I have just become a volunteer in the local council's Eisteddfod, and was the adjudicator's assistant on a recent evening of piano solos for Under 12s. There was a time limit of 3 minutes per competitor, with an overrun of 20 seconds allowed without penalty, and one of my tasks was to time the performance with a stopwatch, let the adjudicator know when the 3 minutes was reached, and if approved, ring a bell to let the performer know the 3 minutes was up.

Most competitors were under the time limit. A few went over 3 minutes but the adjudicator did not want the bell rung becuase he knew the work was about to finish shortly and would not be penalising the competitor. One competitor however launched into the last movement of the Pathetique ( 6 + minutes) and I had to ring the bell at 3 minutes (with the adjudicator's approval) as she was about half way through the movement and could not possibly finish in time.

My question is: how ruthless should competitions be in enforcing the advertised time limit? I can see both sides of the argument: for leniency, one should let the performer finish, so as to provide a complete item to be judged; the other side is that competitors must observe the limit because (a) it's part of the rules and they know it in advance, and (b) other competitions may not be so lenient and could be very strict.

One can also argue that a teacher should not let any student perform a work that exceeds the time limit. To do so is really doing the student a disservice. I fail to understand how the teacher of that student mentioned above allowed her to do such a long movement. (but perhaps the teacher wasn't involved in the choice of work).


What do you think?

I personally think time limits should be enforced, because it is unfair to the people who followed the rules, and made sure to select pieces and/or selections that were short enough, to allow those who don't follow the rules play as long as they like.

--Monica, who tends to be a stickler for rules and doesn't like it when others aren't.

I think giving up to 20 sec leeway is fine. Any more and they are being self-indulgent and it's unfair to the rest of the competitors to have to wait. If it was a persistent problem, I would get up and make a speech about respecting the competition's rules. Otherwise an afternoon like that can drag on forever.

- I'm not a stickler for rules, but I hate having to wait to perform because some selfish hog won't get off the stage. It builds nerves and affects your performance.

I'm intrigued by the idea of an Eisteddfod in Melbourne. Is there a big Welsh community in the area ?

I agree with the above posts, as artistically counter-productive as time limits may seem. If one enters a competition, one should be aware of the rules, should abide by them and not be miffed if flaunting them results in a penalty.

In this instance, however, I do criticize the teacher who entered (let enter) a student whose performance so far exceeded the posted time limit that she had to be interrupted mid-performance.

Regards,

Assuming the rules were given ahead of time, the teacher was careless or negligent in not keeping the performance within the time limit. A 12 year old cannot necessarily be expected to consider such things, but a teacher certainly should.

Yes. But perhaps it's now mandatory since Australia got a Welsh Prime Minister (who hails from 'Gavin & Stacey' land : Barry).

Can I tell you how annoyed I was a year and a half ago!

My son played in a scholarship audition that uses an eight minute time limit for the contestant's two pieces. Obviously you can trade off length among the two. He came in neatly at about 7.5 minutes. The ultimate winner played a Beethoven movement, which the adjudicator cut off at the four minute mark to give time for the next piece. She then launched into a twelve minute Chopin Ballade ... and was allowed to complete the entire thing to acclaim from the audience. I held my tongue, but you can bet I was steamed.

In Australia, many local councils and other groups run an annual Eisteddfod for young students in the performing arts - piano, vocal, string, brass, woodwind, choral, drama and speech - look at http://www.eisteddfod.org.au for a list.

There is a Welsh community in Melbourne and perhaps it runs its own Eisteddfod also. I'm not aware of nor involved in it (perhaps I should be as my first and last names are Evan Jones!).

Australia has been running eisteddfods all over the country for I would think at least most of the 20thC. I don't know how much resemblance they bear to the Welsh eisteddfod. Here they are competitive festivals, with everything from dance,speech, vocal to performance on any instrument you can think of, depending on the eisteddod. Most, if not all, are run by tireless volunteers, though the adjudicators (and accompanists!) are paid, and frequently sections are sponsored by local businesses, for example, or by individual musicians.
Our PM notwithstanding, I don't think there are huge Welsh communities here - we've just pinched the name, I think!

Insider political favortisim?

I would suspect something much less nefarious .... spur of the moment choice to let the player finish without thinking through the fairness issues. This is why it's so important to have the ground rules clearly set and discussed among the judges/sponsors, so that the basic framework just becomes an absolute habit.

A 12 minute Chopin ballade? It has to be the F minor one, right? Otherwise that's a glacial tempo...Pogorelich-style..

Though yeah, it's not fair that this person had twice the time allotted and didn't get cut off.

That is true! I heard of the Eisteddfod contest in my town well before I started playing the piano, and although I haven't been playing for as long as most people in the Pianist Corner, I started before Julia became PM.

Thanks to EJR, Toastburn, currawong and ChopinAddict for enlightening me regarding the Australian Eisteddfod scene. It's amazing what you learn on this site !

Yep, number 4. Parts of it are kind of glacial anyway.

Nonetheless, you don't give someone sixteen minutes when the rules say eight. That creates all sorts of bad incentives.