
this, and I'm not like that." Also, in competition, there's a need to show
your chops early so it's known that you have ten fingers right away. You
have to program so that you have something technical in at least your
opening round. You can't play a Brahms Ballade, a Mozart Sonata, and a
Bach Prelude and Fugue and expect to get through. The jury will be
thinking, "Well, I don't know if this guy can wiggle his fingers fast
enough."" (Interview with competitor 2)
threat to one's authenticity. The other ethical compromise described by this competitor is
accuracy, the competitor tries to exert control over one of the more objective criteria of
evaluation. But the emphasis on enactment over interpretation only renders the fusion of
performed pieces. The logic behind this strategy is reasonable enough: if a jury is
unfamiliar with a work, they are more likely to listen to the composition than focus on the
185
details of execution. While this strategy gains some freedom for the performer, it can
easily backfire. If the performer strays too far from conventional repertoire, the
performance can become meaningless. It will not matter how expertly or honestly a work
is performed if its meanings are incomprehensible or have no resonance for the listener.
decode the musical meanings conveyed by the performer, and the jury must be able to
identify what made their interpretation outstanding. One respondent explained the issue
succinctly:
"If I had a really conservative jury, I would never risk playing something
written after 1950. Not because they wouldn't appreciate it, but because a
lot of these people don't know what they're listening for. They're just
waiting to get it over with so they can hear some Chopin or something."
(Interview with competitor 2)
transparency in competition institutions. Deliberations are carried out in private and the
judge's scores are never released to the public. This procedure would raise fewer
objections if conflicts of interest did not occur with such striking regularity. The most
common situation is for jurors to have students in the competition. Because those who are
best suited to judge competitions are often the most sought after teachers, it is nearly
To address this problem, jurors often voluntarily abstain from voting from their own students. Some
competitions have introduced rules to the same effect, despite the difficulties of defining what exactly
qualifies as a student-teacher relationship. Many do not believe these procedures correct the problem
because the juror in question can still influence the results through other means, whether it is by eliminating
potential rivals through excessively low scores, or calling in favors from other jury members.
are no norms of public accountability or channels for resolving grievances. For their part,
candidates know full well that politics can work for or against them:
"Let's say someone hates my teacher and they are on the jury. That's not
good. Let's say someone loves my teacher and they're on the jury. That's
good for me. If I know some people on the jury, is that going to help me? I
hope so. [Laughs] Honestly, I hope so. [...] If I were a judge, and I saw
my old friend out there playing, no matter what I'd want to think it's better
than it is. Even if you say I have to be objective, it's so hard. I know
people in the competition and if they're my friends, I want to think that
they'll do really well. So I can imagine it's the same for them. I wouldn't
hold that against a judge. It's life. This is life. Politics is life. It's
something you kind of get used to." (Interview with competitor 9)
Because they are just as likely to benefit as suffer from this arrangement, competitors can
never publicly criticize the institution. Any accusation of corruption could de-legitimate
Given all these factors, it should come as little surprise that a discourse of
cynicism prevails amongst competitors. But it would be grossly unfair to dismiss this as
sour grapes, or to explain it away through what Geertz (1973) called a "strain theory" of
Bourdieuian variety. When asked why they enter competitions, respondents did not
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"The problem with today's music world is that there's really no other way
[to start your career]. When you read about Rubinstein or Horowitz, they
didn't need to enter competitions. They just came to America and were
famous the next day! I was really amazed with how these things used to
happen. Even ten years ago, you would hear of conductors like Karajan or
Maazel promoting young artists. But nowadays it just seems like if you
want a big career, you have to go to a competition one way or another."
(Interview with competitor 3)
This argument can easily be translated into Bourdieu's ([1980]1993) terminology: with
willing to offer their accumulated symbolic capital as security, aspiring professionals are
turning to other sources, such as competitions, to acquire symbolic capital. But with the
rapid proliferation of competitions since the 1950s, the prize has become a devalued
symbolic currency:
"It used to be that once you won a competition you were a world-famous
pianist. But today there are hundreds of competitions in the world. So
what if you won a competition somewhere in Italy? No one cares. It
doesn't create the opportunity to play in the great concert halls because
there are so many competition winners." (Interview with competitor 4)
"Because there are so many more competitions these days, winning one
doesn't really mean anything anymore. There are so many winners of
competitions. Even if you win a big competition, it doesn't necessarily
secure a career. That's why people resort to doing so many." (Interview
with competitor 6)
These remarks suggest that for competitors, this credential has not only been diminished,
investment risk they feel little choice in bearing. Many competitors also hold a principled
objection to what the institution represents, arguing that it encapsulates all that is profane
"For me, competitions are just a way to gain money and opportunities.
Everything to do with music I learn everywhere but competition.
