BBC Young Musician 2014

[mikealdren]

Mind you, I probably will leave soon, especially as I heard some of the BBC Young Musicians again tonight (woodwind) and they chose one of the worst players in my opinion. So any connection with that disreputable and totally amateur setup must be a bad thing. So by association with the BBC in any way is not good.

I thought they got the string finalist wrong too, it was close but for me, the chosen winner was in clear last position.

Mike

[HARRIET HAVARD]

Must agree with you regarding Young Musician. Have been following this for years, and have noticed the standards dropping.. This years "crop" without exception really seem to have reached rock bottom. Wonder how they are chosen to be on the show? Surely not, like some Radio3 presenters. Daddy knows someone who knows someone. As with so many professional musicians of the past twenty years or so, most have a technical competance, but musically they leave something to be desired. Had the misfortune recently to attend a recital by Freddie Kampf, for example. He was note perfect. But seemed to have absolutely no feeling for the music. He seemed to think everthing should be approached as though it was Beethoven...Even Ravel. Of course maybe he had a bad day. But these shortcomings are all too obvoius in his recordings. Like Lang Lang, and many others, ideal for the "charts" maybe. The spirit of Semprini is alive and well.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thought the above posts were worth copying here from their tangential position on the CD Review thread. I have to say I share the sentiments expressed in the last three posts (to the extent that I too suffered a - different - Freddy Kempf recital. Mind you it was all Liszt so I wasn't well-placed to give a dispassionate view. But it was so boring )

[Barbirollians]

I am sorry to hear that Freddy Kempf is now apparently playing without feeling something I find hard to believe .

I have a number of his records and his late three Beethoven sonatas strike me as particularly fine and his Prokofiev piano concerto record on BIS is the first to bring out the poetry behind the percussive in the Second Concerto to my ears.

I have not seen him play live for a while but a thrilling Rachmaninov second sonata sticks in my memory.

[Honoured Guest]

Wonder how they are chosen to be on the show?

All eligible entrants were invited to perform at the Regional Auditions which took place at six venues around the UK.
Approximately 150 successful entrants from the Regional Auditions were invited to compete in the Category Auditions.
Here's a link to the Entry Brochure for BBC Young Musician 2014:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bb3wt/features/how-to-enter-2014

I have it on good authority that, at Regional Audition stage, the adjudicating panel is given no information about any of the entrants, i.e. age, qualifications, education, experience, personal and familial relationships (!), etc.
I don't know about the later stages.

[MrGongGong]

. Have been following this for years, and have noticed the standards dropping..

Hummm I'm not sure about that at all
Though I haven't watched it this year I was working with an ex winner of the competition last week who remarked how high they thought the standards were these days.

[Honoured Guest]

As with so many professional musicians of the past twenty years or so, most have a technical competance, but musically they leave something to be desired. ... The spirit of Semprini is alive and well.

Surely it's right that the Young Musician 2014 competition should be judged with reference to today's professional norms, and not to a divergent personal musical taste, even if that taste does conform, as you claim, to professional norms of more than twenty years ago.

[MrGongGong]

Surely it's right that the Young Musician 2014 competition should be judged with reference to today's professional norms, and not to a divergent personal musical taste, even if that taste does conform, as you claim, to professional norms of more than twenty years ago.

And the beer also tasted so much better

If you are going to say

but musically they leave something to be desired.

then surely you should also say what you mean by "musically" ?

[Ariosto]

I'm certainly not saying that the standard of entrants is lower than in past years. My gripe is that the juding panel seem not only to be tone deaf (like me) but also brain dead, in their choices.

This reflects VERY badly on the BBC (which should change it's name to the British AMATEUR Broadcasting Corporation).

Hope I have NOT upset Mr Throplenogs with my badly adjusted tenets and my lower class bully boy comments ... (Nearly missed out the "NOT" due to limited vision, hearing, and extreme old age. I was 104 yeasterday ...)

As well as my bad spelling and limited memory ability. (The vet said I looked like I needed putting down yesterday, and Bonnie agreed ...)

[Dave2002]

Has everyone given up watching? I'm working through some of the previous sessions, and actually watching more or less live tonight.

[Mary Chambers]

I just know that if I say I picked the piano final winner (which I did) someone here will pour scorn on the choice. Excellent final, I thought.

[Pianorak]

Well, I am not pouring scorn on your choice.

[Dave2002]

Neither am I. There were I thought some decent, even good performances, but the winner was, as Noriko said, giving a recital performance.

[ardcarp]

Yes, he was a personality and a musical personality too with a rock-solid technique. I thought the girl who played Scarbo (from Gaspard) was pretty damn good though. BTW, I didn't know the Barber piece played by the winner. He's a composer who never fails to amaze me, and I always wonder why he isn't up there with the greats of the 20th century.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

pretty excellent final starting with Bach was a good idea but they all played at least one piece convincingly ... i trust the youngest pianist continues to develop