We had a great evening the other night in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh (see photo), listening to the four young finalists in the Directors’ Recital Prize competition run every year by St Mary’s Music School.

The competition is open to the final two years of students in the school, so most candidates were 17 or 18 years old. Each presented a 20-minute recital made up of two or three (or more) pieces. Most performed from memory. The standard was very high, so it was possible just to sit back and listen, feeling that we were in safe hands.

I was chairing the panel of judges, along with fellow judges Nikita Naumov, principal double bass of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and Jonathan Gawn, Wider Achievement Manager for instrumental music, Edinburgh Council.

I sat there reflecting on the mysterious difference between a programme which comes across as having been polished a thousand times in the practice room, and a programme which has been polished a thousand times (etc) but nevertheless manages to find an extra gear if the performer is able to allow new elements into their thoughts as they connect with this building, these acoustics, this instrument (in the case of the pianists who are playing a different instrument from usual) and this audience, who bring their own collective ‘vibe’ and focus.

How can one tell the difference between ‘here’s one I made earlier’ and ‘here’s one which is suddenly enhanced because of tonight’s ingredients’? It’s something to do with the way the performer listens to their own sound as it travels into the vast space of the cathedral – not just how they listen, but how they modify the sound in response to what they hear. It’s to do with the performer’s awareness of the audience, their body language, their ability to sink into the atmosphere of this particular evening. It’s how some players seem to find a new appreciation and enjoyment of the music they’re playing – which communicates itself to us listeners.

Some performers try to tune the audience out so that they can concentrate. That produces a particular atmosphere, which can be intense in its own right, but which can leave the audience feeling somewhat excluded. Other performers instinctively know how to ‘give’ their performance to the audience.

”Give, not ‘show'”, as Sándor Végh used to say. You know it when you hear it.