Developing as a musician happens at school with my teacher, with my
colleagues, with my roommates. The competition is something we do
because we have to, especially as pianists." (Interview with competitor 2)
"I think a lot of the competition circuit is geared towards the players who
are not really interested in music as art. They're interested in it as this
athletic thing where they show their virtuosity and prowess and get
attention for it. It's about the competition, about being better than
someone else, about winning and getting the attention and prestige. It's
not about, like, exploring this really interesting aspect of this piece. And
it's not about art. The people who really care about the art do some
competitions because you have to, and because it helps raise your standard
of playing. But you can only take so much of that. At some point you
realize that it's kind of silly." (Interview with competitor 10)
Some find comfort in the knowledge that most music professionals describe competitions
would be more concerned with the standard of playing than how many prizes have been
collected. But the same cannot be said of the general public. Rather than trust their own
ears and musical instincts, the average listener at competitions can defer to the authority
of the judges. Competitors worry that the audience has come to place too much faith in
"The fact that there are so many competitions also implies that a lot more
people are listening to them. They're aware of what's going on in the
circuit. Hence if somebody looks at your biography and sees that you
haven't won a competition, then they might not take your performance as
seriously. It's very difficult, actually. People say that you can't make a
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name without winning competitions, but then even with prizes in your bio,
sometimes you don't get anywhere either." (Interview with competitor 6)
Even worse is the common analogy to sport. For example, one respondent complained
that nearly every time he entered a taxi-cab with his instrument, the driver asked about
his current world ranking, as though classical music were organized like tennis. As we
saw in the previous chapter, musicians consider the sports metaphor both a
misinterpretation and polluting framework for describing musical endeavors, and they see
English (2005) has recently argued that the cynicism surrounding the competition
the "economy in reverse" that defines all forms of cultural production. In becoming the
focus of disputes over who has the right to award cultural value and whether it has been
accurately gauged, the competition prize both "test[s] and affirm[s] the notion of art as a
separate and superior domain, a domain of disinterested activity which gives rise to a
special, nontemporal, noneconomic, but scarce and highly desirable form of value" (p.
52). The problem with this sort of argument is that it casts competitors as willing
participate, she cannot avoid colluding with the illusio of artistic practice; both postures
play into to the scandal of refusal that raises the visibility, and therefore the power, of the
21
Aside from my general objections to the Bourdieuian perspective, I would argue that English can only
make this argument because he fails to appreciate the difference between live competitions artists
190
function: it provides a profane context for the performer to transcend. It is easy enough to
imagine how this dynamic contributes to the construction of the images of musical genius
discussed earlier. Indeed, each trope can be characterized as a form of transgression: the
child prodigy is "out of the usual course of nature" (Feldman and Goldsmith 1986:3), the
virtuoso crosses "the limit of what seems possible or what the spectator can imagine"
(Gooley 2004:1), the hero rebels against the rules of musical and social convention (Kivy
2001), and the intellectual penetrates the boundaries of subjectivity. Here, the
witnessed, and receive recognition. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that the same
Here, competitors transcend the profane context of the competition by redefining the goal
of participating. For some this means using the competition as a deadline motivating
them to prepare a large amount of repertoire at a higher level. For others it means using
the competition to introduce themselves musically to a member of the jury that they
would not otherwise be able to meet. For many it means using the competition as an
opportunity to learn:
"There are so many good things about competitions if you take away the
competitive aspect of it. You get to socialize with other pianists, which
was wonderful when I was growing up. You can hear so much. You have
opportunity to play for teachers, and you get written criticisms that are
sometimes very helpful." (Interview with competitor 7)
voluntarily enter early in their careers (e.g., Cliburn), and awards for which established artists are
nominated on the basis of work produced for other occasions (e.g., the Tony, the Booker, the Oscars,
Turner, etc.).
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The intense scrutiny of judgment, and the experience of rejection, can also play an
important role in the construction of musical identity. Often it is through the soul-
musical values and what sort of life in music they truly desire, which may or may not
occasionally, it does work out this way. For the performer, however, it is impossible to
inclined to cast doubt on their self-identity as an artist. As such, the competition provides
a natural breaching experiment for musical performance, identifying what is taken for
literatures as distant as critical theory and media studies, audiences are understood to be
other hand, are meaningful collectivities; they are social groups defined by a shared
identity, forged through collective action, and guided by notions of the common good. To
from the locus of action. But to be part of a public implies agency; one is a participant
engaging with the social world. Furthermore, audiences and publics are held to occupy
separate realms. Audiences are hidden away in the private sphere, while publics are
Despite its prevalence, this dichotomy simply does not carry any weight. It also
fails to resonate on the experiential level. First, the concept of the audience assumes too
high a level of uniformity among the audience. Any audience will contain a variety of
orientations and experiences. Second, audiences and publics are not composed of entirely
Like Livingstone (2005), I see a greater advantage in asking when an audience acts as a
public than in treating them as separate phenomena. To this end, I want to develop the
Their function is not immediately obvious. Attendees are present throughout the event,
but have no say in the final ranking. What, then, is their role?
193
I will argue that there are two interrelated dimensions to the audience's role at
music competitions. In the first, the audience listens, that is, they interpret competitors'
and argue that his theory of listening has been discarded by sociologists for all the wrong
reasons. When stripped of its normative and hierarchical overtones and translated into the
insight into musical engagement. The second dimension of the audience's role is where it
acts as a public. More than any other listening environment, the competition invites the
audience to reflect upon musical experience and critically evaluate performance. This
critical orientation provokes audience members to engage each other in debate about
what they heard, the merits of various competitors, and the ultimate purpose of the event.
The concept of the "musical public" aims to capture both these dimensions. The
forms of sociability and guided by norms of inclusion and the supremacy of rational
argument. But it is a musical public in that the grounds for inclusion, and the central
subject for debate, is subjective musical experience. Through this discussion, I aim to
overcome the tendency to see arts audiences as passive, homogenized, and de-sociated
The primary role of the audience in any musical performance is the act of
listening. The importance of this role cannot be overemphasized. Music is a cultural text
performed in order to convey meaning to others. There must be a recipient to decode the
meanings displayed by the performer because without a listener, there is simply is no
music. To borrow the words of musicologist Nicholas Cook, music is more than
organized sound; it is an interaction between sound and the listener; "If it is not possible
because of the essential role that the listener and more generally the environment in
which the sound is heard, plays in the constitution of any event as a musical one" (Cook
1990:11).
