Great Pianists on Piano Playing Part 11

"Rubinstein paid little or no attention to the theory of touch, and, in fact, he frequently stated that he cared little about such things, but who could hear Rubinstein's touch without being benefited? I believe that in teaching touch the teacher should first give his model of the touch required and then proceed from this positive ideal, by means of the so-called Socratic method of inducing the pupil to produce a similar result through repeated questions. In this way the pupil will not be obliged to resign his individuality, as would be the case if he followed strict technical injunctions and rules.

STUDENTS SHOULD HEAR VIRTUOSOS

"For the same reason it is advisable for the pupil to hear many fine pianists. He should never miss an opportunity to attend the concerts of great virtuosos. I can frankly say that I have learned as much from hearing the concerts of great performers as I have from any other source of educational inspiration. The pupil should listen intelligently and earnestly. When he hears what appeals to him as a particularly fine tonal effect, he should endeavor to note the means the pianist employs to produce this effect.

"He must, however, learn to discriminate between affection or needless movement and the legitimate means to an end. Consequent upon a relaxed full arm is the occasional dropping of the wrist below the level of the keyboard. A few great players practice this at a public recital, and lo!

and behold! a veritable cult of 'wrist-droppers' arises and we see students raising and lowering the wrist with exaggerated mechanical stiffness and entirely ignoring the important end in which this wrist dropping was only an incident.

METHODS, AND STILL MORE METHODS

"I am continually amused at the thousand and one different ways of striking the keys that teachers devise and then attach with the label 'method.' These varied contortions are, after all, largely a matter of vision, and have little effect upon the real musical results that the composition demands. Touch, as I have previously said, all comes down to the question of the degree of weight applied to the keyboard and the degree of quickness with which it is applied. In rapid octave and staccato pa.s.sages the hand touch is largely used. This is the touch most dependent upon local muscular activity. Aside from this the combination of muscular and weight touch almost invariably obtain.

DON'T NEGLECT EAR TRAINING

"I desire to reiterate that if the ideal touch is presented to the pupil's mind, through the medium of the ear, he will be much more successful in attaining the artistic ends required. The pupil must realize clearly _what is good_ and _what is bad_, and his _aural sense_ must be continually educated in this respect. He should practice slowly and carefully at the keyboard until he is convinced that his arm is at all times relaxed. He cannot make his sense of touch too sensitive. He should even be able to sense the weight or upward pressure which brings the pianoforte key back into position after it has been depressed. The arm should feel as if it were floating, and should never be tense.

"When I am playing I do not think of the arm motion. I am, of course, absorbed in the composition being performed. A relaxed arm has become second nature to me. It comes by itself. Players are rarely able to tell just how they produce their results. There are too many contributing factors. Even with the best-known performers the effects differ at different performances. It is impossible for the performer to give a program repeatedly in identically the same manner. If he did succeed in doing this, his playing would soon become stereotyped.

"The teacher should, from the very beginning, seek to avoid stiffness and bad hand positions, such as crooked fingers or broken-in knuckles.

If these details are neglected the pupil is liable to go through his entire musical career greatly hampered. I would earnestly advise all teachers to discourage the efforts of pupils to attain virtuoso heights unless they are convinced beyond the possibility of a doubt that the pupil has marvelous talent. The really great performers seem to be endowed with a 'G.o.d-given' insight in the matter of both technic and touch. They are unquestionably born for it. They possess the right mental and physical capacity for success. No amount of training would make a Normandy dray horse that could compete with a Kentucky thoroughbred on the race course. It is a pitiful sight to watch students who could not possibly become virtuosos slave year after year before an ivory and ebony tread-mill, when, if they realized their lack of personal qualifications, they could engage in teaching or in some other professional or mercantile line and take a delight in their music as an avocation that they would never find in professional playing.

ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION PARAMOUNT

"To some, the matter of touch is of little significance. They are apparently born with an appreciation of tonal values that others might work years to attain in vain. Those who imagine that touch is entirely a matter of finger tips are greatly mistaken. The ear is quite as important as the organs employed in administering the touch to the keyboard. The pianist should in reality not think of the muscles and nerves in his arm, nor of the ivory and ebony keys, nor of the hammers and strings in the interior of the instrument. He should think first and always of the kind of tone he is eliciting from the instrument, and determine whether it is the most appropriate tonal quality for the proper interpretation of the piece he is playing. He must, of course, spend years of hard thought and study in cultivating this ability to judge and produce the right touch, but the performer who is more concerned about the technical claims of a composition than its musical interpretation can only hope to give an uninteresting, uninspired, stilted performance that should rightly drive all intelligent hearers from his audience hall."

QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING

SERIES VII

OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH

1. What are the two means of administering touch?

2. State the effect of a rigid arm upon piano playing.

3. Can a pianist's playing be distinguished by touch?

4. How do the muscles of the shoulder come into action in piano playing?

5. How should the sense of hearing be employed in piano playing?

6. How did Rubinstein regard the theory of touch?

7. When is the hand touch generally employed?

8. How should the arm feel during the act of touch?

9. Does the virtuoso hamper himself with details of technic during a performance?

10. What should be the pianist's first thought during the moment of performance?

LEOPOLD G.o.dOWSKY

BIOGRAPHICAL

Leopold G.o.dowsky was born at Wilna, Russia (Russian Poland), February 13, 1870. His father was a physician. When G.o.dowsky was nine years old he made his first public appearance as a pianist and met with instantaneous success--success so great that a tour of Germany and Poland was arranged for the child. When thirteen he entered the Royal High School for Music in Berlin as the _protege_ of a rich banker of Konigsberg. There he studied under Bargeil and Rudorff. In 1884 he toured America together with Ovide Musin, the violin virtuoso. Two years later he became the pupil of Saint-Saens in Paris. In 1887 and 1888 he toured France and visited London, where he received a command to appear at the British Court. In 1890 he returned to America and made this country his home for ten years, appearing frequently in concert and engaging in several tours. In 1894-1895 he became head of the piano department of the South Broad Street Conservatory, Philadelphia. He then became director of the Piano Department of the Chicago Conservatory and held this position for five years. In 1900 G.o.dowsky appeared in Berlin and was immediately recognized as one of the great piano masters of his time. In 1909 he became director of the Master School of Piano Playing connected with the Imperial Conservatory of Vienna (a post previously held by Emil Sauer and F. B. Busoni). His success as a teacher has been exceptional. His compositions, particularly his fifty studies upon Chopin Etudes, have won the admiration of the entire musical world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LEOPOLD G.o.dOWSKY]

X

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TECHNIC

LEOPOLD G.o.dOWSKY

IDEAS UPON TECHNIC OFTEN ERRONEOUS

"It is quite impossible in a short talk to earnest music students to do more than discuss a few of the more important points in the subject proposed. It may safely be said at the start, however, that the popular conception of technic is quite an erroneous one and one that deserves correction. It is highly necessary that the student should have a correct att.i.tude of mind regarding this matter. First of all, I distinguish between what might be called mere mechanics and technic.

"The art of piano playing as a whole seems to divide itself into three quite distinct channels when it is considered from the educational standpoint. The first channel is that of mechanics. This would naturally include all that pertains to that branch of piano study which has to do with the exercises that develop the hand from the machine standpoint--that is, make it capable of playing with the greatest possible rapidity, the greatest possible power, when power is needed and also provide it with the ability to play those pa.s.sages which, because of fingering or unusual arrangement of the piano keys, are particularly difficult to perform.

THE BRAIN SIDE OF PIANO STUDY

"In the second channel we would find the study of the technic of the art of playing the instrument. Technic differs from the mechanics of piano playing in that it has properly to do with the intellectual phase of the subject rather than the physical. It is the brain side of the study not the digital or the manual. To the average student who is short-sighted enough to spend hours hammering away at the keyboard developing the mechanical side of his work, a real conscious knowledge of the great saving he could effect through technic, would be a G.o.dsend. Technic properly has to do with Rhythm, Tempo, Accent, Phrasing, Dynamics, Agogics, Touch, etc.

"The excellence of one's technic depends upon the accuracy of one's understanding of these subjects and his skill in applying them to his interpretations at the keyboard. Mechanical skill, minus real technical grasp, places the player upon a lower footing than the piano-playing machines which really do play all the notes, with all the speed and all the power the operator demands. Some of these instruments, indeed, are so constructed that many of the important considerations that we have placed in the realm of technic are reproduced in a surprising manner.

THE EMOTIONS IN PIANO PLAYING

"However, not until man invents a living soul, can piano playing by machine include the third and vastly important channel through which we communicate the works of the masters to those who would hear them. That channel is the emotional or artistic phase of piano playing. It is the channel which the student must expect to develop largely through his own inborn artistic sense and his cultivated powers of observation of the playing of master pianists. It is the sacred fire communicated from one art generation to the next and modified by the individual emotions of the performer himself.

"Even though the performer may possess the most highly perfected mechanism, technical mastery which enables him to play great masterpieces effectively, if he does not possess the emotional insight, his performances will lack a peculiar subtlety and artistic power that will deprive him of becoming a truly great pianist.