It was a great joy for me to play again on Yamaha’s new CFX piano. The beautiful sound in the middle range, the incredible sustain, and the precise pedals made it such an inspiration to play. I was especially taken with how Debussy sounded on this instrument, which was unusually round and mellow for a Yamaha and for a CFX.

Funnily, this feeling I had for Debussy did not communicate to the audience! For the first time, Prokofiev won, and an overwhelming win at that!

Prokofiev won over 57% of the audience, with Debussy convincing 24%, leaving 19% unable to pick a winner. Next time I’ll have to insist that people choose one or the other!

Round 1 - Prokofiev wins (37-18)

Round 2 - Debussy wins (32-21)

Round 3 - Prokofiev wins (31-22)

Round 4 - Prokofiev wins (33-18)

While Men were very evenly split between the two composers, Women actually had a significant preference for ... Prokofiev!

           Men                        Women

Divided by age, we see a significant difference between the young adults (evenly split) vs. all other ages (clearly Prokofiev).

               <21                        21-40                            41-60                        >60