But how should we understand the act of listening? For Adorno, a theory of
listening had to be based on musical, not sociological, grounds. In the Introduction to the
Sociology of Music (1962: 92), he argued that the musical work, as an objectively
structured and meaningful thing, was "perceived and experienced with different degrees
listener's orientation to music, rather than extra-musical factors such as the habits, tastes,
or social traits of individuals. Through the description of ideal types of musical conduct,
For Adorno, there were only two types of listener who could achieve "fully
adequate" listening. The first is the expert listener, whose mode of conduct is described
as structural hearing. As the name suggests, structural listening involves being able to
discern the architecture of a musical work through an awareness of musical logic and
complicated music, he hears the sequence, hears past, present and future moments
together so that they crystallize into a meaningful context" (p.4). Adorno admits this type
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Culture consumer Music is a cultural asset; atomistic listening. Responds to Symphony board ladies
measurable aspects (virtuosity) not form.
Emotional listener Music is a trigger for emotions repressed or unfulfilled in Tired businessmen of
everyday life. Fiercely resists structural listening. Anglo Saxon countries;
the volatile Slav
Resentment Static-musical listening; banishes emotion; coercive and Bach devotees (early
listener uniform in musical conduct. music enthusiasts)
Jazz expert and Domesticated protest against the official culture that Youth
jazz fan mistakes itself as avant-garde; shares the sectarian
character of the resentment listener.
Music is Passive, un-concentrated, distracted listening with bursts "The man who has the
entertainment of recognition. Music is an addiction. radio playing while he
works."
Indifferent, Dislikes or avoids music. Coincides with
unmusical, and "pathological realistic
anti-musical mentality" observed in
people with talent for
special technical fields.
of listener is rare in modern society, limited mainly to the circle professional musicians,
though not identical to it, since the criteria for structural listening are neither dependent
nor reducible to formal training. This point is underscored in the description of the
second type who also engages in fully adequate listening, the good listener, whose
musical conduct is described as intuitive structural hearing: "The good listener too hears
beyond musical details, makes connections spontaneously, and judges for good reasons
[...] but he is not, or not fully, aware of the technical and structural implications" (p. 5).
Just as one can be ignorant of the rules of grammar and syntax and still use language to
great effect, this listener possesses an unconscious mastery of the immanent logic of
music. According to Adorno, this type survived in aristocratic circles well into the
nineteenth century, but was declining in modern society due to the waning of amateur
and the desire to develop a proficiency in music for its own sake.
The "sociological heir" to the good listener is the culture consumer for whom
music is mainly a "cultural asset." Writing twenty years before Bourdieu and the
emergence of the production perspective, Adorno described a musical actor that would
soon come to dominate sociological research into taste and social distinction: "He is a
respects music [...] as something a man must know for the sake of his own social
standing; this attitude runs the gamut from an earnest sense of obligation to vulgar
snobbery" (p. 6). This type of listener "hoards" information about music, such as
anecdotes about composers or the merits of particular performers, which becomes "a
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subject for hours of inane discussion" (p. 7). Adorno describes the culture consumer's
spontaneously relates the part to the whole, this listener "lies in wait" for specific,
recognizable elements, such as melodies or climaxes. The culture consumer gets excited
about the most superficial aspects of music, appreciating technique as an end in itself:
"The one thing they primarily respond to is an exorbitant and, so to speak, measurable
performance - breakneck virtuosity, for instance, wholly in the sense of the "show"
ideal" (p. 7). Adorno does not try very hard to conceal his disapproval of this group, or his
regret that it controlled the "official life" of music. Culture consumers not only
outnumber good listeners; they are also frequently the gatekeepers and elites that run
Adorno than their conformism is their presumption of superiority to the culture industry
since this mode of musical conduct effectively commodified, and therefore degraded, art
music.
While the culture consumer uses music as resource in social distinction, the
life. This is accomplished in a variety of ways. For some in this category, music is used to
stimulate the senses, for example, to inspire visual imagery and associations.1 For others,
music is a "vessel" into which emotion is poured, or from which emotion is drawn.
1
Adorno's disparaging of the sensuous listener as a "culinary taster for isolated sonic stimuli" is very much
in line with the writing of the 19* century aesthetician and music critic, Eduard Hanslick. In The Beautiful
in Music, Hanslick argued that responding only to the sensual qualities and emotional suggestions was an
inadequate way to listen to music: "a good cigar, some exquisite dainty, or a warm bath yields them the
same enjoyment as a symphony, though they may not be aware of the fact." Quoted in Cook (1990: 15).
198
The emotional listener finds its opposite in the resentment listener who turns the
ban on emotion that underpins modern public life into the normative ideal of musical
flexibility, and affect are viewed with "puritanical suspicion": "subjectivity, expression -
to the resentment listener all this is profoundly linked with promiscuity" (p. 11).
because they scorn mainstream musical life, this group is actually founded on intolerance
and reactionary ideologies. In their dogmatic aversion to the Romantic ideal of music,
resentment listeners display a "sectarian character" in that is also found among another
type of listener: the jazz fan or expert. Echoing his 1936 essay "On Jazz" (2002), Adorno
here argues that this group is based on two misconceptions. First, it mistakes jazz music
as avant-garde, when its form, expressive devices, and rhythmic structure betray
standardization. Second, it mistakes itself for a progressive protest against the official
The most common type of listener by far is the entertainment listener, for whom
much like the emotional listener, except in this case, it has developed into an addiction
like smoking: "we define it more by our displeasure in turning the radio off than by the
pleasure we feel, however modestly, while it is playing" (p. 15). The ideal consumer for
the culture industry, this type listens to music in a distracted or "un-concentrated" state,
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with only occasional bursts of recognition and attention. The eighth and final type is a
residual category, combining the musically indifferent, the unmusical, and the anti-
musical who either avoid or dislike music altogether. Refusing to accept that this mode of
experience.
