Russia's classical Olympiad hopes to restore glory

MOSCOW, June 17 (Reuters) Once the Olympiad of classical music, Russia's top international music prize the Tchaikovsky competition opened this week hoping to restore its lost glory after more than a decade in the doldrums.

Around 200 young pianists, violinists, cellists and singers from 34 countries will perform over the next two weeks before juries of top musicians in Moscow's grand but run-down Conservatory, hoping to become the virtuosos of the future.

Organisers hope that more entrants, increased sponsorship, open voting and more prestigious juries will return some of the lustre the four-yearly competition enjoyed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The first Tchaikovsky competition in 1958 made a stir going far beyond the musical community when, at the height of the Cold War, US pianist Van Cliburn swept Soviet audiences off their feet and took home the first prize for piano.

Subsequent winners in Soviet times included Vladimir Ashkenazy, one of the post-war world's most gifted pianists, and violin genius Gidon Kremer.

But after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the competition's organising committee broke up and the event fell on hard times.

''I tell everyone that the competition has been waning,'' one of the contest's senior organisers, Oleg Skorodumov, told Reuters, blaming changes of management.

During the last competition held in 2002, no first prizes were awarded in the violin and cello categories and the event was marred by accusations, never proven, of jury favouritism. This year's event, which concludes on June 30, was postponed by a year from the normal calendar.

Music experts outside Russia agree the contest has some way to go to restore its heavyweight status.

''In former days it really was the outstanding competition to win,'' said Ariane Todes, editor of The Strad, a British classical music magazine for strings enthusiasts.

''You only have to look at some of the winners of the early violin and cello competitions to see that it was a significant step in people's careers. A lot of the names have gone on to formidable careers.'' Whereas the Tchaikovsky competition ''would have been right at the top'', now musicians attach more importance to winning contests such as the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Belgium, Todes added.

PICKING UP THE TEMPO But all is not lost for the Tchaikovsky competition, much cherished in Russia as an opportunity to showcase fresh talent and its still formidable international standing in music.

''It doesn't have the kind of music-world-shaking importance that once it had -- which doesn't say it couldn't get it back,'' said James Inverne, editor of classical music magazine Gramophone.

He said the current lack of excitement about the contest reflected lacklustre finalists at the last festival in 2002: ''A competition is only as big as its winners''.

But that could be easily fixed given the number of talented performers and a proliferation of classical record labels, which gives them a far better chance at exposure, Inverne added.

''It's incumbent upon the judges of the Tchaikovsky competition to find the right competitors,'' he said.

''With the amount of talent around today and the way that technical standards have shot up, there's really no reason why they shouldn't be awarding prizes to really fantastic talents which grab the world's attention.'' Skorodumov promotes his own solution: ''As soon as the competition gets constant organisers, it will lift off immediately.'' Perhaps hoping to recapture some of Russia's past classical music glory, this year's festival is dedicated to the memory of the country's greatest-ever cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who died in April after a glittering international career.

A past president of the Tchaikovsky competition, Rostropovich left the Soviet Union voluntarily in 1974, four months after his friend, writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was bundled out of the country.

''I love this competition though it has caused me not only pleasures but troubles,'' Rostropovich wrote in an introduction to the competition website www.xiiitc.ru before his death.

''It was the reason of my exile. I have given my consent to head this thirteenth competition because we should be able to forgive.'' REUTERS SW KN1750