GREAT PIANISTS ON
PIANO PLAYING

STUDY TALKS WITH
FOREMOST VIRTUOSOS

BY

JAMES FRANCIS COOKE

A SERIES OF PERSONAL EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCES
WITH RENOWNED MASTERS
OF THE KEYBOARD, PRESENTING THE
MOST MODERN IDEAS UPON THE
SUBJECTS OF TECHNIC,
INTERPRETATION,
STYLE AND
EXPRESSION

THEO. PRESSER CO.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Copyright, 1913, by Theo. Presser Co.
International Copyright Secured

[3]

CONTENTS

[4]

[5]

I

THE ARTIST’S LIFE

The Virtuoso’s Career as It Really Is

The father of a young woman who was preparing
to become a virtuoso once applied to a famous musical
educator for advice regarding the future career of his
daughter. “I want her to become one of the greatest
pianists America has ever produced,” he said. “She has
talent, good health, unlimited ambition, a good general
education, and she is industrious.” The educator
thought for awhile, and then said, “It is very likely
that your daughter will be successful in her chosen field,
but the amount of grinding study she will be obliged
to undergo to meet the towering standards of modern
pianism is awful to contemplate. In the end she will
have the flattery of the multitude, and, let us hope,
some of their dollars as well. In return, she may have
to sacrifice many of the comforts and pleasures which
women covet. The more successful she is, the more of
a nomad she must become. She will know but few days
for years when she will not be compelled to practice
for hours. She becomes a kind of chattel of the musical
public. She will be harassed by ignorant critics
and perhaps annoyed by unreliable managers. In return
she has money and fame, but, in fact, far less of
the great joy and purpose of life than if she followed
the customary domestic career with some splendid man[6]
as her husband. When I was younger I used to preach
quite an opposite sermon, but the more I see of the
hardships of the artist’s life the less I think of the dollars
and the fame it brings. It is hard enough for a
man, but it is twice as hard for a woman.”

Golden Bait

Some cynic has contended that the much-despised
“Almighty Dollar” has been the greatest incentive
to the struggling virtuoso in European music centers.
Although this may be true in a number of cases, it is
certainly unjust in others. Many of the virtuosos find
travel in America so distasteful that notwithstanding
the huge golden bait, the managers have the greatest
difficulty in inducing the pianists to come back. Indeed,
there are many artists of great renown whom the
managers would be glad to coax to our country but
who have withheld tempting offers for years. One of
these is Moritz Moszkowski, probably the most popular
of modern pianoforte composers of high-class music.
Grieg, when he finally consented to make the voyage
to America, placed his price at two thousand five hundred
dollars for every concert—a sum which any manager
would regard prohibitive, except in the case of
one world-famous pianist. Grieg’s intent was obvious.

The inconveniences of travel in America have been
ridiculously exaggerated in Europe, and many virtuosos
dread the thought of an American trip, with
the great ocean yawning between the two continents,[7]
and red-skinned savages just beyond New York or
certainly not far from Chicago. De Pachmann detests
the ocean, and when he comes over in his favorite
month of June he does not dare return until the following
June. Others who have never visited America
must get their idea of American travel from some such
account as that of Charles Dickens in his unforgivable
American Notes (1842), in which he said, in describing
one of our railroads:

There could have been but little improvement in our
railroads in 1872 when Rubinstein came to America,
for although he accepted $40,000 for 215 concerts during
his first trip, he refused an offer of $125,000 for only
50 concerts when a manager tried to persuade him to
return.

American railroads now present the acme of comfort,
convenience, and even luxury in travel, yet the
European artist has difficulty in adjusting himself to
journeys of thousands of miles crowded in a short
winter season when he has been accustomed to little
trips of a few hundred kilometers. He comes to dread
the trains as we might a prison van. Paderewski resorts
to a private car, but even this luxurious mode of
travel may be very monotonous and exhausting.[8]

The great distances must certainly account for some
of the evidences of strain which deform the faces and
exhaust the minds of so many virtuosos. The traveling
salesman seems to thrive upon miles of railroad
travel as do the crews of the trains, but the virtuoso,
dragged from concert to concert by his showman,
grows tired—oh, so tired, pale, wan, listless and indifferent!
At the beginning of the season he is quite
another person. The magnetism that has done so much
to win him fame shines in his eyes and seems to emanate
from his finger-tips, but the difference in his physical
being at the end of the season is sickening. Like
a bedraggled, worn-out circus coming in from the wear
and tear of a hard season, he crawls wearily back to
New York with a cinematographic recollection of
countless telegraph poles flying past the windows, audience
after audience, sleeping cars, budding geniuses,
the inevitable receptions with their equally inevitable
chicken salad or lukewarm oysters, and the “sweet
young things,” who, like Heine’s mythical tribe of
Asra, must love or perish. Some virtuosos have the
physical strength to endure all this, even enjoy it, but
many have confessed to me that their American tours
have been literal nightmares.

One of the greatest pianists was obliged to stay in
New York for a while before attempting the voyage
homeward. At the time he was so weak from the rigors
of the tour that he could scarcely write his name. His
haggard face suggested the tortures of a Torquamada
rather than Buffalo, Kansas City, Denver and Pitts[9]burgh.
His voice was tired and faltering, and his chief
interest was that of the invalid—getting home as soon
as possible. To have talked with him upon music at
that time would have been an injustice. Accordingly,
I led him away from the subject and dwelt
upon the woes of his native Poland, and, much to his
surprise, left him without the educational material
of which I had been in quest. He asked the reason,
and I told him that a musical conference at that time
could serve no purpose.

As men and women, aside from the attainments
which have made them illustrious, virtuosos are for
the most part very much like ordinary mortals who
have to content themselves at the foot of Parnassus.
It has been my privilege to know thirty or more of
the most eminent artists, and some have become
good personal friends. It is interesting to observe
how several very different types of individuals may
succeed in winning public favor as virtuosos. Indeed,
except for the long-haired caricature which the
public accepts as the conventional virtuoso there is
no “virtuoso type.” Here is a business man, here
an artist, here an engineer, here a jurist, here an actor,
here a poet and here a freak, all of them distinguished
performers. Perhaps the enthusiastic music-lover
will resent the idea of a freak becoming famous as a
pianist, but I have known no less than three men who
could not possibly be otherwise described, but who
have nevertheless made both fame and fortune as
virtuosos.

[10]

Freak Pianists

The anthropologist who chooses to conduct special
investigations of freaks can find no more entertaining
field than that of the remarkable freaks of the brain,
shown in the cases of some astonishing performers
whose intelligence and mental capacity in other ways
has been negligible. The classic case of Blind Tom,
for instance, was that of a freak not so very far removed
in kind from the Siamese Twins, or General
Tom Thumb. Born a slave in Georgia, and wholly
without what teachers would term a musical education,
Blind Tom amazed many of the most conservative
musicians of his time. It was possible for him to repeat
difficult compositions after hearing them played
only once. I conversed with him a number of years
ago in New York, only to find that intellectually and
physically he was allied to the cretin.

Blind Tom’s peculiar ability has led many hasty
commentators to conclude that music is a wholly
separate mental faculty to be found particularly in a
more or less shiftless and irresponsible class of gifted
but intellectually limited human beings. The few
cases of men and women whose musical talent seems
to eclipse their minds so that they remain in utter
darkness to everything else in life, should not be taken
as a basis for judging other artists of real genius and
undisputed mental breadth. I have in mind, however,
the case of one pianist who is very widely known and
highly lauded, but who is very slightly removed from[11]
the class of Blind Tom. A trained alienist, one
acquainted with the difference between the eccentricities
which frequently accompany greatness and
the unconscious physical and psychical evidences of
idiocy which so clearly agree with the antics of the
chimpanzee or the droll Capuchin monkeys, might
find in the performer to whom I refer a subject for
some very interesting, not to say startling reflections.
Few have ever been successful in inducing this pianist
to talk upon any other subject than music for more
than a few minutes at a time. Another pianist, who
was distinguished as a Liszt pupil, and who toured
America repeatedly, seemed to have a hatred for the
piano that amounted to an obsession. “Look,”
he exclaimed, “I am its slave. It has sent me round
and round the world, night after night, year after
year. It has cursed me like a wandering Jew. No
rest, no home, no liberty. Do you wonder that I
drink to forget it?”

A Pathetic Example

And drink he did in Bacchanalian measure! One
time he gave an unconscious exhibition of his technical
ability that, while regrettable, would have been of immense
interest to psychologists who are seeking to
prove that music depends upon a separate operation
of a special “faculty.” During his American tours I
called frequently upon this virtuoso for the purpose of
investigating his method of playing. He was rarely
free from the influence of alcohol for more than a few[12]
hours at a time. One morning it was necessary for
me to see him professionally, and when I found him
at his hotel he was in a truly disgraceful condition. I
remember that he was unable to stand, from the fact
that he fell upon me while I was sitting in a Morris
chair. He was barely able to talk, and just prior to
my leaving he insisted upon scrawling upon his visiting
card, “Zur freundlichen Errinerung, auf einen
sehr späten Abend.” (Friendly remembrances of a
very late evening.) Since it was still very early in the
morning, it may be realized that he had lost all idea of
his whereabouts. Nevertheless, he sat at the piano
keyboard and played tremendously difficult compositions
by Liszt and Brahms—compositions which compelled
his hands to leap from one part of the keyboard
to the other as in the case of the Liszt Campanella.
He never missed a note until he lost his balance upon
the piano stool and fell to the floor. Disgusting and
pathetic as the exhibition was, I could not help feeling
that I was witnessing a marvelous instance of automatism,
that wonderful power of the mind working
through the body to reproduce, apparently without
effort or thought, operations which have been repeated
so many times that they have become “second nature.”
More than this, it indicated clearly that while the
better part of the man’s body was “dead to the
world,” the faculty he had cultivated to the highest
extent still remained alive. Some years later this
man succumbed to alcoholism.

[13]

The Pianist of To-day

Contrasted with a type of this kind may be mentioned
such men as Sauer, Rachmaninov, d’Albert,
Paderewski, Godowsky, Bachaus, Rosenthal, Pauer,
Joseffy, Stojowski, Scharwenka, Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann,
Bauer, Lhévinne, to say nothing of the ladies,
Bloomfield-Zeisler, Carreño, Goodson, et al., many of
whom are intellectual giants. Most all are exceedingly
regular in their habits, and at least two are strong
temperance advocates. Intellectually, pianists of
this class represent a very remarkable kind of mentality.
One is impressed with the surprising quickness
with which their brains operate even in ordinary
conversation. Speaking in alien languages, they
find comparatively little difficulty in expressing themselves
with rapidity and fluency. Very few great
singers ever acquire a similar ease. These pianists
are wonderfully well read, many being acquainted
with the literature of three or more tongues in the
original. Indeed, it is not unusual to find them skipping
through several languages during ordinary conversation
without realizing that they are performing
linguistic feats that would put the average college
graduate to shame. They are familiar with art,
science, politics, manufactures, even in their most
recent developments. “What is your favorite type
of aëroplane?” asked one some years ago in the
kindergarten days of cloud navigation. I told him
that I had made no choice, since I had never seen a[14]
flying machine, despite the fact that I was a native
of the country that gave it birth. He then vouchsafed
his opinions and entered into a physical and
mechanical discussion of the matter, indicating that
he had spent hours in getting the whole subject
straightened out in his mind. This same man, a
German, knew whole cantos of the Inferno by heart,
and could repeat long scenes from King Lear with a
very creditable English accent.

The average American “tired business man” who is
inclined to look upon the touring virtuoso as “only a
pianist” would be immensely surprised if he were
called upon to compare his store of “universal”
information with that of the performer. He would
soon see that his long close confinement behind the
bars of the dollar sign had made him the intellectual
inferior of the musician he almost ignores. But it is
hardly fair to compare these famous interpreters
with the average “tired business man.” They are
the Cecil Rhodes, the Thomas Edisons, the Maurice
Maeterlincks of their fields. It is easy enough to find
musicians of smaller life opportunities basking in their
ignorance and conceit.

While the virtuoso may be described as intellectual
in the broader sense of the term, he usually has a
great fear of becoming academic. He aspires to be
artistic rather than scholarly. He strives to elevate
rather than to teach—in the strictly pedagogical
sense. Some of the greatest performers have been
notoriously weak as teachers. They do not seek the[15]
walls of the college, neither do they long for the cheap
Bohemianism that so many of the French feuilletonists
delight in describing. (Why should the immorality
of the artist’s life be laid at the doors of fair Bohemia?)
The artist’s life is wrapped up in making his readings
of master works more significant, more eloquent,
more beautiful. He is interested in everything that
contributes to his artistry, whether it be literature,
science, history, art or the technic of his own interpretative
development. He penetrates the various
mystic problems which surround piano playing by the
infallible process of persistent study and reflection.
The psychical phase of his work interests him immensely,
particularly the phenomena of personal attraction—often
called magnetism.

The Magic of Magnetism

Magnetism is surely one of the most enviable possessions
of the successful pianist. Just what magnetism
is and how it comes to be, few psychologists
attempt to relate. We all have our theories, just
why one pianist who often blunders as readily as a
Rubinstein, or who displays his many shortcomings at
every concert can invariably draw larger audiences
and arouse more applause than his confrère with
weaker vital forces, although he be admittedly a better
technician, a more highly educated gentleman
and perhaps a more sensitive musician.

Charles Frohman, keenest of theatrical producers,
attributed the actor’s success to “vitality,” and in[16]
doing this he merely chose one of the weaker synonyms
of magnetism. Vitality in this sense does not imply
great bodily strength. It is rather soul-strength,
mind-strength, life-strength. Professor John D. Quackenbos,
A.M., M.D., formerly of Columbia University,
essays the following definition of magnetism
in his excellent Hypnotic Therapeutics:

But Dr. Quackenbos is a physician and a philosopher.
Had he been a lexicographer he would have
found the term magnetism far more inclusive. He
would at least have admitted the phenomenon which
we have witnessed so often when one possessed with
volcanic vitality overwhelms a great audience.

The old idea that magnetism is a kind of invisible
form of intellectual or psychic electricity has gone
down the grotesque phrenological vagaries of Gall as
well as some of the pseudoscientific theories of that
very unusual man, Mesmer. We all possess what is
known as magnetism. Some have it in an unusual
degree, as did Edwin Booth, Franz Liszt, Phillips
Brooks and Bismarck. It was surely neither the
art nor the ability of Daniel Webster that made his
audiences accept some of his fatuous platitudes as
great utterances, nor was it the histrionic talent
alone of Richard Mansfield that enabled him to wring
success from such an obvious theatrical contraption[17]
as Prince Karl. Both Webster, with his fathomless
eyes and his ponderous voice, and Mansfield, with his
compelling personality, were exceptional examples of
magnetism.

A Notable Example

Among virtuosos Paderewski is peculiarly forceful
in the personal spell he casts over his audience.
Someone has said that it cost one hundred thousand
dollars to exploit his hair before he made his first
American tour. But it was by no means curiosity
to see his hair which kept on filling auditorium after
auditorium. I attended his first concert in New
York, and was amazed to see a comparatively small
gathering of musical zealots. His command of the
audience was at once imperial. The critics, some of
whom would have found Paderewski’s hirsute crown
a delightful rack upon which to hang their ridicule,
went into ecstasies instead. His art and his striking
personality, entirely apart from his appearance, soon
made him the greatest concert attraction in the musical
world. Anyone who has conversed with him for
more than a few moments realizes what the meaning
of the word magnetism is. His entire bearing—his
lofty attitude of mind, his personal dignity all contribute
to the inexplicable attraction that the arch
hypnotist Mesmer first described as animal magnetism.

That magnetism of the pianist must be considered
wholly apart from personal beauty and great physical
strength is obvious to anyone who has given the[18]
subject a moment’s thought. Many of the artists
already mentioned (in this book) who possess magnetism
similar to that of Paderewski could surely never
make claim for personal beauty. Neither is magnetism
akin to that attraction we all experience when
we see a powerful, well-groomed horse, a sleek hound,
a handsome tiger—that is, it is not mere admiration
for a beautiful animal. Whether it has any similarity
to the mysterious charm which makes the doomed
bird lose control of its wings upon the approach of a
snake is difficult to estimate. Certainly, in the
paraphernalia of the modern recital with its lowered
lights and its solitary figure playing away at a polished
instrument one may find something of the physical
apparatus employed by the professional hypnotist
to insure concentration—but even this can not
account for the pianist’s real attractiveness. If
Mr. Frohman’s “vitality” means the “vital spark,”
the “life element,” it comes very close to a true
definition of magnetism, for success without this
precious Promethean force is inconceivable. It may
be only a smouldering ember in the soul of a dying
Chopin, but if it is there it is irresistible until it becomes
extinct. Facial beauty and physical prowess
all made way for the kind of magnetism that Socrates,
George Sand, Julius Cæsar, Henry VIII, Paganini,
Emerson, Dean Swift or Richard Wagner possessed.

More wonderful still is the fact that magnetism is
by no means confined to those who have finely trained
intellects or who have achieved great reputations.[19]
Some vaudeville buffoon or some gypsy fiddler may
have more attractive power than the virtuoso who had
spent years in developing his mind and his technic.
The average virtuoso thinks far more of his “geist,”
his “talent” (or as Emerson would have it, “the
shadow of the soul—the otherwise”) than he does of
his technic, or his cadenzas. By what mystic means
magnetism may be developed, the writer does not
pretend to know. Possibly by placing one’s deeper
self (shall we say “subconscious self”) in closer
communion with the great throbbing problems of the
invisible though perpetually evident forces of nature
which surround us we may become more alive, more
sensitively vivified. What would it mean to the
young virtuoso if he could go to some occult master,
some seer of a higher thought, and acquire that lode-stone*
which has drawn fame and fortune to the blessed
few? Hundreds have spent fortunes upon charlatans
in the attempt.

All artists know the part that the audience itself
plays in falling under the magnetic spell of the performer.
Its connection with the phenomena of autosuggestion
is very clear. Dr. Wundt, the famous
German psychologist, showed a class of students how
superstitions unconsciously acquired in early life
affect sensible adults who have long since passed the
stage at which they might put any credence in omens.
At a concert given by a famous player, the audience
has been well schooled in anticipation. The artist
always appears under a halo his reputation has made[20]
for him. This very reputation makes his conquest far
easier than that of the novice who has to prove his
ability before he can win the sympathy of the audience.
He is far more likely to find the audience en rapport
than indifferent. Sometime, at the play in a theater,
watch how the audience will unconsciously mirror the
facial expressions of the forceful actor. In some similar
manner, the virtuoso on the concert platform
sensitizes the minds and emotions of the sympathetic
audience. If the effect is deep and lasting, the artist
is said to possess that Kohinoor of virtuosodom—magnetism.

Some widely read critics have made the very
natural error of confounding magnetism with personality.
These words have quite different connotations—personality
comprehending the more subtle
force of magnetism. An artist’s individual worth is
very closely allied with his personality—that is, his
whole extrinsic attitude toward the thought and action
of the world about him. How important personality
is may be judged by the widely advertised efforts of
the manufacturers of piano-playing machines to
convince the public that their products, often astonishingly
fine, do actually reproduce the individual
effects which come from the playing of the living
artist. Piano-playing machines have their place,
and it is an important one. However, wonderful
as they may be, they can never be anything but
machines. They bring unquestioned joy to thousands,
and they act as missionaries for both music and the[21]
music-teacher by taking the art into countless homes
where it might otherwise never have penetrated, thus
creating the foundation for a strong desire for a
thorough study of music. The piano-playing machine
may easily boast of a mechanism as wonderful as
that of a Liszt, a d’Albert or a Bachaus, but it can no
more claim personality than the typewriter upon
which this article is being written can claim to reproduce
the individuality which characterizes the handwriting
of myriads of different persons. Personality,
then, is the virtuoso’s one great unassailable stronghold.
It is personality that makes us want to hear a
half dozen different renderings of a single Beethoven
sonata by a half dozen different pianists. Each has
the charm and flavor of the interpreter.

But personality in its relation to art has been so
exquisitely defined by the inimitable British essayist,
A. C. Benson, that we can do no better than to quote
his words:

“I have lately come to perceive that the one thing
which gives value to any piece of art, whether it be
book, or picture, or music, is that subtle and evasive
thing which is called personality. No amount of labor,
of zest, even of accomplishment, can make up for the
absence of this quality. It must be an almost instinctive
thing, I believe. Of course, the mere presence
of personality in a work of art is not sufficient,
because the personality revealed may be lacking in
charm; and charm, again, is an instinctive thing.
No artist can set out to capture charm; he will toil[22]
all the night and take nothing; but what every artist
can and must aim at is to have a perfectly sincere
point of view. He must take his chance as to whether
his point of view is an attractive one; but sincerity
is the one indispensable thing. It is useless to take
opinions on trust, to retail them, to adopt them;
they must be formed, created, felt. The work of a
sincere artist is almost certain to have some value;
the work of an insincere artist is of its very nature
worthless.”

Mr. Benson’s “charm” is what the virtuoso feels
as magnetism. It puts something into the artist’s
playing that he cannot define. For a moment the
vital spark flares into a bewildering flame, and all his
world is peopled with moths hovering around the
“divine fire.”

The Greatest Thing of All

If we have dwelt too long upon magnetism, those
who know its importance in the artist’s life will readily
perceive the reason. But do not let us be led away
into thinking that magnetism can take the place of
hard work. Even the tiny prodigy has a career of
work behind him, and the master pianist has often
climbed to his position over Matterhorns and Mt.
Blancs of industry. Days of practice, months of
study, years of struggle are part of the biography of
almost every one who has attained real greatness.
What a pity to destroy time-old illusions! Some
prefer to think of their artist heroes dreaming their[23]
lives away in the hectic cafés of Pesth or buried in the
melancholy, absinthe and paresis of some morbid
cabaret of Paris. As a matter of fact, the best
known pianists live a totally different life—a life of
grind, grind, grind—incessant study, endless practice
and ceaseless search for means to raise their artistic
standing. In some quiet country villa, miles away
from the center of unlicensed Bacchanalian revels,
the virtuoso may be found working hard upon next
season’s repertoire.

After all, the greatest thing in the artist’s life is
W-O-R-K.

[24]

II

ARE PIANISTS BORN OR MADE?

Some years ago the Director of the Leipsic Conservatorium
gave the writer a complete record of the
number of graduates of the conservatory from the
founding to the late nineties. Of the thousands of
students who had passed through the institution only
a few had gained wide prominence. Hardly one student
in one hundred had won his way into the most
voluminous of the musical biographical dictionaries.
The proportion of distinguished graduates to those
who fail to gain renown is very high at Leipsic compared
with many other institutions. What becomes
of the thousands of students all working frantically
with the hope of becoming famous pianists? Surely,
so much earnest effort can not be wasted even though
all can not win the race? Those who often convince
themselves that they have failed go on to perform
a more useful service to society than the laurel-crowned
virtuoso. Unheralded and unapplauded,
they become the teachers, the true missionaries of
Frau Musik to the people.

What is it then, which promotes a few “fortunate”
ones from the armies of students all over America and
Europe and makes of them great virtuosos? What
must one do to become a virtuoso? How long must
one study before one may make a début? What does[25]
a great virtuoso receive for his performances? How
long does the virtuoso practice each day? What
exercises does he use? All these and many more
similar questions crop up regularly in the offices of
music critics and in the studios of teachers. Unfortunately,
a definite answer can be given to none,
although a great deal may be learned by reviewing
some of the experiences of one who became great.

Some virtuosos actually seem to be born with the
heavenly gift. Many indeed are sons and daughters
of parents who see their own demolished dreams realized
in the triumphs of their children. When little
Nathan creeps to the piano and quite without the
help of his elders picks out the song he has heard his
mother sing,—all the neighbors in Odessa know it
the next day. “A wonder child perhaps!” Oh
happy augury of fame and fortune! Little Nathan
shall have the best of instruction. His mother will
teach him at first, of course. She will shape his little
fingers to the keyboard. She will sing sweet folk melodies
in his ear,—songs of labor, struggle, exile. She
will count laboriously day after day until he “plays in
time.” All the while the little mother sees far beyond
the Ghetto,—out into the great world,—grand auditoriums,
breathless crowds, countless lights, nobles
granting trinkets, bravos from a thousand throats,
Nathan surrounded by endless wreaths of laurel,—Oh,
it is all too much,—”Nathan! Nathan! you are playing
far too fast. One, two, three, four,—one, two, three,
four,—there, that is the tempo Clementi would have[26]
had it. Fine! Some day, Nathan, you will be a great
pianist and—” etc., etc.

Nathan next goes to the great teacher. He is
already eight years old and fairly leaping out of his
mother’s arms. Two years with the teacher and
Nathan is probably ready for a début as a wonder
child. The critics are kind. If his parents are very
poor Nathan may go from town to town for awhile
being exhibited like a trained poodle or a tiny acrobat.
The further he gets from home the more severe
his critics become, and Nathan and his mother hurry
back to the old teachers, who tell them that Nathan
must still practice long and hard as well as do something
to build up his general education. The world
in these days looks askance at the musician who aside
from his keyboard accomplishments is a numskull.
More sacrifice for Nathan’s mother and father,—but
what are poverty and deprivation with such a
goal in sight? Nathan studies for some years in the
schools and in the high schools as well as at the conservatory.
In the music school he will doubtless
spend six years in all,—two years in the post-graduate
or master classes, following the regular four-year
course. When sufficiently capable he will take a
few pupils at a kopeck or so per lesson to help out with
the family expenses.

Nathan graduates from the conservatory with
high honors. Will the public now receive him as a
great pianist? A concert is planned and Nathan
plays. Day and night for years his whole family[27]
have been looking forward to that concert. Let us
concede that the concert is a triumph. Does he
find fame and fortune waiting for him next morning?
No indeed,—there are a thousand Nathans all equally
accomplished. Again he must work and again he
must concertize. Perhaps after years of strife a
manager may approach him some day with a contract.
Lucky Nathan,—have you not a thousand brothers
who may never see a contract? Then,—”Can it be
possible Nathan,—is it really America,—America
the virtuoso’s Golconda!” Nathan makes a glorious
tournée. Perhaps the little mother goes with him.
More likely she stays at home in Odessa waiting with
glistening eyes for each incoming mail. Pupils come
to Nathan and he charges for each lesson a sum equaling
his father’s former weekly wage. Away with the
Ghetto! Away with poverty! Away with oblivion!
Nathan is a real virtuoso,—a veritable Meister!

The American Virtuoso of To-day

How does the American aspirant compete with
Nathan? Are there not as fine teachers here in
America as in Europe? Is it really necessary to go
to Europe to “finish” one’s musical education?
Can one not become a virtuoso in America?—more
questions with which editors and teachers are constantly
plied. Can one who for years has waged a
battle for the American teacher and American musical
education answer this question without bias? Can
we who trace the roots of our lineage back to barren[28]
Plymouth or stolid New Netherland judge the question
fairly and honestly?

One case suffices to show the road which the American
virtuoso is likely to travel. She is still a young
woman, in her twenties. Among her teachers was
one who ranks among the very best in America. Her
general education was excellent,—in fact far superior
to that of the average young lady of good family in
continental Europe. While in her early teens she
became the leading feature at conservatory concerts.
Her teacher won many a profitable pupil through her
brilliant playing. She studies, as do so many American
pupils, without making a regular business of it.
Compared with the six year all day, week in and week
out course which Nathan pursued in Odessa our little
compatriot was at a decided disadvantage. But
who ever heard of a music student making a regular
business of learning the profession as would a doctor
or a lawyer? Have not students contented themselves
with two lessons a week since time immemorial?
Need we go further to discover one of the flaws in
our own educational system,—a flaw that is not due to
the teacher or to the methods of instruction, but
rather to our time-old custom. Two lessons a
week are adequate for the student who does not
aspire to become a professional, but altogether insufficient
for the student who must accomplish a vast
amount of work in a comparatively small number of
years. She requires constant advice, regular daily
instruction and careful attention under experienced[29]
instructors. Teachers are not to be blamed if she
does not receive this kind of attention, as there are
abundant opportunities now in America to receive
systematic training under teachers as thorough, as
able and as inspiring as may be found in Europe.
The excuse that the expense is greater in America
falls when we learn the very high prices charged by
leading teachers in Germany, Austria and France.

