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In the event, Warsaw audiences were complemented by those watching around the globe, including large numbers in China on Weibo. This has long been a national event – indeed a national talking-point – but it now also attracts millions of international followers via live-streaming.Īs the organising body, the Fryderyk Chopin Institute has been ahead of much of the classical music world in embracing social media, and its experience in the field would have been invaluable had the competition retreated to be online-only due to the pandemic. Those 12 pianists who reached the final concerto stage had performed under the intense scrutiny of a distinguished 18-member jury, packed halls and over 100 hours of live coverage on Polish television and radio. But the competition’s uniquely monographic nature helps to identify great pianists: if you can play Chopin well, that probably implies a mastery of Mozart and Rachmaninov, too.Ī fascinating new publication on the history of the competition is aptly titled The Chopin Games, for there is certainly something Olympian about it. These days the competition runs for a gruellingly intense three-week period, with listening of up to eight hours a day. One of the contestants at the first edition in 1927 was a young Dimitri Shostakovich, though he received only “honourable mention”. Hopes for new stars created here are always high, for the annals of the Chopin Competition read like a Who’s Who of pianism and have featured more big-name prize-winners – including Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and Krystian Zimerman – than any other musical contest. Having dazzled during earlier stages of the competition, his Concerto in E minor, with the Warsaw Philharmonic under Andrzej Boreyko, had held poetry and virtuosity in wonderful balance. In addition to his €40,000 (circa £34,000) and gold medal, he is due a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.

No one was going to miss the announcement now, and even at such a late hour the foyers of the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall, spiritual home to this greatest of music contests, were abuzz, as were social-media channels across the world.Īnd the winner? Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu, 24, was a name on many people’s lips, and his well-deserved victory makes him the first Canadian to take first prize in the competition’s near-100-year history.

This big moment normally comes every five years, but the originally scheduled 2020 competition had been – like almost everything else last year – postponed due to Covid-19. It was not until 2.30am in Warsaw, five long hours after the end of the Final round, that the jury of the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition delivered its verdict.