The Geneva Competition’s 75th Anniversary November 26, 2014As the Concours de Genève continues in Geneva, Switzerland, I had the opportunity to speak with Didier Schnorhk, Secretary General of the competition, who told me a bit about the history of the concours, its first grand prize winner, Arturo Benedetto Michelangeli, and how the event is run.
In the mid-1930s French-Swiss composer and organist Henri Gagnebin began to explore the possibility of creating a music competition at the Geneva Conservatory of music where he was Director. He sought the advice of his friend Frédéric Liebstoeckl, who was then running a music competition in Vienna. 1938, just ahead of the Nazi annexation of Austria, Liebstoeckl, who was Jewish, fled to Geneva and together they opened the first competition in June, 1939.
The eventual winner, a young Italian pianist, almost didn’t make it to the event. With so many people trying to leave Europe before the outbreak of war, the trip from his home in Milan to Geneva which should have taken 6 hours turned into several days. The 19 year old musician had to bribe his way onto the trains and he arrived at the competition broke, exhausted and without accommodations. He won anyway and thus began both the great career of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, and the sterling reputation of the Concours de Genève. That September Nazi Germany invaded Poland and the world was drawn into the cataclysm of World War II. Switzerland remained a neutral country but musicians of other nationalities could not get to Geneva to compete and so the Concours during the war years was restricted to Swiss citizens and those like Georg Solti, a 1942 winner in piano, who were already in the country.
From the beginning, private donors joined with the City and Canton of Geneva to fund the expenses of the Concours, a situation that continues today. The leadership of the competition has remained unusually stable as well. Mr. Liebestoeckl remained as its Secretary General for 40 years until his death in 1979 and Didier Schnorhk has occupied that position for more than 15 years now. Trustees of the foundation that runs the competition are selected from the great performing organizations of Geneva — l’Orchestre de la Suisse romande, Grand Théâtre (Opéra de Genève) and the Geneva Conservatory and an Artistic Advisory committee chooses jurors insuring the highest standards. The featured disciplines rotate each year among a surprisingly wide variety of instruments, voice and composition.
Finalists in flute and piano will play their ultimate rounds on December 1st and 2nd and the prizes, totaling upwards of $50,000, will be awarded. The competition will end with masterclasses by the distinguished French pianist Pascal Rogé, Chairman of the piano jury then the contestants will return home and, in a remarkable act of continuity which has resulted in the presentation of this extraordinary international competition every year since the end of the war, the organizers will hunker down to begin planning for the 2015 Concours de Genève. This one for composers.
