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 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.
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 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 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."
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.
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.
"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 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!_
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 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 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:
"'_Das mag die beste Musik sein
Wenn Herz und Mund stimmt überein._'"
("Music is best when the heart and lips (mouth) speak together.")
QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION
AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING
SERIES XII
VLADIMIR DE PACHMANN
1. What does originality in pianoforte playing really mean?
2. State something of the evils of the forcing methods of training
applied to young children.
3. Have the compositions of the most original composers been the most
enduring?
4. Name seven of the most original composers for the pianoforte.
5. Must the pupil continually help himself?
6. What is considered the most difficult scale to learn?
7. Is a great virtuoso obliged to practice years in order to secure
results?
8. How may piano study be compared with the polishing of beautiful
jewels?
9. Tell what characteristics a great teacher must have.
10. What lies at the foundation of pianistic greatness?
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.
[Illustration: MAX PAUER]
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 technic 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."
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 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