‘Terrible Strangler’

Beast attacks music

TBy Cezary Owerkowicz

he coronavirus continues to spread its tentacles to places, countries, regions and the entire world. Like some sneaky beast, the virus scares, frightens and has rattled the doors of education, entertainment, social activities and all common places with a brute force. The life has been complicated and everyone is scared to death. Life has become ‘abnormal’ to the extent it is a kind of solitary confinement.

The virus has caused panic buying, the stores have been emptied, cafés, restaurants, schools, kindergartens and universities have been forced to shut their doors with the sole purpose of preventing the virus from spreading. Nothing seems to be normal anymore. The stadiums wear an empty look, cinemas, theaters and concert halls have become ‘haunted’ places. We no more see planes flying in the skies, the ships have been anchored, the cars occupy parking lots and businesses have come to a standstill. The shadow of the frightening beast has not spared top events including the Olympic Games.

Owerkowicz

Celebrates

As if not satisfied by what is has already done, ‘The Beast’ attacked even the music. It is understood that music is more common than a social activity. At last, it seems, even Frederic Chopin has been attacked by the coronavirus. You will say, posthumously, is it possible? Yes, that’s true. Chopin celebrates this 210 birth anniversary. In commemoration of this genius, in 1927 the International Chopin Piano Competition was established.

These were the beginnings of ‘mass culture’ phenomenon. The event initiator, Professor Jerzy

urawlew, came up with idea that musicians begin to compete as athletes. That event soon became not only the most important musical event in Poland but also one of the most important musical events in the world. Since then the competition is being held every five years with the exception during the World War II.

Except for the great popularization of Chopin’s music, the event discovered for music lovers (and music ‘industry’ too) the greatest young piano talents, and opened for them the door to international stardom. The winner walks away with the Gold Medal and a quite significant amount of 40,000 Euros, besides he/she is awarded a year-round concert tour in all continents. For a young musician it is difficult to dream about better promotion, isn’t it?

Performances

The next five winners receive proportionally less amount money but also proposals and invitations for their performances galore. For them, equally important are the proposals and promotions from record companies. A majority of the Chopin Competitions Winners live exclusive lives compounded with exclusive contracts with the giant Deutsche Grammophone.

Traditionally there is a finalist chose by the audience (sometimes part of jury also), when someone is aggrieved when not winning the Gold Medal. For example the ‘black horse’ who didn’t win, such as Michael Bloch, Ivo Pogorelic, Emmanuel Ax and Daniil Trifonov and as a result sometimes ‘consolation prizes’ are worth in value just like the winner. There are also six Honorary Awards and few Special Prizes because of the prestige of the competition such as the Critics Award, the Audience Prize and prizes for interpretation of mazurkas (Polish fold dance), concerts, or sonatas.

The jury always comprises of top class professors and pianists. This year the Chairman will be Professor Katarina Popowa-Zydro and members are expected to chosen from former winners of Chopin Competitions, topped by Martha Argerich.

It is also a stage for multicultural polarization, widely observed in various interpretations of music of genial composer. All of those elements became the roots of its great popularity for both – the audience and participating candidates. When the date for the next competition – all hearings and stages – was announced past midnight all tickets were sold online like hot cakes within three hours.

To give an opportunity for music lovers to follow live performances, the music lovers’ zone will be organized. (Like during top sport games, such soccer World Cup. The audience will be able to watch the competition on big screens of highest quality sound. Similar zones will be created in Poland as well as abroad. For the time being such centers as New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Budapest and Moscow have confirmed making arrangements in specially arranged concert halls. The Japanese Chopin lovers have announced even redness for nigh vigils.

After the competition was announced 502 applicants from scores of countries of the world have announced their participation. This year the 18th edition of the Chopin Competition will be held between Oct 1 and Oct 23. During the competition all eyes of the cultural world will be focused on Warsaw. It is believed quarter of a million people are already preparing for the competition.

The organizers have announced c-a 120 hours of music transmitted from the National Philharmonic in Warsaw on TV, Radio and social media.

However there is no chance to offer the stage for more than a half thousand of pianist playing and for this preliminaries were organized in February 2020. The candidates were asked to send their CVs and records with certain program. The jury in Warsaw evaluated those few hundred hours’ long series of records and chose the best 164 promising young pianists aged between 16 and 30 years.

All of them are invited to attend personally during 2nd stage of the preliminaries, which is planned on April, 2020. On the list there are young lucky talents from 33 countries. Probably it would be interesting to look at the geographical content of the list. Between lucky players there are 43 from China, 31 and 16 each from Japan and South Korea. It means the Far East totally dominates the piano ‘market’. If you add a few pianists from China, Taiwan and few more the US or Canadian citizenship but of Chinese origin, the list is really impressive to look at. France, Italy, Russia and the US will have several representatives.

Poland is not a Far East country, but – as at least but not last – Chopin’s native country will present 18 candidates during the preliminaries. It is the third biggest representation in terms of the number of candidates. Additional information: in some countries such as US or Poland, among others Chopin Competitions were held at ‘national/ country’ level and some candidates earned nine places.

Threat

Everything went really smoothly up to last days. Last week the sale of tickets for preliminaries was stopped because of due to coronavirus threat. On Monday during the press conference Director of Frederic Chopin National Institute, Artur Szklener is hopeful that, the contrary to popular belief, the preliminary hearings will not be cancelled, ‘unless a majority of the competition participants do not show up in Warsaw due to the virus threat.

The elimination will take place from April 17 to 28 at the National Philharmonic hall after giving due consideration to hold the elimination rounds behind closed doors. However, it is possible to follow the event via the Internet or on YouTube, Facebook or https://chopin2020.pl/ page.

Just a moment … such plans were put in place on March 12, but at noon time the information was broadcast on TV and social media that the April preliminary hearings are postponed until – September (no exact date has been given) as long as we are able to stop ‘Terrible Strangler’s’ devastation of our life, we hope!

I believe the entire world, humanity and nature will win the battle with the Terrible Strangler as it has won the battle with devastating pollution, really the battle ‘for Kuwait and the World’, just after the liberation time. Let us be optimistic.

NB: No one doubts that the raging virus is ‘Terrible’, but why ‘Strangler’? Strangler strangles the lungs of the victim and tries to deprave him/her of his/her voice, choking the tune because music is all about singing. I hope no ‘Strangler’ will succeed in depraving us of our voice, never, nowhere and in any circumstances. ‘The song will come out safe and sound’.

Editor’s Note: Cezary Owerkowicz is the chairman of the Kuwait Chamber of Philharmonia and talented pianist. He regularly organises concerts by well-known musicians for the benefit of music lovers and to widen the knowledge of music in Kuwait. His email address is: cowerkowicz@yahoo.com and cowerkowicz@hotmail.com