To go back to our particular case, the young lady
is informed at the end of a course of two or three
lessons a week during two or three years, that she is
a full-fledged virtuoso and may now enter the concert
field to compete with Carreño, Bloomfield-Zeisler
or Goodson. Her playing is obviously superior
to that of her contemporary students. Someone
insists upon a short course of study abroad,—not
because it is necessary, but because it might add to her
reputation and make her first flights in the American
concert field more spectacular. Accordingly she
goes to Europe, only to find that she is literally surrounded
by budding virtuosos,—an army of Nathans,
any one of whom might easily eclipse her. Against
her personal charm, her new-world vigor, her Yankee
smartness, Nathan places his years of systematic
training, his soul saturated in the music and art of
past centuries of European endeavor and perhaps his
youth of poverty which makes success imperative.
The young lady’s European teacher frankly tells her
that while her playing is delightful for the salon or
parlor she will never do for the great concert hall.[30]
She must learn to play with more power, more virility,
more character. Accordingly he sets her at work
along special muscle-building, tone-cultivating, speed-making
lines of technic in order to make up for the
lack of the training which the young lady might
easily have had at home had her parents been schooled
to systematic daily study as a necessity. Her first
technical exercises with the new teacher are so simple
that the young woman is on the verge of despair
until she realizes that her playing is really taking on a
new and more mature character. She has been lifting
fifty pound weights occasionally. Her teacher
is training her to lift one hundred pound weights every
day. She has been sketching in pastels,—her teacher
is now teaching her how to make Velasquez-like
strokes in oils. Her gain is not a mere matter of
loudness. She could play quite as loud before she went
to Europe. There is something mature in this new
style of playing, something that resembles the playing
of the other virtuosos she has heard. Who is the
great European master who is working such great
wonders for her? None other than a celebrated
teacher who taught for years in America,—a master
no better than dozens of others in America right
now. Can the teachers in America be blamed if the
parents and the pupils fail to make as serious and
continued an effort here? Atmosphere,—bosh! Work,
long, hard and unrelenting,—that is the salvation of
the student who would become a virtuoso. With our
increasing wealth and advancing culture American[31]
parents are beginning to discover that given the
same work and the same amount of instruction musical
education in America differs very slightly from
musical education abroad.

But we are deserting our young virtuoso most
ungallantly. In Berlin she hears so many concerts
and recitals, so many different styles of playing, that
she begins to think for herself and her sense of artistic
discrimination—interpretation, if you will—becomes
more and more acute. Provided with funds for attending
concerts, she does regularly, whereas in
America she neglected opportunities equally good.
She never realized before that there could be so much
to a Brahms Intermezzo or a Chopin Ballade. At the
end of her first year her American common-sense
tells her that a plunge into the concert field is still
dangerous. Accordingly she remains two, or possibly
three, more years and at the end if she has worked hard
she is convinced that with proper management she
may stand some chance of winning that fickle treasure,
public favor.

“But,” persists the reader, “it would have been
possible for her to have accomplished the same work
at home in America.” Most certainly, if she had
had any one of the hundred or more virtuoso teachers
now resident in the United States all of whom are
capable of bringing a highly talented pupil to virtuoso
heights,—and if in their teaching they had exerted
sufficient will-power to demand from the pupil and
the pupil’s parents the same conditions which would[32]
govern the work of the same pupil studying in Europe.
Through long tradition and by means of endless
experiences the conditions have been established in
Europe. The student who aspires to become a professional
is given a distinctively professional course.
In America the need for such a training is but scantily
appreciated. Only a very few of us are able to appraise
the real importance of music in the advancement
of human civilization, nor is this unusual, since
most of us have but to go back but a very few generations
to encounter our blessed Puritan and Quaker
ancestors to whom all music, barring the lugubrious
Psalm singing, was the inspiration of the devil. The
teachers, as has been said before, are fully ready and
more than anxious to give the kind of training required.
Very frequently parents are themselves to
blame for the slender dilettante style of playing which
their well-instructed children present. They measure
the needs of the concert hall by the dimensions of the
parlor. The teacher of the would-be professional
pupil aspires to produce a quantity of tone that will
fill an auditorium seating at least one thousand people.
The pupil at home is enjoined not to “bang” or
“pound.” The result is a feeble, characterless tone
which rarely fills an auditorium as it should. The
actor can not forever rehearse in whispers if he is to
fill a huge theater, and the concert pianist must have a
strong, sure, resilient touch in order to bring about
climaxes and make the range of his dynamic power
all-comprehensive. Indeed, the separation from home[33]
ties, or shall we call them home interferences, is often
more responsible for the results achieved abroad than
superior instruction.

Unfortunately, the number of virtuosos who have
been taught exclusively in America is really very
small. It is not a question of ability upon the
part of the teacher or talent upon the part of the
pupil. It is entirely a matter of the attitudes of
the teacher, the pupil and the pupil’s home advisers.
Success demands strong-willed discipline and the most
lofty standards imaginable. Teachers who have
taught for years in America have returned to Europe,
doubled and quadrupled their fees, and, under old-world
surroundings and with more rigid standards of
artistic work, have produced results they declare
would have been impossible in America. The author
contends that these results would have been readily
forthcoming if we in America assumed the same
earnest, persistent attitude toward the work itself.
If these words do no more than reach the eyes of some
of those who are advising students wrongly in this
matter they will not have been written in vain. The
European concert triumphs of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach,
whose training was received wholly in the United
States, is an indication of what may be achieved in
America if the right course is pursued. Conditions
are changing rapidly in our country, particularly in
the wonderful West and Middle-West. It seems
likely that many pianists without foreign instruction
of any kind will have as great success in our concert[34]
field as have many of our best opera singers who have
never had a lesson “on the other side.”

Our little pianist has again been playing truant
from our manuscript. Let us see what happens to
her when she finished her work with the famous
teacher abroad. Surely the making of a virtuoso is
an expensive matter. Let us take the estimate of
the young pianist’s father, who practically mortgaged
his financial existence to give his daughter the right
musical training.

But the expense has only begun, if you please.
The harvest is still a long way off. According to the
fine traditions established by the late P. T. Barnum,
there must be a European furore to precede the
American advent of the musical star. The journalistic
astronomers must point their telescopes long and
steadily at the European firmament and proclaim
their discovery in the columns of their papers. Again,
furores are expensive. One must hire an auditorium,
hire an orchestra, and, according to some very frank[35]
and disgusted young virtuosos who have failed to
succeed, hire a critic or so like the amusing Trotter in
Fanny’s First Play. What with three and four
concerts a night why should not the critics have a
pourboire for extra critical attention? Fortunately
the best papers hold their criticisms above price.
Bought criticisms are very rare, and if the young
pianist or any representative approaches certain
critics with any such suggestion, she may count upon
faring very badly in cold type on the following day.

If Miss Virtuoso makes a success, her press notices
are sent to her American concert managers, who
purchase space in some American musical newspapers
and reprint these notices. Publicity of this
kind is legitimate, as the American public knows that
in most cases these press notices are reprinted solely
as advertising. It is simply the commercial process of
“acquainting the trade” and if done right may prove
one of the most fortunate investments for the young
artist. Do not imagine, however, that the pianist’s
American manager speculates in the problematical
success of the coming virtuoso. On the contrary, his
fee for putting the artist on his “list” and promoting
her interests may range from five hundred dollars to
two thousand dollars in advance. After that the
manager usually requires a commission on all engagements
“booked.” Graft? Spoils? Plunder? Not
a bit of it. If the manager is a good one—that is,
if he is an upright business man well schooled in his
work—the investment should prove a good one.[36]
Exploiting a new artist is a matter demanding brains,
energy, ingenuity and experience. A manufacturing
firm attempting to put some new product upon an
already crowded market would spend not $2000.00
a year in advertising, but $100,000.00. The manager
must maintain an organization, he must travel, he
must advertise and he too must live. If he succeeds
in marketing the services of the young virtuoso at one
or two hundred dollars a concert, the returns soon
begin to overtake the incessant expenses. However,
only the most persistent and talented artists survive
to reap these rewards. The late Henry Wolfsohn,
one of the greatest managers America has ever produced,
told the writer frequently that the task of
introducing a new artist was one of the most thankless
and uncertain undertakings imaginable.

Does the work, the time, the expense frighten you,
little miss at the keyboard? Do you fear the grind,
the grueling disappoints, the unceasing sacrifices?
Then abandon your great career and join the army of
useful music workers who are teaching the young
people of the land to love music as it should be loved,—not
in hysterical outbursts in the concert hall but in
the home circle. If you have the unextinguishable
fire within your soul, if you have the talent from on
high, if you have health, energy, system, vitality,
nothing can stop you from becoming great. Advice,
interferences, obstacles will be nothing to you. You
will work day and night to reach your goal. What
better guide could you possibly have than the words[37]
of the great pianists themselves? While the ensuing
pages were compiled with the view of helping the
amateur performer quite as much as the student who
would become a professional pianist, you will nevertheless
find in the expressions of the really great
virtuosos a wealth of information and practical advice.

Most of the following chapters are the results of
many different conferences with the greatest living
pianists. All have had the revision of the artists in
person before publication was undertaken. In order
to indicate how carefully and willingly this was done
by the pianists it is interesting to note the case of the
great Russian composer-virtuoso Rachmaninoff. The
original conference was conducted in German and in
French. The material was arranged in manuscript
form in English. M. Rachmaninoff then requested
a second conference. In the mean time he had had the
better part of the manuscript translated into his
native Russian. However, in order to insure accuracy
in the use of words, the writer translated the
entire matter back into German in the pianist’s presence.
M. Rachmaninoff did not speak English and
the writer did not speak Russian.

The chapter relating to Harold Bauer is the result
of a conference conducted in English. Mr. Bauer’s
use of his native tongue is as fluent and eloquent as a
poet or an orator. In order that his ideas might have
the best possible expression the entire chapter was[38]
written several times in manuscript and carefully
rearranged and rephrased by Mr. Bauer in person.

Some of the conferences lasted well on through the
night. The writer’s twenty years’ experience in
teaching was constantly needed to grasp different
shadings of meaning that some pianists found difficult
to phrase. Many indeed have felt their weakness in
the art of verbal expression and have rejoiced to have
their ideas clothed with fitting words. Complete
frankness and sincerity were encouraged in every
case. The results of the conference with Wilhelm
Bachaus, conceded by many other pianists to be the
foremost “technicalist” of the day, are, it will be
observed, altogether different in the statement of
teaching principles from those of Harold Bauer.
Each is a sincere expression of individual opinion and
the thoughtful student by weighing the ideas of both
may reach conclusions immensely to his personal
advantage.

No wider range of views upon the subject of
pianoforte playing could possibly come between the
covers of a book. The student, the teacher, and the
music lover who acquaints himself with the opinions
of the different masters of the keyboard can not fail
to have a very clear insight into the best contemporary
ideas upon technic, interpretation, style and expression.
The author—or shall he call himself a collector?—believes
that the use of the questions following each
chapter will be found practical and useful in the work
of both clubs and classes. Practice, however, is still[39]
more important than precept. The student might
easily learn this book “by heart” and yet be unable
to play a perfect scale. Let him remember the words
of Locke:

After all, the virtuoso is great because he really
knows and W-O-R-K-S.

[40]

PEPITO ARRIOLA

Biographical

Pepito Arriola was born on the 14th of December,
1897. A careful investigation of his ancestry reveals
that no less than twelve of his forefathers and relations
have been pronouncedly musical. His father was a
physician, but his mother was a musician. His early
musical training was given to him exclusively by his
mother. The following was prepared when he was
twelve years old and at that time he was apparently
a perfectly healthy child, with the normal activity
of a boy of his age and with a little more general education
in addition to his music than the average
child at fifteen or sixteen possesses. He spoke French,
German (fluently) and Spanish, but little English.
Despite the fact that he had received numerous honors
from European monarchs and famous musicians, he
was exceptionally modest. In his playing he seemed
never to miss a note in even very complicated compositions
and his musical maturity and point of view
were truly astonishing. The following is particularly
valuable from an educational standpoint, because of
the absolute unaffectedness of the child’s narrative of
his own training.

(The following conference was conducted in German
and French.)

pepito arriola

[41]

III

THE STORY OF A WONDER CHILD

pepito arriola

My Earliest Recollections

So much that was of interest to me was continually
occurring while I was a child that it all seems like a
kind of haze to me. I cannot remember when I
first commenced to play, for my mother tells me that
I wanted to reach out for the keyboard before I was
out of her arms. I have also learned that when I was
about two and one-half years of age, I could quite
readily play after my mother anything that the size
of my hand would permit me to play.

I loved music so dearly, and it was such fun to run
over the keyboard and make the pretty sounds, that
the piano was really my first and best toy. I loved to
hear my mother play, and continually begged her to
play for me so that I could play the same pieces after
her. I knew nothing of musical notation and played
entirely by ear, which seemed to me the most natural
way to play. At that time, word was sent to the
King of Spain that I showed talent, and he became
interested in me, and I played before him.

My Friendship With Arthur Nikisch

A short time afterward, Herr Arthur Nikisch, conductor
of the Gewandhaus Orchestra at Leipsic, and[42]
at one time conductor of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra in America, came to Madrid to conduct the
Philharmonic Orchestra for a special concert. Some
one told him about my playing and I was permitted to
play for him. He became so interested that he insisted
upon my being taken to Leipsic for further
study. I was then four years of age, and although
musical advantages in Spain are continually increasing,
my mother thought it best at the time that she
should follow the great musician’s advice and that I
should be taken to the German city.

I want to say that in my earliest work, my mother
made no effort to push me or urge me to go ahead.
I loved to play for the sake of playing, and needed no
coaxing to spend time at the keyboard. In my very
early years I was permitted to play in public very
little, although there were constant demands made
to engage me. I was looked upon as a kind of curiosity
and my mother wanted me to study in the
regular way with good masters, and also to acquire
more strength before I played in public very much.

I did, however, play at the great Albert Hall, in
London. The big building holds 8000 people, but
that was so long ago that I have almost forgotten all
about it, except that they all seemed pleased to see a
little boy of four playing in so very big a place. I
also played for royal personages, including the
Kaiser of Germany, who was very good to me and
gave me a beautiful pin. I like the Kaiser very much.
He seems like a fine man.

[43]

My First Regular Instruction

My first teacher, aside from my mother, was a
Herr Dreckendorf, of Leipsic. He was very kind to
me and took the greatest pains, but the idea of learning
the notes was very distasteful to me. I was terribly
bored with the technical exercises he gave me,
but have since learned that one can save much time
by practicing scales and exercises. Although I do
not like them, I practice them every day now, for a
little while, so as to get my fingers in good working
order.

In about six weeks I knew all that was expected
of me in the way of scales in octaves, sixths, thirds,
double thirds, etc., and my teacher commenced to
turn his attention to studies and pieces. For the
first time I found musical notation interesting, for
then I realized that it was not necessary for me to
wait until some one else played a piece before I could
begin to explore its beauties. Ah! it was wonderful,
those first days with the pieces. I was in a new
country and could hardly wait to master one at a
time, so eager was I to reach the next one and see
just what it was like.

Herr Dreckendorf gave me some studies by Dussek,
Cramer, the Inventions of Bach, etc., but before long
the fascination of playing beautiful pieces was so
great that he found it hard to keep me away from them.

[44]

Early Repertory

So hungry was I to find new musical works that
when I was eight and a half years old I could play
from memory such pieces as the B flat minor Scherzo,
the A flat major Polonaise, and most of the Valses
and Études of Chopin. I also played the Sixth
Rhapsody of Liszt and the C minor Concerto of Beethoven.

In the mean time we moved to Berlin and this has
been our home ever since, so you see I have seen
far more of Germany than of my native country,
Spain. In fact, it seems more natural for me to speak
German than Spanish. At the age of seven it was
my good fortune to come under the instruction of
Alberto Jonas, the Spanish virtuoso, who for many
years was at the head of a large music school in
America. I can never be grateful enough to him, for
he has taught me without remuneration and not
even a father could be kinder to me. When I left
Berlin for my present tour, tears came to our eyes,
because I knew I was leaving my best friend. Most
of my present repertory has been acquired under
Jonas and he has been so, so exacting.

He also saw to it that my training was broad, and
not confined to those composers whose works appealed
most to me. The result is that I now appreciate
the works of all the composers for the piano.
Beethoven I found very absorbing. I learned the
Appassionata Sonata in one week’s time, and longed[45]
for more. My teacher, however, insisted upon my
going slowly, and mastering all the little details.

I have also developed a great fondness for Bach,
because I like to find how he winds his melodies in
and out, and makes such beautiful things of them. I
play a great deal of Bach, including the G minor
organ Fugue, which Liszt played the devil with in
arranging it for the piano. Goodness knows, it was
difficult enough for the organ in its original form!
I don’t see why Liszt wanted to make it more difficult.

Liszt is, of course, considered a great master for
the piano, and I play his works with great delight,
especially the Campanella with its beautiful bell
effect, but I cannot look upon Liszt as a pianistic
composer in the same way that one thinks of Chopin
as a pianistic composer. The piano was Chopin’s
natural tongue. Liszt’s tongue, like that of Beethoven,
was the orchestra. He knew no difficulties,
according to the manner in which he wrote his own
works. Consequently one must think of the orchestra
in playing Liszt’s works, while the works of Chopin
suggest only the piano.

My Daily Practice

During most of my life my practice has never
exceeded two hours a day. In this country, while
on tour, I never practice more than one and one-half
hours. This is not necessary, because of the concerts
themselves, which keep up my technical work. I
never worry about my fingers. If I can think the[46]
pieces right, my fingers will always play the notes.
My mother insists upon my being out in the open
air all the time I am not studying and practicing,
and I am out the better part of the day.

At my practice periods, I devote at least fifteen
or twenty minutes to technical exercises, and strive
to play all the scales, in the different forms, in all
the keys, once each day. I then play some of my
concert numbers, continually trying to note if there
is any place that requires attention. If there is, I
at once spend a little time trying to improve the
passage.

It is very largely a matter of thinking the musical
thought right, and then saying it in the right way.
If you think it right, and your aim at the keyboard is
good, you are not likely to hit the wrong notes, even
in skips such as one finds in the Rubinstein Valse
in E flat. I do not ever remember of hitting the
upper note wrong. It all seems so easy to me that
I am sure that if other children in America would
look upon other examples in the same way, they
could not find their work so very difficult. I love to
practice Chopin. One cannot be so intimate with
Bach; he is a little cold and unfriendly until one
knows him very well.

General Education

I have said that we play as we think. The mind
must be continually improved or the fingers will
grow dull. In order to see the beauties in music[47]
we must see the beauties in other studies. I have
a private teacher who comes to me in Berlin and
teaches me different studies. I have studied some
Latin, French, and the regular school studies. Electricity
interests me more than I can tell you and I
like to learn about it, but my greatest interest is in
the study of astronomy. Surely nothing could be
finer than to look at the stars. I have friends among
the astronomers of Berlin who let me look through
their telescopes and tell me all about the different
constellations and the worlds that look like moons
when you see them enlarged. It is all so wonderful
that it makes one never cease thinking.

I also like to go to factories and learn how different
things are made. I think that there are so many
things that one can learn outside of a school-room.
For instance, I went to a wire factory recently, and
I am sure that I found out a great many things I
might never have found out in books. One also
learns by traveling, and when I am on my tours
I feel that I learn more of the different people and the
way they live than I ever could from geographies.
Don’t you think I am a lucky boy? One must study
geography, however, to learn about maps and the
way in which countries are formed. I have toured in
Germany, Russia, and England, and now in America.
America interests me wonderfully. Everything seems
so much alive and I like the climate very much.

[48]

Theoretical Studies

Musical theory bores me now, almost as much as
my first technical studies did. Richard Strauss, the
great German composer, has very kindly offered to
teach me. I like him very much and he is so kind, but
his thundering musical effects sometimes seems very
noisy to me. I know many of the rules of harmony,
but they are very uncomfortable and disagreeable to
me.

I would far rather write my music as it comes to
me. Herr Nikisch says that when I do it that way, I
make very few blunders, but I know I can never be a
composer until I have mastered all the branches of
musical theory. I am now writing a symphony. I
played some parts for Herr Nikisch and he has agreed
to produce it. Of course, the orchestral parts will have
to be written for me, but I know what instruments I
want to express certain ideas.

Putting down the notes upon paper is so tiresome.
Why can’t one think the musical thoughts and have
them preserved without the tedious work of writing
them out! Sometimes before I can get them on paper
they are gone—no one knows where, and the worst of
all is that they never come back. It is far greater
fun to play the piano, or play football, or go rowing.

Reading and Study

I love to read, and my favorite of all books is The
Three Musketeers. I have also read something of[49]
Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, and many other writers.
I like parts of the great Spanish novel Don Quixote,
but I find it hard to read as a whole. I think that
music students ought to read a great deal. It makes
them think, and it gives them poetical thoughts.

Music is, after all, only another kind of poetry, and
if we get poetical ideas from books we become more
poetical, and our music becomes more beautiful. The
student who thinks only of hammering down keys at
the piano cannot play in a manner in which people
will take pleasure. Piano playing is so much more
than merely pressing down keys. One has to tell
people things that cannot be told in words—that is
what music is.

At the Concert

I do not know what it is to be nervous at concerts.
I have played so much and I am always so sure of
what I am going to play that nervousness is out of the
question. Of course, I am anxious about the way in
which audiences will receive my playing. I want to
please them so much and don’t want them to applaud
me because I am a boy, but would rather have them
come as real music-lovers to enjoy the music itself.
If I cannot bring pleasure to them in that way I do
not deserve to be before the public.

My concerts are usually about one hour in length,
although I sometimes play encores for some time after
the concert. I make it a practice not to eat for a few
hours before the concert, as doctors have told my[50]
mother that my mind will be in better shape. I want
to thank the many friends I have made among the
students who have come to my concerts, and I hope
that I may have told them some things which will
help them in their work.

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES I

pepito arriola

wilhelm bachaus

WILHELM BACHAUS

[51]

Biographical

Wilhelm Bachaus was born at Leipsic, March
24, 1884, two years before the death of Franz Liszt.
Nine years younger than Josef Hofmann and a trifle
more than one-half the age of Paderewski he represents
a different decade from that of other pianists
included in this work. Bachaus studied for nine
years with Alois Reckendorf, a Moravian teacher
who was connected with the Leipsic Conservatory for
more than thirty years. Reckendorf had been a student
of science and philosophy at the Vienna and the
Heidelberg Universities and was an earnest musician
and teacher with theories of his own. He took an
especial interest in Bachaus and was his only teacher
with the exception of one year spent with d’Albert
and “three lessons with Siloti.” Although Bachaus
commenced playing when he was eight years old he
feels that his professional début was made in London
in June, 1901, when he played the tremendously difficult
Brahms-Paganini Variations. In 1905, when Bachaus
was only twenty-one, he won the famous Rubinstein
Prize at Paris. This consists of 5000 francs offered
every five years to young men between the ages of
twenty and twenty-six.

(The following conference was conducted in English
and German.)

[52]

IV

THE PIANIST OF TO-MORROW

wilhelm bachaus

To-day, Yesterday and To-morrow

“It is somewhat surprising how very little difference
exists between the material used in piano teaching
to-day and that employed forty or fifty years ago.
Of course, there has been a remarkable amount of
new technical material, exercises, studies, etc., devised,
written and published, and some of this presents the
advantage of being an improvement upon the old—an
improvement which may be termed an advance—but,
taken all in all, the advance has been very slight
when compared with the astonishing advances made
in other sciences and other phases of human progress
in this time.

“It would seem that the science of music (for the
processes of studying the art are undoubtedly scientific)
left little territory for new explorers and inventors.
Despite the great number of études that
have been written, imagine for one moment what a
desert the technic of music would be without Czerny,
Clementi, Tausig, Pischna—to say nothing of the
great works of Scarlatti and Bach, which have an
effect upon the technic, but are really great works of
musical art.

[53]

The Wonderful Efficacy of Scales

“Personally, I practice scales in preference to all
other forms of technical exercises when I am preparing
for a concert. Add to this arpeggios and Bach,
and you have the basis upon which my technical
work stands. Pianists who have been curious about
my technical accomplishments have apparently been
amazed when I have told them that scales are my great
technical mainstay—that is, scales plus hard work.
They evidently have thought that I had some kind of
alchemic secret, like the philosopher’s stone which was
designed to turn the baser metals into gold. I possess
no secrets which any earnest student may not acquire
if he will work in the laboratory of music long enough.
There are certain artistic points which only come with
long-continued experiment.

“As the chemist finds the desired result by interminable
heart-breaking eliminations, so the artist
must weigh and test his means until he finds the one
most likely to produce the most beautiful or the most
appropriate result. But this seeking for the right
effect has little to do with the kind of technic which
necessitates one to keep every muscle employed in
piano-playing properly exercised, and I may reiterate
with all possible emphasis that the source of my
technical equipment is scales, scales, scales. I find
their continued daily practice not only beneficial, but
necessary. I still find it desirable to practice scales
for half an hour a day.

[54]

Bach Musically Omnipotent

“It seems almost foolish to repeat what has been
said so many times about the wonderful old cantor
of Leipsic, Johann Sebastian Bach. However, there
may still be some who have not yet become acquainted
with the indisputable fact that the practice of Bach is
the shortest, quickest road to technical finish. Busoni
has enlarged upon Bach, impossible as that may seem;
but as a modern bridge is sometimes built upon wonderful
old foundations, Busoni has taken the idea of
Bach and, with his penetrative and interpretative
ability, has been able to make the meaning more clear
and more effective. Any young pianist who aspires
to have his hands in condition to respond to the subtle
suggestions of his brain may acquire a marvelous
foundation by the use of scales, Bach and arpeggios.

The Old That Is Ever New

“I have seen many ways and means tried out. Some
seem like an attempt to save time at the expense of
thoroughness. Furthermore, the means which have
produced the great pianists of the past are likely to
differ but little from those which will produce the
pianists of the future.

“The ultra-modern teacher who is inclined to think
scales old-fashioned should go to hear de Pachmann,
who practices scales every day. De Pachmann, who
has been a virtuoso for a great many years, still finds
daily practice necessary, and, in addition to scales,[55]
he plays a great deal of Bach. To-day his technic is
more powerful and more comprehensive than ever,
and he attributes it in a large measure to the simplest
of means.

Difficulties in New Pianoforte Compositions

“I have often been asked if the future of pianoforte
composition seemed destined to alter the technic of the
instrument, as did the compositions of Liszt, for
instance. This is a difficult question, but it would
seem that the borderland of pianistic difficulty had
been reached in the compositions and transcriptions
of Busoni and Godowsky. The new French school of
Debussy, Ravel and others is different in type, but
does not make any more severe technical demands.

“However, it is hard for one to imagine anything
more complicated or more difficult than the Godowsky
arrangements of the Chopin studies. I fail to see
how pianoforte technic can go much beyond these,
unless one gets more fingers or more hands. Godowsky’s
treatment of these studies is marvelous not
only from a technical standpoint, but from a musical
standpoint as well. He has added a new flavor to the
individual masterpieces of Chopin. He has made
them wonderfully clever and really very interesting
studies in harmony and counterpoint, so that one
forgets their technical intricacies in the beauty of the
compositions. One cannot say that their original
beauty has been enhanced, but he has made them
wonderfully fascinating compositions despite their
aggravating complications for the student.

[56]

Mere Difficulty No Longer Astounds

“The day when the show of startling technical
skill was sufficient to make a reputation for a pianist
is, fortunately, past. The mechanical playing devices
have possibly been responsible for this. The public
refuses to admire anything that can be done by a
machine, and longs for something finer, more subtle,
more closely allied to the soul of the artist. This does
not mean, however, that the necessity for a comprehensive
technic is depreciated. Quite the contrary
is true. The need for an all-comprehensive technic
is greater than ever before. But the public demand
for the purely musical, the purely artistic, is being
continually manifested.

“Modern composers are writing with this in view
rather than huge technical combinations. The giant
of to-day, to my mind, is indisputably Rachmaninoff.
He is writing the greatest original music for piano
of any living composer. All of his compositions are
pianistic and he does not condescend to pander to a
trifling public taste. He is a man with a great mind,
and, in addition to this, he has a delightful sense of
proportion and a feeling for the beautiful, all of which
makes him a composer of the master mould. His
compositions will endure as long as music.

Modern Compositions

“For others of the type of Scriabine I care less,
although I am sensible to the beauty of many of their[57]
compositions. They have not, however, the splendid
mould of Rachmaninoff, nor have they his vigorous
originality. Doubtless some of these men will produce
great original compositions in the future. Compositions
that are simply not bad are hardly worth the
paper they are written upon, for they will not last as
long. The composition that will last is a great, new,
original thought, inspired, noble and elemental, but
worked out with the distinctive craftsmanship of the
great master.

“I am very partial to Debussy. He has an extraordinary
atmosphere, and, after one has formed a taste
for him, his compositions are alluring, particularly
his Homage à Rameau, Jardins sous la pluie and D’un
cahier d’esquisses, which I have been playing upon my
American tour.

The Most Difficult Compositions

“I have continually been asked, ‘What is the most
difficult composition?’ The question always amuses
me, but I suppose it is very human and in line with
the desire to measure the highest building, the tallest
mountain, the longest river or the oldest castle. Why
is such a premium put upon mere difficulty? Strange
to say, no one ever seems to think it necessary to
inquire, ‘What is the most beautiful piece?’

“Difficulty in music should by no means be estimated
by technical complications. To play a Mozart
concerto well is a colossally difficult undertaking.
The pianist who has worked for hours to get such a[58]
composition as near as possible to his conception of
perfection is never given the credit for his work, except
by a few connoisseurs, many of whom have been
through a similarly exacting experience. Months
may be spent upon comparatively simple compositions,
such as the Haydn Sonatas or the Mozart Sonatas,
and the musical public is blind to the additional
finish or polish so evident to the virtuoso.

