It is 1 a.m. and the last competitor in the last round of the Santander Piano Competition is still only halfway through Tchaikovsky's B flat minor concerto, the third account we have heard in two days. Three thousand people, shoe-horned into an auditorium created by the transformation of a handsome Spanish plaza into something like Selfridge's Christmas grotto, fan themselves frantically under the television lights, as heat and tension rise iii corresponding leaps. It will be a long night, stretching on until 5:30 a. m. when the judges give their verdict. At 11:30 a.m. the finalists are on duty again, forcing sleep-starved features into brave smiles for the press call. It is a tough routine—illustrative, you might think, of the familiar arguments against competitions: the blood-sports mentality, the arbitrary nature of the findings (competitions favor 'competition-winners', not 'musicians') and the effect on the participants lives. Recent history suggests you may be more likely to build an enduring reputation ( beyond the round of official engagements that usually come with competition prizes ) not by winning but by losing— spectacularly and with maximum dissent on the jury, in the way Ivo Pogorolich managed to lose the Chopin competition in Warsaw. That said, competitions are—especially for pianists—marketplaces in which young performers meet not only their future audience but their future agents and, maybe, record companies. They provide the kick-start with which most high-octane careers are launched. And if the pressures are intense, so are the pressures of the performing world. Music is a fiercely competitive activity. But pause here for clarification of terms. As Rosalyn Tureck, veteran Bach authority and one of this year's jurors at Santander, told me: 'It's the career that's competitive, not the art. Never confuse them. I don't put competitions down: they do bring talent forward. But if from the age of eight your whole study is geared to the sort of repertory thought desirable for competitions (big, impressive, technically virtuosic) you will never develop as an artist. It will limit your horizons at a time when they need widening, and it will give your performance style, the feeling of a quick feed: a rapid injection with 25,000 units of Vitamin C that makes an instant impression but isn't ultimately very nourishing.' With such reservations, why was Dr. Tureck on the Santander jury? Her answer would be that Santander does succeed in making the competition process more purposeful, less damaging and (not least) more humane than most. 'The letter of invitation summed it up. It said: These are not the Olympic Games. ' And that's a big step forward in competition thinking.' What is the purpose of the description in the first paragraph?