On 13 May at 4:00 PM, Stage III (A) of the chamber auditions with piano took place in the White Hall of the Bazar Hotel in Poznań. The event was open to the public and broadcast live on YouTube. The performer was Marcin Herman, accompanied by Tomasz Sośniak. The violinist presented the sound of ten competition instruments, as well as a reference instrument – a historical violin made by Pietro Guarneri III of Mantua, dated circa 1710.

The purpose of the auditions was to compare the tonal qualities of contemporary violins with those of a master instrument – in the acoustics of a chamber hall. All instruments – both competition and reference – were presented anonymously, identified only by altered numbers. In addition, the performer was concealed from both the audience and jury by a special curtain, ensuring full impartiality in the assessment process.

The audition program included: a chromatic scale on all strings, Adagio from Sonata No. 1 in G minor for solo violin by Johann Sebastian Bach (excerpt), and Fantaisie brillante on themes from Gounod’s Faust, Op. 20 by Henryk Wieniawski (excerpt).