Praise That Irritates

“The opposite of this is also true. A little show of
bravura, possibly in a passage which has not cost the
pianist more than ten minutes of frivolous practice,
will turn many of the unthinking auditors into a
roaring mob. This is, of course, very distressing to
the sincere artist who strives to establish himself by
his real worth.

“Of course, there are some compositions which
present difficulties which few work hard enough to
surmount. Among these might be mentioned the
Godowsky-Chopin études (particularly the étude in
A flat, Opus 25, No. 1, which is always especially
exasperating for the student sufficiently advanced to
approach it); the Don Juan Fantasie of Liszt; the
Brahms-Paganini variations and the Beethoven, Opus
106, which, when properly played, demands enormous
technical skill. One certainly saves a lot of bother
when one discards it from one’s repertoire. If these
four pieces are not the most difficult pieces, they are
certainly among the most difficult.

[59]

Why Not Seek the Beautiful?

“But why seek difficulty when there is so much that
is quite as beautiful and yet not difficult? Why try
to make a bouquet of oak trees when the ground is
covered with exquisite flowers? The piano is a solo
instrument and has its limitations. Some piano
music is said to sound orchestral. As a matter of
fact, a great deal of it would sound better with the
orchestra.

“Real piano music is rare. The piano appears to be
too small for some of our modern Titans among the
composers. When they write for the piano they seem
to be exhibiting a concealed longing for the one
hundred or more men of the modern orchestra. One
of the reasons why the works of Debussy appeal to
me is that he manages to put so much color into his
piano pieces without suggesting the orchestra. Much
of his music is wonderful in this respect, and, moreover,
the musicians of the future will appreciate this fact
more and more.

Exercises That Give Immediate Help

“No one exercise can be depended upon to meet all
the varied conditions which arise in the practice of the
day, but I have frequently employed a simple exercise
which seems to ‘coax’ the hand into muscular activity
in a very short time. It is so simple that I am diffident
about suggesting it. However, elemental processes
lead to large structures sometimes. The[60]
Egyptian pyramids were built ages before the age of
steam and electricity, and scientists are still wondering
how those massive stones were ever put in place.

“The exercise I use most, apart from scales, is really
based upon a principle which is constantly employed
in all scale playing and in all piano playing, that of
putting the thumb over and under the fingers. Did
you ever stop to think how continually this is employed?
One hardly goes one step beyond the
elemental grades before one encounters it. It demands
a muscular action entirely different from that
of pressing down the keys either with the finger, forearm
or arm motion.

“Starting with the above-named principle and
devising new exercises to meet the very human need
for variety, I play something like this:

“The next form would employ another fingering—

“The next form might be—

[61]

“These I transpose through several keys, for instance—

“Note that I am not giving an arbitrary exercise,
but simply suggesting the plan upon which the student
may work. There is a great deal of fun in devising
new exercises. It assists in helping the student to
concentrate. Of course, these exercises are only attempted
after all the standard exercises found in
books have been exhausted.

Avoid Too Complicated Exercises

“I often think that teachers make a great mistake
by giving too complicated exercises. A complicated
exercise leads away from clear thinking and concentration.
The simple exercise will never seem dull or
dry if the pupil’s ambition is right. After all, it is
not so much what is done as how it is done. Give
less thought to the material and more to the correction
of the means with which one plays. There
should be unceasing variety in studies. A change at
every practice period is advisable, as it gives the pupil
new material for thought. There are hundreds of[62]
different exercises in the different books, and the student
has no reason for suffering for want of variety.”

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES II

wilhelm bachaus

harold bauer

HAROLD BAUER

[63]

Biographical

Harold Bauer was born in London, England, April
28, 1875. His father was an accomplished amateur
violinist. Through him, the future virtuoso was
enabled to gain an excellent idea of the beautiful
literature of chamber music. When a boy Mr.
Bauer studied privately with the celebrated violin
teacher, Politzer. At the age of ten he became so
proficient that he made his début as a violinist in
London. Thereafter in his tours of England he met
with great success everywhere.

In the artistic circles of London Mr. Bauer met a
musician named Graham Moore, who gave him some
idea upon the details of the technic of pianoforte
playing, which Mr. Bauer had studied or rather
“picked up” by himself, without any thought of ever
abandoning his career as a violinist. Mr. Moore had
expected to rehearse some orchestral accompaniments
on a second piano with Paderewski, who was then
preparing some concertos for public performance.
Mr. Moore was taken ill and sent his talented musical
friend, Mr. Bauer, in his place. Paderewski immediately
took an interest in his talented accompanist and
advised him to go to Paris to continue his studies with
Gorski.

After many privations in Paris Mr. Bauer, unable
to secure engagements as a violinist, went on a tour
of Russia as an accompanist of a singer. In some of
the smaller towns Bauer played an occasional piano
solo. Returning to Paris, he found that he was still
unable to secure engagements as a violinist. His
pianistic opportunity came when a celebrated virtuoso
who was to play at a concert was taken ill and Bauer
was asked to substitute. He gradually gave more
attention to the piano and rose to a very high position
in the tone world.

[64]

V

ARTISTIC ASPECTS OF PIANO STUDY

harold bauer

The Immediate Relation of Technic To Music

“While it gives me great pleasure to talk to the
great number of students studying the piano, I
can assure you that it is with no little diffidence that
I venture to approach these very subjects about
which they are probably most anxious to learn. In
the first place, words tell very little, and in the second
place, my whole career has been so different from the
orthodox methods that I have been constantly compelled
to contrive means of my own to meet the
myriads of artistic contingencies as they have arisen
in my work. It is largely for this reason that I felt
compelled recently to refuse a very flattering offer
to write a book on piano playing. My whole life
experience makes me incapable of perceiving what the
normal methods of pianistic study should be. As a
result of this I am obliged with my own pupils to
invent continually new means and new plans for work
with each student.

“Without the conventional technical basis to work
upon, this has necessarily resulted in several aspects
of pianoforte study which are naturally somewhat
different from the commonly accepted ideas of the
technicians. In the first place, the only technical[65]
study of any kind I have ever done has been that
technic which has had an immediate relation to the
musical message of the piece I have been studying.
In other words, I have never studied technic independently
of music. I do not condemn the ordinary
technical methods for those who desire to use them and
see good in them. I fear, however, that I am unable
to discuss them adequately, as they are outside of
my personal experience.

The Aim of Technic

“When, as a result of circumstances entirely beyond
my control, I abandoned the study of the violin in
order to become a pianist, I was forced to realize, in
view of my very imperfect technical equipment, that
in order to take advantage of the opportunities that
offered for public performance it would be necessary
for me to find some means of making my playing
acceptable without spending months and probably
years in acquiring mechanical proficiency. The only
way of overcoming the difficulty seemed to be to
devote myself entirely to the musical essentials of
the composition I was interpreting in the hope that
the purely technical deficiencies which I had neither
time nor knowledge to enable me to correct would
pass comparatively unnoticed, provided I was able to
give sufficient interest and compel sufficient attention
to the emotional values of the work. This kind of
study, forced upon me in the first instance through
reasons of expediency, became a habit, and gradually[66]
grew into a conviction that it was a mistake to practice
technic at all unless such practice should conduce
to some definite, specific and immediate musical result.

“I do not wish to be misunderstood in making this
statement, containing, as it does, an expression of
opinion that was formed in early years of study, but
which, nevertheless, I have never since felt any reason
to change. It is not my intention to imply that
technical study is unnecessary, or that purely muscular
training is to be neglected. I mean simply to say that
in every detail of technical work the germ of musical
expression must be discovered and cultivated, and that
in muscular training for force and independence the
simplest possible forms of physical exercises are all
that is necessary.

“The singer and the violinist are always studying
music, even when they practice a succession of single
notes. Not so with the pianist, however, for an
isolated note on the piano, whether played by the most
accomplished artist or the man in the street, means
nothing, absolutely nothing.

Seeking Individual Expression

“At the time of which I speak, my greatest difficulty
was naturally to give a constant and definite direction
to my work and in my efforts to obtain a suitable
muscular training which should enable me to produce
expressive sounds, while I neglected no opportunity of
closely observing the work of pianoforte teachers and
students around me. I found that most of the techni[67]cal
work which was being done with infinite pains and
a vast expenditure of time was not only non-productive
of expressive sounds, but actually harmful and misleading
as regards the development of the musical
sense. I could see no object in practicing evenness in
scales, considering that a perfectly even scale is essentially
devoid of emotional (musical) significance. I
could see no reason for limiting tone production to a
certain kind of sound that was called ‘a good tone,’
since the expression of feeling necessarily demands in
many cases the use of relatively harsh sounds. Moreover,
I could see no reason for trying to overcome
what are generally called natural defects, such as the
comparative weakness of the fourth finger for example,
as it seemed to me rather a good thing than otherwise
that each finger should naturally and normally possess
a characteristic motion of its own.

“It is differences that count in art, not similarities.
Every individual expression is a form of art; why not,
then, make an artist of each finger by cultivating its
special aptitudes instead of adapting a system of training
deliberately calculated to destroy these individual
characteristics in bringing all the fingers to a common
level of lifeless machines?

“These and similar reflections, I discovered, were
carrying me continually farther away from the ideals
of most of the pianists, students and teachers with
whom I was in contact, and it was not long before I
definitely abandoned all hope of obtaining, by any
of the means I found in use, the results for which I was[68]
striving. Consequently, from that time to the present
my work has necessarily been more or less independent
and empirical in its nature, and, while I trust I am
neither prejudiced nor intolerant in my attitude towards
pianoforte education in its general aspect, I
cannot help feeling that a great deal of natural taste
is stifled and a great deal of mediocrity created by the
persistent and unintelligent study of such things as an
‘even scale’ or a ‘good tone.’

“Lastly, it is quite incomprehensible to me why any
one method of technic should be superior to any other,
considering that as far as I was able to judge, no
teacher or pupil ever claimed more for any technical
system than that it gave more technical ability than
some other technical system. I have never been able
to convince myself, as a matter of fact, that one system
does give more ability than another; but even if there
were one infinitely superior to all the rest, it would
still fail to satisfy me unless its whole aim and object
were to facilitate musical expression.

“Naturally, studying in this way required my
powers of concentration to be trained to the very
highest point. This matter of concentration is far
more important than most teachers imagine, and the
perusal of some standard work on psychology will
reveal things which should help the student greatly.
Many pupils make the mistake of thinking that only a
certain kind of music demands concentration, whereas
it is quite as necessary to concentrate the mind upon[69]
the playing of a simple scale as for the study of a
Beethoven sonata.

The Resistance of the Medium

“In every form of art the medium that is employed
offers a certain resistance to perfect freedom of expression,
and the nature of this resistance must be
fully understood before it can be overcome. The
poet, the painter, the sculptor and the musician each
has his own problem to solve, and the pianist in particular
is frequently brought to the verge of despair
through the fact that the instrument, in requiring the
expenditure of physical and nervous energy, absorbs,
so to speak, a large proportion of the intensity which
the music demands.

“With many students the piano is only a barrier—a
wall between them and music. Their thoughts
never seem to penetrate farther than the keys. They
plod along for years apparently striving to make
piano-playing machines of themselves, and in the end
result in becoming something rather inferior.

“Conditions are doubtless better now than in former
years. Teachers give studies with some musical value,
and the months, even years, of keyboard grind without
the least suggestion of anything musical or gratifying
to the natural sense of the beautiful are very probably
a thing of the past. But here again I fear the teachers
in many cases make a perverted use of studies and
pieces for technical purposes. If we practice a piece
of real music with no other idea than that of develop[70]ing
some technical point it often ceases to become a
piece of music and results in being a kind of technical
machinery. Once a piece is mechanical it is difficult
to make it otherwise. All the cogs, wheels, bolts and
screws which an overzealous ambition to become perfect
technically has built up are made so evident that
only the most patient and enduring kind of an audience
can tolerate them.

The Perversion of Studies

“People talk about ‘using the music of Bach’ to
accomplish some technical purpose in a perfectly
heart-breaking manner. They never seem to think
of interpreting Bach, but, rather, make of him a kind
of technical elevator by means of which they hope to
reach some marvelous musical heights. We even hear
of the studies of Chopin being perverted in a similarly
vicious manner, but Bach, the master of masters, is
the greatest sufferer.

“It has become a truism to say that technic is only
a means to an end, but I very much doubt if this
assertion should be accepted without question,
suggesting as it does the advisability of studying something
that is not music and which is believed at some
future time to be capable of being marvelously transformed
into an artistic expression. Properly understood,
technic is art, and must be studied as such.
There should be no technic in music which is not music
in itself.

[71]

The Unit of Musical Expression

“The piano is, of all instruments, the least expressive
naturally, and it is of the greatest importance that the
student should realize the nature of its resistance.
The action of a piano is purely a piece of machinery
where the individual note has no meaning. When the
key is once struck and the note sounded there is a
completed action and the note cannot then be modified
nor changed in the least. The only thing over which
the pianist has any control is the length of the tone,
and this again may not last any longer than the natural
vibrations of the strings, although it may be shortened
by relinquishing the keys. It makes no difference
whether the individual note is struck by a child or by
Paderewski—it has in itself no expressive value. In
the case of the violin, the voice and all other instruments
except the organ, the individual note may be
modified after it is emitted or struck, and in this modification
is contained the possibility of a whole world
of emotional expression.

“Our sole means of expression, then, in piano playing
lies in the relation of one note to the other notes in
a series or in a chord. Herein lies the difficulty, the
resistance to perfect freedom of which I have spoken
before, the principal subject for intelligence and careful
study, and yet so few students appear to understand
it. Their great effort seems to be to make all
the noise in a given series as much alike as coins from
a mint. They come to the piano as their only instru[72]ment,
and never seek to take a lesson from the voice
or from the other instruments which have expressive
resources infinitely superior to those possessed by the
piano. The principal charm of the piano lies in the
command which the player has over many voices
singing together. But until the pianist has a regard
for the individual voice in its relation to the ensemble
he has no means with which to make his work really
beautiful.

“There is a great need for more breadth in music
study. This, as I know, has been said very often, but
it does not hurt to say it again. The more a man
knows, the more he has experienced, the wider his
mental vision in all branches of human information,
the more he will have to say. We need men in music
with big minds, wide grasp and definite aims. Musicians
are far too prone to become overspecialized.
They seem to have an unquenchable thirst to master
the jargon and the infinite variety of methods which
are thrust upon us in these days rather than a genuine
desire to develop their musical aims. Music is
acquiring a technology as confusing and as extensive
as bacteriology. There seems to be no end to the new
kinds of methods in the minds of furtive and fertile
inventors. Each new method in turn seems to breed
another, and so on ad nauseam.

“Among other things I would suggest the advisability
for pianists to cultivate some knowledge of the
construction of their instrument. Strange as it may
seem, it is nevertheless a fact that the average pianist[73]
knows practically nothing of a piano, being in many
cases entirely unaware of such simple things as how
the tone is produced. The function of the pedals is
as unknown to them as geology is to the coal heaver.
This ignorance leads frequently to the employment
of motions and methods that can only be characterized
as ridiculous in the extreme.

Music First, the Instrument Afterwards

“From the manner in which many ambitious and
earnest students play, it would seem that they had
their minds fixed upon something which could not be
conveyed to the world in any other form than that of
the sounds which come from the piano. Of course, the
piano has an idiom peculiarly its own, and some composers
have employed this idiom with such natural
freedom that their music suffers when transposed for
any other instrument. The music of Chopin is peculiarly
pianistic, but it is, first of all, music, and any one
of the wonderful melodies which came from the fertile
brain of the Polish-French genius could be played
upon one of many different instruments besides the
piano. The duty of the interpreter should surely be to
think of the composition as such, and to interpret it
primarily as music, irrespective of the instrument.
Some students sit down before the keyboard to ‘play’
the piano precisely as though they were going to play
a game of cards. They have learned certain rules
governing the game, and they do not dare disobey
these rules. They think of rules rather than of the[74]
ultimate result—the music itself. The idiom of the
Italian language is appropriate here. The Italians do
not say ‘I play the piano,’ but rather ‘I sound the
piano.’ (Suono il pianoforte.) If we had a little
more ‘sounding’ of the piano, that is, producing
real musical effects, and a little less playing on ivory
keys, the playing of our students would be more
interesting.

Variety the Spice of Art

“It can hardly be questioned that the genesis of all
musical art is to be found in song, the most natural,
the most fluent and the most beautiful form of musical
expression. How much every instrumentalist can
learn from the art of singing!

“It is a physical impossibility for the voice to produce
two notes in succession exactly alike. They
may sound very similar, but there is a difference quite
perceptible to the highly trained ear. When a singer
starts a phrase a certain amount of motive power is
required to set the vocal apparatus in vibration. After
the first note has been attacked with the full force of
the breath, there is naturally not so much weight or
pressure left for the following notes. It is, however,
possible for the second note to be as loud, or even
louder, than the first note. But in order to obtain
the additional force on the second note, it is necessary
to compensate for the lack of force due to the loss
of the original weight or pressure by increasing what
might be called the nervous energy; that is to say,[75]
by expelling the breath with proportionately greater
speed.

Muscular and Nervous Energy

“The manifestation of nervous energy in this manner
is quite different from the manifestation of muscular
energy, although both are, of course, intimately
connected. Muscular energy begins at its maximum
and gradually diminishes to the point of exhaustion,
whereas nervous energy rises in an inconceivably
short space of time to its climax, and then drops
immediately to nothing. Nervous energy may be
said to be represented by an increased rapidity of
emission. It is what the athlete would call a ‘spurt.’

“What I have said about the voice applies equally
to all other instruments, the piano and the organ alone
excepted. It is obvious that the playing of the wind
instruments must be subjected to the limitations of the
breath, and in the case of the violin and the other
stringed instruments, where the bow supplies the
motive power, it is impossible for two notes played in
succession to sound absolutely alike. If the first
note of a phrase is attacked with the weight of the
whole bow behind it, the second note will follow with
just so much less weight, and if the violinist desires to
intensify any of the succeeding tones, he must do so
by the employment of the nervous energy I have mentioned,
when a difference in the quality of tone is
bound to result. The pianist should closely observe
and endeavor to imitate these characteristics, which so[76]
vividly convey the idea of organic life in all its infinite
variety, and which are inherent in every medium for
artistic expression.

Phrasing and Breathing

“It would take a book, and by no means a small one,
to go into this matter of phrasing which I am now
discussing. Even in such a book there would doubtless
be many points which would be open to assaults for
sticklers in psychological technology. I am not
issuing a propaganda or writing a thesis for the purpose
of having something to defend, but merely giving a
few offhand facts that have benefited me in my
work. However, it is my conviction that it is the
duty of the pianist to try to understand the analogy
to the physical limitations which surround the more
natural mediums of musical expression—the voice
and the violin—and to apply the result of his observations
to his piano playing.

The Natural Effect of Emotions

“There is another relation between phrasing and
breathing which the student may investigate to
advantage. The emotions have a direct and immediate
effect upon the breath, and as the brain informs
the nervous system of new emotional impressions
the visible evidences may be first observed in the
breathing. It is quite unnecessary to go into the
physiology or psychology of this, but a little reflection
will immediately indicate what I mean.[77]

“It is impossible to witness a disastrous accident
without showing mental agitation and excitement in
hurried breathing. Joy, anger, fear, love, tranquillity
and grief—all are characterized by different modes of
breathing, and a trained actor must study this with
great closeness.

“The artist at the piano may be said to breathe
his phrases. A phrase that is purely contemplative
in character is breathed in a tranquil fashion without
any suggestion of nervous agitation. If we go
through the scale of expression, starting with contemplative
tranquillity, to the climax of dramatic
intensity, the breath will be emitted progressively
quicker and quicker. Every musical phrase has
some kind of expressive message to deliver. If a
perfectly tranquil phrase is given out in a succession
of short breaths, indicating, as they would, agitation,
it would be a contradiction, just as it would be perfectly
inhuman to suppose that in expressing dramatic
intensity it would be possible to breathe slowly.

“In conclusion, I would urge students to cultivate
a very definite mental attitude as to what they really
desire to accomplish. Do you wish to make music?
If so, think music, and nothing but music, all the
time, down to the smallest detail even in technic.
Is your ambition to play scales, octaves, double notes
and trills? Then by all means concentrate your mind
on them to the exclusion of everything else, but do
not be surprised if, when, later on, you want to communicate
a semblance of life to your mechanical[78]
motions, you succeed in obtaining no more than the
jerky movements of a clock-work puppet.”

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES III

harold bauer

f. bloomfield-zeisler

FANNY BLOOMFIELD-ZEISLER

[79]

Biographical

Mrs. Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler was born at Beilitz,
Austrian Silesia, July 16, 1866. Two years later
her parents took her to Chicago. Her first teachers
in Chicago were Bernhard Ziehn and Carl Wolfsohn.
At the age of ten she made a profound impression at a
public concert in Chicago. Two years later she had
the good fortune to meet Mme. Essipoff, who advised
her to go to Vienna to study with Theodore Leschetizky.
Accordingly she was taken to the Austrian
capital and remained under the instruction of the noted
pedagogue for five years. Starting with the year 1883,
she commenced a series of annual recitals and concerts
in different American cities which made her very
famous. In 1893 she toured Europe, attracting even
more attention than in the homeland. Since then she
made several tours of Europe and America, arousing
great enthusiasm wherever she appeared. Her emotional
force, her personal magnetism and her keen
processes of analysis compelled critics everywhere to
rank her with the foremost pianists of the day.

[80]

VI

APPEARING IN PUBLIC

fanny bloomfield-zeisler

“The secret of success in the career of a virtuoso
is not easily defined. Many elements have to be considered.
Given great talent, success is not by any
means assured. Many seemingly extraneous qualities
must be cultivated; many mistakes must be
avoided.

“Let me start out with a caution. No greater mistake
could possibly be made than to assume that
frequent public appearances or extended concert
touring in early youth is essential to a great career
as a virtuoso. On the contrary, I would say that
such a course is positively harmful. The ‘experience’
of frequent playing in public is essential if one
would get rid of stage fright or undue nervousness
and would gain that repose and self-confidence without
which success is impossible. But such experience
should be had only after the attainment of
physical and mental maturity. A young boy or girl,
though ever so much of a prodigy, if taken on an extensive
concert tour, not only becomes unduly self-conscious,
conceited, vain and easily satisfied with his
or her work, but—and this is the all-important point—runs
the risk of undermining his or her health. The
precious days of youth should be devoted primarily to[81]
the storing up of health, without which lasting success is
impossible. Nothing is more harmful to sound physical
development and mental growth than the strain of
extensive tours. It is true that one great virtuoso
now before the public played frequently before large
audiences as an infant prodigy. But, happily, wise
and efficient influences served to check this mad
career. The young artist was placed in the hands of a
great teacher and given a chance to reach full physical
maturity and artistic stature before resuming public
appearances. Had it been otherwise, it is a matter
of common belief that this great talent would have
fizzled out.

“By this I do not mean that the pupil should be
prevented from playing at recitals in the home city.
Playing of this kind gives the pupil confidence and
smooths the way for his work as a mature artist.
These performances should be rare, except in the
case of performances given in the home of the pupil
or at the teacher’s home. What I object to is the
exploitation on a large scale of the infant prodigy.

Thorough Preparation Necessary

“One of the real secrets of success in public appearance
is thorough preparation. In fact there is no
talisman, no secret that one can pass over to another
and say, ‘Here is my secret, go thou and do
likewise.’ What a valuable secret it would be—the
mysterious secret processes of the Krupp Gun Works
in Germany would be trifling in comparison. Genu[82]ine
worth is, after all, the great essential, and thorough
preparation leads to genuine worth. For instance,
I have long felt that the mental technic that the study
of Bach’s inventions and fugues afford could not be
supplied by any other means. The peculiar polyphonic
character of these works trains the mind to
recognize the separate themes so ingeniously and
beautifully interwoven and at the same time the
fingers receive a kind of discipline which hardly any
other study can secure.

“The layman can hardly conceive how difficult it
is to play at the same time two themes different in
character and running in opposite directions. The
student fully realizes this difficulty when he finds that
it takes years to master it. These separate themes
must be individualized; they must be conceived as
separate, but their bearing upon the work as a whole
must never be overlooked.

“The purity of style to be found in Bach, in connection
with his marvelous contrapuntal designs,
should be expounded to the student at as early an
age as his intellectual development will permit. It
may take some time to create a taste for Bach, but
the teacher will be rewarded with results so substantial
and permanent that all the trouble and time
will seem well worth while.

“There is also a refining influence about which I
would like to speak. The practice of Bach seems
to fairly grind off the rough edges, and instead of
a raw, bungling technic the student acquires a kind[83]
of finish from the study of the old master of Eisenach
that nothing else can give him.

“I do not mean to be understood that the study of
Bach, even if it be ever so thorough, suffices in itself
to give one a perfect technic. Vastly more is
necessary. The student who would fit himself for
a concert career must have the advice of a great
teacher and must work incessantly and conscientiously
under his guidance. I emphasize the study of Bach
merely because I find it is not pursued as much as it
deserves. That technical finish is of the very essence
of success in public appearance, goes without saying.
It is not only indispensable for a creditable performance,
but the consciousness of possessing it contributes
to that confidence of the player without which
he cannot hope to make an impression upon his
audience.

Leschetizky and ‘Method’

“Speaking about teachers reminds me to put forth
this caution: Do not pin your faith to a method.
There is good and, alas! some bad in most methods.
We hear a great deal these days about the Leschetizky
method. During the five years I was with
Leschetizky, he made it very plain that he had no
fixed method in the ordinary sense of the word. Like
every good teacher, he studied the individuality of
each pupil and taught him according to that individuality.
It might almost be said that he had a
different method for each pupil, and I have often[84]
said that Leschetizky’s method is to have no fixed
method. Of course, there are certain preparatory
exercises which with slight variations he wants all his
pupils to go through. But it is not so much the
exercises in themselves as the patience and painful
persistence in executing them to which they owe their
virtue. Of course, Leschetizky has his preference
for certain works for their great educational value.
He has his convictions as to the true interpretation to
be given to the various compositions, but those do not
form what may properly be called a method. Personally,
I am rather skeptical when anybody announces
that he teaches any particular method. Leschetizky,
without any particular method, is a great force by
virtue of his tremendously interesting personality
and his great qualities as an artist. He is himself a
never-ending source of inspiration. At eighty he
was still a youth, full of vitality and enthusiasm.
Some student, diffident but worthy, was always
encouraged; another was incited by sarcasm; still
another was scolded outright. Practical illustration
on the piano, showing ‘how not to do it,’ telling of
pertinent stories to elucidate a point, are among the
means which he constantly employed to bring out the
best that was in his pupils. A good teacher cannot insure
success and Leschetizky has naturally had
many pupils who will never become great virtuosos.
It was never in the pupils and, no matter how great
the teacher, he cannot create talent that does not exist.

“The many books published upon the Leschetiz[85]ky
system by his assistants have merit, but they by
no means constitute a Leschetizky system. They
simply give some very rational preparatory exercise
that the assistants give in preparing pupils for the
master. Leschetizky himself laughs when one speaks
of his ‘method’ or ‘system.’

“Success in public appearance will never come
through any system or method except that which
works toward the end of making a mature and genuine
artist.

Well-selected Programs

“Skill in the arrangement of an artist’s programs
has much to do with his success. This matter has
two distinct aspects. Firstly, the program must
look attractive, and secondly, it must sound well in
the rendition. When I say the program must look
attractive, I mean that it must contain works which
interest concert-goers. It should be neither entirely
conventional, nor should it contain novelties exclusively.
The classics should be represented, because
the large army of students expect to be especially
benefited by hearing these performed by a great artist.
Novelties must be placed on the program to make
it attractive to the maturer habitués of the concert
room.

“But more important, to my mind, is the other
aspect of program making which I have mentioned.
There must be contrasts in the character and tonal
nature of the compositions played. They must be so[86]
grouped that the interest of the hearers will be not
only sustained to the end, but will gradually increase.
It goes without saying that each composition
should have merit and worth as musical literature.
But beyond that, there should be variety in the character
of the different compositions: the classic, the
romantic, and the modern compositions should all be
given representation. To play several slow movements
or several vivacious movements in succession would
tend to tire the listener. Anti-climaxes should be
avoided.

“It may truly be said that program making is in
itself a high art. It is difficult to give advice on this
subject by any general statement. Generalizations
are too often misleading. I would advise the young
artist to study carefully the programs of the most
successful artists and to attempt to discover the principle
underlying their arrangement.

“One thing which should never be forgotten is that
the object of a concert is not merely to show off
the skill of the performer, but to instruct, entertain
and elevate the audience. The bulk of the program
should be composed of standard works, but novelties
of genuine worth should be given a place on the program.