Like many of his essays on music, Adorno's typology of listeners has provoked
considerable criticism amongst his sociological heirs. And a great deal of this criticism
has been based on misinterpretations, just as he had anticipated (p. 18). For DeNora
(2003), Adorno does not offer a typology at all, but an elitist hierarchy that clearly
implies that inadequate listening is "associated not only with particular strata but with
particular musical genres" (p.87). Admittedly, Adorno had a narrow (and inadequate)
conception of jazz and popular music, and he indulged too enthusiastically in unflattering
and inaccurate stereotypes in his examples and descriptions. But he never suggested that
listening types were restricted to particular strata. In fact, he cautioned the reader that
"too much weight should not be given to the social differentiations within this draft"
because types will "cut across society" (p. 18). Neither did he suggest a simple
association of traditional high culture to good listening and popular genres to inadequate
listening. Adorno was not a conventional cultural elitist whose theory depended on a
simple opposition of high and low. The production and consumption of high culture often
failed to meet his standards of moral value (Hohendahl 1995; Witkin 1998).
musical reception" that lead him to condemn emotional listening as "nothing less than an
200
abdication of reason and thus of the resource upon which democratic participation was
founded" (2003:85-7). This charge is also unjustified, on both counts. The dichotomy of
insisted that emotion was an essential element structural listening. His problem with
emotional listening was that it reduced musical experience to this element alone: "without
an affective factor, adequate listening is not conceivable either. Only here, [with the
emotional listener] the factor is the thing itself (p.9). If Adorno were championing
emotion/ess listening, he would not have found the resentment listener so impoverished.
The more serious part of DeNora's criticism, however, is the second charge. Did
Adorno believe that inadequate listening, in any of its forms, amounted to an abdication
which the symptom is mistaken for the cause. A closer reading of the text reveals that
Adorno absolves the listener of any blame for the "dubious state" of listening in modern
society: "The prevailing condition envisioned by critical typology is not the fault of those
who listen one way rather than another" (p. 18). More surprising, perhaps, is that the
culture industry is not identified as the culprit either. In Adorno's estimation, the source
of the problem runs much deeper: "the condition [of inadequate listening] arises from the
nethermost sociological layers: from the separation of mental and manual labor, or of
high and low forms of art; later from the socialized semiculture, ultimately from the fact
that the right consciousness in the wrong world is impossible, and that even the modes of
2
One could easily argue that Adorno saw the resentment listener, not the emotional one, as the real threat
to the rational foundations of democracy. The description of this type includes many characteristics of the
authoritarian personality and references to fascism and the Holocaust.
201
social reaction to music are in thrall to the false consciousness'" (p. 18, emphasis added).
deliberate rejection of reason; it is because it reflects and perpetuates all that is wrong and
dangerous about modernity. Adorno's analysis of the situation is bleaker than DeNora's
criticism implies. The listeners themselves cannot be blamed for abdicating reason
because they never possess the agency to surrender their responsibility to the art work in
It is by returning to the concept of the art work, the founding premise of the
listener typology, that a more justified criticism can be put forward. Adorno wrote that
"works are objectively structured things and meaningful in themselves, things that invite
analysis and can be perceived and experienced with different degrees of accuracy" (p.3).
Here he reveals just how much he was a product of his time and his training. As a music
critic and avant-garde composer, Adorno was both inheritor and advocate of the "work-
concept" ideology (Goehr 1992) that asserted music's autonomy by establishing the self-
contained work as a fact of music history. It is within this framework that we should
understand adequate listening because it is both its logical outcome and its normative
practice.
ideological project. Hearing music as form simply entails "hear[ing] music as repeatable,
and hence independent of its realization in sound on any particular occasion" (Cook
1990:36). In the 18th century, this meant something quite different. It was the genre, not
the individual work that existed independently of its enactment. Because music in this
period was not written for posterity, its success was judged by the extent to which it
displayed the attributes of a genre. In other words, audiences in Mozart's day listened to
music the way Hollywood movies are commonly categorized today. The narrative
conventions and tropes of each genre (e.g., romantic comedy, psychological thriller,
Western) are well-established and well-known; members of a culture means are more
It was during the 19* century that everything changed. The emphasis shifted
"from a position where genres were exemplified by works to one in which works made
their own statement" (Samson 2003: 66). A piece of music became a "unique work of art
in its own right" to be appreciated for its particularity and originality rather than its
conformity to a model (Cook 1990:37). The individual composition thus became the
focus of the listener's attention in the way we are accustomed today. We no longer go to
hear another 'symphony', but 'Mahler's Fifth Symphony.' The establishment of the
relationship between composer, performer, and listener, provided a new basis for
string together isolated movements or excerpts of pieces, it does not come from a noble
desire to respect historical traditions. (Actually, plenty of evidence suggests the opposite
is true.) If these practices offend or disappoint, it is because they violate the unity and
coherence of the self-contained work that, following Adorno, we have come to demand
indiscriminately, even for repertoire that was clearly designed for a different sort of
musical attention. Sometimes, to engage in structural listening is to ignore (or even defy)
the aesthetic intention of the composer and distort the purpose of the music. And one
does not have to look to jazz or popular music to find examples. While its current
hegemonic status might make it appear otherwise, the work-centred orientation was never
the only practice in Western art musical culture. For a while, it co-existed with another
orientation in which music was heard primarily as performance, not as form. This
orientation focussed on the unrepeatable qualities of the musical event and celebrated
those elements inherently tied to context (Cook 1990: 37-8). Here the musical
composition was not the focus of attention, but the vehicle for show-casing performance.
