An English pianist conquers France Paris, 28 October 2015, From the Théâtre Champs-Élysées and the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Piano Competition

While British sportsmen, businessmen, designers, artists and pop stars have been successful in international competition, classical musicians have been strangely absent and pianists most of all. But one young British pianist, Julian Trevelyan, has challenged the world, and has come out top not once, but three times, in 2015. Julian Trevelyan was one of five finalists, selected from almost 200 contenders in the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Piano Competition, held in Paris every three years. Facing him were Japanese, Korean and Russian pianists. Piano competitions have been dominated by Russians since the early days of the Chopin competition and, recently, Chinese, Japanese and Korean performers have challenged for the top places, but a British flag has rarely been seen. Britons have competed in international piano competitions but there have been few recent successes abroad. Why Britain has failed to produce competitive international pianists is a good question to ask. While British sportsmen have had mixed results, no-one can deny the success of the cricketers, in winning the Ashes, or of footballers, whose club teams play at world-class level. British cyclists now dominate that once-foreign world. In popular music, Britain dominates the world, producing more great singers, songwriters, bands and musicians than any other country. The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Blur and Radiohead are just the tip of a huge iceberg of British musical talent that has been successful worldwide, and keyboard wizards like Elton John, Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson are just some of a long, long list of world-class musicians. British artists of Cool Britannia and the Brit-Pop movements also dominate their field. So, why is it that classical music, and classical piano music in particular, has failed to produce anything recently to compare ? At one time, classical English musicians dominated the European stage. Perhaps the first true superstar was John Dowland, whose fame crossed not just national borders but also religious ones during the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation. Dowland was the ultimate singer/songwriter/lead guitarist at the time that the lute was the preferred instrument, before it was automated and extended to become the piano of today. Dowland and his contemporaries like Byrd, and those that followed up to and including Purcell were simply the greatest composers in Europe. No doubt this was helped by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with the accompanying destruction of the Chantry system of singing priests, which resulted in thousands of musical monks and priests having to find other jobs. But it was also because in Catholic countries it was considered a sin to play a musical instrument at all, and to dance and sing in the street, unless it was to praise God; in many of these countries, musicians were oppressed to the extreme of being refused burial in hallowed ground. The English freedom to compose was balanced by a strong taxation and censorship system that ensured that the music was published and preserved, and played. The Reformation also encouraged private learning of music, and developed the need for printed music. Writing for keyboards made it easier to play virtuoso music, and Britain in the 17th Century was a major centre for such music, but the great composers and keyboardists after Purcell were imported from Germany, along with our kings. It is noticeable that in a chronological list of British composers on Wikipedia, there are more in the 200 years before

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the year 1600 than in the 200 years after. Few names on the latter list would be recognised by British musicians, even less by foreigners. Part of the problem was that on the continent, the Protestant Reformation was accompanied by a violent iconoclasm that forced all artists into religious music, and then allowed the development of secular music, while banning everything else. Germany and Denmark, where monasteries were dissolved, produced Buxtehude and Bach. By the next generation, Handel and the English Bach were the leading musicians, both protestant Saxons. In the contemporary period, since Elgar, there have been composers who have reached global fame, but they have not focused on the piano, and Britain has become a nation of accompanists, and good ones, like Benjamin Britten and Gerald Moore, but it has given up the mud and dirt of the piano concert, and that gladiatorial offshoot, the competition. The weakness in British concert pianists increases the difficulties for future performers. There are few teachers with experience of winning competitions or of living as concert pianists, most perhaps wisely preferring the lower stress of a job as an orchestra conductor or teacher; and there are few British judges with the experience to be selected for the juries that decide who wins; unfortunately, this is a major factor in making champions. No Britons have featured in the Chopin competition, nor the Busoni one. No Britons have competed in the Van Cliburn competition, since Andrew Wilde in 1989, and none have progressed beyond the first round. Peter Donohoe took second place in the 1982 Tchaikovsky competition, a year where no first was awarded, a fitting statement on British piano playing; this is not to underestimate his talent and effort, at a time of the Cold War, to travel to communist Russia and win under the noses of the KGB and with little support from his own countrymen. Northern Irishman Barry Douglas won the Tchaikovksy four years later, a feat which had been also achieved earlier by John Lill and John Ogden; and Freddy Kempf, who is part German, but grew up in Britain, came third in 1998. Tom Poster won a prize at the 2009 Honens. So, for 29 years, Britain, including Ireland, has produced only this list of competitive international pianists. There seems to be no shortage of private investment in British music, but is the government doing enough ? To answer this, it is worth looking at another country where money is no object. The host country for the Long Piano Competition, France, has fared little better. Five French candidates arrived in Paris, but all were eliminated in the first round. This was in spite of a national system of conservatoires, major funding from the state that supports municipal, county, regional, and national conservatoires, the universities and the two national superior conservatoires, the CNSMs. Any visitor to any conservatoire can see why the French fare badly: there is no restriction on who can study. Fees are very low, except for a few private schools. But entry to these schools is by competitive performance. It takes time, dedication and hard work, an early start to studying music, to succeed, but the French school system already puts massive pressure on the young students to conform, to produce; to recreate but not to create. So it is foreign students who benefit most from the higher levels of the conservatoire system; the higher the rank of the conservatoire, the greater is the percentage of foreign students. Many of the non-European contenders in the competition had studied in Paris, or in other European cities in Belgium, Germany or Switzerland. It is certainly not government funding alone that leads to national success.

