Patrick H. Pan

← Tangents

Paraphon.

Every performance at the 2025 Chopin Competition, aligned so that one can switch pianists mid-phrase.

27 October 2025·202 words·≈ 1 min

Paraphon lines up every performance of a piece from the 2025 Chopin Competition, so that up to four pianists can play in lock-step. This facilitates detailed comparative study of particular passages.

The Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, as Vincent Ong, David Khrikuli, and Kevin Chen played it in the final, in lock-step. Below, each one's tempo against the field over twenty seconds; the thickness of each ribbon is loudness.
The Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, as Vincent Ong, David Khrikuli, and Kevin Chen played it in the final, in lock-step. Below, each one’s tempo against the field over twenty seconds; the thickness of each ribbon is loudness.

The competition left 155 videos on YouTube (84 from the first round, 40 from the second, 20 from the third, and 11 from the final), which between them hold 1,155 performances of 134 works. Each performance of a piece is aligned to one reference recording by dynamic time warping. The same alignments give a tempo atlas of each piece, showing where each pianist pushes ahead, holds back, or stops time relative to the field. Paraphon also measures how loudly each performance is played, so the atlas shows dynamics alongside tempo, and each pianist can be compared with the field on dynamic range and loudness as well as on pace and rubato. There is also a blind study feature, in which one rates anonymized performances of a passage before learning who played them.