The most extreme example of this orientation can be found in the virtuoso
repertoire of the early 19th century, such as the Caprices of Paganini, or the transcriptions
material in this kind of repertoire is not developed and integrated into a coherent structure
where parts of the composition are best understood in relation to the whole. Rather,
musical material is used, often in highly conventional ways, to point across the
boundaries of the work to other compositions or genres, to explore the idiomatic features
performer. In other words, the work character is deliberately sacrificed for the event
indulgent, trivial, and empty display. But Samson (2003) argues that there is more behind
To assert the creative power of the performer, and the autonomy of the performance,
constitutes a direct threat to the work-concept ideology at the heart of the avant-garde. It
is for this reason that Adorno must denigrate the culture consumer's appreciation of
virtuosity as the mark a dilettante, degrading him as a mere "appraiser" who becomes so
distracted by the sound produced by the violinist that he pays little attention to what is
being played (1962: 7). But this orientation is not always misguided. There are contexts
As I see it, there are two major problems with Adorno's typology. The first is that
idealized version of the public concert occupies an implied normative status in his
typology, and that his conception of musical experience was unconditioned by the
is for this reason that empirical investigations of different musical environments are
form of the public concert. But as an occasion designed to evaluate and reward
much as, if not more than, the work. And as I will discuss at length in the next section,
the interactional component plays a crucial role in the competition audience's musical
experience. A second, related problem is that Adorno implies that individuals can be
definitively categorized as a single type of listener. It would make more sense to argue
engage with music. Should we expect someone to be the same type of listener at a public
concert, in the car on the commute home from work, and at a restaurant? Once we allow
for more than one context of listening, we can also allow for the possibility that we shift
from one listening type to another. Indeed, I would argue it is possible for an individual
Music as entertainment Game-frame oriented; focuses on the competitive aspect and the
contingency of the result
Judgment listener Performance-oriented in order to judge the competition and the judges
3
Stockfelt (1997) makes a similar argument about shifting listening modes in everyday listening situations,
but in his case the shift is between two poles of concentrated and atomistic listening. He also emphasizes
the role of the listening environment in determining normative modes of listening but in his case, the aim is
to relativise the concept of "adequate listening" for other musical genres. See (Stockfelt 1997).
206
reconsider it within the specific listening environment of a music competition. With some
The structural and good listeners are modes that prioritize the musical layer of the
competition performance, sometimes to the exclusion of anything else. Here listeners will
be oriented to the work, focusing primarily on decoding texts through the musical system
of collective representations, and evaluating the coherence of a competitor's programme
in purely musical terms. The official bloggers for the competition often adopted this
mode in their reviews. For example:
"...The Franck 'Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue' which followed was an
unfortunate choice: for me the piece simply gets stuck, overly repetitious,
and I'll not to hold that against her. Her contemporary music choice was
William Bolcolm's 'Nine Bagatelles' in a scintillating performance. I may
have heard this work before at a prior Cliburn, but it is a bit of an homage
to Ravel, with parodies of sections of his 'Valses Nobles and
Sentimentales' and other Ravelian harmonies, making a perfect lead-in to
the program closer, her version of [Ravel's] 'La Valse.'" (Mike Winter,
official blogger, May 22)
The work becomes much less important for the listener who adopts the music as
entertainment mode. Here the focus is what I called the "game frame" of the music
competition, which is the aspect of the event that resembles competitive sport. The
excitement in this mode lies in the contingency of the outcome, and competitors'
performances (on and off the stage) are interpreted through symbolic systems that centre
4
For the sake of clarity, I will retain Adorno's original titles for the ideal types of his I am retaining.
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"[At the drawing party preceding the competition] I found myself next to a
tallish, black-haired young woman, wearing a blue name tag indicating
that she was one of the pianists, who looked like an Italian model. Of
course I introduced myself. [...] She feels the competition's increased
repertoire requirements, which she estimates come to four hours of
performance time, are "hard but good." Maria reminded me of a
thoroughbred, ready for the race." (Mike Winter, official blogger, May 19)
"My prediction for tonight 30 minutes before start time: Chu Fang really
knocks it out of the park with her performance of Beethoven 2, and
tonight's posters start considering her as worthy of the gold medal. This is
the "inside" scoop, guys. Enjoy!!!" (Jesse, June 3)
"My reasoning for Joyce Yang not winning gold assumed consistency out
of Piano and Kobrin, and Piano did not deliver. He's no longer in control
of his own destiny. Both Kobrin will have to slip for him to win gold (in
my view, Yang already has)..." (Jennifer, June 1)
"I think that the new format of this competition may need some
rethinking. Three solo recitals plus two concerti in such a short time and
under all of this incredible pressure may be too much even for these
healthy young thoroughbreds." (John Ruggero, June 2)
"The missed notes were distracting, but the larger concern for me was an
apparent lack of dominance over both the Brahms and the Ravel. It was as
if Piano [was] wrestling the pieces, and he didn't win." (Brad Hill, June 1)
the music competition. In this mode, audience members rally around a particular
competitor, campaigning for their success among other audience members by sharing
their enthusiasm for their performances alone. Often this campaigning takes on an
ideological character as the competitor comes to stand for something larger than him or
"[G]ood luck Gabby, make Latin America proud!" (Carlos, May 25)
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"Go Chu-Fang, Sa, and Joyce!!! I'm all for the masterful Asian girls..."
