This year’s grand finale is behind us Chopin Competition. The last performances of the participants took place on October 18-20 at the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, and the day after, late at night, the results were announced. The gold medal was completely unexpectedly won by an American Eric Luwho took fourth place in this competition in 2015. Earlier, bookmakers named him among the favorites Kevin Chen, Shiori Kuwahara and Tianyao Lyu.
The competition’s verdict shocked some music lovers, as each viewer had their own predictions. Although more than a week has passed since the results were announced, the echoes of the decision are still echoing among competition fans. There is a fierce debate on social media about who deserved to win the most. The latest news from the competition organizers added fuel to the fire.
The Chopin Institute revealed the competition scores
The full scores of the 19th International Chopin Piano Competition were published in the media, causing quite a stir on the Internet. The Chopin Institute said in a statement that it was used during the competition method of correcting extreme jurors’ ratingsi.e. an action aimed at minimizing discrepancies between the notes of individual experts. During stage I, the maximum deviation from the average could be three pointsand in subsequent stages only two.
To explain: if, for example, the average score that a given participant received in the second stage was 17.5 points, and one of the jurors awarded him 23 points, his score was automatically lowered to 19.5 points. Only after such changes was the final number of points calculated, which was of great importance for the advancement of young pianists.
The published scores show that this year’s competition winner – Eric Lu – was the only one of all candidates to exceed the 23-point mark twice in one stage. Additionally, Kevin Chen received high marks from the jurors, who appeared at the top of the classification in almost every round.
After the detailed results of the Chopin Competition were published, a storm broke out on the Internet
Although the top places in the general classification of the participants did not change much between stages, many Chopin Competition enthusiasts do not hide their surprise at the published scores. The ratings received by Polish participants, in particular, aroused the most emotions among viewers Piotr Pawlak. The pianist received high marks in the first two stages, but his scores differed significantly between the jurors. Additionally, viewers noticed the unfavorable ratings Ewa Pobłocka and Krzysztof Jabłońskiwho underestimated the Polish representatives.
“I will never go to a concert of Ewa Pobłocka and Krzysztof Jabłoński again after revealing how they voted for Piotr Pawlak. Apparently we have different musical tastes”, “It is unfortunate that in the third stage Piotr Pawlak received the lowest marks from Ewa Pobłocka and Krzysztof Jabłoński… In the final, the same two jurors rated Piotr Alexewicz the lowest… I didn’t expect them to favor Poles, but to rate them so low??? “Piotr Pawlak the weakest in the third stage? Strange for me”“It seems that the chairman was the greatest enthusiast of Mr. Pawlak’s game,” we read in the comments of nervous competition enthusiasts.
Chopin Competition fans outraged by the scoring! They accuse the jurors of injustice
Many Internet users also criticized other jurors of the competition, who, in their opinion, did not award fair marks. “I propose that from the next competition we do not ask Dang Thai Son to join the committee anymore,” “It is known that Garrick Ohlsson wanted the American to win, so he weakened the ratings of those who had a chance”“We cannot allow the same jury, the same Olsen gang to participate in the anniversary competition,” one can read on Facebook.
“I don’t understand… It was said that in the case of extreme discrepancies, the points would be averaged, so the final score should not depend on extreme scores”, “The numbers don’t lie, the people who put up these numbers lie.”“I will say this – these ratings are embarrassing, the discrepancies are so large… It shows that this system only harms the participants,” write other commentators, outraged by the point awarding system.