Research on the assessment of music performance from Maria Manturzewska’s early experiments to more recent studies

Abstract

The assessment of music performance by experts is vital for the measurement of performers’ achievements both in the course of their training and in the context of competitions. More than 350 international piano competitions are held every year, in which the main task of the jury is to judge performances as they take place in the moment, without taking into account any other information such as performers’ previous competition successes. A vast body of evidence shows that many factors influence such judgments. In this article, I discuss these factors, as first identified in early and comparatively little-known research by Maria Manturzewska, the first Polish music psychologist (1930–2020). The principal purpose of her studies was to examine the inter- and intra-rater reliability of judges’ scores in the 6th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition (IFCPC), held in Warsaw in 1960, and in an experiment in which the judges were, respectively, 28 competition jurors and a panel of 10 experts (2 competition jurors, a participant in the competition, and 8 further outstanding pianists). Based on the analysis of the jurors’ scores in the competition and those of the experts, Manturzewska found low values for both inter- and intra-rater reliability: different judges assessed the same performances in different ways, as did experts hearing the same performance on two occasions. Manturzewska proposed several explanations for the discrepancies between judges’ assessments. Not only have her students and collaborators continued her work by testing and verifying some of her hypotheses, but more recent research conducted outside Poland has also done so. In conclusion, although some kinds of objective measurement can be made using new tools and technologies, human judges with their own competences, ability to evaluate, value systems, preferences, and a sense of fairness and morality will always be needed for reliable and accurate assessments.