(Chris, June 5)
Listeners can also rally around a performer for purely musical reasons:
"Anyone who heard Yang's performance of Dvorak tonight and does not
take her as the serious, special musician she is missing the essence of
music in my book!" (Rosie, May 29)
"If for some reason Kobrin the Undertaker had the gold in his claw-like
percussive grasp he no longer does after Joyce Yang's beautiful
performance. Mr. K should do himself the favor of listening to her. This
was what piano playing is supposed to be about. If Kobrin's followers
listened to her openly and critically, they would praise her sense of line,
finesse, grace and above all her sound." (Paco, June 3)
This mode of listening earns Adorno's "resentment" moniker when, having invested so
much in the success of a particular competitor, the listener actively resists enjoying the
performances of other competitors and looks only for faults to justify his allegiance and
The culture consumer is probably the most frequently-adopted mode at the music
(technique and interpretation) and the means of musical production (instrument and tone
"My own view of her performance of that piece is that the tempi were just
too consistently fast. I agree there are many exciting moments, and fast
tempi are required in many places, but not 100% of the time, and not quite
as fast as she played them. Reconnaissance was played like an etude and
lost its charm. The final movement lost its impact for me because she
didn't capture the dotted rhythmic pulse of the Beethoven theme that
makes the march a bit sinister, and again, since it was all very, very fast,
much of the drama was lost." (Jon Buckheit, May 29)
".. .he had more problems on that top of that Hamburg Steinway than
Piano and certainly Cabassi who seemed to control it better. After about
half of the second movement, he finally figured out that flatter fingers
would take the edge but then he got distracted on the third and whacked
the hell out of it. That is one difficult top register to control however, it
can be done by the change of the attack." (Rosie, June 2)
In many respects, the competition is a musical event designed for this mode of listening.
Since its purpose is to identify and reward excellence in musical performance, the
The "atomistic listening" characteristic of this mode is also more legitimate in this
context. Competitions impose demanding schedules on the audience; while the standard
professional recital demands at most two hours of concentrated listening, a typical day in
the first round of a competition will demand at least seven hours. What begins as a feast
for the ears can rapidly become over-saturation. The most expert and devoted listeners -
even jury members - have admitted to using the selective attention of atomistic listening
Since Adorno never suggested that his typology was exhaustive, I would like to
add two more categories to describe other subject positions I have encountered in my
fieldwork. The first one could be called listening to learn. The aim of this mode is artistic
As described in chapter 3, competition biographies follow a conventional form that typically includes the
following elements (in order): mention of the competitors' birthplace, an anecdote describing
precociousness and musical ability in childhood, a list of major teachers and institutions of musical
education, a list of competition prizes and other awards, a list of recent concert engagements, and mention
of extra-musical activities and interests.
6
Because they are professional musicians, jury members often listen to this many hours of listening in a
day. Therefore, if a juror listens selectively, it is usually because he or she does not need to listen to an
entire recital to make a decision on whether a candidate should advance. I have often been told that this
decision is made within the first minute, if not the first ten seconds, of playing.
210
performance styles, and less-familiar repertoire, the listener can reconsider personal tastes
and rethink one's approach to music. As one young musician explained to me:
"I gave up going to the best conservatories in the country to study with my
teacher. And so, on the flip side of that, you need to get out and hear
what's out there or else how are you ever going to know what you're
working towards or if I can compete at that level. So I learn a lot in
hearing other cellists that are really good because I don't really hear them
that much." (Interview with Competitor 9)
Young musicians attending competitions are often encouraged to adopt this mode of
listening in order to gauge their level of playing compared to their peers, broaden their
musical horizons, and motivate them to practice. But this orientation is hardly exclusive
to the young. Even jury members have been known to take delight in being shown new
The second mode I would like to introduce could be called the judgment listener.
Like the culture consumer, this listener is performance-oriented, paying careful attention
to the technical ability and musicianship of each competitor. But rather than debate
impressions other audience members, this listener wants to evaluate the competition as a
whole. This evaluation involves determining the "level", that is, the general quality of
playing compared to other competitions and previous cycles. It also involves evaluating
the procedures and requirements, and, as the event progresses, judging the judges. This
outcome, such as music critics, teachers who do not have students in the competition, or
administrators of music schools and other arts organizations. But this position can also be
"It might make you more nervous if you listen to other competitors. You
think "oh... he's so good." On the other hand, it's extremely important to
listen to others. That's what I did at some competitions when I had the
chance, when I didn't play the next day. I listen to others to judge the job
of the judges myself. I can then make my own judgment, whether the
results were correct, or if I disagreed." (Interview with Competitor 4)
"I'm always trying to figure out what the judges would think. So I don't
listen to it just like "Oh isn't that a great performance." I keep a checklist
and then compare it to how the results come out. I'm like "Oh okay. See
this person did this, and then they didn't advance." But sometimes weird
people win competitions. Every once in a while you're like "What was
that all about? Why that person?" (Interview with Competitor 9)
As these excerpts demonstrate, competitors adopt this orientation in order to interpret the
significance of their placement in the final ranking as well as the adjudicator's remarks
on their performance.
