Who takes the Lied at Wigmore Hall?

The International Song Competition isn’t just for singers. There’s a £5,000 prize for pianists, too, and a £5,000 prize for a duo donated by the Jean Meikle Music Trust. But the most important rewards, for a pianist especially, are harder to quantify. The pianists we’ve interviewed so far talk enthusiastically about their role in interpreting the songs. For Maria Kiosseva, accompanying Kresimir Strazanac in a programme of Vaughan Williams, Wolf, Mendelssohn and Ibert, the text must always come first, and this makes for an exceptionally rich and demanding keyboard repertoire.

Do pianists get the recognition they deserve? Is recognition even the point? Or is all this talk of individuals a mistake? Should we be paying more attention to duos?

Simon Ings