Personality

“The player’s personality is of inestimable importance
in winning the approval of the public. I do
not refer particularly to personal beauty, although it[87]
cannot be doubted that a pleasing appearance is helpful
in conquering an audience. What I mean is
sincerity, individuality, temperament. What we
vaguely describe as magnetism is often possessed by
players who can lay no particular claim to personal
beauty. Some players seem fairly to hypnotize their
audiences—yes, hypnotize them. This is not done by
practicing any species of black art, or by consciously
following any psychological formula, but by the sheer
intensity of feeling of the artist at the moment of
performance.

“The great performer in such moments of passion
forgets himself entirely. He is in a sort of artistic
trance. Technical mastery of the composition being
presupposed, the artist need not and does not give
thought to the matter of playing the notes correctly,
but, re-creating in himself what he feels to have been
the mood of the composer, re-creates the composition
itself. It is this kind of playing which establishes
an invisible cord, connecting the player’s and the
hearers’ hearts, and, swayed himself by the feelings of
the moment, he sways his audience. He makes the
music he draws from the instrument supreme in every
soul in the audience; his feeling and passion are contagious
and carry the audience away. These are the
moments, not only of the greatest triumph, but of
the greatest exultation for the artist. He who cannot
thus sway audiences will never rise above mediocrity.

[88]

Do Not Attempt the Impossible

“To those who are still in the preparatory stage
of development I am glad to give one word of advice.
Do not play pieces that are away beyond your grasp.
This is the greatest fault in our American musical
educational systems of to-day. Pupils are permitted
to play works that are technically impossible for
them to hope to execute without years of preparation.
What a huge blunder this is!

“The pupil comes to the teacher, let us say, with
the Second Hungarian Rhapsody of Liszt. It takes
some fortitude for the conscientious teacher to tell the
pupil that she should work with the C Major Sonata
of Haydn instead. The pupil, with a kind of confidence
that is, to say the least, dangerous, imagines that
the teacher is trying to keep her back, and often goes
to another teacher who will gratify her whim.

“American girls think that they can do everything.
Nothing is beyond them. This is a country of great
accomplishment, and they do not realize that in music
‘Art is long.’ The virtuoso comes to a great metropolis
and plays a Moszkowski concerto of great difficulty.
The next day the music stores exhaust their stocks
of this work, and a dozen misses, who might with
difficulty play a Mendelssohn Song With Words,
are buried in the avalanche of technical impossibilities
that the alluring concerto provides.

[89]

Foreign Débuts

“Unfortunately, a foreign début seems to be necessary
for the artist who would court the favor of
the American public. Foreign pianists get engagements
long before their managers in America ever
hear them. In the present state of affairs, if an
American pianist were to have the ability of three
Liszts and three Rubinsteins in one person, he could
only hope for meager reward if he did not have a
great European reputation behind him.

“The condition is absurd and regrettable, but nevertheless
true. We have many splendid teachers in
America—as fine as there are in the world.

“We have in our larger cities musical audiences
whose judgment is as discriminating as that of the best
European audiences. Many an artist with a great
European reputation has come to this country, and,
failing ‘to make good’ in the judgment of our critics
and audiences, went back with his reputation seriously
impaired. Nevertheless, as I have stated, the
American artist without a European reputation,
has no drawing power and therefore does not interest
the managers and the piano manufacturers, who nowadays
have largely supplanted the managers. This
being so, I can only advise the American artist to do
as others had to do. Go to Europe; give a few
concerts in Berlin, London, Vienna or Paris. Let
the concert director who arranges your concerts
paper the house, but be sure you get a few critics in[90]
the audience. Have your criticisms translated, and
get them republished in American papers. Then, if
you have real merit, you may get a chance.

“The interest in music in the United States at the
present time is phenomenal. European peoples
have no conception of it. Nowhere in the world can
such interest be found. Audiences in different parts
of the country do not differ very greatly from the
standpoint of intelligent appreciation. When we
consider the great uncultured masses of peasants in
Europe and the conditions of our own farmers,
especially in the West, there is no basis of comparison.
America is already a musical country, a very musical
country. It is only in its failure to properly support
native musicians that we are subject to criticism.

Practical Suggestions

“To the young man or woman who would learn
‘The Secret of Public Appearance’ I would say:

“1. Look deeply into your natural qualifications.
Use every morsel of judgment you possess to endeavor
to determine whether you are talented or
simply ‘clever’ at music. Court the advice of unbiased
professional musicians and meditate upon the
difficulties leading to a successful career, and do not
decide to add one more musician to the world until
you are confident of your suitability for the work.
Remember that this moment of decision is a very
important time and that you may be upon the threshold
of a dangerous mistake. Remember that there[91]
are thousands of successful and happy teachers for
one successful virtuoso.

“2. After you have determined to undertake the
career of the concert performer let nothing stand
in the way of study, except the consideration of
your health. Success with a broken-down body
and a shattered mind is a worthless conquest. Remember
that if you wish a permanent position you
must be thoroughly trained in all branches of your
art.

“3. Avoid charlatanism and the kind of advertisement
that will bring you notoriety at the sacrifice of
your self-respect and the respect of your best friends.
Remember that real worth is, after all, the thing that
brings enduring fame.

“4. Study the public. Seek to find out what
pleases it, but never lower the standards of your art.
Read the best literature. Study pictures. Travel.
Broaden your mind. Acquire general culture.

“5. Be careful of your stage deportment. Endeavor
to do nothing at the keyboard that will emphasize
any personal eccentricity. Always be sincere
and true to your own nature, but within these
limits try to make a pleasing impression.

“6. Always be your own severest critic. Be not
easily satisfied with yourself. Hitch your wagon to
a star. Let your standard of perfection be the very
highest. Always strive to reach that standard.
Never play in public a piece that you have not
thoroughly mastered. There is nothing more valuable[92]
than public confidence. Once secured, it is the greatest
asset an artist can possess.

“I have repeatedly been asked to give ten rules for
practice.

“It is not possible to formulate ten all-comprehensive
rules that could be applied in every case, but the
following suggestions will be found valuable to many
students:

“1. Concentrate during every second of your practice.
To concentrate means to bring all your thinking
powers to bear upon one central point with the
greatest possible intensity. Without such concentration
nothing can be accomplished during the practice
period. One hour of concentrated thinking is worth
weeks of thoughtless practice. It is safe to say that
years are being wasted by students in this country
who fail to get the most out of their practice because
they do not know how to concentrate. A famous
thinker has said: ‘The evidence of superior genius
is the power of intellectual concentration.’

“2. Divide your practice time into periods of not
more than two hours. You will find it impossible to
concentrate properly if you attempt to practice more
than two hours at a time. Do not have an arbitrary
program of practice work, for this course is liable to
make your work monotonous. For one who practices
four hours (and that is enough for almost any student),
one hour for purely technical work, one hour for Bach,
and two hours for pieces is to be recommended.

“3. In commencing your practice, play over your[93]
piece once or twice before beginning to memorize.
Then, after working through the entire composition,
pick out the more difficult passages for special attention
and reiteration.

“4. Always practice slowly at first. This is
simply another way of telling the pupil to concentrate.
Even after you have played your piece at the required
speed and with reasonable confidence that it
is correct, never fail to go back now and then and
play it at the speed at which you learned it. This
is a practice which many virtuosos follow. Pieces
that they have played time and time again before
enthusiastic audiences are re-studied by playing them
very slowly. This is the only real way to undo mistakes
that are bound to creep into one’s performance
when pieces are constantly played in a rapid tempo.

“5. Do not attempt to practice your whole piece
at first. Take a small section or even a phrase. If
you take a longer section than say sixteen bars, you
will find it difficult to avoid mistakes. Of course, when
the piece is mastered you should have all these sections
so unified that you can play the entire composition
smoothly and without a break.

“6. First memorize mentally the section you have
selected for study, and then practice it. If you do
not know it well enough to practice it from memory,
you have not grasped its musical content, but are
playing mechanically.

“7. Occasionally memorize backwards, that is,
take the last few measures and learn them thoroughly,[94]
then take the preceding measures and continue in
this way until the whole is mastered. Even after
you have played the piece many times, this process
often compels a concentration that is beneficial.

“8. When studying, remember that practice is
simply a means of cultivating habits. If you play
correctly from the start you will form good habits;
if you play carelessly and faultily your playing
will grow continually worse. Consequently, play so
slowly and correctly from the start that you may
insure the right fingering, phrasing, tone, touch
(staccato, legato, portamento, etc.), pedaling and
dynamic effects. If you postpone the attainment of
any of these qualities to a later date they are much
more difficult to acquire.

“9. Always listen while you are playing. Music is
intended to be heard. If you do not listen to your
own playing it is very probable that other people
will not care to listen to it either.

“10. Never attempt to play anything in public
that you have just finished studying. When you are
through working upon a piece, put it away to be
musically digested, then after some time repeat the
same process, and again the third time, when your
piece will, have become a part of yourself.”

[95]

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES IV

fanny bloomfield-zeisler

[96]

FERRUCCIO BENVENUTO BUSONI

Biographical

Ferruccio Benvenuto Busoni was born at Empoli,
near Florence, Italy, April 1, 1866. His father was a
clarinetist and his mother whose maiden name was
Weiss, indicating her German ancestry was an excellent
pianist. His first teachers were his parents.
So pronounced was his talent that he made his début
at the age of eight in Vienna, Austria. He then studied
in the Austrian city of Graz with W. A. Remy,
whose right name was Dr. Wilhelm Mayer. This
able teacher aside from being a learned jurist was also
devoted to music and had among his other pupils
no less a person than Felix Weingartner.

In 1881 Busoni toured Italy and was made a member
of the Reale Accademia Filharmonica at Bologna.
In 1886 he went to reside at Leipsic. Two years
later he became teacher of pianoforte at the Helsingfors
Conservatory in the Finnish capital. In 1890
he captured the famous Rubinstein prizes for both
pianoforte and composition. In the same year he
became Professor of pianoforte playing at the Moscow
Imperial Conservatory. The next year he accepted
a similar position in the New England Conservatory
at Boston,—returning to Europe for another tour in
1893. After many successful tours he accepted the
position of director of the Meisterschule at the
Imperial Conservatory in Vienna. His compositions
include over one hundred published opus numbers,
the most pretentious probably being his Choral
Concerto. His editions of Bach are masterpieces of
technical and artistic erudition.

(The following Conference was conducted in
English.)

ferruccio b. busoni

[97]

VII

IMPORTANT DETAILS IN PIANO STUDY

ferruccio benvenuto busoni

The Significance of the Detail

“Some years ago I met a very famous artist whose
celebrity rested upon the wonderful colored glass windows
that he had produced. He was considered by
most of his contemporaries the greatest of all makers
of high-art windows. His fame had extended throughout
the artistic circles of all Europe. A little remark
he made to me illustrates the importance of detail
better than anything of which I can think at present.

“He said, ‘If a truly great work of art in the form
of a stained glass window should be accidentally
shattered to little bits, one should be able to estimate
the greatness of the whole window by examining one
of the fragments even though all the other pieces were
missing.’

“In fine piano playing all of the details are important.
I do not mean to say that if one were in
another room that one could invariably tell the
ability of an artist by hearing him strike one note,
but if the note is heard in relation to the other notes
in a composition, its proportionate value should be
so delicately and artistically estimated by the highly
trained performer, that it forms part of the artistic
whole.[98]

“For instance, it is quite easy to conceive of compositions
demanding a very smooth running performance
in which one jarring or harsh note indicating
faulty artistic calculation upon the part of
the player would ruin the entire interpretation. As
examples of this one might cite the Bach Choral Vorspiel,
Nun Freut euch, of which I have made an arrangement,
and such a composition as the Chopin
Prelude Opus 28, No. 3, with its running accompaniment
in the left hand.

“It is often perfection in little things which distinguishes
the performance of the great pianist from
that of the novice. The novice usually manages to
get the so-called main points, but he does not work
for the little niceties of interpretation which are
almost invariably the defining characteristic of the
interpretations of the real artist—that is, the performer
who has formed the habit of stopping at nothing
short of his highest ideal of perfection.

Learning To Listen

“There is a detail which few students observe which
is of such vast importance that one is tempted to say
that the main part of successful musical progress
depends upon it. This is the detail of learning to
listen. Every sound that is produced during the
practice period should be heard. That is, it should
be heard with ears open to give that sound the intelligent
analysis which it deserves.

“Anyone who has observed closely and taught[99]
extensively must have noticed that hours and hours
are wasted by students strumming away on keyboards
and giving no more attention to the sounds
they produce than would the inmates of a deaf and
dumb asylum. These students all expect to become
fine performers even though they may not aim to
become virtuosos. To them the piano keyboard is
a kind of gymnasium attached to a musical instrument.
They may of course acquire strong fingers,
but they will have to learn to listen before they can
hope to become even passable performers.

“At my own recitals no one in the audience listens
more attentively than I do. I strive to hear every
note and while I am playing my attention is so concentrated
upon the one purpose of delivering the
work in the most artistic manner dictated by the
composer’s demands and my conception of the piece,
that I am little conscious of anything else. I have
also learned that I must continually have my mind
alert to opportunities for improvement. I am always
in quest of new beauties and even while playing in
public it is possible to conceive of new details that
come like revelations.

“The artist who has reached the period when he
fails to be on the outlook for details of this kind and
is convinced that in no possible way could his performances
be improved, has reached a very dangerous
stage of artistic stagnation which will result in the
ruin of his career. There is always room for improvement,
that is the development of new details, and it is[100]
this which gives zest and intellectual interest to the
work of the artist. Without it his public efforts would
become very tame and unattractive.

Self Development

“In my own development as an artist it has been
made evident to me, time and time again, that success
comes from the careful observance of details.
All students should strive to estimate their own
artistic ability very accurately. A wrong estimate
always leads to a dangerous condition. If I had
failed to attend to certain details many years ago, I
would have stopped very far short of anything like
success.

“I remember that when I concluded my term as
professor of piano at the New England Conservatory
of Music I was very conscious of certain deficiencies
in my style. Notwithstanding the fact that I had
been accepted as a virtuoso in Europe and in America
and had toured with great orchestras such as the
Boston Symphony Orchestra, I knew better than
anyone else that there were certain details in my playing
that I could not afford to neglect.

“For instance, I knew that my method of playing
the trill could be greatly improved and I also knew
that I lacked force and endurance in certain passages.
Fortunately, although a comparatively young
man, I was not deceived by the flattery of well-meaning,
but incapable critics, who were quite willing
to convince me that my playing was as perfect as[101]
it was possible to make it. Every seeker of artistic
truth is more widely awake to his own deficiencies
than any of his critics could possibly be.

“In order to rectify the details I have mentioned
as well as some I have not mentioned, I have come
to the conclusion that I must devise an entirely new
technical system. Technical systems are best when
they are individual. Speaking theoretically, every
individual needs a different technical system. Every
hand, every arm, every set of ten fingers, every body
and, what is of greatest importance, every intellect
is different from every other. I consequently endeavored
to get down to the basic laws underlying
the subject of technic and make a system of my own.

“After much study, I discovered what I believed to
be the technical cause of my defects and then I returned
to Europe and for two years I devoted myself
almost exclusively to technical study along the individual
lines I had devised. To my great delight
details that had always defied me, the rebellious
trills, the faltering bravura passages, the uneven
runs, all came into beautiful submission and with them
came a new delight in playing.

Finding Individual Faults

“I trust that my experience will set some ambitious
piano students to thinking and that they may
be benefited by it. There is always a way of correcting
deficiencies if the way can only be found.
The first thing, however, is to recognize the detail[102]
itself and then to realize that instead of being a detail
it is a matter of vast importance until it has
been conquered and brought into submission. In
playing, always note where your difficulties seem to
lie. Then, when advisable, isolate those difficulties
and practice them separately. This is the manner in
which all good technical exercises are devised.

“Your own difficulty is the difficulty which you
should practice most. Why waste time in practicing
passages which you can play perfectly well? One
player may have difficulty in playing trills, while to
another player of equal general musical ability trills
may be perfectly easy. In playing arpeggios, however,
the difficulties which prove obstacles to the
players may be entirely reversed. The one who
could play the trill perfectly might not be able, under
any circumstance, to play an arpeggio with the requisite
smoothness and true legato demanded, while
the student who found the trill impossible possesses
the ability to run arpeggios and cadenzas with the
fluency of a forest rivulet.

“All technical exercises must be given to the pupil
with great discretion and judgment just as poisonous
medicines must be administered to the patient with
great care. The indiscriminate giving of technical
exercises may impede progress rather than advance
the pupil. Simply because an exercise happens to
come in a certain position in a book of technical exercises
is no reason why the particular pupil being
taught needs that exercise at that particular time.[103]
Some exercises which are not feasible and others
which are inexpedient at a certain time, may prove
invaluable later in the pupil’s progress.

“Take the famous Tausig exercises, for instance.
Tausig was a master of technic who had few, if any,
equals in his time. His exercises are for the most
part very ingenious and useful to advanced players,
but when some of them are transposed into other
keys as their composer demands they become practically
impossible to play with the proper touch, etc.
Furthermore, one would be very unlikely to find
a passage demanding such a technical feat in the
compositions of any of the great masters of the
piano. Consequently, such exercises are of no practical
value and would only be demanded by a teacher
with more respect for tradition than common sense.

Details of Phrasing and Accentuation

“Some students look upon phrasing as a detail
that can be postponed until other supposedly more
important things are accomplished. The very musical
meaning of any composition depends upon the
correct understanding and delivery of the phrases
which make that composition. To neglect the
phrases would be about as sensible as it would be
for the great actor to neglect the proper thought
division in the interpretation of his lines. The
greatest masterpiece of dramatic literature whether
it be Romeo and Juliet, Antigone, La Malade Imaginaire
or The Doll’s House becomes nonsense if the[104]
thought divisions indicated by the verbal phrases are
not carefully determined and expressed.

“Great actors spend hours and hours seeking for
the best method of expressing the author’s meaning.
No pianist of ability would think of giving less careful
attention to phrasing. How stupid it would be
for the actor to add a word that concluded one sentence
to the beginning of the next sentence. How
erroneous then is it for the pupil to add the last note
of one phrase to the beginning of the next phrase.
Phrasing is anything but a detail.

“Fine phrasing depends first upon a knowledge of
music which enables one to define the limitations of
the phrase and then upon a knowledge of pianoforte
playing which enables one to execute it properly.
Phrasing is closely allied to the subject of accentuation
and both subjects are intimately connected with
that of fingering. Without the proper fingers it is
often impossible to execute certain phrases correctly.
Generally, the accents are considered of importance
because they are supposed to fall in certain set parts
of given measures, thus indicating the meter.

“In instructing very young pupils it may be necessary
to lead them to believe that the time must be
marked in a definite manner by such accents, but as
the pupil advances he must understand that the
measure divisions are inserted principally for the
purpose of enabling him to read easily. He should
learn to look upon each piece of music as a beautiful
tapestry in which the main consideration is[105]
the principal design of the work as a whole and not
the invisible marking threads which the manufacturer
is obliged to put in the loom in order to have
a structure upon which the tapestry may be woven.

Bach, Bach, Bach

“In the study of the subject of accentuation and
phrasing it would not be possible for anyone to
recommend anything more instructive than the
works of Johann Sebastian Bach. The immortal
Thüringian composer was the master-weaver of all.
His tapestries have never been equalled in refinement,
color, breadth and general beauty. Why is
Bach so valuable for the student? This is an easy
question to answer. It is because his works are
so constructed that they compel one to study these
details. Even if the student has only mastered the
intricacies of the Two Voice Inventions, it is safe to
say that he has become a better player. More than
this, Bach forces the student to think.

“If the student has never thought before during
his practice periods, he will soon find that it is quite
impossible for him to encompass the difficulties of
Bach without the closest mental application. In fact,
he may also discover that it is possible for him to
work out some of his musical problems while away
from the keyboard. Many of the most perplexing
musical questions and difficulties that have ever
confronted me have been solved mentally while I[106]
have been walking upon the street or lying in bed at
night.

“Sometimes the solution of difficult details comes
in the twinkling of an eye. I remember that when
I was a very young man I was engaged to play a
concerto with a large symphony orchestra. One
part of the concerto had always troubled me, and I
was somewhat apprehensive about it. During one
of the pauses, while the orchestra was playing, the
correct interpretation came to me like a flash. I
waited until the orchestra was playing very loud
and made an opportunity to run over the difficult
passage. Of course, my playing could not be heard
under the tutti of the orchestra, and when the time
came for the proper delivery of the passage it was
vastly better than it would have been otherwise.

“I never neglect an opportunity to improve, no
matter how perfect a previous interpretation may
have seemed to me. In fact, I often go directly home
from the concert and practice for hours upon the
very pieces that I have been playing, because during
the concert certain new ideas have come to me. These
ideas are very precious, and to neglect them or to
consider them details to be postponed for future development
would be ridiculous in the extreme.”

[107]

Questions on Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Piano Playing

SERIES V

ferruccio benvenuto busoni

[108]

TERESA CARREÑO

Biographical

Teresa Carreño was born at Caracas, Venezuela,
December 22, 1853. She descended from one of the
foremost families of Spanish America, which boasted
of Simon Bolivar “the Washington of South America”
as one of its members. Artists have been known
among her ancestors as far back as the fourteenth
century when the famous painter Carreño lived in
Spain.

Mme. Carreño’s first teacher was her father.
Later she studied with a German teacher in her
native country. At seven she played the Rondo
Capriccio of Mendelssohn with great éclat. A revolution
obliged the Carreño family to move to New York.
The death of a friend to whom funds had been entrusted
placed the party of eighteen refugees in dire
straits and a concert was arranged at which the tiny
Teresa came to the front and secured sufficient means
for their existence.

Gottschalk, then in the height of his fame in New
York, became the child’s next teacher. She remained
with him for two years. Then she went to Paris
and became a pupil of Georges Mathias, the famous
disciple of Chopin. Her success as a virtuoso pianist
in Europe excited the attention of Rubinstein who
devoted a great deal of time to giving her invaluable
advice and instruction in interpretation. Indeed
Rubinstein was so proud of her that he repeatedly
introduced her as his daughter in art and would
jokingly say “Are not our hands exactly alike?”

Mme. Carreño’s brilliance, force, breadth of thought
and almost sensuous love for the beautiful made her
numerous tours through all of the music-loving countries
remarkably successful.

teresa carreño

[109]

VIII

DISTINCTIVE PIANO PLAYING

teresa carreño

Early Evidences of Individuality

It is difficult for me to discuss the subject of individuality
without recollecting one of the most impressive
and significant events of my entire career.
When I was taken to Europe as a child, for further
study, it was my good fortune to meet and play for
the immortal Franz Liszt. He seemed deeply interested
in my playing, and with the kindliness for which
he was always noted he gave me his blessing, a kind of
artistic sacrament that has had a tremendous influence
upon all my work as an artist. He laid his hand upon
my head and among other things said: “Little girl,
with time you will be one of us. Don’t imitate anyone.
Keep yourself true to yourself. Cultivate your
individuality and do not follow blindly in the paths
of others.”

In this one thought Liszt embodied a kind of a
pedagogical sermon which should be preached every
day in all the schools, conservatories and music
studios of the world. Nothing is so pitiful as the
evidences of a strong individuality crushed out by an
artificial educational system which makes the system
itself of paramount importance and the individual of
microbic significance.[110]

The signs of individuality may be observed in little
folks at a very early age. With some children they
are not very pronounced, and the child seems like
hundreds of others without any particular inclination,
artistic or otherwise. It is then that the teacher’s
powers of divination should be brought into play.
Before any real progress can be made the nature of
the child must be studied carefully. In the case of
other children, the individuality is very marked at an
early age. As a rule, the child with the marked individuality
is the one from whom the most may be
expected later in life. Sometimes this very individuality
is mistaken for precocity. This is particularly
the case with musicians. In a few instances the
individuality of the master has been developed late
in life, as was the case of Richard Wagner, whose
early individual tendencies were toward the drama
rather than music.

New Problems at Every Step

The teacher in accepting a new pupil should realize
that there at once arises new problems at every step.
The pupil’s hand, mind, body and soul may be in
reality different from those of every other pupil the
teacher has taught. The individual peculiarities of
the hand should be carefully considered. If the hand
has long, tapering fingers, with the fingers widely
separated, it will need quite different treatment from
that of the pupil with a short, compact, muscular
hand. If the pupil’s mind indicates mental lethargy[111]
or a lack of the proper early educational training, this
must be carefully considered by the teacher.

If the pupil’s body is frail and the health uncertain,
surely the teacher will not think of prescribing the
same work she would prescribe for a robust, energetic
pupil who appears never to have had a sick day. One
pupil might be able to practice comfortably for four
and five hours a day, while another would find her
energy and interest exhausted in two hours. In fact, I
would consider the study of individuality the principal
care or study of the teacher.

The individuality of different virtuoso performers
is very marked. Although the virtuoso aspires to
encompass all styles—that is, to be what you would
call an “all-around” player—it is, nevertheless, the
individuality of the player that adds the additional
charm to the piano-recital. You hear a great masterpiece
executed by one virtuoso, and when you hear
the same composition played by another you will
detect a difference, not of technical ability or of artistic
comprehension, but rather of individuality. Rembrandt,
Rubens and Vandyke might have all painted
from the same model, but the finished portrait would
have been different, and that difference would have
been a reflection of the individuality of the artist.

The Teacher’s Responsibility

Again let me emphasize the necessity for the correct
“diagnosis” of the pupil’s individuality upon the part
of the teacher. Unless the right work is prescribed[112]
by the teacher, the pupil will rarely ever survive
artistically. It is much the same as with the doctor.
If the doctor gives the wrong medicine and the patient
dies, surely the doctor is to blame. It makes no difference
whether the doctor had good intentions or not.
The patient is dead and that is the end of all. I have
little patience with these people who have such
wonderful intentions, but who have neither the ability,
courage nor willingness to carry out these intentions.
Many teachers would like to accomplish a very great
deal for their pupils, but alas! they are either not able
or they neglect those very things which make the
teacher’s work a mission. One of the teacher’s greatest
responsibilities lies in determining at first upon a
rational educational course by divining the pupil’s
individuality. Remember that pupils are not all
like sheep to be shorn in the same identical fashion
with the same identical shears.

Edward MacDowell’s Individuality

One of the most remarkable cases of a pronounced
musical individuality was that of the late Edward
MacDowell, who came to me for instruction for a
considerable time. He was then quite youthful,
and his motives from the very first were of the highest
and noblest. His ideals were so lofty that he required
little stimulation or urging of any kind. Here it was
necessary to study the pupil’s nature very carefully,
and provide work that would develop his keenly artistic
individuality. I remember that he was extremely[113]
fond of Grieg, and the marked and original character
of the Norwegian tone-poet made a deep impression
upon him. He was poetical, and loved to study and
read poetry. To have repressed MacDowell in a
harsh or didactic manner would have been to have
demolished those very characteristics which, in later
years, developed in such astonishing fashion that his
compositions have a distinctiveness and a style all
their own.

It gives me great pleasure to place his compositions
upon my programs abroad, and I find that they are
keenly appreciated by music lovers in the old world.
If MacDowell had not had a strong individuality, and
if he had not permitted this individuality to be developed
along normal lines, his compositions would
not be the treasures to our art that they are.

Developing Individuality Through Poetry

If the teacher discovers a pupil with apparent musical
talent, but whose nature has not been developed
to appreciate the beautiful and romantic in this
wonderful world of ours, he will find it quite impossible
to alter the pupil’s individuality in this respect by work
at the keyboard alone. The mundane, prosaic individual
who believes that the sole aim of musical
study is the acquisition of technic, or the magic of
digital speed, must be brought to realize that this is
a fault of individuality which will mar his entire career
unless it is intelligently corrected. Years and years
spent in practice will not make either a musician or a[114]
virtuoso out of one who can conceive of nothing more
than how many times he can play a series of notes
within the beats of the metronome, beating 208 times
a minute.

Speed does not constitute virtuosity, nor does the
ability to unravel the somewhat intricate keyboard
puzzles of Bach and Brahms make in itself fine piano
playing. The mind of the artist must be cultured;
in fact, quite as cultured as that of the composer who
conceived the music. Culture comes from the observation
of many things: Nature, architecture,
science, machinery, sculpture, history, men and
women, and poetry. I advise aspiring music students
to read a great deal of poetry.

I find great inspiration in Shakespeare, inspiration
which I know is communicated to my interpretations
of musical masterpieces at my concerts. Who can
remain unmoved by the mystery and psychology of
Hamlet, the keen suffering and misery of King Lear,
the bitter hate and revenge of Othello, the sweet devotion
of Romeo and Juliet, the majesty of Richard
III, and the fairy beauty of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream? In this wonderful kaleidoscope of all the
human passions one can find a world of inspiration.
I am also intensely fond of Goethe, Heine, and Alfred
de Musset. It gives me pleasure to compare them to
the great masters of music. Shakespeare I compare
to Brahms, Goethe to Bach and Beethoven, and Heine
and Musset to Chopin and Liszt.

