And Then There Was One

First there were 39. They were tense, hopeful young men and women who felt the strings at their fingertips and the music in their heads even as they played pingpong or chatted during brief recreation periods. As the Concours Musical International got under way in Brussels, the most promising violinists of 16 countries faced a grueling three-week series of tests that would separate the Menuhins from the mice.

The rewards of the competition, held in four-year cycles for violinists, pianists and composers, were impressive: the first prizewinner would get a medal, $3,000 in cash, and more than 50 concert appearances. The second and third prizewinners would do almost as well, and even the next nine would reap fair-sized consolation prizes. As the finger-wringing elimination concerts wore on, contestants fell by the wayside under the demands of such compositions as a Vieuxtemps concerto, an Ysaye sonata, and a collection of "transcendentally difficult works."

And then there were twelve. From early morning until well into the night they practiced. Western entrants occasionally dropped by the Russians' practice studios to hear their feared rivals. Said one Westerner: "They terrify me. They can do tremendous things with a violin."

Last week the finalists gathered in the plush auditorium of the Palais des Beaux Arts under the careful scrutiny of 13 solemn-faced judges and the motherly gaze of Belgium's Queen Elisabeth, 78, patron of the Concours. Only one of five Americans, Philadelphia-born Berl Senofsky, 30, had survived the preliminaries ; all the Russians had made it. Senofsky, whose parents were born in the Ukraine, had studied at Juilliard, spent a hitch in the Army before becoming assistant concertmaster of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra five years ago. Dissatisfied with his progress, he quit his job, flew to Europe for the Concours.

The candidates gave their final performances before a tense audience. The judges paid tribute to all twelve finalists. Said Zino Francescatti: "It's going to be enormously difficult for us to pick one above the other." Then they spent two hours carefully tallying their score cards, walked onstage to announce the results. The winner: the U.S.'s Senofsky. Runner-up: Russia's 29-year-old Julian Sitkovetsky.

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