Interview with Artur Szklener, Director of the Polish National Fryderyk Chopin Institute.

Even after a hundred years, I hope that people will never forget their love of art.

The International Chopin Piano Competition (hereinafter referred to as the Chopin Competition) was founded in 1927 and will soon celebrate its centenary. Artur Szklener, the organizer of the competition, has generously taken time in between his extremely busy schedule of traveling around the world to give us an exclusive interview.

Interviewed by Ryoichi Shirayanagi

Translation: Midori Tamura and Miho Ebihara

New Challenges: Preparing for the 19^th International Chopin Piano Competition

The 19th Chopin Competition is scheduled to take place in October 2025, and I heard that there have been changes to some of the compulsory pieces compared to the previous competition.

Exactly. The demands placed on the finalists have become greater over the years, and for this reason, some of the adjudicators had expressed that they wanted to add pieces to the final round. The jury members are themselves winners and prizewinners of the Chopin Competition, so we respected their opinions of what the Chopin Competition should be like. Of course, it is wonderful to have the concerto performed in the final round as it is a collaboration between the soloist and the orchestra, and also because it creates the climax of the competition. 

However, although Chopin's concertos are the pinnacle works of his Stile Brillante style, that period does not last long. I have been asking myself for many years whether it was right to evaluate the performance of the final round only by such works. 

So that is why the Polonaise-Fantasy Op. 61 was added as a compulsory piece along with the concerto?

I think it is important for the finalists to perform a major work of Chopin’s later years, other than the period of the concertos.

Furthermore, the first round to the third round is, so to speak, where one expresses their own world as an individual. As an individual pianist, one can compete on how well they control themselves to perform, but in the final round, depending on how much experience they have had performing with an orchestra makes quite a difference to their performance.  How one judges these points has a big influence on the adjudication.

By adding the Polonaise-Fantasy Op.61, not only will there be continuity from the third to the final round, but also, it will help release nervousness for contestants who have less experience performing with an orchestra.

Another change was that waltzes were added to the first round. 

It is already known that the participants in the final round are all technically excellent and are skillful in performing. In this context, we wanted to include elements of dance, which is difficult to express.

The reason why it is very difficult is because expressing the waltz in performance does not come from one's everyday life experience as exposure to ballroom dancing is so rare nowadays. Even with good technique and an excellent sense of rhythm, waltzes are not easy to play. Our intention in adding the waltz from the first round is to see the pianist's range of imagination, expression and tone palette.

Was it not a big decision to also replace the Sonata with the Preludes?

For the adjudicators, the sonata is a genre they really want to hear, but they also want to give the contestants the opportunity to play the Preludes. We made our decision from these perspectives.

In 2015, Seong-Jin Cho performed the Sonata in the second round and the Preludes as a free choice in the third round because he wanted to play both, which is a 'legal' way of doing it, so to speak. Therefore we decided to apply it to all contestants.

Just before the interview, a press conference was held at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland to announce the outline of the 19th International Chopin Piano Competition, which will be held in 2025. From the right in the photo are Director Artur Szklener and Deputy Director Joanna Bokszczanin.

The Chopin Competition will take place next October. How are the preparations going?

I feel that we are very ready. Currently, we are discussing the final details with Polish Radio and TV. Ticket sales will start on the 1^st of October this year, but as we always sell out so quickly, this has always been a bit of a problem for everyone. We hope that the system will somehow work itself out again this year.

In terms of preparation, we are thinking comprehensively of the centenary celebrations; starting with the 19th Chopin Competition next year, including the International Chopin Competition for Period Instruments in 2028, and ending with the 20th Chopin Competition in 2030.

In 2029, we plan to organize worldwide preliminary rounds prior to the 20th Chopin Competition in more than a dozen countries on all six continents, which will be the first in the history of the Chopin Competition. We also plan to celebrate the centenary in various ways, including exhibitions in five countries, publishing projects, releasing CDs and concerts related to the centenary.