[115]

Cultivating Vivacity and Brilliancy

Vivacity and brilliancy in playing are largely matters
of temperament and a fluent technic. I owe
a great deal in this respect to Gottschalk. When
he came back to America fresh from the hands of
the inimitable Chopin, he took the most minute
pains to cultivate this characteristic in my playing.
Chopin’s own playing was marked by delicacy and
an intensity that was apart from the bravura playing
of most of the artists of his time. Gottschalk was a
keen observer, and he did everything possible to
impart this style to me. I have used the studies of
Czerny, Liszt, Henselt and Clementi to develop
brilliancy with pupils.

It should be remembered that the root of all brilliant
playing lies in one thing—accuracy. Without accuracy
any attempt at brilliancy must result in “mussiness.”
It is impossible to explain these things by
means of books and theories. Remember what
Goethe says: “Alle Theorie is grau, mein Freund”
(all theory is foggy or hard to comprehend). One
can say fifty times as much in twenty minutes as one
can put in a book. Books are necessary, but by no
means depend entirely upon books for technical
instruction.

Individuals who are careless possess a trait that
will seriously mar their individuality as musicians
and artists. Carelessness is so often taken for
“abandon” in playing. “Abandon” is something[116]
quite different and pertains to that unconsciousness
of technical effort which only comes to the artist
after years of practice. To play with “abandon”
and miss a few notes in this run, play a few false notes
in the next, strike the wrong bass note here and
there, mumble trills and overlook the correct phrasing
entirely, with the idea that you are doing the same
thing you have seen some great virtuoso do, is simply
the superlative degree of carelessness.

To one whose individuality is marred by carelessness
let me recommend very slow playing, with the
most minute attention to detail. Technically speaking,
Czerny and Bach are of great value in correcting
carelessness. In Czerny the musical structure of
the compositions is so clearly and openly outlined
that any error is easily detected, while in Bach the
structure is so close and compact that it is difficult
to make an error without interrupting the movement
of some other voice that will reveal the error. The
main consideration, however, is personal carefulness,
and it makes little difference what the study is, so
long as the student himself takes great pains to see
that he is right, and exactly right, before he attempts
to go ahead. Most musicians, however, would say
that Bach was the one great stone upon which our
higher technical structure must firmly stand.

Some individuals are so superficial and so “frothy”
that it is difficult to conceive of their doing anything
serious or really worth while. It is very hard
for the teacher to work with such a pupil, because[117]
they have not realized themselves as yet. They
have not looked into their lives and discerned those
things which make life of most importance. Life
is not all play, nor is it all sorrow. But sorrow
often does much to develop the musician’s character,
to make him look into himself and discover his more
serious purposes. This might also be accomplished
by some such means of self-introspection as “Christian
Science.” Although I am not a “Christian
Scientist,” I am a great believer in its wonderful
principles.

The greatest care must be taken in developing
the individualities of the superficial pupils. To give
them Bach or Brahms at the outstart would be to
irritate them. They must be led to a fondness for
music of a deeper or more worthy character by
gradual steps in that direction. In my own case
I was fortunate in having the advice of mature and
famous musicians, and as a child was given music
of a serious order only. I have always been grateful
for this experience. At one of my first New York
concerts I had the honor of having Theodore Thomas
as first violinist, and I well remember his natural
bent for music of a serious order, which was in a
decided contrast to the popular musical taste of the
times.

The Importance of Studying Musical History

Every composer has a pronounced individuality.
To the experienced musician this individuality be[118]comes
so marked that he can often detect the composer’s
style in a composition which he has never
heard. The artist studies the individuality of the
composer through the study of his biography, through
the study of musical history in general and through
the analysis of individual compositions.

Every music student should be familiar with the
intensely necessary and extremely valuable subject
of musical history. How else can he become familiar
with the personal individualities of the great composers?
The more I know of Chopin, Beethoven,
Scarlatti or Mendelssohn as men, and the more I
know of the times in which they lived, the closer I
feel to the manner in which they would have wished
their compositions interpreted. Consider how markedly
different are the individualities of Wagner and
Haydn, and how different the interpretations of the
works of these masters should be.

Strauss and Debussy are also very different in
their methods of composition. Strauss seems to
me a tremendous genius who is inventing a new
musical language as he goes. Debussy does not
appeal to me in the same manner. He always seems
to be groping for musical ideas, while with Strauss
the greatness of his ideas is always evident and all-compelling.

In closing, let me say that Time, Experience and
Work are the moulders of all individuality. Few of
us close our days with the same individualities which
become evident in our youth. We are either grow[119]ing
better or worse all the time. We rarely stand
still. To the musician work is the great sculptor
of individuality. As you work and as you think, so
will you be. No deed, no thought, no hope is too
insignificant to fail to influence your nature. As
through work we become better men and women,
so through work do we become better musicians.
Carlyle has beautifully expressed this thought in
“Past and Present” thus: “The latest Gospel in this
world is, ‘Know thy work and do it.’ Blessed is he
who has found his work; let him ask no other
blessedness. He has a WORK, a life purpose; he
has found it and will follow it.”

Questions on Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Piano Playing

SERIES VI

teresa carreño

o. gabrilowitsch

OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH

[121]

Biographical

Ossip Gabrilowitsch was born in St. Petersburg,
February 8, 1878. His father was a well-known
jurist of the Russian capital. His brothers were
musical and his first teacher was one of his brothers.
Later, he was taken to Anton Rubinstein who earnestly
advocated a career as a virtuoso. Accordingly he
entered the classes of Victor Tolstoff at the St. Petersburg
Conservatory, then under the supervision of
Rubinstein himself. His frequent personal conferences
with the latter were of immense value to
him. Thereafter he went to Vienna and studied
with Leschetizky for two years. He has made many
tours of Europe and America as a piano virtuoso
and has also appeared as an orchestral conductor
with pronounced success. He was a great friend of
the late Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) and
married one of his daughters.

(The following conference was conducted in English.)

[122]

IX

ESSENTIALS OF TOUCH

ossip gabrilowitsch

“Modern pianoforte teachers in many instances
seem to make deliberate attempts to complicate the
very simple matter of touch. In the final analyses
the whole study of touch may be resolved into two
means of administering force to the keyboard, i. e.,
weight and muscular activity. The amount of pressure
brought to bear upon the keys depends upon
the amount of arm weight and upon the quickness
with which the muscles of the hand, forearm, full-arm
and back permit the key to be struck. Upon
these two means of administering force must depend
whatever differentiation in dynamic power and
tonal quality the player desires to produce. The
various gradations of tone which the virtuoso’s hand
and arm are trained to execute are so minute that
it is impossible for me to conceive of a scientific
instrument or scale to measure them. Physiologists
have attempted to construct instruments to do this,
but little of value has come from such experiments.

A Rigid Arm Undesirable

“Only a comparatively few years ago thousands
of teachers were insisting upon having their pupils
keep the arms in a still, even rigid, condition during[123]
practice. This naturally resulted in the stiffest
imaginable kind of a touch, and likewise in a mechanical
style of playing that made what has come to be
known in later days as ‘tone color’ impossible.

“At this day the finger touch as it was formerly
known has almost gone out of existence. By finger
touch I refer to the old custom of holding the hand
and forearm almost rigid and depending upon the
muscular strength of the fingers for all tonal effects.
In fact, I so rarely employ the finger touch, except
in combination with the arm touch, that it is almost
an insignificant factor as far as my own playing is
concerned. By this the reader must not think that
the training of the fingers, and particularly the finger
tips, is to be neglected. But this training, to my
mind, is not so much a matter of acquiring digital
strength to produce force as to accustom the fingers
to strike the notes with the greatest possible accuracy
and speed. This belongs rather to the realm of
technic than to that of touch, and behind all technic
is the intellect of the player. Technic is a matter of
training the finger tips to attack and leave the keys
under the absolute discipline of the brain. Touch
has a much broader and wider significance. It is
touch that reveals the soul of the player.

Touch a Distinguishing Characteristic

“Touch is the distinguishing characteristic which
makes one player’s music sound different from that
of another, for it is touch that dominates the player’s[124]
means of producing dynamic shading or tone quality.
I know that many authorities contend that the
quality of tone depends upon the instrument rather
than upon the performer. Nevertheless, I am
reasonably confident that if I were to hear a number
of pianists play in succession upon the same instrument
behind a screen and one of these performers
were to be my friend, Harold Bauer, I could at once
identify his playing by his peculiarly individual touch.
In fact, the trained ear can identify different individual
characteristics with almost the same accuracy
that we identify different voices. One could never
forget Leschetizky’s touch, or that of many another
contemporary pianist.

“No matter how wonderful the pianist’s technic—that
is, how rapidly and accurately he can play passages
of extraordinary difficulty, it is quite worthless
unless he possesses that control over his touch
which enables him to interpret the composer’s work
with the right artistic shading. A fine technic without
the requisite touch to liberate the performer’s
artistic intelligence and ‘soul’ is like a gorgeous
chandelier without the lights. Until the lights are
ignited all its beauty is obscured in darkness. With
an excellent technic and a fine touch, together with
a broad musical and general education and artistic
temperament, the young player may be said to be
equipped to enter the virtuoso field.

[125]

Combining Different Touches

“As I have intimated, if the fingers are used exclusively
a terribly dry tone must result. The full-arm
touch, in which I experience a complete relaxation
of the arm from the shoulder to the finger tips,
is the condition I employ at most times. But the
touches I use are combinations of the different finger,
hand and arm touches. These lead to myriads of
results, and only the experienced performer can
judge where they should be applied to produce desired
effects.

“You will observe by placing your hand upon my
shoulder that even with the movement of the single
finger a muscular activity may be detected at the
shoulder. This shows how completely relaxed I keep
my entire arm during performance. It is only in
this way that I can produce the right kind of singing
tone in cantabile passages. Sometimes I use one
touch in one voice and an entirely different touch
in another voice. The combinations are kaleidoscopic
in their multiplicity.

Mechanical Methods Dangerous

“I have never been in favor of the many automatic
and mechanical methods of producing touch.
They are all dangerous to my mind. There is only
one real way of teaching, and that is through the
sense of hearing of the pupil. The teacher should
go to the piano and produce the desired tonal effect,[126]
and the pupil should listen and watch the teacher.
Then the pupil should be instructed to secure a
similar result, and the teacher should persevere until
the audible effect is nearly the same. If the pupil,
working empirically, does not discover the means
leading to this effect, the teacher should call the
pupil’s attention to some of the physical conditions
leading to the result. If the teacher is unable to
play well enough to illustrate this, and to secure
the right kind of touch from his pupils, he has no
business to be a teacher of advanced students. All
the theory in the world will never lead to the proper
results.

“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 virtuo[127]sos.
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 passages
the hand touch is largely used. This is the touch[128]
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[129]
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 ‘God-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[130]
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

[132]

LEOPOLD GODOWSKY

Biographical

Leopold Godowsky was born at Wilna, Russia
(Russian Poland), February 13, 1870. His father
was a physician. When Godowsky 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
protégé of a rich banker of Königsberg. 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-Saëns 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 Godowsky 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.

leopold godowsky

[133]

X

THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TECHNIC

leopold godowsky

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
attitude 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 passages which, because of fingering or unusual
arrangement of the piano keys, are particularly
difficult to perform.

[134]

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 godsend. 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[135]
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.

Inspiring the Student

“Exercises for the mechanical side of pianoforte
playing abound. Czerny alone wrote over one
thousand opus numbers. There have also been valuable
attempts to provide books to assist the student
in his technical work, but it should always be remembered
that this depends first of all upon understanding
and then upon the ability to translate that understanding
to the instrument.

“There can never be any exercises in the emotional
side of the student’s work other than the entire literature
of the instrument. One may as well try to capture
the perfume of the flower as define the require[136]ments
of the emotional in pianoforte playing. A great
deal may be done to inspire the student and suggest
ideas which may bring him to the proper artistic
appreciation of a passage, but it is this very indefinability
which makes the emotional phase one of the
most important of all. Attendance at the recitals
of artistic pianists is of great help in this connection.

“The student, however, may learn a vast amount
about real piano technic and apply his knowledge to
his playing through the medium of the proper studies.
For instance, in the subject of touch alone, there is a
vast store of valuable information which can be gained
from a review of the progressive steps through which
this significant phase of the subject has passed during
the last century. The art of piano playing, considered
apart from that of the similar instruments which preceded
the piano, is very little over one hundred years
old.

Changes in the Mechanism of the Instrument

“During this time many significant changes have
been made in the mechanism of the instrument and in
the methods of manufacture. These changes in the
nature of the instrument have in themselves doubtless
had much to do with changes in methods of touch as
have the natural evolutions coming through countless
experiments made by teachers and performers. Thus
we may speak of the subject of touch as being divided
into three epochs, the first being that of Czerny
(characterized by a stroke touch), the second being[137]
that of the famous Stuttgart Conservatory (characterized
by a pressure touch), and the third or new epoch
which is characterized by weight playing. All my
own playing is based upon the last named method, and
I had the honor of being one of the first to make application
of it when I commenced teaching some twenty
years ago.

The Significance of Weight Playing

“In this method of playing, the fingers are virtually
‘glued to the keys’ in that they leave them the least
possible distance in order to accomplish their essential
aims. This results in no waste motion of any kind,
no loss of power and consequently the greatest possible
conservation of energy. In this manner of playing
the arm is so relaxed that it would fall to the side if the
keyboard were removed from beneath it. Since the
hand and the arm are relaxed the back (top) of the
hand is almost on a level with the forearm.

“The high angular stroke which characterized the
playing of the Czerny epoch and which could hardly
fail to cause tired muscles and unbearably stiff playing,
is seen very little in these days. By means of it the
student was taught to deliver a blow to the keyboard—a
blow which permitted very little modification to the
requirements of modern technic.

“In my experience as a pianist and as a teacher, I
have observed that the weight touch allows the greatest
possible opportunity for the proper application of those
all-important divisions of technic without which piano[138]
playing is not only inartistic, but devoid of all interest.
Weight playing permits nothing to interfere with discriminative
phrasing, complicated rhythmical problems,
the infinitely subtle variation of time for expressive
purposes now classed under the head of
agogics, all shades of dynamic gradation; in fact
everything that falls in the domain of the artist
pianist.

Moulding the Fingers To the Keys

“In weight playing the fingers seem to mould the
piano keys under them, the hand and arm are relaxed,
but never heavy. The maximum of relaxation results
in the minimum of fatigue. In legato playing, for
instance, the fingers rest upon the fleshy part behind
the tip rather than immediately upon the tip as they
would in passage work when the player desired to have
the effect of a string of pearls. The sensation in
legato playing is that of pulling back rather than
striking the keys. In passages where force is required
the sensation is that of pushing.

“Much might be said of the sensibility of the finger
tips as they come in contact with the ivory and ebony
keys. Most every artist has a strong consciousness
that there is a very manifest relation between his emotional
and mental conditions and his tactile sense, that
is his highly developed sense of feeling at the finger
tips on the keyboard. However, the phenomena
may be explained from the psychological standpoint,
it is nevertheless true that the feeling of longing,[139]
yearning, hope or soulful anticipation, for instance,
induces a totally different kind of touch from that of
anger, resentment or hate.

“The artist who is incapable of communicating his
emotions to the keyboard or who must depend upon
artifice to stimulate emotions rarely electrifies his
audiences. Every concert is a test of the artist’s
sincerity, not merely an exhibition of his prowess, or
his acrobatic accomplishments on the keyboard. He
must have some vital message to convey to his audience
or else his entire performance will prove meaningless,
soulless, worthless.

“That which is of great importance to him is to
have the least possible barrier between his artistic
conception of the work he would interpret and the
sounds that are conveyed to the ears of his audience.
If we obliterate the emotional side and depend upon
artifice or what might be called in vulgar parlance
“tricks of the trade,” pianism will inevitably descend
to a vastly lower level. By cultivating a sensibility
in touch and employing the technical means which
will bring the interpreter’s message to the world with
the least possible obstruction, we reach the highest
in the art. Those who would strain at gnats might
contend that with the machinery of the instrument
itself, intervening between the touch at the keyboard
and the sounding wires, would make the influence of
the emotions though the tactile sense (sense of touch)
is wholly negligible. To this I can only reply that
the experience of the artist and the teacher is always[140]
more reliable, more susceptible to finer appreciations
of artistic values than that of the pure theorist, who
views his problems through material rather than
spiritual eyes. Every observing pianist is familiar
with the remarkable influence upon the nerves of the
voice-making apparatus that any emotion makes.
Is it not reasonable to suppose that the finger tips
possess a similar sensibility and that the interpretations
of any highly trained artist are duly affected
through them?

Individuality, Character and Temperament

“Indeed, Individuality, Character and Temperament
are becoming more and more significant in the
highly organized art of pianoforte playing. Remove
these and the playing of the artist again becomes little
better than that of a piano-playing machine. No
machine can ever achieve the distinguishing charm
that this trinity brings to pianoforte playing.
Whether the performer is a ‘genius’ who has carefully
developed the performance of a masterpiece until it
evidences that distinguishing mark of the authoritative
interpretation, or whether he is a ‘talent’ who
improvises as the mood of the moment inspires him
and never plays the same composition twice in anything
like a similar manner, he need not fear the rivalry
of any machine so long as he preserves his individuality,
character and temperament.

[141]

Genius and Work

“The fault with many students, however, is the
very erroneous idea that genius or talent will take
the place of study and work. They minimize the
necessity for a careful painstaking consideration of
the infinite details of technic. To them, the significance
of the developments of Bach, Rameau, and
Scarlatti in fingering means nothing. They are
content with the superficial. They are incapable of
comparing the value of the advances made by Von
Bülow, Tausig and other innovators whose lives were
given to a large extent to the higher development
of the technic of the instrument. They struggle
laboriously at the keyboard, imagining that they are
dealing with the problem of technic, when in reality
they are doing little more than performing a drill
in a kind of musical gymnasium—a necessary drill to
be sure, but at the same time quite worthless unless
directed by a brain trained in the principles of the
technic of the art.

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES VIII

leopold godowsky

katharine goodson

KATHARINE GOODSON

[143]

Biographical

Miss Katharine Goodson was born at Watford,
Herts, England. She commenced the study of music
at so very youthful an age that she made several
appearances in the English Provinces before she
was twelve years of age. Her talent aroused such
interest that she was sent to the Royal Academy of
Music in London. There she was placed under the
artistic guidance of one of the foremost English
teachers of pianoforte, Oscar Beringer, with whom she
remained for six years. This was followed by four
years under Leschetizky in Vienna.

Leschetizky saw splendid opportunities in such
talented and regularly trained material and is said to
have given particularly careful attention to Miss
Goodson. It is not surprising that upon her return
to London Miss Goodson made a profound impression
upon the musical public and laid the foundation for a
splendid reputation. She toured in England, Germany,
Austria and America with great success. In the
Grove Dictionary, her playing is described in the
following manner: “It is marked by an amount of
verve and animation that are most rare with the
younger English pianists. She has a great command
of tone gradation, admirable technical finish, genuine
musical taste and considerable individuality of style.”
In 1903 Miss Goodson married Mr. Arthur Hinton,
one of the most brilliant of modern English composers.

[144]

XI

ANALYZING MASTERPIECES

katharine goodson

The Natural Tendency To Analyze

“Judging from the mischievous investigations of
things in general, which seem so natural for the small
boy to make, it would appear that our tendency to
analyze things is innate. We also have innumerable
opportunities to observe how children, to say nothing
of primitive people, struggle to construct—to put this
and that together for the purpose of making something
new—in other words, to employ the opposite process to
analysis, known as synthesis. Moreover, it does not
demand much philosophy to perceive that all scientific
and artistic progress is based upon these very processes
of analysis and synthesis. We pull things apart
to find out how they are made and what they are made
of. We put them together again to indicate the
mastery of our knowledge.

“The measure of musicianship is the ability to do.
All the analyzing in the world will not benefit the
pupil unless he can give some visible indications of his
proficiency. Indeed, important as the process is,
it is possible to carry it to extremes and neglect the
building process which leads to real accomplishment.

[145]

The First Step in Analyzing a New Piece

“A great many of the pupils who have come to me
indicate a lamentable neglect in an understanding of
the very first things which should have been analyzed
by the preparatory teachers. It is an expensive
process to study with a public artist unless the preparation
has been thoroughly made. Reputation
naturally places a higher monetary value upon the
services of the virtuoso, and for the student to expect
instruction in elementary points in analysis is obviously
an extravagance. The virtuoso’s time during
the lesson period should be spent in the finer study of
interpretation—not in those subjects which the elementary
teacher should have completed. Often the
teacher of an advanced pupil is deceived at the start
and assumes that the pupil has a knowledge, which
future investigations reveal that he does not possess.

“For instance, the pupil should be able to determine
the general structure of a piece he is undertaking
and should be so familiar with the structure that it
becomes a form of second nature to him. If the
piece is a sonata he should be able to identify the
main theme and the secondary theme whenever they
appear or whenever any part of them appears. Inability
to do this indicates the most superficial kind of
study.

“The student should know enough of the subject of
form in general to recognize the periods into which
the piece is divided. Without this knowledge how[146]
could he possibly expect to study with understanding?
Even though he has passed the stage when it is necessary
for him to mark off the periods, he should not
study a new piece without observing the outlines—the
architectural plans the composer laid down in constructing
the piece. It is one thing for a Sir Christopher
Wren to make the plans of a great cathedral
like St. Paul’s and quite another thing for him to get
master builders to carry out those plans. By studying
the composer’s architectural plan carefully the
student will find that he is saving an immense amount
of time. For example, let us consider the Chopin F
Minor Fantasie. In this composition the main theme
comes three times, each time in a different key.
Once learned in one key, it should be very familiar
in the next key.

“The student should also know something of the
history of the dance, and he should be familiar with
the characteristics of the different national dances.
Each national dance form has something more than a
rhythm—it has an atmosphere. The word atmosphere
may be a little loose in its application here, but
there seems to be no other word to describe what I
mean. The flavor of the Spanish bolero is very different
from the Hungarian czardas, and who could
confound the intoxicating swirl of the Italian tarantella
with the stately air of cluny lace and silver rapiers
which seems to surround the minuet? The minuet,
by the way, is frequently played too fast. The
minuet from Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony is a[147]
notable example. Many conductors have made the
error of rushing through it. Dr. Hans Richter conducts
it with the proper tempo. This subject in
itself takes a tremendous amount of consideration and
the student should never postpone this first step in
the analysis of the works he is to perform.

The Poetic Idea of the Piece

“Despite the popular impression that music is
imitative in the sense of being able to reproduce different
pictures and different emotions, it is really very
far from it. The subject of program music and illustrative
music is one of the widest in the art, and at the
same time one of the least definite. Except in cases
like the Beethoven Pastoral Symphony, where the
composer has made obvious attempts to suggest rural
scenes, composers do not as a rule try to make either
aquarelles or cycloramas with their music. They
write music for what it is worth as music, not as scenery.
Very often the public or some wily publisher
applies the title, as in the case of the Moonlight
Sonata or some of the Mendelssohn Songs Without
Words. Of course there are some notable exceptions,
and many teachers may be right in trying to stimulate
the sluggish imaginations of some pupils with fanciful
stories. However, when there is a certain design in a
piece which lends itself to the suggestion of a certain
idea, as does, for instance, the Liszt-Wagner Spinning
Song from the Flying Dutchman, it is interesting to
work with a specific picture in view—but never for[148]getting
the real beauty of the piece purely as a beautiful
piece of music.

“Some pieces with special titles are notoriously
misnamed and carry no possible means of definitely
intimating what the composer intended. Even some
forms are misleading in their names. The Scherzos of
Chopin are often very remote from the playful
significance of the word—a significance which is
beautifully preserved in the Scherzos of Mendelssohn.

Studying the Rhythm

“A third point in analyzing a new piece might be
analyzing the rhythm. It is one thing to understand
or to comprehend a rhythm and another to preserve
it in actual playing. Rhythm depends upon the
arrangement of notes and accents in one or two
measures which give a characteristic swing to the
entire composition. Rhythm is an altar upon which
many idols are smashed. Sometimes one is inclined
to regard rhythm as a kind of sacred gift. Whatever
it may be, it is certainly most difficult to acquire or
better to absorb. A good rhythm indicates a finely
balanced musician—one who knows how and one who
has perfect self-control. All the book study in the
world will not develop it. It is a knack which seems
to come intuitively or ‘all at once’ when it does come.
My meaning is clear to anyone who has struggled with
the problem of playing two notes against three, for
at times it seems impossible, but in the twinkling
of an eye the conflicting rhythms apparently jump[149]
into place, and thereafter the pupil has little difficulty
with them.

“Rhythmic swing is different from rhythm, but is
allied to it as it is allied to tempo. To get the swing—the
impelling force—the student must have played
many pieces which have a tendency to develop this
swing. The big waltzes of Moszkowski are fine for
this. If one of Leschetizky’s pupils had difficulty
with rhythm he almost invariably advised them to go
to hear the concerts of that king of rhythm and dance,
Eduard Strauss. Dances are invaluable in developing
this sense of rhythm—swift-moving dances like
the bolero and the tarantella are especially helpful.
Certain pieces demand a particularly strict observance
of the rhythm, as does the Opus 42 of Chopin,
in which the left hand must adhere very strictly to
the Valse rhythm.

The Analysis of Phrases

“The ability to see the phrases by which a composition
is built, clearly and readily, simplifies the study
of interpretation of a new piece wonderfully. This,
of course, is difficult at first, but with the proper
training the pupil should be able to see the phrases at a
glance, just as a botanist in examining a new flower
would divide it in his mind’s eye into its different
parts. He would never mistake the calyx for a petal,
and he would be able to determine at once the peculiarities
of each part. In addition to the melodic
phrases the pupil should be able to see the metrical[150]
divisions which underlie the form of the piece. He
should be able to tell whether the composition is one
of eight-measure sections or four-measure sections, or
whether the sections are irregular.

“What a splendid thing it would be if little children
at their first lessons were taught the desirability of
observing melodic phrases. Teachers lay great stress
upon hand formation, with the object of getting the
pupil to keep the hand in a perfect condition—a condition
that is the result of a carefully developed habit.
Why not develop the habit of noting the phrases in the
same way? Why not a little mind formation? It is
a great deal nearer the real musical aim than the mere
digital work. The most perfectly formed hand in the
world would be worthless for the musician unless the
mind that operates the hand has had a real musical
training.”

Studying the Harmony

“Every piano student ought to have a knowledge
of harmony. But this knowledge should be a practical
one. What do I mean by a practical knowledge
of harmony? Simply this—a knowledge of harmony
which recognizes the ear as well as the eye. There
are students of harmony who can work out some harmonic
problem with the skill of an expert mathematician
and yet they never for one single moment think
of the music their notes might make. This is due to
the great neglect of the study of ear-training in early
musical education.[151]

“To be able to recognize a chord when you see it on
paper is not nearly such an acquisition as the ability
to recognize the same chord when it is played. The
student who can tell a diminished seventh, or an augmented
sixth at a glance, but who could not identify
the same chords when he saw them through his ears
instead of his eyes is severely handicapped. But how
many musicians can do this? Ear-training should be
one of the first of all studies. It may be acquired
more easily in childhood if the student is not naturally
gifted with it, and it is the only basis of a thorough
knowledge of harmony. The piano teacher cannot
possibly find time to give sufficient instruction in the
subject of harmony at the piano lesson. It demands
a separate period, and in most cases it is necessary
and advisable to have a separate teacher; that is,
one who has made a specialty of harmony.

“The piano itself is of course a great help to the
student in the study of harmony, providing the student
listens all the time he is playing. Few adult
piano students study string instruments, such as the
violin or ‘cello—instruments which cultivate the perception
of hearing far more than can the piano.
For this reason all children should have the advantage
of a course in ear-training. This should not be training
for pitch alone, but for quality of tone as well.
It may be supplemented with exercises in musical
dictation until the pupil is able to write down short
phrases with ease after he has heard them once. A
pupil who has had such a training would make ideal[152]
material for the advanced teacher, and because of the
greatly developed powers of the pupil would be able
to memorize quicker and make much better progress.
In fact, ear-training and harmony lead to great
economy of time. For instance, let us suppose that
the pupil has a chord like the following in a sonata:

If the same chord appeared again in the piece it
would probably be found in the key of the dominant,
thus:

It seems very obvious that if the pupil could perceive
the harmonic relationship between these two
chords he would be spared the trouble of identifying
an entirely different chord when he finds the repetition
of it merely in another key. This is only one of
scores of instances where a knowledge of the harmonic
structure proves to be of constant importance to the
student.

[153]

A Careful Analysis of Touch Effects

“Here again we find an interminable subject.
Although there are only a few principal divisions
into which the subject of touch might be divided,
the number of different subdivisions of these best
known methods of striking the keys to produce
artistic effects is very considerable. The artist working
day in and day out at the keyboard will discover
some subtle touch effects which he will always associate
with a certain passage. He may have no logical
reason for doing this other than that it appeals to his
artistic sense. He is in all probability following no
law but that of his own musical taste and sense of
hearing.