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It is worth looking at Britain’s newest competitive success to see what has made a winner. Julian is home schooled, which should give him an advantage in terms of time, and both his parents are musical, but he squanders as much time as any teenager, studying geology, playing the violin, singing and composing, and playing sport. He is supported by grants and has reached his level of performance by regularly participating in musical activities, in his local Cathedral, St Albans, where he is a chorister, at musical summer camps, and with chamber orchestras. But perhaps his defining characteristic, or characteristics, is the eagerness with which he competes, and his eagerness to collect feedback. As a performance sport, most good pianists are highly self-critical, and the aftermath of a session in piano competition is an exercise in Schadenfreude as the young virtuosi berate themselves for their failings. Later, in calmer moments, they can criticise the piano, always a weak point in competitions, the acoustics of the concert hall, the size and mood of the audience, the selection of pieces, the rehearsal and warm-up facilities; but never heard is criticism of other players, nor of the jury. This gives a clue to the reason for success, for in the mind of a competitive pianist, the competition is not against the jury, nor even against the other players, but against that ephemeral and unreasoning judge, their own self-worth. The jury’s attempt to set an absolute standard for a competition is the antithesis of this attitude, and leads to much of the frustration of professionals with music competitions, for the contenders and the judges are playing different games. Imagine if the judges were asked to first play the pieces themselves, the way they wanted them played, saying: “The one who plays closest to this will win”. Musicians learn early in their career that the best way to win entrance examinations to courses or schools, or competitions is to study with the teachers or the jurors in advance. The teacher earns some extra money from these private lessons, and imparts his personal idiosyncrasies, but this system does little to foster creativity. Nor is creativity helped by the need to produce a musical biography, which typically tries to prove a genealogical descent from Lizst, or Haydn, through a succession of long-forgotten teachers, or from some of the more modern ones, like Nadia Boulanger, who dominates French piano CVs. The system produces competent musicians, but few who lust after competitive success, because the best that can be said about them is that they copy their teacher perfectly. There are no surprises produced by such a system. Julian’s success in the Long Piano Competition is not a surprise to those who have seen, heard or followed him. He is well-supported by his family and by other home-schooled pupils, as well as by a musical network that includes the Aldeburgh Young Musicians and the Britten Sinfonia Academy. Last year, he was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. This year, before arriving at the Long, he had already won two prizes in international competitions. He won the Grand Prix as well as the special Ravel prize in the Concours-Festival Répertoire Pianistique Moderne (CFRPM or Contemporary Piano Music Festival Competition) in Paris earlier in the year; and he took 2nd place in the Île-de-France International Piano Competition in Maisons-Laffitte in the summer, along with the prize for interpretation. In both competitions, Julian surprised from the first moment he was called onto the stage, not least because he was five or ten years younger than his competitors. Marguérite Long was Maurice Ravel’s favourite pianist, and Julian’s proven expertise in the CFRPM in playing Ravel was sure to attract attention in the piano competition which she

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founded, which could almost be called the Ravel Competition. In the eliminatory round of the competition, held at Paris’ regional conservatoire, he had chosen a Beethoven sonata, and Ravel’s Scarbo from the obligatory list. Also on the obligatory list were three Rachmaninov Études-Tableaux, and Balakirev’s Islamey. Although all three are supposed to be tests of virtuosity, they did not appear to be equal choices: Islamey was reputed to be the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire, until Ravel deliberately wrote Scarbo to overtake it. Critically aware in Ravel’s home country, the jury punished those who selected Scarbo, most noticeably the French performers. Only one in five (20%) of the Ravel players, among them Julian Trevelyan, got through to the semi-final, but half (50%) of those who chose the Rachmaninov studies were selected. One contender of six (16%) who played Islamey was selected, so perhaps this piece should maintain its mythical reputation as the hardest. If the obligatory pieces had an impact on selection, the personal choices were also important. Chopin, Beethoven, Bach were all popular choices that helped make it through to the next round, but Haydn seems to be a guarantee. Great performances from these were heard from Kaoru Jitsukawa, whose exceptional elegance was later shown to even greater effect in the semi-final, and a very original Madoka Fukami. Both these Japanese players would make their way to the final, where Kaoru took the prize for the solo recital as well as the overall third Grand Prix. That they both come from the only country with a worse reputation than France for hot-housed child students implies that the national educational system itself it not to blame. Others who failed to make the grade with the jury but still won praise from the audience were Federico Nicoletta, from Italy; and Jeungbeum Sohn, from Korea, whose Islamey was the only one to be chosen by the jury for promotion to the semi-finals, but whose Haydn sonata in the eliminatory round, and, for the semi-finals, a poised set of the entire Opus 25 Études by Chopin, played as a three-movement work. Both produced standing ovations from a usually reticent crowd. The semi-final was played in Paris’ Salle Gaveau. The hall was purpose-built in the home of one of France’s top piano builders, and has legendary acoustics perfect for piano recitals. Julian used them well in his semi-final interpretation of Shostakovich’s 1st Piano Sonata to blast his way into the finals, shocking the public and the judges with his ferocity and poetry. No other semi-finalist had as much punch as Julian by this stage of a competition which is a test of stamina as much as of music. Unlike some of the larger competitions which have a week’s rest between stages, the Long crams four competitive sessions into six days, with rounds of 20 minutes, 40 minutes, one hour, and a 20 minute concerto selected from two chosen only three days before; a total of two hours 40 minutes of performance to be prepared. It was noticeable that those who benefited from a rest day were more successful than those who had played twice in two days; four went through to the final from the first day eliminatory round, only one from the second. But all were tired, the judges and the spectators too, as each day’s playing started at 10am and could last until 10pm. With Stephen Kovacevich leading at 75, the jury also included four others past retirement age. The spectacle proved too much for some of the spectators, many of whom were also passed retirement age, and one fainter had to be carried out mid-concert, with the help of Frank Braley, one of the younger jurors and a previous winner of the Queen of Belgium-Ysaÿe piano competition. And in the end it was age that told, and the youngest, the freshest, the most energetic of the players would succeed.

