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ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN PIANO MASTER COMPETITION : Kahane Clinches Keyboard Contest
jUks much bane as they are boon, meters apart - Fci-Ping Hsu, in a south competitions arc a fact of life for musi eastern province of mainland China, and cians eager to establish themselves on Hung-Kuan Chen, in Taiwan — both today’s overcrowded concert circuit. By pianists arc currently studying in the no means a new invention, they certain United States. Mused one pundit in the ly provide a measure of professional mass-circulation Hebrew daily, Afuithv; achievement peculiar only, to the concert “How will the Chinese in Peking (with hall -- and the sports stadium. whom Israel has no formal relations) ac For the last three weeks Tel Avivians cept the fact that Hsu is in Zionist Israel have ri vert cd their attention and ample and is rooming with Chen from adversary Competitive Spirit on the Fourth Annual Taiwan?” Not surprisingly dazed by the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competi unfamiliarity of the Jewish state, the two tion. avoided journalists in general and politi Competitions, like romances, usually cal comment in particular, save one en gain in retrospect. In the minds of critics dearing slip by China's Hsu:“I wish Tai and audience alike, tumpciitions-gonc-by wan were a part of China. Then Chcri were invariably of a higher standard, and would really be my brother." past winners - the majority of whom In the end, however, the gold medal o
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have lately been heard in went^to neither, Inn Flubinstei Israel laic in last word in technical brilliance and artist- who sneaked up from behind with a grace- life. Not literally, since his first visit to ; ic eloquence. Be that as it may, what this ful and convincing pianism that grew as Palestine was as early as 1927. But the most recent Rubinstein competition may the£*ompetition progressed. Hailing'from nonagenarian didn’t really start feeling a have lacked in connoisseur appeal, it Los Angeles, Jeffrey Kahane, 26, married, connection to the Jewish state until his made up for in sheer excitement. With and the father of a two-year-old son, won last three decades. Every time he came competitors neck and neck from the early the confidence of the jury, the $10,001) to Israel and played for free, he would stages, it proved a good old-fashioned first prize, a recording contract, and say, “Don't thank me. I’m paying qff an cliffhanger. numerous concert dates. Diminutive and old debt to my father.” Recently;, the Bookmakers would have put their capped by a shock of wavy blond hair, he city of Jerusalem was awarded $500,000 money on one of two Chinese entrants, is the image of Arthur Rubinstein in his from the Rubinstein legacy to be used for who almost immediately captured the younger years. beautification purposes. hearts and imagination of the audience, if The Rubinstein competition, al- Rubinstein once noted that "the new not the whole country. Bom 380 kilo though the fourth since its inception nine Jewish nanon has felt, from its earliest
NEWSVIEW APRIL 19, 1983 beginning, that homeland and culture are This is the reason why we bring the those terms, I think you lose. Because, two conceptions which cannot be sepa Rubinsteins, the Barenboims, the Zuker- what is art, if not an expression of ab rated from each other.” Concern for Is mans, and the Perlmans here - because solute, unqualified individuality? rael's cultural vitality has also long been it’s so important to the future of this "I came here with the desire to, high on Bistritz.ky’s list of priorities. country. If we don't have a new genera above all, walk out on stage and trans “You know, the first 35 years of this tion here connected with culture, we cend the situation. I feel lhar so far I’ve country’s heritage have not been so much will no longer be the chosen nation who been able to make music, and that’s what cultural ones,” he says. “Certainly de has given the whole world the best of I wanted. But I don’t want to give a mis fense is important, as are the millions of science and art." And, it was on this leading impression - I have to struggle dollars spent on arming rhe country, but basis that he appealed to Rubinstein - in with all the demons everyone else docs. concurrently culture is just as important. his words a yehudi gadol (great Jew) — When I was in Warsaw (where he placed i with the competition idea. fourth in the Chopin Competition), I was When he approached him, the maes So sick from nerves I came home 13 TOOTING THE RILL tro’s first reaction, Bistritzky recalls, pounds lighter, and there isn't a spare 13 was- “What do we need one more com pounds on me,” he jokes, making light Among several conditions Arthur petition for? There are so many competi of his bantamweight frame. Rubinstein stipulated before giving the tions, so many pianists, and so few art piano competition his name was that ists.” But, Bistritzky had in mind a dif it never financially burden the Israeli public or government. To that end, the ferent type of competition. “This is not a competition for dis i pianist - fiercely opposed to commer’ covering young talents - there arc plenty I cial ventures in his name - gave the of those. Rather, we arc giving already- i competition three sketches drawn by his discovered talents the young masters - friend Picasso, phis a facsimile of hia the opportunity to embark on the artistic : signature. Two of the sketches appeared phase of their career. Today, we arc the on a liAiited run of solid gold comnw- only competition which asks the entrants morative medals, minted by the Israel to play one-hour recitals in the first (of Government Coins and Medals Corpora four) stages, and 80 minutes in rhe sec tion. Available for a minimum "dona-, ond stage. It is more a confrontation with lion” of $1,000 towards the competi-' lion. 500 such medals were sold, the music than a competition.” The noted musician Nadia Boulanger proceeds of which entirely funded the administration of the first three compel wrote Bistritzky on the occasion of the first competition: “It is not important to ¿¡cions. f However, this year’s funding fell on be a prize-winner: it is enough
-WSVIEW APRIL 19,1983 i 31 .Are competitions, then, a sophisti cated form of masochism? "For whom?" quips Harold Schon berg,'Neu/ York 7'irner music critic emerit us and a member of the competition jury. Possibly the only thing as gruelling as competing in an international contest, is judging it. For the better part of three v^ccks the jury sits in rapt attention, en trusted with the weighty responsibility of evaluating a young musician’s life’s W0F At what point docs each judge pick his winner? "Alter the first stage we ex pect at least one of the 12 to be the first- prize winner, so we start thinking who it will be. After all, we are part of the com petition, too. As jury members we care very much to have a good winner. It’s not only for the sake of the competition, but for the sake of our own pride in it. When there is a good winner, and he is an excel lent one, nobody is happier than we are." Even so, it took this year’s jury a full one hour and 45 minutes to deliver the verdict, once and for all silencing the spirited debating among the 2,000 mem bers of the final night’s standing-room- only audience still on hand at 12:45 a an. to hear the-.news and settle their bets. Jeffrey Kahanc, so poised and self- assured throughout the competition, is in a complete daze bordering on delirium. "I’m in such a state of shock, I’m dizzy,’’ he tells well-wishers pumping his numbed arm. As happy as he and the judges is his manager, Edna Landau. "I his was worth a trans-Atlantic flight," she crows. By the next morning, the wheels have already been put into motion to ward creating a concert career. Kahanc has been signed for a special Israeli In dependence Day concert in Jerusalem. Bistntzky has already cabled RCA in New York, requesting a recording con tract. And the plum; on December 3 the Rubinsrein laureate will play Carnegie Hall in New York City with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Israeli Philhar monic. One thing’s for sure: practice is the only way to get to Carnegie Hall. Less certain is what happens once you make it. The future rests firmly in Kahane’s dex terous hands, and he’s philosophical about it. Long before he knew he would win the Fourth Arthur Rubinstein Inter national Piano Master Competition, he reverently commented to a visitor; "Wc sit here and think we arc all so important. But, God willing, Beethoven will be around long after no one remembers what happened at this competition." Arthur Rubinstein would have ap proved. Roberta Elliott