Organ competitions

I have been thinking about organ playing competitions lately. Having attended many over the years, most can be divided into two types: those which hide the players from the adjudicators and those which allow everyone to see them compete. I have often wondered how much seeing an organist play colours our perception of their performance. I know many organ consoles are hidden from view and we can only hear the music apart from when a video system is set up for the audience to observe the players.

In the USA I witnessed a very interesting situation. There were three fine players competing for the final of the National AGO competition. As usual, the players were all screened off from the adjudicators and many in the audience. A certain section of the audience, including me, could see all the players performing. There was an audience prize and it was very interesting to see that all those who could see the performers voted differently from those who couldn't. In fact the person who came first by the judges, was voted third by those who could see him/her.

The person who won had very little console technique and had two assistants helping with page turns and pushing pistons as well as adding and subtracting stops. The player merely played the notes. The person who came third played the entire program from memory and managed all the registration changes himself. Those who couldn't see this had no idea of this side of the performance.

So how much does one's performance improve when one only plays the notes or if visible, how much does one's performance improve in the sight of the audience when one does everything?