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, 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.
QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION
AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING
SERIES XIV
S. V. RACHMANINOFF
1. Should the student gain an idea of the work as a whole before
attempting detailed study?
2. How is the matter of digital technic regarded in Russia?
3. What part should the study of phrasing play in modern music
education?
4. State how contrast in playing may be accomplished.
5. What may be considered the most difficult branch of pianoforte study?
6. What is the law of artistic progress?
7. How must real musical understanding be achieved?
8. What is the vital spark in piano playing?
9. Can one be overexact in playing?
10. What is the effect of too many mechanical rules?
[Illustration: A. REISENAUER]
ALFRED REISENAUER
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.
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 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.
"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.
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 devices 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 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 inevitable "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:
[Illustration]
Chopin's next thought was, no doubt:
[Illustration]
But with his unerring good taste and sense of symmetry he writes it so:
[Illustration]
Now consider the thing in studying it and while playing it from the
composer's attitude. By this I mean 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:
[Illustration]
"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."
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 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 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.
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."
QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION
AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING
SERIES XV
ALFRED REISENAUER
1. What should be the first step in the musical education of the child?
2. Why was Köhler so successful as a teacher?
3. Did Liszt follow a method in teaching or was his work eclectic?
4. Give Liszt's conception of how Chopin developed one of his Valses.
5. Have the possibilities of the art of musical composition been
exhausted?
6. Are other great schools of pianoforte playing likely to arise?
7. What was Reisenauer's opinion of the works of MacDowell?
8. What may be said of musical taste in America when Reisenauer was
touring this country.
9. What may be said of the status of American musical education?
10. What great difficulties do the virtuosos visiting America
encounter?
[Illustration: EMIL SAUER]
EMIL SAUER
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.)
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 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.