Before too long, I will spend an afternoon listening intently to young flutists auditioning to enter my class at ESART, part of the Polytechnic in Castelo Branco, here in Portugal.
How self-possessed these young musicians are! Already professional in their attitude, serious but friendly, and very obviously hard-working and well-trained.
Yet how dreadful I find it to be forced, each year, on audition day, to have to grade them numerically. To quote a favorite musician, “it’s not sport…it’s music”.
Would it not be dreadful—and pointless—to “grade” master pianists? Who do I prefer, András Schiff or Murray Perahia? Such comparisons are an absurd proposition…But as there is no alternative within the structure of the Ministry of Education, I agonize and do my best.
All kudos go to the young applicants. They are, as Theodore Roosevelt stated in his famous speech “the man in the arena”, they are the ones out there, risking a loss for the chance at getting a gain.
Imagine, for a moment, the alternative: a system of favouritism—cunhas in Portuguese, cunha being a wedge: forcing or wedging in someone who hasn’t shown up “in the arena”. Or in English, “rigging the system”. A system set up for a predetermined outcome, or worse, filling a vacancy without any audition at all. Indeed, the idea of no audition suddenly makes the audition seem…not so bad!
Even for an eventual “winner”, who is chosen through favouritism, cunhas, or pre-ordained rigging, there’s a downside. There lurks—from that moment on—a tacet knowledge that you “got in” without the due process of being “in the arena”, without risking, without proving your mettle fair and square in the same arena—artificial as it may be—as everyone else.
I remember a mentor humbly stating that when he and his colleague won their orchestra jobs, years back, “we were the best qualified at that time”. He did not say they were the best in the world, the best ever, or still the best. Just that, on the day of the audition, each proved in the arena that they were the best to be had.
I remember another musician just after she won a huge job. She said “it was my day. There was nothing I couldn’t do on that day”. Preparation, some luck, yes, and … stepping into the arena.
So I salute my brave young colleagues who will step into the arena. We don’t always win the prize, but we can always win for ourselves a good chunk of precious self-respect.