It is this more than anything else which gives individuality
to the playing of the different virtuosos
and makes their efforts so different from the playing
of machines. Time and time again mechanical
efforts have been made to preserve all these infinite
subtilities and some truly wonderful machines have
been invented, but not until the sculptor’s marble can
be made to glow with the vitality of real flesh can
this be accomplished. Wonderful as the mechanical
inventions are there is always something lacking.

“Here, again, ear-training will benefit the pupil
who is studying with a virtuoso teacher. It is impossible
to show exactly how certain touches produce
certain effects. The ear, however, hears these
effects, and if the pupil has the right kind of per[154]sistence
he will work and work until he is able to
reproduce the same effect that he has heard. Then
it will be found that the touch he employs will be
very similar to that used by the virtuoso he has heard.
It may take weeks to show a certain pupil a kind
of touch. The pupil with the trained ear and the
willingness to work might be able to pick up the
same touch and produce the same effect after a few
days. A highly developed sense of hearing is of
immense value to the student who attends concerts
for the purpose of promoting his musical knowledge.

The Responsibilities of the Teacher

“The more one contemplates this subject the more
one realizes the responsibilities of the teacher in
the first years of music study. Of all the pupils
who commence in the art there are but few who make
it a part of their lives; many of those who do continue
find themselves handicapped when they reach the
more advanced stages of the journey, owing to
inefficient early training. At the period when their
time is the most valuable to them they have to take
up studies which should have been mastered eight or
ten years before. The elementary teachers all over
the world have a big responsibility. If they belittle
their work with children and pine for the kind of
teaching which the virtuosos attempt to do, let them
realize that they are in a sense the foundation of the
structure, and although perhaps not as conspicuous as[155]
the spire which towers up into the skies, they are
certainly of equal importance.”

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES IX

katharine goodson

[156]

JOSEF HOFMANN

Biographical

Josef Hofmann was born at Cracow, Russia, January
20, 1877. His father was an exceptionally successful
teacher and was for a time Professor of
Harmony and Composition at the Warsaw Conservatory.
The elder Hofmann’s talents were by no means
limited to teaching, however, since he conducted the
Opera at Warsaw for many performances. He
undertook the training of his son with great care and
since the child showed remarkable promise the musicians
of Russia took an extraordinary interest in him.
He appeared in public at the age of six and before he
was ten years of age he was the most celebrated child
prodigy of his time. He traveled thousands of miles,
including tours of America, playing complicated
classical compositions in a manner which surprised
musicians everywhere. Fortunately for his health
and education his tours were terminated in time for
him to study for the advanced work of the more
mature artist. Accordingly he was placed with the
great Anton Rubinstein with whom he remained for
two years. At seventeen he resumed his concert
work again appearing in Dresden in 1894. By
thoroughly dignified methods, scholarly analysis, and
his natural poetical sense Hofmann introduced new
ideas in virtuosoship which made him immensely popular
at once.

josef hofmann

[157]

XII

PROGRESS IN PIANO STUDY

josef hofmann

The question of progress in pianoforte playing is
one that admits of the widest possible discussion.
One is frequently asked whether the manner of playing
the pianoforte has undergone any change since
the time of Hummel, and, if it has advanced, of
what nature are the advances, and to what particular
condition are the advances due. Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, it will be remembered, was contemporary
with Beethoven, and was, in fact, a kind of bridge
between the old and the new. He made his début
at a concert given by Mozart at Dresden. For a
time he was a kind of assistant kapellmeister to Haydn,
and indeed many at that time thought his works
were quite on a par with those of the great master,
Beethoven. Hummel was a really great virtuoso,
and was noted for his remarkable improvisations.
His style of playing was taken as a model in his time,
and consequently we may safely start with this epoch
by way of example.

What Determines Changes in Playing

It is sometimes said that the changes in the construction
of the piano have caused a different treatment
of it, but this reasoning is superficial, inasmuch[158]
as the structural changes of the instrument itself are
called forth by the ever-increasing demands of the
composer made upon the instrument. So long as the
tone quality, action and nature of the instrument
sufficed for compositions of the type of those of
Domenico Scarlatti, or François Couperin, or Rameau,
there was little need for change, but as the more
modern composers longed for new and more comprehensive
effects, the piano-makers kept up with their
desires and aims. Thus it is that after all is said and
done, the composer, and the composer only, is responsible
for the changes. The literature of the
piano determines them. It is the same in the advancement
of piano technic and interpretation. The
composers conceive new and often radically different
musical ideas. These in turn demand a new manner
of interpretation. This kind of evolution has been
going on continually since the invention of the instrument
and is going on to-day, only it is more difficult
for us to see it in the present than it is to review it
in the past.

The general mental tendencies of the times, the
artistic and cultural influences of the world taken as
a whole, have also had a conspicuous though somewhat
less pronounced share in these matters since
they inevitably exert an influence upon the interpreter.
Speaking from a strictly pianistic point of
view, it is the player’s individuality, influenced by
the factors just stated, which is the determining element
in producing new pianistic tendencies. It is[159]
thus very evident that progress in piano playing since
the epoch of Hummel has been enormous.

The New Technic and the Old

You ask me what are the essential differences
between the modern technic and the technic of the
older periods? It is very difficult to discuss this
question off-hand and it is one which might better
be discussed in an article of a different character.
One difficulty lies in the regrettable tendency of
modern technic toward being a purpose in itself.
Judging from the manner in which some ambitious
young players work, their sole aim is to become
human piano-playing machines quite without any
real musical consciousness. Before radically condemning
this tendency, however, it should be remembered
that it has brought us many undeniable advantages.
It cannot be doubted that we owe to the
ingenious investigators of technical subjects greater
possibilities in effective polyphonic playing, economy
of power and arm motion, larger participation of
the mind in the acquisition of technic, and numerous
other praiseworthy factors in good piano playing.
In the olden days, while technical exercises were by
no means absent, they were not nearly so numerous,
and more time was given to the real musical elements
in the study of the musical compositions themselves.
If the excellent technical ideas to be found in some of
the systems of to-day are employed solely to secure
real musical and artistic effects—that is, effects based[160]
upon known æsthetic principles—the new technic
will prove valuable, and we should be very grateful
for it. However, as soon as it becomes an objective
point in itself and succeeds in eclipsing the higher purposes
of musical interpretation, just so soon should
it be abolished. If the black charcoal sketch which
the artist puts upon canvas to use as an outline shows
through the colors of the finished painting, no masterpiece
will result. Really artistic piano playing is an
impossibility until the outlines of technic have been
erased to make way for true interpretation from the
highest sense of the word. There is much more in
this than most young artists think, and the remedy
may be applied at once by students and teachers in
their daily work.

Technic Since Liszt

Again you ask whether technic has made any significant
advance since the time of Franz Liszt. Here
again you confront me with a subject difficult to
discuss within the confines of a conference. There
is so much to be said upon it. A mere change in
itself does not imply either progress or retrogression.
It is for this reason we cannot speak of progress since
the time of Liszt. To play as Liszt did—that is,
exactly as he did, as a mirror reflects an object—would
not be possible to anyone unless he were endowed
with an individuality and personality exactly
like that of Liszt. Since no two people are exactly
alike, it is futile to compare the playing of any modern[161]
pianist with that of Franz Liszt. To discuss accurately
the playing of Liszt from the purely technical
standpoint is also impossible because so much of
his technic was self-made, and also a mere manual
expression of his unique personality and that which
his own mind had created. He may perhaps never
be equalled in certain respects, but on the other hand
there are unquestionably pianists to-day who would
have astonished the great master with their technics—I
speak technically, purely technically.

Definite Methods are Little More than Stencils

I have always been opposed to definite “methods”—so-called—when
they are given in an arbitrary
fashion and without the care of the intelligent teacher
to adapt special need to special pupils. Methods of
this kind can only be regarded as a kind of musical
stencil, or like the dies that are used in factories to
produce large numbers of precisely similar objects.
Since art and its merits are so strangely dependent
upon individuality (and this includes anatomical
individuality as well as psychological individuality),
an inflexible method must necessarily have a deadening
effect upon its victims.

The question of whether special technical studies
of an arbitrary nature, such as scale studies, should be
extensively used is one which has been widely debated,
and I fear will be debated for years to come. Let us
understand first, there is a wide difference between[162]
studying and practicing. They resemble each other
only in so far as they both require energy and time.
Many sincere and ambitious students make the great
mistake of confounding these two very essential
factors of pianistic success. Study and practice
really are quite widely removed from each other, and
at the same time they are virtually inseparable. The
real difference lies in the amount and quality of the
two elements. Practice means a large number of
repetitions, with a fair amount of attention to mere
correctness of notes, fingering, etc. Under ordinary
circumstances and conditions it usually means a great
sacrifice of time and a comparatively small investment
of mentality.

Study, on the contrary, implies first of all mental
activity of the highest and most concentrated type.
It presupposes absolute accuracy in notes, time, fingerings,
etc., and implies the closest possible attention to
those things which are generally, though erroneously,
regarded as lying outside of technic, such as tonal
beauty, dynamic shading, rhythmical matters, and the
like. Some have the happy gift of combining practice
with study, but this is rare.

Hence, in the question of scale exercises, etc., if the
word “study” is meant in the true sense, I can only
say that the study of scales is more than necessary—it
is indispensable. The pedagogical experts of the
world are practically unanimous upon this subject.
The injunction, “study,” applies not only to scales,
but to all forms of technical discipline, which only too[163]
often are “practiced” without being studied. I will
not deny that mere practicing, as I have defined it,
may bring some little benefit, but this benefit is gained
at an enormous expenditure of time and physical and
mental exertion. Oh! the endless leagues that
ambitious fingers have traveled over ivory keys!
Only too often they race like automobiles on a race-course—in
a circle—and after having gone innumerable
miles, and spent a tremendous amount of energy,
they arrive at the same point from which they started,
exhausted and worn, with very little to show for their
work, and no nearer their real goal than when they
started. The proportion in which mental and physical
activity is compounded, determines, to my mind,
the distinction between practicing and real study.
One might also say that the proportion in which real
study enters into the daily work of the student determines
the success of the student.

The Study of Details Imperative

Study demands that the student shall delve into the
minute details of his art, and master them before he
attempts to advance. Only the most superficial
students fail to do this in these days. All of the better
trained teachers insist upon it, and it is hard for the
pupil to skim through on the thinnest possible theoretical
ice, as they did in past years. The separate study
of embellishments, for instance, is decidedly necessary,
especially in connection with the embellishments
introduced by the writers of the early eighteenth century.[164]

In the study of embellishments it is vitally important
for the student to remember one or two very
important points in connection with his investigation.
One point is the understanding of the nature of the
instrument for which the composer wrote when he
had the embellishment in mind. The instruments of
the early eighteenth century were characterized by a
tone so thin and of such short duration that the composers
and players (and it should be remembered that
in those days practically all of the great composers
played, and most of the great performers were composers)
had to resort to all kind of subterfuges and
tricks to produce the deception of a prolonged tone.
For instance, they had a method of moving the finger
to and fro (sideways) upon a key after it was struck.
Thus they produced a sort of vibrato, not unlike that
of which we have received an overdose in recent years
from violinists and ‘cellists. This vibrato (German,
Bebung) was marked like our modern “shake,” thus,

but if we interpret it as a “shake” we commit a grave
error. We ought never to regard it as a “shake,”
unless it is obviously an integer of the melody.

The other point to be considered in the study of[165]
embellishments is taste, or rather, let me say, “fashion,”
for the fashion of those times which over-indulged
in ornamentation and over-loaded everything
with it, from architecture to dress, was by no means an
insignificant factor in music. The point is important
because it involves the element of “concessions”
which the composers, voluntarily or from habit,
made to the public of their day. I seriously question
the necessity of retaining these often superabundant
embellishments in their entirety, for I contend that
we study antique works on account of their musical
substance and not for the sake of gewgaws and frills
which were either induced by the imperfections of the
instrument or by the vitiated taste of times to which
the composer had to yield willy-nilly.

It is, of course, a very difficult and responsible task
to determine what to retain and what to discard.
This, to a large extent, must depend upon what part
the ornament plays in the melody of the composition,
whether it is really an integral part or an artificial
excrescence. By all means never discard any embellishment
which may serve to emphasize the melodic
curve, or any one which may add to its declamatory
character. A well-educated taste assisted by experience
will be a fairly reliable guide in this matter.
However, it is hardly advisable for amateurs with
limited training to attempt any home editing of this
kind.

Those embellishments which we do regain should in
all cases be executed as the composer of the piece[166]
would desire to hear them executed if he could become
acquainted with the instruments of to-day.
This, of course, places the study of ornamentation
with the many auxiliary musical branches which
demand special and separate attention. Johann
Sebastian Bach’s son, Phillip Emanuel Bach, realized
this, and gave years to the proper exposition of
embellishments. However, the student should realize
that the study of embellishments is only a part of the
great whole and he should not be misled into accepting
every little shake or other little frippery, and then
magnifying it into a matter of more vital importance
than the piece itself.

Well-meaning Advisers

The student should form the habit of determining
things for himself. He will soon find that he will be
surrounded with many well-meaning advisers who, if
they have their own way, may serve to confuse him.
Some virtuosos regard their well-meaning admirers
and entertainers as the worst penalties of the virtuoso
life. Whether they are or are not must, of course,
depend upon the artist’s character. If he accepts
their compliments and courtesies as an expression of
the measure of pleasure they derived from his playing,
he has tacitly allowed for that share in their pleasure
which is due to their power of appreciation, and he can
therefore only rejoice in having provided something
worthy of it. The manner of their expression, the
observations they make, the very wording of their[167]
compliments will reveal, quickly enough, whether he
has a case of real appreciation before him, or a mere
morbid mania to hobnob with celebrities, or at least
with people who by nature of their professional work
are often compelled against their own desires to hold a
more or less exposed position in the public eye. If
he deals with the latter and still allows their compliments
to go further than the physical ear, he must be
a man of a character so weak as to make it doubtful
that he will ever produce anything worthy of sincere
and earnest appreciation. More young students are
misled by blatant flattery than anything else. They
become convinced that their efforts are comparable
with those of the greatest artist, and the desire for
improvement diminishes in direct ratio to the rate in
which their opinion of their own efforts increases.
The student should continually examine his own work
with the same acuteness that he would be expected to
show were he teaching another.

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES X

josef hofmann

josef lhévinne

JOSEF LHÉVINNE

[169]

Biographical

Josef Lhévinne is one of the last noted Russian
pianists to attain celebrity in America. At his first
appearance in New York he amazed the critics and
music lovers by the virility of his style, the comprehensiveness
of his technic and by his finely trained artistic
judgment. Lhévinne was born at Moscow, in 1874.
His father was a professional musician, playing “all instruments
except the piano.” It is not surprising that
his four sons became professional musicians. Three
are pianists and one is a flutist. When Josef was four
his father discovered that he had absolute pitch, and
encouraged by this sign of musical capacity placed the
child under the instruction of some students from the
conservatory. At six Lhévinne became the pupil of a
Scandinavian teacher named Grisander. When eight
he appeared at a concert and aroused much enthusiasm
by his playing. At twelve he became the pupil of the
famous Russian teacher, Wassili Safonoff, at the conservatory
at Moscow, remaining under his instruction
for six years. At the same time his teachers in theory
and composition were Taneieff and Arensky. In
1891 Rubinstein selected him from all the students
at the conservatory to play at a concert given under
the famous master’s direction. After that Lhévinne
had frequent conferences with the great pianist, and
attributes much of his success to his advice. In 1895
he won the famous Rubinstein Prize in Berlin. From
1902 to 1906 he was Professor of Piano at the conservatory
at Moscow. One year spent in military
service in Russia proved a compulsory setback in his
work, and was a serious delay in his musical progress.
Lhévinne came to America in 1907 and has been here
five times since then. His wife is also an exceptionally
fine concert pianist.

[170]

XIII

PIANO STUDY IN RUSSIA

josef lhévinne

Russia’s Many Keyboard Masters

“Russia is old, Russia is vast, Russia is mighty.
Eight and one-half million square miles of empire
not made up of colonies here and there all over the
world, but one enormous territory comprising nearly
one hundred and fifty million people, of almost as
many races as one finds in the United States, that is
Russia. Although the main occupation of the people
is the most peaceful of all labor—agriculture—Russia
has had to deal with over a dozen wars and insurrections
during a little more than a century. In the
same time the United States has had but five. War is
not a thing to boast about, but the condition reflects
the unrest that has existed in the vast country of the
Czar, and it is not at all unlikely that this very unrest
is responsible for the mental activity which has
characterized the work of so many artists of Russian
birth.

Although Russia is one of the most venerable of the
European nations, and although she has absorbed other
territory possessed by races even more venerable than
herself, her advance in art, letters and music is comparatively
recent. When Scarlatti, Handel, and Bach
were at their height, Russia, outside of court circles,[171]
was still in a state of serfdom. Tolstoi was born as
late as 1828, Turgenieff in 1818 and Pushkin, the
half-negro poet-humorist, was born in 1799. Contemporary
with these writers was Mikhail Ivanovitch
Glinka—the first of the great modern composers of
Russia. Still later we come to Wassili Vereschagin,
the best known of the Russian painters, who was not
born until 1842. It may thus be seen that artistic
development in the modern sense of the term has
occurred during the lifetime of the American republic.
Reaching back into the centuries, Russia is one of the
most ancient of nations, but considered from the art
standpoint it is one of the newest.

The folk songs that sprang from the hearts of the
people in sadness and in joy indicated the unconcealable
talent of the Russian people. They were longing
to sing, and music became almost as much a part of
their lives as food. It is no wonder then that we find
among the names of the Russian pianists such celebrities
as Anton Rubinstein, Nicholas Rubinstein,
Essipoff, Siloti, Rachmaninoff, Gabrilowitsch, Scriabin,
de Pachmann, Safonoff, Sapellnikoff and many
others. It seems as though the Russian must be
endowed by nature with those characteristics which
enable him to penetrate the artistic maze that surrounds
the wonders of music. He comes to music
with a new talent, a new gift and finds first of all a
great joy in his work. Much the same might be said
of the Russian violinists and the Russian singers,
many of whom have met with tremendous success.

[172]

With the Musical Child in Russia

The Russian parent usually has such a keen love for
music that the child is watched from the very first for
some indication that it may have musical talent. The
parent knows how much music brings into the life of
the child and he never looks upon the art as an accomplishment
for exhibition purposes, but rather as a
source of great joy. Music is fostered in the home
as a part of the daily existence. Indeed, business is
kept far from the Russian fireside and the atmosphere
of most homes of intelligent people is that of culture
rather than commerce. If the child is really musical
the whole household is seized with the ambition to
produce an artist. In my own case, I was taught the
rudiments of music at so early an age that I have
no recollection of ever having learned how to begin.
It came to me just as talking does with the average
child. At five I could sing some of the Schumann
songs and some of those of Beethoven.

The Kind of Music the Russian Child Hears

The Russian child is spared all contact with really
bad music. That is, he hears for the most part either
the songs of the people or little selections from classical
or romantic composers that are selected especially
with the view of cultivating his talent. He has practically
no opportunity to come in contact with any
music that might be described as banal. America is
a very young country and with the tension that one[173]
sees in American life on all sides there comes a tendency
to accept music that may be most charitably
described as “cheap.” Very often the same themes
found in this music, skilfully treated, would make
worthy musical compositions. “Rag-time,” and by
this I refer to the peculiar rhythm and not to the bad
music that Americans have come to class under this
head, has a peculiar fascination for me. There is
nothing objectionable about the unique rhythm,
any more than there is anything iniquitous about the
gypsy melodies that have made such excellent material
for Brahms, Liszt and Sarasate. The fault lies in the
clumsy presentation of the matter and its associations
with vulgar words. The rhythm is often fascinating
and exhilarating. Perhaps some day some American
composer will glorify it in the Scherzo of a Symphony.

In Russia, teachers lay great stress upon careful
grading. Many teachers of note have prepared
carefully graded lists of pieces, suitable to each stage
of advancement. I understand that this same
purpose is accomplished in America by the publication
of volumes of the music itself in different grades,
although I have never seen any of these collections.
The Russian teacher of children takes great care that
the advancement of the pupil is not too rapid. The
pupil is expected to be able to perform all the pieces
in one grade acceptably before going to the next grade.
I have had numerous American pupils and most of
them seem to have the fault of wanting to advance to a
higher step long before they are really able. This[174]
is very wrong, and the pupil who insists upon such a
course will surely realize some day that instead of
advancing rapidly he is really throwing many annoying
obstacles directly in his own path.

Instruction Books

Many juvenile instruction books are used in Russia
just as in America. Some teachers, however, find
that with pupils starting at an advanced age it is
better to teach the rudiments without a book. This
matter of method is of far greater importance than the
average teacher will admit. The teacher often makes
the mistake of living up in the clouds with Beethoven,
Bach, Chopin, and Brahms, never realizing that the
pupil is very much upon the earth, and that no matter
how grandly the teacher may play, the pupil must have
practical assistance within his grasp. The main duty
in all elementary work is to make the piano study
interesting, and the teacher must choose the course
likely to arouse the most interest in the particular
pupil.

Opportunities for Virtuoso-Students in Russia

It may surprise the American student to hear that
there are really more opportunities for him to secure
public appearances right here in his own country than
in Russia. In fact, it is really very hard to get a start
in Russia unless one is able to attract the attention
of the public very forcibly. In America the standard
may not be so high as that demanded in the musical[175]
circles of Russia, but the student has many chances
to play that would never come to him in the old world.
There, the only chance for the young virtuoso is at the
conservatory concerts. There are many music schools
in Russia that must content themselves with private
recitals, but the larger conservatories have public concerts
of much importance, concerts that demand the
attendance of renowned artists and compel the serious
interest of the press. However, these concerts are few
and far between, and only one student out of many
hundreds has a chance to appear at them.

One singular custom obtains in Russia in reference
to concerts. The pianist coming from some other
European country is paid more than the local pianist.
For instance, although I am Russian by birth, I
reside in Germany and receive a higher rate when I
play in Russia than does the resident artist. In fact,
this rate is often double. The young virtuoso in the
early stages of his career receives about one hundred
roubles an appearance in Russia, while the mature
artist receives from 800 to 1000. The rouble, while
having an exchange value of only fifty cents in United
States currency, has a purchasing value of about one
dollar in Russia.

Why Russian Pianists Are Famed for Technic

The Russian pianist is always famed for his technical
ability. Even the mediocre artists possess that.
The great artists realize that the mechanical side of
piano playing is but the basis, but they would no[176]
sooner think of trying to do without that basis than
they would of dispensing with the beautiful artistic
temples which they build upon the substantial
foundation which technic gives to them. The
Russian pianists have earned fame for their technical
grasp because they give adequate study to the matter.
Everything is done in the most solid, substantial
manner possible. They build not upon sands, but
upon rock. For instance, in the conservatory examinations
the student is examined first upon technic.
If he fails to pass the technical examination he is
not even asked to perform his pieces. Lack of proficiency
in technic is taken as an indication of a lack of
the right preparation and study, just as the lack of
the ability to speak simple phrases correctly would
be taken as a lack of preparation in the case of the
actor.

“Particular attention is given to the mechanical side
of technic, the exercises, scales and arpeggios. American
readers should understand that the full course at
the leading Russian conservatories is one of about
eight or nine years. During the first five years, the
pupil is supposed to be building the base upon which
must rest the more advanced work of the artist. The
last three or four years at the conservatory are given
over to the study of master works. Only pupils who
manifest great talent are permitted to remain during
the last year. During the first five years the backbone
of the daily work in all Russian schools is scales and
arpeggios. All technic reverts to these simple mater[177]ials
and the student is made to understand this from
his very entrance to the conservatory. As the time
goes on the scales and arpeggios become more difficult,
more varied, more rapid, but they are never omitted
from the daily work. The pupil who attempted
complicated pieces without this preliminary technical
drill would be laughed at in Russia. I have been
amazed to find pupils coming from America who have
been able to play a few pieces fairly well, but who
wonder why they find it difficult to extend their
musical sphere when the whole trouble lies in an almost
total absence of regular daily technical work
systematically pursued through several years.

“Of course, there must be other technical material
in addition to scales, but the highest technic, broadly
speaking, may be traced back to scales and arpeggios.
The practice of scales and arpeggios need never be
mechanical or uninteresting. This depends upon the
attitude of mind in which the teacher places the pupil.
In fact, the teacher is largely responsible if the pupil
finds scale practice dry or tiresome. It is because
the pupil has not been given enough to think about
in scale playing, not enough to look out for in nuance,
evenness, touch, rhythm, etc., etc.

Modern Russian Influence in Musical Art

“Most musicians of to-day appreciate the fact that in
many ways the most modern effects sought by the
composers who seek to produce extremely new effects
have frequently been anticipated in Russia. How[178]ever,
one signal difference exists between the Russians
with ultra-modern ideas and the composers of other
nations. The Russian’s advanced ideas are almost
always the result of a development as were those of
Wagner, Verdi, Grieg, Haydn and Beethoven. That
is, constant study and investigations have led them to
see things in a newer and more radical way. In the
case of such composers as Debussy, Strauss, Ravel,
Reger and others of the type of musical Philistine
it will be observed that to all intents and purposes,
they started out as innovators. Schönberg is the
most recent example. How long will it take the
world to comprehend his message if he really has one?
Certainly, at the present time, even the admirers of
the bizarre in music must pause before they confess
that they understand the queer utterings of this
newest claimant for the palm of musical eccentricity.
With Debussy, Strauss and others it is different, for
the skilled musician at once recognizes an astonishing
facility to produce effects altogether new and often
wonderfully fascinating. With Reger one seems to be
impressed with tremendous effort and little result.
Strauss, however, is really a very great master; so
great that it is difficult to get the proper perspective
upon his work at this time. It is safe to say that all
the modern composers of the world have been influenced
in one way or another by the great Russian
masters of to-day and yesterday. Tchaikovsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Glazounov, Rachmaninov,
Moussorgsky, Arensky, Scriabine and others, have all[179]
had a powerful bearing upon the musical thought of
the times. Their virility and character have been
due to the newness of the field in which they worked.
The influence of the compositions of Rubinstein and
Glinka can hardly be regarded as Russian since they
were so saturated with European models that they
might be ranked with Gluck, Mendelssohn, Liszt
and Meyerbeer far better than with their fellow-countrymen
who have expressed the idiom of Russia
with greater veracity.”

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES XI

josef lhévinne

v. de pachmann

VLADIMIR DE PACHMANN

[181]

Biographical

Vladimir de Pachmann was born at Odessa,
Russia, July 27, 1848. His first teacher was his
father, who was a musical enthusiast and a fine performer
upon the violin. The elder de Pachmann was a
Professor of Law at the University of Vienna and at
first did not desire to have his son become anything
more than a cultured amateur. In his youth de
Pachmann was largely self taught and aside from
hearing great virtuosos at concerts and modeling his
playing to some extent after theirs he had no teachers
until 1866 when he went to the Vienna Conservatory
to study with the then celebrated teacher, Joseph
Dachs. Dachs was a concert pianist of the old school.
Academic perfection was his goal and he could not
understand such a pupil as de Pachmann who was
able to get results by what seemed un-academic
means. After one year with Dachs de Pachmann
toured Russia with great success and since then has
made repeated tours of the entire musical world.
He never gave any serious attention to musical
composition. As an interpreter of the works of
Chopin no one in recent times has ever excelled de
Pachmann, but he also gave numerous recitals showing
a great breadth of style in the performances of
works of the other great masters particularly Brahms
and Liszt.

(The following conference was conducted in English,
German, French and Italian.)

[182]

XIV

SEEKING ORIGINALITY

vladimir de pachmann

The Meaning of Originality

“Originality in pianoforte playing, what does it
really mean? Nothing more than the interpretation
of one’s real self instead of the artificial self which
traditions, mistaken advisors and our own natural
sense of mimicry impose upon us. Seek for originality
and it is gone like a gossamer shining in the morning
grass. Originality is in one’s self. It is the true
voice of the heart. I would enjoin students to listen
to their own inner voices. I do not desire to deprecate
teachers, but I think that many teachers are in error
when they fail to encourage their pupils to form their
own opinions.

“I have always sought the individual in myself.
When I have found him I play at my best. I try to
do everything in my own individual way. I work for
months to invent, contrive or design new fingerings—not
so much for simplicity, but to enable me to manipulate
the keys so that I may express the musical thought
as it seems to me it ought to be expressed. See my
hand, my fingers—the flesh as soft as that of a child,
yet covering muscles of steel. They are thus because
I have worked from childhood to make them thus.

“The trouble with most pupils in studying a piece[183]
is that when they seek individuality and originality,
they go about it in the wrong way, and the result
is a studied, stiff, hard performance. Let them
listen to the voice, I say; to the inner voice, the voice
which is speaking every moment of the day, but to
which so many shut the ears of their soul.