The 100-Year Bond Between KAWAI and the Chopin Competition

KAWAI was founded in 1927, the same year as the Chopin Competition was founded, and will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary.

As it has been up until now, we are confident, of course, that KAWAI pianos will continue to be one of the official instruments of the Chopin Competition.

I have experienced on various occasions, in recent years especially, how wonderful an instrument the Shigeru Kawai SK-EX piano is, and I think more and more pianists are becoming aware of this and discovering the wonderful qualities of this instrument. I have heard performances with KAWAI instruments on many occasions, and they are exceptionally good pianos. They are able to produce a strong and stable sound no matter where the venue is under any circumstances. I hope more people will use it.

Thank you for thinking highly of Shigeru Kawai.

I personally had the opportunity to visit the KAWAI piano factory in Hamamatsu, and was impressed by the excellent system in place, managing the complex processes used in the production of these pianos.

During these decades of cooperation between KAWAI and the Chopin Competition, we have been impressed by the fact that KAWAI has continued to produce excellent instruments. I am also very pleased that the competition gives pianists the chance to try them out and get to know how wonderful these instruments are.

Impact and Prospects: The Younger Generation and the Chopin Competition

What do you think about the impact that the Chopin Competition has on young audiences?

I do think that the Chopin Competition is special. One of the reasons for this is that it brings together the 'high culture' of classical music and so-called mass culture, in other words 'popular culture'.

For instance, young people who do not listen to classical music on a daily basis, take an interest in the competition through social media. Admittedly, the excitement may be momentary, but during the competition, they share our enthusiasm and find it interesting to take part in the occasion with us. 

It may only last during the competition, but I still think that our role is to make sure that classical music reaches these people first of all.  I feel we have been able to achieve this so far.

Indeed, audiences have expanded dramatically through the incorporation of social networking sites, such as YouTube.

I think that is very important. On the other hand, from a contestant's point of view, winning this competition can instantly take you to world stardom, and even if you don't win, all eyes are on the final round performance, so you will be seen and known all over the world. For those people, it is a shortcut to a career that immediately opens doors to the world.

And for those pianists who didn't reach such a point but still managed to participate in the competition, it still can be a great opportunity for them to discover themselves. Who are your rivals? Which professors do they study with? The competition is an opportunity to think deeply about where you stand and what your future should look like.

Yes, there must be a lot of drama going on behind the scenes at the competition.

Have you seen the documentary film 'Pianoforte', produced by the US cable TV station HBO? The film depicts the contestants as friends rather than rivals, and how they work together to achieve their goals.

Not all HBO-produced films are distributed on streaming platforms available in Japan, but you can watch trailers etc. on YouTube. Please check it out.

Looking Ahead: Art, History, and the Next Century

In the past one hundred years since the Chopin Competition was founded, many things have happened in our history – major wars, disasters and more recently the pandemic. What do you foresee in the future? 

Even after a hundred years, I hope people will never forget their love of art.

And I wish we will still value creativity more than anything.

About Artur Szklener

Artur Szklener

Born in Krakow, Poland in 1972. He graduated in musicology from the Jagiellonian University. He benefitted from scholarships at the University of Exeter (1994-1995) and on the Phare programme in London, Prague, Brno and Krakow (1994-1997). In1997, he received the certificate of completion with distinction researching “Analysis on Chopin’s ‘Fantasy in F minor’ using Modern Methods”.

In 2008, he published a doctoral dissertation on “Chopin’s Melodic Idiom”.

Since 2001, he has been associated with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, first as a specialist in musicology, then as a coordinator of the academic programme, and then from 2009 to 2012 as deputy director of research and publishing. He was then inaugurated as the Institute's director in May 2012. He has edited a series of academic publications comprising the proceedings of annual Chopin conferences and was involved in publishing the facsimile editions of Chopin's works.

As a scholar, his research focuses on the works of Chopin and methods for analysing tonal music.

From 2017-2019, he was coordinator of the All-Poland Conference on Culture organized by NIFC on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.