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Nothing prepares a spectator for a concert by Julian Trevelyan. Looking every inch the schoolboy that he isn’t, he launches onto the stage at the Salle Gaveau for the final recital eager to do battle. Nothing gives the young Trevelyan away better than his attack on the No 8 Sonata, written by Mozart, another child prodigy and gifted musician. Immediate and total ownership of the piece, and domination of the piano, is coloured by a depth of feeling, of humour, of fun that can only create an image of the composer in any spectator’s mind. Colour is a word Julian often uses: the colour he can produce from his playing or from the piece, or from the piano. He stretches the gamut of the competition grand to every extreme, and never more than when he is furthest from the keys. If the piano is a concert grand, Julian’s playing style is upright, constantly shifting his position left and right, forwards and backwards, to attack with greater force, or more intimacy, or elegance as required. Sometimes he leads with his left foot, and sometimes with both feet square, but rarely with his right foot, preferring to let his hands dictate the power of this most awesome weapon. Julian followed the Mozart with the Frank Martin Preludes and Chopin’s No 4 Scherzo, both beautifully played. He then had 24 hours to prepare for the final concert, for which the jury had asked him to play Bartok’s 3rd Piano Concerto. Spending the day in Paris’ Cité de la Musique, a purpose-built facility that houses concert halls, museums, and the national superior conservatory (CNSM), Julian prepared well and gave another brilliant concert, winning the special concert prize awarded by the Prince of Monaco. His enthusiasm for this piece was visible, his interaction with the orchestra was constant, mostly looking at them rather than the piano, and at the end he made to shake hands with them before bowing to the audience. After six days of competition, the older competitors had developed noticeable fatigue: the jury refused to offer a first prize, judging that the overall standard in the competition was not high enough. The standard of contenders had been high: almost two hundred applicants had already been tested in half a dozen preliminary rounds around the world. Of these, 41 were selected but only 35 started on the first day of competition. These included several previous competition winners. Of the finalists, Ekaterina Gumenyuk and Madoka Fukami have both won many international competitions; Kaoru Jitsukawa has won the Asian Chopin competition. Jean-Paul Gasparian and Micah McLaurin, both young professional pianists, both eliminated in the first round, arrived with competition success on their CVs. The youngest lady competitor, Wei-Ting Hsieh from Taiwan, is also a prize winner. Music is one of the few activities in which male and female compete equally, but the only sport in which the top prize is not awarded to the best performer at the event. Whether the organisers or the contenders are at fault is a question of point of view. Did the organisers attract the right kind of people ? Did they provide the facilities and the organisation necessary to deliver world-class performances ? Were the expectations on performance suitable for this type of competition ? Was the concert piano and the warm-up facilities suitable ? The academic assumption that there is an absolute perfection to be attained in the interpretation of compositions can only lead to a robotic sound better performed by a computer. There was nothing robotic about the playing of the second Grand Prize winner, Julian Trevelyan who, at 16 years old, was the youngest competitor by three years, and the youngest finalist by ten years. From his wide range of interests Julian is able to bring out much colour

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in the music he plays. One juror made the point that it was precisely his lack of schooling that was so admirable. Julian has the desire to be a concert pianist, and has the skills to fulfil his dream, and 2015 have given him the launch-pad for this future, with international concerts promised and a prize-winning CV to back him up. But so far, he has had almost no publicity. No British press have followed the story of this year, and none so far have shown interest in his latest victory. Yet this is a defining moment in British piano playing. The next major piano competitions will be in 2018 (Leeds), 2019 (Tchaikovsky), 2020 (Chopin). All three completed this autumn 2015, by coincidence, but with no British finalists. Julian will have to prove himself at these highest levels, and with three years or more to prepare should be ready. In that time, the British press and the British public should make the effort to get to know this remarkable young man, to listen and preferably to see him play.