The illustrations I have provided for each listening type at the music competition
are not intended to suggest a strong a correlation between social position and listening
that audience members might adopt over the course of the event. The adoption of
particular modes is neither entirely chosen nor entirely determined by structural factors.
Contingent occurrences can also cause an audience member to shift between listening
types. For example, a music teacher might begin a competition as a judgment listener,
intend to be a learning listener for the first round, but become so taken with a particular
performer that they become a resentment listener for the rest of the competition. A patron
this patron might resort to the entertainment mode if their disappointment has spoiled
their aesthetic enjoyment of the rest of the event. Someone who attends only a single
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session of a competition is likely to be a good listener. Having been absent for earlier
developments in the event, this audience member will not be able to predict results with
entertainment listeners, or debate the merits of each performer with culture consumers,
But the competition audience does more than listen. They also talk. And their
conversation sometimes turns to argument over the merits of they have seen and heard,
and the meaning of the musical event they attended. This is when the audience becomes a
public. Adorno was wrong to dismiss so casually the culture consumers' conversation as
the public concert ritual at the end of the eighteenth century. Previously, only
connoisseurs and the nobility had the right to judge music. But as concerts became
increasingly available to anyone who could pay the price of admission, music was
liberated from the patronage of court and the church. The commodification that made art
"art became an object of free choice and of changing preference. The "taste" to which art
was oriented from then on became manifest in the assessments of the people who claimed
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[1989]: 40)
The emergence of a critical art audience was not the result of economics forces
alone. It was also the consequence of a new subjectivity that was formed in the intimate
sphere of the bourgeois family. In this haven from society, members of the conjugal
family could relate as human beings and play out for each other the visions of
sentimentality communicated in popular literary genres like the early novel. But the
Habermas implies. Johnson (1995) has demonstrated that it was also an active force in
the realm of music. He describes a radical transformation in the Parisian opera audience
between 1750 and 1780. Over this short period of time, the same audience that used to
arrive late and talk through performances had become strangely silent and prone to
bursting into tears. It was no longer a distracted lot fragmented by the opinions ofpetites
defined by emotion rather than imitation, a greater emphasis was placed on the internal,
individual experience that at the same time implied a shared emotional experience among
all audience members, regardless of rank or position. The consequence of this new
musical sensibility was that previous methods of musical evaluation were undermined,
For Habermas, the importance of the aesthetic public was that it provided the
institutional basis and the training ground for the political functions of the bourgeois
public sphere. Through the establishment of journals and meeting places where they were
discussed, a culture-debating public emerged where status differences were bracketed and
rational argument ruled the day. The birth of the art critic in this period did not signal the
specialization, but the coming of age of a vibrant debating public. In the 18th and 19th
century, the art critic was not an authority like a judge, but one voice among many that no
one was obligated to accept. This attitude was reflected in the reception of the critic's
writings, which were not just the object of discussion in the coffee houses and salons, but
were viewed as an integral part of a larger, ongoing debate (Habermas 1969 [1989]: 41-
2).
According to Habermas, critical engagement with art has declined with the
disintegration of the public sphere since the 19th century. He shares Adorno's pessimism
through commodification has not lead to the literary enlightenment and cultural
emancipation of the masses. Instead, the capitalist market has come to define the
production and reception of culture. The consumption orientation of mass culture has
designed for various tastes, the public has lost its common ground for discussion and the
intimate relationship between cultural producers and consumers has been destroyed.
Critical commentary has also become specialized. Art critics and intellectuals become
215
"split off from the general public, forcing them to explain their own alienation. As a
result, "the sounding board of an educated stratum tutored in the public use of reason has
been shattered; the public is split apart into minorities of specialists who put their reason
to use nonpublicly and the great mass of consumers whose receptiveness is public but
There is no reason for such despair. The culture-debating public has not been
destroyed by new media technologies, but has incorporated them. If Habermas no longer
sees a vibrant critical public, it is not because it has disappeared; it is because it has
transformed. Even in the conservative world of classical music, a critical public continues
to exist, emerging around significant events and rituals that invite, or provoke, the
audience to engage critically with music and debate their interpretations others.
During the applause between competitors, a scattering of audience members can always
be found scribbling frantically in the margins of their programme books. While not
everyone goes to the trouble of writing them down, there is no shortage of opinions once
intermission starts. Evaluations, however personal or subjective, are rarely kept private.