“Franz Liszt—ah, you see I bow when I mention the
name—you never heard Franz Liszt? Ah, it was the
great Liszt who listened—listened to his inner voice.
They said he was inspired. He was simply listening
to himself.

Machine Teaching

“Nun, passen Sie mal auf! I abominate machine
teaching. A certain amount of it may be necessary,
but I hate it. It seems so brutal—so inartistic.
Instead of leading the pupil to seek results for himself,
they lay down laws and see that these laws are obeyed,
like gendarmes. It is possible, of course, by means of
systematic training, to educate a boy so that he
could play a concerto which he could not possibly
comprehend intelligently until he became at least
twenty years older; but please tell, what is the use
of such a training? Is it artistic? Is it musical?
Would it not be better to train him to play a piece
which he could comprehend and which he could express
in his own way?

“Of course I am not speaking now of the boy
Mozarts, the boy Liszts or other freaks of nature, but
of the children who by machine-made methods are[184]
made to do things which nature never intended that
they should do. This forcing method to which some
conservatories seem addicted reminds one of those men
who in bygone ages made a specialty of disfiguring
the forms and faces of children, to make dwarfs,
jesters and freaks out of them. Bah!

Originality the Road To Permanent Fame

“Originality in interpretation is of course no more
important than originality in creation. See how the
composers who have been the most original have been
the ones who have laid the surest foundation for
permanent fame. Here again true originality has
been merely the highest form of self-expression. Non
ê vero? When the composer has sought originality
and contrived to get it by purposely taking out-of-the-way
methods, what has he produced? Nothing but a
horrible sham—a structure of cards which is destroyed
by the next wind of fashion.

“Other composers write for all time. They are
original because they listen to the little inner voice,
the true source of originality. It is the same in architecture.
Styles in architecture are evolved, not
created, and whenever the architect has striven for
bizarre effects he builds for one decade only. The
architects who build for all time are different and yet
how unlike, how individual, how original is the work
of one great architect from that of another.

[185]

The Most Original Composers

“The most original of all composers, at least as they
appear to me, is Johann Sebastian Bach. Perhaps
this is because he is the most sincere. Next I should
class Beethoven, that great mountain peak to whose
heights so few ever soar. Then would come in order
Liszt, Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, Weber, and
Mendelssohn. Schumann more original than Chopin?
Yes, at least so it seems to me. That is, there is
something more distinctive, something more indicative
of a great individuality speaking a new language.

“Compare these men with composers of the order of
Abt, Steibelt, Thalberg, and Donizetti, and you will
see at once what I mean about originality being the
basis of permanent art. For over twenty years my
great fondness for mineralogy and for gems led me to
neglect in a measure the development of the higher
works of these composers, but I have realized my error
and have been working enormously for years to attain
the technic which their works demand. Some years
ago I felt that technical development must cease at a
certain age. This is all idiocy. I feel that I have now
many times the technic I have ever had before and I
have acquired it all in recent years.

Self-help the Secret of Many Successes

“No one could possibly believe more in self-help
than I. The student who goes to a teacher and
imagines that the teacher will cast some magic spell[186]
about him which will make him a musician without
working, has an unpleasant surprise in store for him.
When I was eighteen I went to Dachs at the Vienna
Conservatory. He bade me play something. I played
the Rigoletto paraphrase of Liszt. Dachs commented
favorably upon my touch but assured me that I was
very much upon the wrong track and that I should
study the Woltemperirtes Klavier of Bach. He assured
me that no musical education could be considered
complete without an intimate acquaintance with the
Bach fugues, which of course was most excellent
advice.

“Consequently I secured a copy of the fugues and
commenced work upon them. Dachs had told me to
prepare the first prelude and fugue for the following
lesson. But Dachs was not acquainted with my methods
of study. He did not know that I had mastered
the art of concentration so that I could obliterate
every suggestion of any other thought from my mind
except that upon which I was working. He had no
estimate of my youthful zeal and intensity. He did
not know that I could not be satisfied unless I spent
the entire day working with all my artistic might and
main.

“Soon I saw the wonderful design of the great
master of Eisenach. The architecture of the fugues
became plainer and plainer. Each subject became a
friend and each answer likewise. It was a great joy
to observe with what marvelous craftsmanship he had
built up the wonderful structures. I could not stop[187]
when I had memorized the first fugue, so I went to the
next and the next and the next.

A Surprised Teacher

“At the following lesson I went with my book under
my arm. I requested him to name a fugue. He did,
and I placed the closed book on the rack before me.
After I had finished playing he was dumfounded.
He said, ‘You come to me to take lessons. You already
know the great fugues and I have taught you
nothing.’ Thinking that I would find Chopin more
difficult to memorize, he suggested that I learn two of
the etudes. I came at the following lesson with the
entire twenty-four memorized. Who could withstand
the alluring charm of the Chopin etudes?
Who could resist the temptation to learn them all
when they are once commenced?

“An actor learns page after page in a few days, and
why should the musician go stumbling along for
months in his endeavor to learn something which he
could master in a few hours with the proper interest
and the burning concentration without which all
music study is a farce?

“It was thus during my entire course with Dachs.
He would suggest the work and I would go off by
myself and learn it. I had practically no method.
Each page demanded a different method. Each page
presented entirely new and different technical ideas.”

[188]

Deep Thought Necessary

“As a rule piano students do not think deeply
enough. They skim over the really difficult things
and no amount of persuasion will make them believe
some very simple things difficult. Take the scale of
C Major, for instance. This scale is by far the most
difficult of all. To play it with true legato, at any
desired degree of force or speed, in any desired
rhythm and with any desired touch, is one of the most
difficult achievements in all music. Yet the young
pupil will literally turn up his nose at the scale of C
Major and at the same time claim that he is perfectly
competent to play a Beethoven Sonata.

“The scale of C should be learned step by step until
the practice habits are so formed that they will reign
supreme while playing all the other scales. This is
the way to secure results—go deep into things. Pearls
lie at the bottom of the sea. Most pupils seem to expect
them floating upon the surface of the water.
They never float, and the one who would have his
scales shine with the beauty of splendid gems must
first dive deep for the gems.

“But what is the use of saying all this? To tell it
to young pupils seems to be a waste of words. They
will go on making their mistakes and ignoring the
advice of their teachers and mentors until the great
teacher of all—experience—forces them to dive for
the hidden riches.

[189]

Take Time To Do Things Well

“Every pianist advances at a rate commensurate
with his personal ability. Some pianists are slow in
development. Others with wonderful natural gifts
go ahead very quickly. The student will see some
pianist make wonderful progress and will sometimes
imitate him without giving the time or effort to study
that the other pianist has given. The artist will
spend months upon a Chopin valse. The student
feels injured if he cannot play it in a day.

“Look, I will play the wonderful Nocturne of Chopin
in G, Opus No. 2. The legato thirds seem simple?
Ah, if I could only tell you of the years that are
behind those thirds. The human mind is peculiar
in its methods of mastering the movements of the
fingers, and to get a great masterpiece so that you can
have supreme control over it at all times and under all
conditions demands a far greater effort than the
ordinary non-professional music lover can imagine.

Mastering Artistic Details

“Each note in a composition should be polished
until it is as perfect as a jewel—as perfect as an Indian
diamond—those wonderful scintillating, ever-changing
orbs of light. In a really great masterpiece each
note has its place just as the stars, the jewels of heaven,
have their places in their constellations. When a
star moves it moves in an orbit that was created by
nature.[190]

“Great musical masterpieces owe their existence to
mental forces quite as miraculous as those which put
the heavens into being. The notes in compositions
of this kind are not there by any rule of man. They
come through the ever mystifying source which we
call inspiration. Each note must bear a distinct
relation to the whole.

“An artist in jewels in making a wonderful work of
art does not toss his jewels together in any haphazard
way. He often has to wait for months to get the
right ruby, or the right pearl, or the right diamond to
fit in the right place. Those who do not know might
think one gem just like another, but the artist knows.
He has been looking at gems, examining them under
the microscope. There is a meaning in every facet,
in every shade of color. He sees blemishes which the
ordinary eye would never detect.

“Finally he secures his jewels and arranges them in
some artistic form, which results in a masterpiece.
The public does not know the reason why, but it will
instantly realize that the work of the artist is in some
mysterious way superior to the work of the bungler.
Thus it is that the mind of the composer works spontaneously
in selecting the musical jewels for the diadem
which is to crown him with fame. During the
process of inspiration he does not realize that he is
selecting his jewels with lightning rapidity, but with a
highly cultivated artistic judgment. When the musical
jewels are collected and assembled he regards the
work as a whole as the work of another. He does not[191]
realize that he has been going through the process of
collecting them. Schubert failed to recollect some
of his own compositions only a few days after he had
written them.

Something No One Can Teach

“Now the difficulty with students is that they do
not take time to polish the jewels which the composers
have selected with such keen æsthetic discernment.
They think it enough if they merely succeed in playing
the note. How horrible! A machine can play the
notes, but there is only one machine with a soul and
that is the artist. To think that an artist should play
only the notes and forget the glories of the inspiration
which came in the composer’s mind during the moment
of creation.

“Let me play the D flat Chopin Nocturne for you.
Please notice how the notes all bear a relation to each
other, how everything is in right proportion. Do you
think that came in a day? Ah, my friend, the polishing
of those jewels took far longer than the polishing
of the Kohinoor. Yet I have heard young girls
attempt to play this piece for me—expecting approbation,
of course, and I am certain that they could
not have practiced upon it more than a year or so.
They evidently think that musical masterpieces can
be brought into being like the cobwebs which rise
during the night to be torn down by the weight of the
dew of the following morning. Imbecillità!

[192]

The Best Teacher

“They play just as their teachers have told them to
play, which is of course good as far as it goes. But
they stop at that, and no worthy teacher expects his
pupil to stop with his instruction. The best teacher
is the one who incites his pupil to penetrate deeper
and learn new beauties by himself. A teacher in the
highest sense of the word is not a mint, coining pupils
as it were and putting the same stamp of worth upon
each pupil.

“The great teacher is an artist who works in men
and women. Every pupil is different, and he must be
very quick to recognize these differences. He should
first of all teach the pupil that there are hundreds of
things which no teacher can ever hope to teach.
He must make his pupil keenly alert to this. There
are hundreds of things about my own playing which
are virtually impossible to teach. I would not know
how to convey them to others so that they might be
intelligently learned. Such things I have found out
for myself by long and laborious experimentation.
The control of my fifth finger in certain fingerings
presented endless problems which could only be worked
out at the keyboard. Such things give an individuality
to the pianist’s art, something which cannot be
copied.

“Have you ever been in a foreign art gallery and
watched the copyists trying to reproduce the works
of the masters? Have you ever noticed that though[193]
they get the form, the design, and even the colors and
also that with all these resemblances there is something
which distinguishes the work of the master
from the work of the copyist, something so wonderful
that even a child can see it? You wonder at this?
Pourquoi? No one can learn by copying the secret
the master has learned in creating.

The Basis of Greatness

“Here we have a figure which brings out very clearly
the real meaning of originality in piano playing and
at the same time indicates how every pupil with or
without a teacher should work for himself. Why was
the great Liszt greater than any pianist of his time?
Simply because he found out certain pianistic secrets
which Czerny or any of Liszt’s teachers and contemporaries
had failed to discover.

“Why has Godowsky—Ach! Godowsky, der ist
wirklich ein grosser Talent—how has he attained his
wonderful rank? Because he has worked out certain
contrapuntal and technical problems which place him
in a class all by himself. I consider him the greatest
master of the mysteries of counterpoint since the
heyday of classical polyphony. Why does Busoni
produce inimitable results at the keyboard? Simply
because he was not satisfied to remain content with
the knowledge he had obtained from others.

“This then is my life secret—work, unending work.
I have no other secrets. I have developed myself
along the lines revealed to me by my inner voice. I[194]
have studied myself as well as my art. I have learned
to study mankind through the sciences and through
the great literary treasures, you see; I speak many
languages fluently, I have stepped apace with the
crowd, I have drunk the bitter and the sweet from the
chalices of life, but remember, I have never stopped,
and to-day I am just as keenly interested in my progress
as I was many years ago as a youth. The new
repertoire of the works of Liszt and Brahms and other
composers demanded a different technic, a bigger
technic. What exquisite joy it was to work for it.
Yes, mio amico, work is the greatest intoxication, the
greatest blessing, the greatest solace we can know.
Therefore work, work, work. But of all things, my
good musical friends in America, remember the old
German proverb:

(“Music is best when the heart and lips (mouth)
speak together.”)

[195]

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES XII

vladimir de pachmann

[196]

MAX PAUER

Biographical

Prof. Max Pauer was born in London, England,
October 31, 1866, and is the son of the eminent
musical educator, Ernst Pauer, who settled in England
in 1851, and aside from filling many of the foremost
positions in British musical life, also produced a
great number of instructive works, which have been
of immeasurable value in disseminating musical
education in England. His work on Musical Forms
is known to most all music students. Prof. Max
Pauer studied with his father at the same time his
parent was instructing another famous British-born
pianist, Eugen d’Albert. At the age of fifteen he
went to Karlsruhe, where he came under the instruction
of V. Lachner. In 1885 he returned to London
and continued to advance through self-study. In 1887
he received the appointment at the head of the piano
department in the Cologne Conservatory. This
position he retained for ten years, until his appointment
at Stuttgart, first as head teacher in the piano
department and later as director of the School.
During this period the organization of the famous old
conservatory has changed totally. The building
occupied was very old and unfit for modern needs.
The new conservatory building is a splendid structure
located in one of the most attractive parts of the city.
The old methods, old equipment, old ideas have been
abandoned, and a wholly different atmosphere is said
to pervade the institution, while all that was best in
the old régime has been retained. Prof. Pauer made
his début as a virtuoso pianist in London. Since then
he has toured all Europe except the Latin countries.
He has published several compositions for the piano.
His present tour of America is his first in the New
World.

max pauer

[197]

XV

MODERN PIANISTIC PROBLEMS

max pauer

Acquiring the Requisite Technic

“The preservation of one’s individuality in playing
is perhaps one of the most difficult, and at the same
time one of the most essential tasks in the study of
the pianoforte. The kind of technical study that
passes the student through a certain process, apparently
destined to make him as much like his predecessors
as possible, is hardly the kind of technic
needed to make a great artist. Technical ability,
after all is said and done, depends upon nothing more
than physiologically correct motion applied to the
artistic needs of the masterpiece to be performed.
It implies a clear understanding of the essentials in
bringing out the composer’s idea. The pupil must not
be confused with inaccurate thinking. For instance,
we commonly hear of the ‘wrist touch.’ More
pupils have been hindered through this clumsy
terminology than I should care to estimate. There
cannot be a wrist touch since the wrist is nothing
more than a wonderful natural hinge of bone and
muscle. With the pupil’s mind centered upon his
wrist he is more than likely to stiffen it and form
habits which can only be removed with much difficulty
by the teacher. This is only an instance of one of the
loose expressions with which the terminology of tech[198]nic
is encumbered. When the pupil comes to recognize
the wrist as a condition rather than a thing he
will find that the matter of the tight, cramped wrist
will cease to have its terrors. In fact, as far as touch
itself is concerned, the motion of the arm as a whole
is vastly more important than that of the wrist.
The wrist is merely part of the apparatus which communicates
the weight of the arm to the keyboard.

Innovators Should Be Pianists

“In my opinion the technical needs of the piano
are likely to be far better understood by the virtuoso
pianist than by one who has never been through the
experiences which lead to the concert platform.
Please do not infer that I would say that all teachers
should be virtuoso pianists. I am referring particularly
to the makers of methods. I am continually
confronted in my teaching with all manner of absurd
ideas in piano technic. For instance, one pupil will
come and exhibit an exercise which requires her to
press hard upon the keyboard after the note is struck.
Just why there should be this additional waste of
nerve force when it can have no possible effect upon
the depressed key I have never been able to find out.
There is enough nervous energy expended in pianoforte
study as it is without exacting any more from
the pupil. Pupils are frequently carried away with
some technical trick of this kind like a child with a
new toy. They do these things without ever consulting
their own judgment.”[199]

The whole idea of technic then is to achieve a
position through conscious effort, where one may
dispense with conscious effort. Not until this can be
accomplished can we hope for real self-expression in
playing. Nothing is so odious as the obtrusion of
technic in any work of art. Technic is the trellis
concealed beneath the foliage and the blossoms of the
bower. When the artist is really great all idea of
technic is forgotten. He must be absorbed by the
sheer beauty of his musical message, his expression
of his musical self. In listening to Rubinstein or to
Liszt one forgot all idea of technic, and it must be so
with all great artists in every branch of art in every
age. What we claim when we attend a recital is
the individual artist, unrestrained by mechanical
bonds.

Very few of the great masters of pianoforte playing
have delved very deeply into the technical pedagogical
side of their art, as for instance have Tausig, Ehrlich
or Joseffy, all of whom have produced remarkable
works on technic. Liszt’s contribution to the technic
of the instrument was made through his pieces, not
through exercises; his contributions to the Lebert
and Stark Stuttgart Conservatory method consist of
two well-known concert studies. Personally, I am
opposed to set methods, that is, those that pretend to
teach the pupil factory-wise. Of what value is the
teacher if he is not to apply his knowledge with the
discretion that comes with experience?

Deppe’s influence to this day is far more theoretical[200]
than practical. This does not imply that Deppe did
not evolve some very useful ideas in pianoforte work.
All of present technic is a common heritage from many
investigators and innovators. Pianoforte teaching,
as a matter of fact, is one of the most difficult of all
tasks. It is easy to teach it along conventional
“cut and dried” method lines, but the teachers of
real importance are those who have the ability, the
gift, the inclination and the experience to make a
brand new method for every pupil.

In order to develop the means to communicate
one’s message through one’s art with the greatest
effectiveness, there must be a mastery of the delicate
balance between natural tendencies and discipline.
If the student is subjected to too much discipline,
stiff, angular results may be expected. If the student
is permitted to play with the flabby looseness which
some confuse with natural relaxation, characterless
playing must invariably result. The great desideratum
is the fine equilibrium between nature and discipline.
This may seem an unnecessary observation
to some, but many students never seem to be able to
strike the happy medium between marching over the
keys like a regiment of wooden soldiers, or crawling
over them like a lot of spineless caterpillars.

Avoid Machine-like Playing

There is a certain “something” which defines the
individuality of the player, and it seems well nigh
impossible to say just what this something is. Let us[201]
by all means preserve it. Imagine the future of music
if every piece were to be played in the selfsame way
by every player like a series of ordinary piano playing
machines. The remarkable apparatus for recording
the playing of virtuosos, and then reproducing it
through a mechanical contrivance, is somewhat of a
revelation to the pianist who tries it for the first time.
In the records of the playing of artists whose interpretations
are perfectly familiar to me, there still
remain unquestioned marks of individuality. Sometimes
these marks are small shortcomings, but which,
nevertheless, are so slight that they do no more than
give character. Look at a painting by Van Dyke,
and then at one upon a similar subject by Rembrandt,
and you will realize how these little characteristics
influence the whole outward aspect of an art work.
Both Van Dyke and Rembrandt were Dutchmen, and,
in a sense, contemporaries. They used pigments
and brushes, canvas and oil, yet the masterpieces
of each are readily distinguishable by any one slightly
familiar with their styles. It is precisely the same
with pianists. All of us have arms, fingers, muscles
and nerves, but what we have to say upon the keyboard
should be an expression of our own minds, not a
replica of some stereotyped model.

When I listened to the first record of my own playing,
I heard things which seemed unbelievable to me.
Was I, after years of public playing, actually making
mistakes that I would be the first to condemn in any
one of my own pupils? I could hardly believe my[202]
ears, and yet the unrelenting machine showed that
in some places I had failed to play both hands exactly
together, and had been guilty of other errors no less
heinous, because they were trifling. I also learned
in listening to my own playing, as reproduced, that
I had unconsciously brought out certain nuances,
emphasized different voices and employed special
accents without the consciousness of having done so.
Altogether it made a most interesting study for me,
and it became very clear that the personality of the
artist must permeate everything that he does. When
his technic is sufficiently great it permits him to speak
with fluency and self-expression, enhancing the value
of his work a thousandfold.

Broad Understanding Necessary

“It would be a great mistake for the student to
imagine that by merely acquiring finger dexterity and
a familiarity with a certain number of pieces he may
consider himself proficient. There is vastly more to
piano-playing than that. He must add to his digital
ability and his repertoire and comprehensive grasp of
the principles of music itself. The pupil should strive
to accomplish as much as possible through mental
work. The old idea of attempting to play every
single study written by Czerny, or Cramer or the other
prolific writers of studies is a huge mistake. A judicious
selection from the works of these pedagogical
writers is desirable but certainly not all of them. They
are at best only the material with which one must work[203]
for a certain aim, and that aim should be high artistic
results. It should be realized by all students and
teachers that this same study material, excellent in
itself, may actually produce bad results if not properly
practiced. I have repeatedly watched students
practicing industriously, but becoming worse and
worse and actually cultivating faults rather than
approaching perfection. The student must always
remember that his fingers are only the outward
organs of his inner consciousness, and while his work
may be mechanical in part he should never think
mechanically. The smallest technical exercise must
have its own direction, its own aim. Nothing should
be done without some definite purpose in view. The
student should have pointed out to him just what the
road he must travel is, and where it leads to. The
ideal teacher is the one who gives the pupil something
to take home and work out at home, not the one who
works out the student’s lesson for him in the class
room. The teacher’s greatest mission is to raise the
consciousness of the pupil until he can appreciate his
own powers for developing an idea.

Freedom From Convention

“Oh the horror of the conventional, the absolutely
right, the human machine who cannot make an error!
The balance between the frigidly correct and the
abominably loose is a most difficult one to maintain.
It is, of course, desirable that the young student pass
through a certain period of strict discipline, but if[204]
this discipline succeeds in making an automaton, of
what earthly use is it? Is it really necessary to instruct
our little folks to think that everything must be
done in a “cut and dried” manner? Take the simple
matter of time, for instance. Listen to the playing
of most young pupils and you will hear nothing but a
kind of “railroad train” rhythm. Every measure
bumps along precisely like the last one. The pupil
has been taught to observe the bar signs like stone
walls partitioning the whole piece off into sections.
The result as a whole is too awful to describe. As a
matter of fact, the bar signs, necessary as they are as
guide-posts when we are learning the elements of
notation, are often the means of leading the poorly
trained pupil to a wholly erroneous interpretation.
For instance, in a passage like the following from
Beethoven’s F minor Sonata, Opus 2, No. 1 (dedicated
to Joseph Haydn), Beethoven’s idea must have been
the following:

before it was divided into measures by bar lines as
now found printed:

[205]

The trouble with the pupil in playing the above is that
he seems inclined to observe the bar lines very carefully
and lose all idea of the phrase as a whole. Music
should be studied by phrases, not by measures. In
studying a poem you strive first of all to get the poet’s
meaning as expressed in his phrases and in his sentences;
you do not try to mumble a few words in an
arbitrary manner. The pupil who never gets over the
habit of playing in measures, who never sees the composer’s
message as a whole rather than in little segments
can never play artistically. Many students fail
to realize that in some pieces it is actually misleading
to count the beats in the measure. The rhythm of the
piece as a whole is often marked by a series of measures,
and one must count the measures as units rather
than the notes in the measures. For instance, the
following section from a Chopin Valse, Opus 64, No.
1 (sometimes called the Minute Valse), may best be
counted by counting the measures thus:

Every pupil knows that the first beat in each ordinary
measure of four-quarter time carries a strong accent,
the third beat the next strongest, and the second and
fourth beats still weaker accents. In a series of meas[206]ures
which may be counted in fours, it will be found
that the same arrangement often prevails. The pupil
will continually meet opportunities to study his work
along broader lines, and the wonderful part of it all
is that music contains so much that is interesting and
surprising, that there need be no end to his investigations.
Every page from a master work that has been
studied for years is likely to contain some unsolved
problem if the student can only see it right and hunt
for it.

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES XIII

max pauer

s. v. rachmaninoff

S. V. RACHMANINOFF

[207]

Biographical

Sergei Vassilievitch Rachmaninoff was born at Novgorod,
Russia, April 1st, 1873. At the Moscow
Conservatory he was placed under the instruction
of Siloti who had been one of the favorite Russian
pupils of Franz Liszt. This master imparted a very
facile technic to Rachmaninoff and made him so
thoroughly acquainted with the best literature of
the instrument that his compositions became recognized
at once as those of a thorough master of the
keyboard. His teacher in composition was Arensky,
who in addition to his skill in the technic of the art
had a fund of melody which is a delight to all those
who know his works. In 1891 Rachmaninoff won
the great gold medal at the Moscow Conservatory
and his work as a composer commenced to attract
favorable attention throughout all Europe. In addition
to this his ability as a pianist attracted wide
notice and his tours have been very successful. His
compositions have been cast in many different forms
from opera to songs and piano pieces. His most
popular work is the Prelude in C Sharp Minor which
is in the repertoire of all advanced students. His
appointment as Supervisor General of the Imperial
conservatories of Russia was one of the highest distinctions
that could be conferred in the land of the
Czar. The correct pronunciation of the name as
given by the composer is Rokh-mahn-ee-noff.

(The following conference was conducted in
German.)

[208]

XVI

ESSENTIALS OF ARTISTIC PLAYING

s. v. rachmaninoff

Forming the Proper Conception of a Piece

It is a seemingly impossible task to define the
number of attributes of really excellent pianoforte
playing. By selecting ten important characteristics,
however, and considering them carefully, one at a
time, the student may learn much that will give him
food for thought. After all, one can never tell in
print what can be communicated by the living
teacher. In undertaking the study of a new composition
it is highly important to gain a conception
of the work as a whole. One must comprehend the
main design of the composer. Naturally, there are
technical difficulties which must be worked out,
measure by measure, but unless the student can
form some idea of the work in its larger proportions
his finished performance may resemble a kind of
musical patchwork. Behind every composition is
the architectural plan of the composer. The student
should endeavor, first of all, to discover this plan,
and then he should build in the manner in which the
composer would have had him build.

You ask me, “How can the student form the
proper conception of the work as a whole?” Doubtless
the best way is to hear it performed by some[209]
pianist whose authority as an interpreter cannot be
questioned. However, many students are so situated
that this course is impossible. It is also often quite
impossible for the teacher, who is busy teaching
from morning to night, to give a rendering of the
work that would be absolutely perfect in all of its
details. However, one can gain something from the
teacher who can, by his genius, give the pupil an idea
of the artistic demands of the piece.

If the student has the advantage of hearing neither
the virtuoso nor the teacher he need not despair,
if he has talent. Talent! Ah, that is the great thing
in all musical work. If he has talent he will see with
the eyes of talent—that wonderful force which penetrates
all artistic mysteries and reveals the truths as
nothing else possibly can. Then he grasps, as if by
intuition, the composer’s intentions in writing the
work, and, like the true interpreter, communicates
these thoughts to his audience in their proper form.

Technical Proficiency

It goes without saying, that technical proficiency
should be one of the first acquisitions of the student
who would become a fine pianist. It is impossible
to conceive of fine playing that is not marked by
clean, fluent, distinct, elastic technic. The technical
ability of the performer should be of such a nature
that it can be applied immediately to all the artistic
demands of the composition to be interpreted. Of
course, there may be individual passages which re[210]quire
some special technical study, but, generally
speaking, technic is worthless unless the hands and
the mind of the player are so trained that they can
encompass the principal difficulties found in modern
compositions.

In the music schools of Russia great stress is laid
upon technic. Possibly this may be one of the reasons
why some of the Russian pianists have been
so favorably received in recent years. The work in
the leading Russian conservatories is almost entirely
under supervision of the Imperial Musical Society.
The system is elastic in that, although all students are
obliged to go through the same course, special attention
is given to individual cases. Technic, however, is at
first made a matter of paramount importance. All
students must become technically proficient. None
are excused. It may be interesting to hear something
of the general plan followed in the Imperial music
schools of Russia. The course is nine years in duration.
During the first five years the student gets
most of his technical instruction from a book of studies
by Hanon, which is used very extensively in the conservatories.
In fact, this is practically the only
book of strictly technical studies employed. All of
the studies are in the key of “C.” They include
scales, arpeggios, and other forms of exercises in
special technical designs.

At the end of the fifth year an examination takes
place. This examination is twofold. The pupil is
examined first for proficiency in technic, and later[211]
for proficiency in artistic playing—pieces, studies,
etc. However, if the pupil fails to pass the technical
examination he is not permitted to go ahead. He
knows the exercises in the book of studies by Hanon
so well that he knows each study by number, and the
examiner may ask him, for instance, to play study 17,
or 28, or 32, etc. The student at once sits at the keyboard
and plays.

Although the original studies are all in the key of
“C,” he may be requested to play them in any other
key. He has studied them so thoroughly that he
should be able to play them in any key desired. A
metronomic test is also applied. The student knows
that he will be expected to play the studies at certain
rates of speed. The examiner states the speed and the
metronome is started. The pupil is required, for
instance, to play the E flat major scale with the metronome
at 120, eight notes to the beat. If he is
successful in doing this, he is marked accordingly,
and other tests are given.

