It’s 1970, and Vincent P. Skowronski, a young violin teacher at Northwestern University, travels to Moscow to do something both brave and foolish. He enters the first round of the IV International Tchaikovsky Competition playing from a printed score rather than from memory. Competition rules specify that all music must be memorized, but Skowronski has recently come out of a two-month layoff during which he has been unable to practice because of the treatment of a cyst under his chin. He knows he’ll be too old to enter the next Tchaikovsky Competition so he resolves to play for the judges --- including the legendary violinists David Oistrakh, Arthur Grumiaux, Leonid Kogan and Joseph Szigeti--- even it he has to break the rules. “I did not come to win, but to play,” he tells a reporter. A collage of the Moscow Conservatory's Great Hall, XIII Tchaikovsky Competition.

"I’ve seen a lot of fine players get blown out of major competitions because they have a minor memory slip or they missed a couple of notes." --VP Skowronski The audience gasps when Skowronski walks onstage with his music stand. He plays two pieces before he is stopped and reminded of the memorization requirement. Oistrakh decides to let him finish his set. Only after that is Skowronski disqualified. Today, Skowronski has no hard feelings about being bounced from the competition -- after all, he knew the rules, and the judges were gracious enough to hear him through. But for the past 30-some years, he has quietly campaigned against memorization requirements in most situations. Obviously, he hasn’t made much headway among competition organizers. “Memorization is one of the criteria, and it’s how many mistakes you don’t make that takes you to the finals,’ the Chicago-based violinist says. “Nobody cares if you can play or not. I’ve seen a lot of fine players get blown out of major competitions because they have a minor memory slip or they missed a couple of notes.”

Memorization is a contentious issue, but the practice isn’t likely to be abandoned anytime soon. However inconsistently it is applied, memorization has been a tradition among soloists at least, for nearly 200 years. Says violinist Mark Rush, a violin professor at the University of Arizona, “When you play from memory, you’re liberated from the printed music.” Skowronski counters, “Either you can play it or you can’t play it. That’s the artistic endeavor, the thrill of it all, not whether you can do it without the music.” Skowronski points out that just because he performs with the music in front of him, he doesn’t have his eyes glued to the page. “It’s just there as a prompt in case I lose my concentration for a second. It’s like the guy in the prompter box at opera houses. I have not known one singer that ever sang an opera without the prompters.” He believes that the hectic pace of contemporary touring, coupled with the teaching load carried by all but a few elite soloists, will soon make music stands a more common sight in front of concerto soloists. “We no longer have the luxury that the Heifetzes and the Elmans had, where all they did was practice and perform,” he says. "Either you can play it or you can’t play it...... not whether you can do it without the music." --VP Skowronski