A seemingly innocent inquiry (most commonly, "What did you think of that?") would be
debate between complete strangers. Even those who profess little expertise are eventually
goaded into declaring favorites and making predictions, and then further charged to give
reasons. It is no wonder that the jury is often segregated from the rest of the audience,
216
because there is no comer of the concert hall free of friendly debate; critiques of
competitors' performances, and frustration over the jury's choices, can be overheard
parterre, in the upper gallery, in the lobbies, and even in the restrooms. Critic's reviews
are often the object of conversation between audience members. For example, I
encountered an audience member who had made it a ritual to arrive early for
performances to read newspaper coverage of the competition with the woman in the
neighbouring seat until the lights dimmed. She was one of many regular attendees who,
by the end of each round, had developed her own list of favorite candidates to advance to
the next stage, which she would compare and defend against other's choices while
This is not to suggest that debate between audience members is confined to the
face-to-face setting of the concert hall. The musical public is also active online. It is
internet, free of charge, through streaming technology. This has greatly expanded the size
and geographic reach of the competition audience. Another new development is the
weblog. Competitions have often provided subject threads for established online
communities and internet forums. But for the 2005 cycle of the competition, Cliburn
Foundation hosted its own interactive weblog on their official website which succeed in
mustering an impressive amount of activity and attention. Over the course of three weeks,
the Cliburn blog accumulated more than nine hundred responses and it was estimated to
Just as in the concert hall, the most common form of participation in the musical
public online is engagement in critical debate, which typically involves taking the role of
the critic or the jury. In postings ranging in length from a few sentences to multiple
performance practice issues, to stage presence. More importantly, these critical reviews
were rarely written to stand alone, but engaged the official bloggers, and other
participants, in dialogue. As the end of each round approached, participants often shifted
from taking the role of the critic to assuming the role of the juror. While some simply
posted their selection for the top prize, others offered a complete ranking of competitors
with accompanying reasons, as though they were on the jury defending their choices and
Musical Unmusical
Original Derivative
Authentic Calculated
Profound Superficial
Sincere Manipulative
Passionate Emotionless/mechanical
218
Appeals for the worthiness of a candidate were couched in terms of their demonstration
Justification for a candidate's elimination, on the other hand, pointed to the absence of
these qualities, or worse, their opposite (e.g., playing that was unimaginative, mechanical,
manipulative, arrogant, unnatural etc.). Consider the following examples, bearing in mind
"His playing of the Mozart Concerto last night was like a sonic autopsy on
a not-quite-dead body. He clawed out the meat of the melodies, then
forcefully scraped them from the body with cold precision onto a marble
slab. "This used to be Mozart," I thought.... maybe. [...] All during his
performance, his face loomed with the hint of ire, his large glasses like a
shield emotionally removing him from the splatter of his carnage in order
that he might grasp the body more coldly. This, in my opinion was the
undertaking of the "undertaker"."
(Paco, Cliburn blog, June 3)
"I think Joyce Yang produced the fakest music tonight. Everything is
artificial, music, express, gesture. Her shaking, arm-actions are well
scheduled. The music was never from her heart, never spontaneous. I
guess she doesn't know what the music tells. Terrible!!! If she will get a
medal, Van Cliburn is ruined. Trust me!!!"
(Kevin, Cliburn blog, June 3)
219
As these excerpts suggest, the reference to a shared musical code hardly created a
qualities in performers were often resulted from different listening orientations. For
example, audience members who were consistently structural listeners developed a strong
candidates.
For many forum participants, judgments were complicated by the nature and
quality of mediated experience. Fearing that the webcast may have distorted their
impressions, distant audience members often prompted those attending live to describe
the sound from their position in the hall. But sound was not the only aspect of
performance inadequately transmitted over the web. The mediated audience also had to
rely on the accounts of bloggers and others for descriptions of audience reaction, a
significant factor in the evaluation of candidates and the prediction their success. This
performances. One of the most heated controversies to erupt on the Cliburn blog
concerned the degree of enthusiasm, and the sincerity, of audience response to the
competitor who was eventually awarded the gold. When the official blogger posted a
review suggesting that loudest applause for this performer was confined to a section of
rowdy students seated in the second balcony, he received a swathe of angry responses
contradicting his account. Forum participants seated near the students argued that the
blogger had woefully misrepresented the genuine zeal and admiration this performer had
220
inspired among the young audience members. Others added their own accounts of
positive reactions from surrounding audience members in different corners of the hall.
The reason why the controversy over audience reaction became so heated is
because it concerned more than an accurate representation of events; it also raised the
issue of bias. When forum participants come across as resentment listeners, too eager to
promote or disparage a particular candidate, they are seen as revealing uncivil motives
(Alexander 2006) that pollute the musical public sphere. Evaluations and judgments of
competitors, however passionately felt, must take the form of impersonal, reasoned
"hype." But impartiality is not always easy to achieve. When an audience member sees in
a performer the embodiment of their musical ideals, they strongly identify with that
candidate and invest emotionally in their success. There is much at stake in their
day in a particular city; they are ambassadors of music in the broader cultural sphere and
The only other controversy on the Cliburn blog to achieve the same level of
fervour revealed the norm of inclusiveness. This is not to suggest that status was
comments by mentioning their credentials or their status in the music profession. But this
practice was only tolerated as long as status was never presented as grounds for inclusion
in the musical public. When a forum participant questioned an official blogger's right to
review the competition because he was not a professional musician, he was met with a
221
chorus of dissenting views. In the musical public, everyone has the right to express an
opinion about musical experience, and authority can only be earned through the
CONCLUSION
are an active public that engages in critical debate about musical experience, the meaning
of the event, and purpose of the institution. Because segments of the audience are
range of orientations that hold possibilities for fusion - and rejection - on a number of
different levels.
Underpinned by the cultural code of civil society, the musical public carries
certain expectations not only of its participants, but of the musical institutions they
inhabit. Competitions are expected to recognize performers who best embody ideals and
who will best advance the art of music. But they are also expected to be transparent, rule-
organization cannot deliver on all these counts. It cannot sustain a norm of equality and
inclusiveness while identifying and rewarding excellence; it cannot require that judges be
audience's musical experience with the ranking produced by the jury. Audiences will
222
reject the prestige of a competition if they cannot make sense of the outcome, just as their
faith in the institution and love of music is restored when they do. As one respondent
explained:
Much to the frustration of the devoted audience, they can never engage the jury in the
kind of public discussion they practice amongst themselves. Deliberations are sealed
forever, and the jury is never held to account. It is no wonder then that competitions have
been a source of controversy and debate in the music world since they were first
introduced over a hundred years ago. They not only create the conditions for a critical
musical public to emerge; they also provide a forum for where participants negotiate their
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