Personally, I believe this matter of insisting upon
a thorough technical knowledge is a very vital one.
The mere ability to play a few pieces does not constitute
musical proficiency. It is like those music
boxes which possess only a few tunes. The student’s
technical grasp should be all-embracing.

Later the student is given advanced technical
exercises, like those of Tausig. Czerny is also very
deservedly popular. Less is heard of the studies of
Henselt, however, notwithstanding his long service[212]
in Russia. Henselt’s studies are so beautiful that
they should rather be classed with pieces like the studies
of Chopin.

Proper Phrasing

An artistic interpretation is not possible if the
student does not know the laws underlying the very
important subject of phrasing. Unfortunately many
editions of good music are found wanting in proper
phrase markings. Some of the phrase signs are
erroneously applied. Consequently the only safe
way is for the student to make a special study of
this important branch of musical art. In the olden
days phrase signs were little used. Bach used them
very sparingly. It was not necessary to mark them
in those times, for every musician who counted himself
a musician could determine the phrases as he
played. But a knowledge of the means of defining
phrases in a composition is by no means all-sufficient.
Skill in executing the phrases is quite as important.
The real musical feeling must exist in the mind of the
composer or all the knowledge of correct phrasing
he may possess will be worthless.

Regulating the Tempo

If a fine musical feeling, or sensitiveness, must
control the execution of the phrases, the regulation
of the tempo demands a kind of musical ability no
less exacting. Although in most cases the tempo
of a given composition is now indicated by means[213]
of the metronomic markings, the judgment of the
player must also be brought frequently into requisition.
He cannot follow the tempo marks blindly,
although it is usually unsafe for him to stray very
far from these all-important musical sign-posts.
The metronome itself must not be used “with closed
eyes,” as we should say it in Russia. The player
must use discretion. I do not approve of continual
practice with the metronome. The metronome is
designed to set the time, and if not abused is a very
faithful servant. However, it should only be used
for this purpose. The most mechanical playing
imaginable can proceed from those who make themselves
slaves to this little musical clock, which was
never intended to stand like a ruler over every minute
of the student’s practice time.

Character in Playing

Too few students realize that there is continual
and marvelous opportunity for contrast in playing.
Every piece is a piece unto itself. It should, therefore,
have its own peculiar interpretation. There
are performers whose playing seems all alike. It
is like the meals served in some hotels. Everything
brought to the table has the same taste. Of
course, a successful performer must have a strong
individuality, and all of his interpretations must
bear the mark of this individuality, but at the same
time he should seek variety constantly. A Chopin
ballade must have quite a different interpretation[214]
from a Scarlatti Capriccio. There is really very little
in common between a Beethoven Sonata and a
Liszt Rhapsody. Consequently, the student must
seek to give each piece a different character. Each
piece must stand apart as possessing an individual
conception, and if the player fails to convey this
impression to his audience, he is little better than
some mechanical instrument. Josef Hofmann has
the ability of investing each composition with an
individual and characteristic charm that has always
been very delightful to me.

The Significance of the Pedal

The pedal has been called the soul of the piano.
I never realized what this meant until I heard Anton
Rubinstein, whose playing seemed so marvelous to
me that it beggars description. His mastery of the
pedal was nothing short of phenomenal. In the last
movement of the B flat minor sonata of Chopin he
produced pedal effects that can never be described,
but for any one who remembers them they will
always be treasured as one of the greatest of musical
joys. The pedal is the study of a lifetime. It is
the most difficult branch of higher pianoforte study.
Of course, one may make rules for its use, and the
student should carefully study all these rules, but, at
the same time, these rules may often be skilfully
broken in order to produce some very charming effects.
The rules represent a few known principles that are
within the grasp of our musical intelligence. They[215]
may be compared with the planet upon which we live,
and about which we know so much. Beyond the rules,
however, is the great universe—the celestial system
which only the telescopic artistic sight of the great
musician can penetrate. This, Rubinstein, and some
others, have done, bringing to our mundane vision
undreamt-of beauties which they alone could perceive.

The Danger of Convention

While we must respect the traditions of the past,
which for the most part are very intangible to us
because they are only to be found in books, we must,
nevertheless, not be bound down by convention.
Iconoclasm is the law of artistic progress. All great
composers and performers have built upon the ruins
of conventions that they themselves have destroyed.
It is infinitely better to create than to imitate. Before
we can create, however, it is well to make ourselves
familiar with the best that has preceded us. This
applies not only to composition, but to pianoforte
playing as well. The master pianists, Rubinstein
and Liszt, were both marvelously broad in the scope
of their knowledge. They knew the literature of the
pianoforte in all its possible branches. They made
themselves familiar with every possible phase of musical
advancement. This is the reason for their gigantic
prominence. Their greatness was not the hollow
shell of acquired technic. THEY KNEW. Oh, for
more students in these days with the genuine thirst[216]
for real musical knowledge, and not merely with the
desire to make a superficial exhibition at the keyboard!

Real Musical Understanding

I am told that some teachers lay a great deal of
stress upon the necessity for the pupil learning the
source of the composer’s inspiration. This is interesting,
of course, and may help to stimulate a dull
imagination. However, I am convinced that it
would be far better for the student to depend more
upon his real musical understanding. It is a mistake
to suppose that the knowledge of the fact that
Schubert was inspired by a certain poem, or that
Chopin was inspired by a certain legend, could ever
make up for a lack of the real essentials leading to
good pianoforte playing. The student must see,
first of all, the main points of musical relationship
in a composition. He must understand what it is
that gives the work unity, cohesion, force, or grace,
and must know how to bring out these elements.
There is a tendency with some teachers to magnify
the importance of auxiliary studies and minimize
the importance of essentials. This course is wrong,
and must lead to erroneous results.

Playing To Educate the Public

The virtuoso must have some far greater motive
than that of playing for gain. He has a mission,
and that mission is to educate the public. It is quite
as necessary for the sincere student in the home[217]
to carry on this educational work. For this reason
it is to his advantage to direct his efforts toward
pieces which he feels will be of musical educational
advantage to his friends. In this he must use judgment
and not overstep their intelligence too far.
With the virtuoso it is somewhat different. He expects,
and even demands, from his audience a certain
grade of musical taste, a certain degree of musical
education. Otherwise he would work in vain. If
the public would enjoy the greatest in music they must
hear good music until these beauties become evident.

It would be useless for the virtuoso to attempt a
concert tour in the heart of Africa. The virtuoso
is expected to give his best, and he should not be
criticized by audiences that have not the mental
capacity to appreciate his work. The virtuosos look
to the students of the world to do their share in the
education of the great musical public. Do not waste
your time with music that is trite or ignoble. Life
is too short to spend it wandering in the barren Saharas
of musical trash.

The Vital Spark

In all good pianoforte playing there is a vital spark
that seems to make each interpretation of a masterpiece—a
living thing. It exists only for the moment,
and cannot be explained. For instance, two pianists
of equal technical ability may play the same composition.
With one the playing is dull, lifeless and sapless,
with the other there is something that is indescribably[218]
wonderful. His playing seems fairly to quiver with
life. It commands interest and inspires the audience.
What is this vital spark that brings life to mere notes?
In one way it may be called the intense artistic interest
of the player. It is that astonishing thing known as
inspiration.

When the composition was originally written the
composer was unquestionably inspired; when the
performer finds the same joy that the composer found
at the moment the composition came into existence,
then something new and different enters his playing.
It seems to be stimulated and invigorated in a manner
altogether marvelous. The audience realizes this
instantly, and will even sometimes forgive technical
imperfections if the performance is inspired. Rubinstein
was technically marvelous, and yet he admitted
making mistakes. Nevertheless, for every possible
mistake he may have made, he gave, in return, ideas
and musical tone pictures that would have made up for
a million mistakes. When Rubinstein was overexact
his playing lost something of its wonderful
charm. I remember that upon one occasion he was
playing Balakireff’s Islamei at a concert. Something
distracted his attention and he apparently forgot the
composition entirely; but he kept on improvising in
the style of the piece, and after about four minutes the
remainder of the composition came back to him and he
played it to the end correctly. This annoyed him
greatly and he played the next number upon the program
with the greatest exactness, but, strange to say,[219]
it lost the wonderful charm of the interpretation of
the piece in which his memory had failed him. Rubinstein
was really incomparable, even more so perhaps
because he was full of human impulse and his playing
very far removed from mechanical perfection.

While, of course, the student must play the notes,
and all of the notes, in the manner and in the time
in which the composer intended that they should be
played, his efforts should by no means stop with notes.
Every individual note in a composition is important,
but there is something quite as important as the notes,
and that is the soul. After all, the vital spark is
the soul. The soul is the source of that higher expression
in music which cannot be represented in
dynamic marks. The soul feels the need for the
crescendos and diminuendos intuitively. The mere
matter of the duration of a pause upon a note depends
upon its significance, and the soul of the artist dictates
to him just how long such a pause should be held.
If the student resorts to mechanical rules and depends
upon them absolutely, his playing will be soulless.

Fine playing requires much deep thought away
from the keyboard. The student should not feel
that when the notes have been played his task is
done. It is, in fact, only begun. He must make the
piece a part of himself. Every note must awaken in
him a kind of musical consciousness of his real artistic
mission.

[220]

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES XIV

s. v. rachmaninoff

a. reisenauer

ALFRED REISENAUER

[221]

Biographical

Alfred Reisenauer was born at Königsberg, Germany,
Nov. 1st, 1863. He was a pupil of his mother, Louis
Köhler, and Franz Liszt. His début as a pianist was
made in Rome, in 1881, at the palace of Cardinal
Hohenlohe. After a concert tour in Germany and a
visit to England he studied Law for one year at the
Leipsic University. Not finding this altogether to
his liking he resumed his concert work and commenced
a long series of tours which included all the nooks and
corners of the world where one might find a musical
public. He was an accomplished linguist, speaking
many languages very fluently. His work as a composer
was not significant but in certain branches of
pianoforte playing he rose to exceptional heights.
He died October 31st, 1907.

[222]

XVII

SYSTEMATIC MUSICAL TRAINING

alfred reisenauer

“I can never thank my mother enough for the
splendid start she gave me in my early musical life.
She was a wonderful woman and a veritable genius
as a teacher. See, I have here to-day on my piano
a copy of the Schumann Sonata in F sharp minor
which she herself used and which she played with a
feeling I have never heard equaled. There is one
thing in particular for which I am everlastingly grateful
to her. Before I was taught anything of notes or
of the piano keyboard, she took me aside one day and
explained in the simple and beautiful tongue which
only a mother employs in talking to her child, the
wonderful natural relationships of tones used in making
music. Whether this was an inspiration, an
intuition, or a carefully thought out plan for my
benefit, I cannot tell, but my mother put into practice
what I have since come to consider the most important
and yet the most neglected step in the education of
the child. The fault lies in the fact that most teachers
at the start do not teach music, rather musical notation
and the peculiarities of the instrument.

Nothing could possibly be more stultifying to the
musical instinct of the child. For instance, the plan
generally pursued is to let the child grope over the[223]
white keys of the piano keyboard and play exercises
in the scale of C, until he begins to feel that the whole
musical world lies in the scale of C, with the scales of
F and G as the frontiers. The keys of F sharp, B, D
flat and others are looked upon as tremendously
difficult and the child mind reasons with its own peculiar
logic that these keys being so much less used, must,
of course be less important. The black keys upon
the keyboard are a ‘terra incognita.’ Consequently
at the very start the child has a radically incorrect
view of what music really is.

“Before notation existed,—before keyboards were
invented,—people sang. Before a child knows anything
of notation or a keyboard, it sings. It is following
its natural, musical instinct. Notation and
keyboards are simply symbols of music—cages in
which the beautiful bird is caught. They are not
music any more than the alphabet is literature.
Unfortunately, our system of musical symbols and
the keyboard itself are very complex. For the young
child it is as difficult as are Calculus and Algebra for
his older brother. As a matter of fact, the keys of F
sharp, B, and D flat major, etc., are only difficult
because fate has made them so. It would have served
the musical purpose just as well if the pitch of the
instruments employed had been adjusted so that what
is now F sharp, would be the key of C major. That,
however, would not have simplified matters and we
have to receive our long established musical notation
until we can exchange it for a better one.[224]

“At a very early age, I was taken to Franz Liszt
by my mother. Liszt immediately perceived my
natural talent and strongly advised my mother to
continue my musical work. At the same time he said
‘As a child I was exposed to criticism as a Wunderkind
(prodigy), through the ignorance of my parents,
long before I was properly prepared to meet the inevitable
consequences of public appearance. This
did incalculable damage to me. Let your child be
spared such a fate. My own experience was disastrous.
Do not let your son appear in public until he is
a mature artist.’

“My first teacher, Louis Köhler, was an artist and a
great artist, but he was an artist-teacher rather than
an artist-pianist. Compared with many of his contemporaries
his playing suffered immensely, but he
made an art of teaching as few other men have done.
He did not play for his pupils to any extent, nor did
he ask them to imitate him in any way. His playing
was usually confined to general illustrations and suggestions.
By these means the individuality of his
pupils was preserved and permitted to develop, so
that while the pupil always had an excellent idea of
the authoritative traditions governing the interpretation
of a certain piece, there was nothing that suggested
the stilted or wooden performance of the brainless
mimic. He taught his pupils to think. He was
an indefatigable student and thinker himself. He
had what many teachers would have considered peculiar
ideas upon technic.

[225]

Köhler’s Technical Scheme

“While he invented many little means whereby
technical difficulties could be more readily overcome
than by the existing plan he could not be called in any
way radical. He believed in carrying the technical
side of a pupil’s education up to a certain point along
more or less conventional lines. When the pupil
reached that point he found that he was upon a
veritable height of mechanical supremacy. Thereafter
Köhler depended upon the technical difficulties
presented in the literature of the instrument to continue
the technical efficiency acquired. In other
words, the acquisition of a technic was solely to enable
the pupil to explore the world of music equipped in
such a way that he was not to be overcome by anything.
The everlasting continuance of technical
exercises was looked upon by Köhler as a ridiculous
waste of time and a great injury.

“I also hold this opinion. Let us suppose that I
were to sit at the piano for six or seven hours and do
nothing but play conventional finger exercises. What
happens to my soul, psychologically considered,
during those hours spent upon exercises which no man
or woman could possibly find anything other than an
irritation? Do not the same exercises occur in thousands
of pieces but in such connection that the mind
is interested? Is it necessary for the advanced
pianist to punish himself with a kind of mental and
physical penance more trying, perhaps, than the de[226]vices
of the medieval ascetics or the oriental priests
of to-day? No, technic is the Juggernaut which has
ground to pieces more musicians than one can imagine.
It produces a stiff, wooden touch and has a tendency
to induce the pianist to believe that the art of pianoforte
playing depends upon the continuance of technical
exercises whereas the acquisition of technical
ability should be regarded as the beginning and not
the end. When pupils leave your schools you say
that they are having a ‘Commencement.’ The
acquisition of a technic is only the commencement,
unfortunately too many consider it the end. This
may perhaps be the reason why our conservatories
turn out so many bright and proficient young people
who in a few years are buried in oblivion.

With Liszt

“When I had reached a certain grade of advancement
it was my great fortune to become associated
with the immortal Franz Liszt. I consider Liszt the
greatest man I have ever met. By this I mean that
I have never met, in any other walk of life, a man
with the mental grasp, splendid disposition and
glorious genius. This may seem a somewhat extravagant
statement. I have met many, many great men,
rulers, jurists, authors, scientists, teachers, merchants
and warriors, but never have I met a man in any position
whom I have not thought would have proved the
inferior of Franz Liszt, had Liszt chosen to follow
the career of the man in question. Liszt’s personality[227]
can only be expressed by one word, ‘colossal.’ He had
the most generous nature of any man I have ever met.
He had aspirations to become a great composer,
greater than his own measure of his work as a composer
had revealed to him. The dire position of Wagner
presented itself. He abandoned his own ambitions—ambitions
higher than those he ever held toward piano
virtuosity—abandoned them completely to champion
the difficult cause of the great Wagner. What Liszt
suffered to make this sacrifice, the world does not
know. But no finer example of moral heroism can
be imagined. His conversations with me upon the
subject were so intimate that I do not care to reveal
one word.

Liszt’s Pedagogical Methods

His generosity and personal force in his work with
the young artists he assisted are hard to describe.
You ask me whether he had a certain method. I
reply, he abhorred methods in the modern sense of the
term. His work was eclectic in the highest sense. In
one way he could not be considered a teacher at all.
He charged no fees and had irregular and somewhat
unsystematic classes. In another sense he was the
greatest of teachers. Sit at the piano and I will indicate
the general plan pursued by Liszt at a lesson.
Reisenauer is a remarkable and witty mimic of
people he desires to describe. The present writer sat
at the piano and played at some length through several
short compositions, eventually coming to the inevit[228]able
“Chopin Valse, Op. 69, No. 1, in A flat major.”
In the meanwhile, Reisenauer had gone to another
room and, after listening patiently, returned, imitating
the walk, facial expression and the peculiar
guttural snort characteristic of Liszt in his later years.
Then followed a long “kindly sermon” upon the
emotional possibilities of the composition. This was
interrupted with snorts and went with kaleidoscopic
rapidity from French to German and back again
many, many times. Imitating Liszt he said,

“First of all we must arrive at the very essence of
the thing; the germ that Chopin chose to have grow
and blossom in his soul. It is, roughly considered, this:

Chopin’s next thought was, no doubt:

But with his unerring good taste and sense of
symmetry he writes it so:

Now consider the thing in studying it and while playing
it from the composer’s attitude. By this I mean[229]
that during the mental process of conception, before
the actual transference of the thought to paper, the
thought itself is in a nebulous condition. The composer
sees it in a thousand lights before he actually
determines upon the exact form he desires to perpetuate.
For instance, this theme might have gone
through Chopin’s mind much after this fashion:

“The main idea being to reach the embryo of
Chopin’s thought and by artistic insight divine the
connotation of that thought, as nearly as possible in
the light of the treatment Chopin has given it.

“It is not so much the performer’s duty to play mere
notes and dynamic marks, as it is for him to make an
artistic estimate of the composer’s intention and to
feel that during the period of reproduction he simulates
the natural psychological conditions which affected
the composer during the actual process of
composition. In this way the composition becomes
a living entity—a tangible resurrection of the soul of
the great Chopin. Without such penetrative genius
a pianist is no more than a mere machine and with it
he may develop into an artist of the highest type.”

[230]

A Unique Attitude

Reisenauer’s attitude toward the piano is unique
and interesting. Musicians are generally understood
to have an affectionate regard for their instruments,
almost paternal. Not so with Reisenauer. He even
goes so far as to make this statement: “I have
aways been drawn to the piano by a peculiar charm I
have never been able to explain to myself. I feel that
I must play, play, play, play, play. It has become a
second nature to me. I have played so much and so
long that the piano has become a part of me. Yet I
am never free from the feeling that it is a constant
battle with the instrument, and even with my technical
resources I am not able to express all the beauties
I hear in the music. While music is my very life, I
nevertheless hate the piano. I play because I can’t
help playing and because there is no other instrument
which can come as near imitating the melodies and the
harmonies of the music I feel. People say wherever
I go, ‘Ah, he is a master.’ What absurdity! I the
master? Why, there is the master (pointing to the
piano), I am only the slave.”

The Future of Pianoforte Music

An interesting question that frequently arises in
musical circles relates to the future possibilities of
the art of composition in its connection with the pianoforte.
Not a few have some considerable apprehension
regarding the possible dearth of new melodic[231]
material and the technical and artistic treatment
of such material. “I do not think that there need be
any fear of a lack of original melodic material or
original methods of treating such material. The
possibilities of the art of musical composition have by
no means been exhausted. While I feel that in a
certain sense, very difficult to illustrate with words, one
great ‘school’ of composition for the pianoforte ended
with Liszt and the other in Brahms, nevertheless I
can but prophesy the arising of many new and wonderful
schools in the future. I base my prophecy upon
the premises of frequent similar conditions during the
history of musical art.

“Nevertheless, it is yet my ambition to give a
lengthy series of recitals, with programs arranged to
give a chronological aspect of all the great masterpieces
in music. I hope to be enabled to do this
before I retire. It is part of a plan to circle the world
in a manner that has not yet been done.” When
asked whether these programs were to resemble
Rubinstein’s famous historical recitals in London,
years ago, he replied: “They will be more extensive
than the Rubinstein recitals. The times make such
a series possible now, which Rubinstein would have
hesitated to give.”

As to American composers, Reisenauer is so thoroughly
and enthusiastically won over by MacDowell
that he has not given the other composers
sufficient attention to warrant a critical opinion. I
found upon questioning that he had made a genuinely[232]
sincere effort to find new material in America, but he
said that outside of MacDowell, he found nothing but
indifferently good salon-music. With the works of
several American composers he was, however, unfamiliar.
He has done little or nothing himself as a
composer and declared that it was not his forte.

American Musical Taste

“I find that American musical taste is in many
ways astonishing. Many musicians who came to
America prior to the time of Thomas and Damrosch
returned to Europe with what were, no doubt,
true stories of the musical conditions in America at
that time. These stories were given wide circulation
in Europe, and it is difficult for Europeans to understand
the cultured condition of the American people
at the present time. America can never thank Dr.
Leopold Damrosch and Theodore Thomas enough for
their unceasing labors. Thanks to the impetus that
they gave the movement, it is now possible to play
programs in almost any American city that are in no
sense different from those one is expected to give in
great European capitals. The status of musical education
in the leading American cities is surprisingly
high. Of course the commercial element necessarily
affects it to a certain extent; but in many cases this
is not as injurious as might be imagined. The future
of music in America seems very roseate to me and I
can look back to my American concert tours with
great pleasure.

[233]

Concert Conditions in America

“One of the great difficulties, however, in concert
touring in America is the matter of enormous distances.
I often think that American audiences rarely
hear great pianists at their best. Considering the
large amounts of money involved in a successful
American tour and the business enterprise which
must be extremely forceful to make such a tour
possible, it is not to be wondered that enormous
journeys must be made in ridiculously short time.
No one can imagine what this means to even a man
of my build.” (Reisenauer is a wonderfully strong
and powerful man.) “I have been obliged to play
in one Western city one night and in an Eastern city
the following night. Hundreds of miles lay between
them. In the latter city I was obliged to go directly
from the railroad depot to the stage of the concert
hall, hungry, tired, travel worn and without practice
opportunities. How can a man be at his best under
such conditions?—yet certain conditions make these
things unavoidable in America, and the pianist must
suffer occasional criticism for not playing uniformly
well. In Europe such conditions do not exist owing
to the closely populated districts. I am glad to have
the opportunity to make this statement, as no doubt
a very great many Americans fail to realize under
what distressing conditions an artist is often obliged
to play in America.”

[234]

Questions in Style, Interpretation, Expression
and Technic of Pianoforte Playing

SERIES XV

alfred reisenauer

emil sauer

EMIL SAUER

[235]

Biographical

Emil Sauer was born in Hamburg, Germany,
October 8, 1862. His first teacher was his mother,
who was a fine musician, and who took exceptional
pains with her talented son. From 1879 to 1881 he
studied with Nicholas Rubinstein, brother of the
famous Anton Rubinstein. Nicholas Rubinstein was
declared by many to be a far abler teacher than his
brother, who eclipsed him upon the concert platform.
From 1884 to 1885 Sauer studied with Franz Liszt.
In his autobiographical work, “My Life,” Sauer
relates that Liszt at that time had reached an age
when much of his reputed brilliance had disappeared,
and the playing of the great Master of Weimar did
not startle Sauer as it did some others. However,
Liszt took a great personal interest in Sauer and prophesied
a great future for him.

In 1882 Sauer made his first tour as a virtuoso, and
met with such favor that numerous tours of the
music-loving countries ensued. The critics praised
his playing particularly for his great clarity, sanity,
symmetrical appreciation of form, and unaffected
fervor. For a time Sauer was at the head of the
Meisterschule of Piano-playing, connected with the
Imperial Conservatory in Vienna.

(The following conference was conducted in
German and English.)

[236]

XVIII

THE TRAINING OF THE VIRTUOSO

emil sauer

One of the most inestimable advantages I have
ever had was my good fortune in having a musical
mother. It is to her that I owe my whole career
as an artist. If it had not been for her loving care
and her patient persistence I might have been engaged
in some entirely different pursuit. As a child
I was very indifferent to music. I abhorred practice,
and, in fact, showed no signs of pronounced talent
until my twelfth year. But she kept faithfully
pegging away at me and insisted that because my
grandfather had been a noted artist and because
she was devoted to music it must be in my blood.

My mother was a pupil of Deppe, of whom Miss
Amy Fay has written in her book “Music Study in
Germany.” Deppe was a remarkable pedagogue
and had excellent ideas upon the foundation of a
rational system of touch. He sought the most
natural position of the hand and always aimed to
work along the line of least resistance. My mother
instilled Deppe’s ideas into me together with a very
comprehensive training in the standard etudes and
classics within my youthful technical grasp. For
those years I could not have had a better teacher.
Lucky is the child, who like Gounod, Reisenauer and[237]
others, has had the invaluable instruction that a
patient, self-sacrificing mother can give. The mother
is the most unselfish of all teachers, and is painstaking
to a fault.

Slow Systematic Practice

She insisted upon slow systematic regular practice.
She knew the importance of regularity, and
one of the first things I ever learned was that if
I missed one or two days’ practice, I could not hope
to make it up by practicing overtime on the following
days. Practice days missed or skipped are gone forever.
One must make a fresh start and the loss is
sometimes not recovered for several days.

I was also made to realize the necessity of freshness
at the practice period. The pupil who wants
to make his practice lead to results must feel well
while practicing. Practicing while tired, either mentally
or physically, is wasted practice.

Pupils must learn to concentrate, and if they have
not the ability to do this naturally they should have
a master who will teach them how. It is not easy
to fix the mind upon one thing and at the same time
drive every other thought away. With some young
pupils this takes much practice. Some never acquire
it—it is not in them. Concentration is the
vertebræ of musical success. The student who cannot
concentrate had better abandon musical study.
In fact, the young person who cannot concentrate
is not likely to be a conspicuous success in any line[238]
of activity. The study of music cultivates the
pupil’s powers of concentration perhaps more than
any other study. The notes to be played must be
recognized instantaneously and correctly performed.
In music the mind has no time to wander. This is
one of the reasons why music is so valuable even
for those who do not ever contemplate a professional
career.

One hour of concentrated practice with the mind
fresh and the body rested is better than four hours
of dissipated practice with the mind stale and the
body tired. With a fatigued intellect the fingers
simply dawdle over the keys and nothing is accomplished.
I find in my own daily practice that it is
best for me to practice two hours in the morning
and then two hours later in the day. When I am
finished with two hours of hard study I am exhausted
from close concentration. I have also noted that any
time over this period is wasted. I am too fatigued
for the practice to be of any benefit to me.

The Necessity for a Good General Education

Parents make a great mistake in not insuring the
general education of the child who is destined to
become a concert performer. I can imagine nothing
more stultifying or more likely to result in artistic
disaster than the course that some parents take
in neglecting the child’s school work with an idea
that if he is to become a professional musician he
need only devote himself to music. This one-sided[239]
cultivation should be reserved for idiots who can
do nothing else. The child-wonder is often the victim
of some mental disturbance.

I remember once seeing a remarkable child mathematician
in Hungary. He was only twelve years of
age and yet the most complicated mathematical
problems were solved in a few seconds without recourse
to paper. The child had water on the brain
and lived but a few years. His usefulness to the world
of mathematics was limited solely to show purposes.
It is precisely the same with the so-called musical
precocities. They are rarely successful in after life,
and unless trained by some very wise and careful
teacher, they soon become objects for pity.

The child who is designed to become a concert
pianist should have the broadest possible culture.
He must live in the world of art and letters and
become a naturalized citizen. The wider the range
of his information, experience and sympathies, the
larger will be the audience he will reach when he
comes to talk to them from the concert platform.
It is the same as with a public speaker. No one
wants to hear a speaker who has led a narrow, crabbed
intellectual existence, but the man who has seen and
known the world, who has become acquainted with
the great masterpieces of art and the wonderful
achievements of science, has little difficulty in securing
an audience providing he has mastered the means
of expressing his ideas.

[240]

Clean Playing vs. Slovenly Playing

In the matter of technical preparation there is,
perhaps, too little attention being given to-day to
the necessity for clean playing. Of course, each
individual requires a different treatment. The pupil
who has a tendency to play with stiffness and rigidity
may be given studies which will develop a more fluent
style. For these pupils’ studies, like those of Heller,
are desirable in the cases of students with only moderate
technical ability, while the splendid “etudes”
of Chopin are excellent remedies for advanced pupils
with tendencies toward hard, rigid playing. The
difficulty one ordinarily meets, however, is ragged,
slovenly playing rather than stiff, rigid playing. To
remedy this slovenliness, there is nothing like the
well-known works of Czerny, Cramer or Clementi.