The 10th International Tchai-kovsky Competition which finishes Friday seems likely to be remembered most for the prizes it did not award.


For the first time in the history of the competition, no first prizes were awarded in three fields: piano, violin and cello. Russia led the field with eight musicians winning prizes, while two each came from the United States and South Korea.


In most cases, the top finalists in the first post-Soviet Tchaikovsky Competition were awarded second prizes worth $4,000 on Wednesday night. The piano and violin competitions were held in the great hall of the Moscow Conservatory, which is dominated by a 5-meter-high portrait of the namesake of the competition, while the walls are adorned with portraits of Bach, Brahms, Schubert and others.


The competition, which occurs once every four years and helped to propel the careers of pianists Van Cliburn and Vladimir Ashkenazy, for the first time used exclusively former prizewinners on the juries.


Some critics attributed the failure to award first places to the change in composition of the juries. One theory was that the veterans, most of whom were not the recipients of a first prize, made particularly harsh judges.


Viktor Tretyakov, chairman of the violin jury, gave a different explanation. All the finalists, while excellent musicians, "lacked some element necessary to be declared winner of the first prize," he said.


The violin judges seem to have had the least difficulty of all in reaching a conclusion. Tretyakov remarked several times on a "practically unanimous" verdict.


The piano-jury chairman, Lev Vlasenko, preceded his announcement of prizewinners with the terse statement,"I will only tell you the results and not give you my opinion."


The faces of the panel of jurors made it abundantly clear that Vlasenko was not alone in feeling displeasure at the outcome.


Most curious of all were the results of the cello contest. To many listeners, this somewhat neglected and under-attended branch of the competition was the place to hear the best performances of all.


Probably least controversial among the awards were those for the violin, where second prize was shared by Russian Anastasia Chebotareva, 22, a product of Moscow State Conservatory, and Jennifer Koh, 17, a native of Chicago and a student at Berlin Conservatory in Ohio.


Koh was also awarded the special prize as youngest participant in the competition and a further special prize for "artistry," and shared the prize given by the Association of Tchaikovsky Competition Prizewinners for the best performance of works by Tchaikovsky.


By awarding all of the remaining four prizes and dividing two of them between a pair of contestants, the violin jury managed to turn all eight finalists into prizewinners.


Third prize was shared by Russia's Graf Murzha, whose playing of the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky concertos created a minor sensation at the beginning of the final round of play last Sunday, and Italy's Marco Rizzi. Russian Yegor Grechishnikov and Israeli Ofer Falk divided fourth prize, while Nakako Yokoyama of Japan took fifth. Sixth went to South Korea's Lee Kyung Sun, a student at the Julliard School in New York.


In piano, only six of eight finalists earned prizes. The leader in second place was a Muscovite, Nikolai Lugansky, 22, who demonstrated a flashy style of playing and had great stage presence, factors which frequently bewitch competition judges throughout the world.


Third prize was divided between Russia's Vadim Rudenko and South Korea's Paik Hae Sun, while Xu Zhong of China, a very impressive performer and an audience favorite, and Alexander Gindin of Russia received a joint fourth prize.