How to listen to a teacher! How to profit by his precepts! Better
still--How to practice after he has left the house! There are three
titles for essays, pedagogic and otherwise, which might be supplemented
by a fourth: How to pay promptly the music master's bills. But I do not
propose indulging in any such generalities this beautiful day in late
winter. First, let me rid the minds of my readers of a delusion. I am no
longer a piano teacher, nor do I give lessons by mail. I am a very old
fellow, fond of chatting, fond of reminiscences; with the latter I bore
my listeners, I am sure. Nevertheless, I am not old in spirit, and I
feel the liveliest curiosity in matters pianistic, matters musical.
Hence, this month I will make a hasty comparison between new and old
fashions in teaching the pianoforte. If you have patience with me you
may hear something of importance; otherwise, if there is skating down
your way don't miss it--fresh air is always healthier than esthetic
gabbling.
Do they teach the piano better in the twentieth century than in the
nineteenth? Yes, absolutely yes. When a young man survived the "old
fogy" methods of the fifties, sixties and seventies of the past century,
he was, it cannot be gainsaid, an excellent artist. But he was, as a
rule, the survival of the fittest. For one of him successful there were
one thousand failures. Strong hands, untiring patience and a deeply
musical temperament were needed to withstand the absurd soulless
drilling of the fingers. Unduly prolonged, the immense amount of dry
studies, the antique disregard of fore-arm and upper-arm and the
comparatively restricted repertory--well, it was a stout body and a
robust musical temperament that rose superior to such cramping pedagogy.
And then, too, the ideals of the pianist were quite different. It is
only in recent years that tone has become an important factor in the
scheme--thanks to Chopin, Thalberg and Liszt. In the early sixties we
believed in velocity and clearness and brilliancy. Kalkbrenner, Herz,
Dreyschock, Döhler, Thalberg--those were the lively boys who patrolled
the keyboard like the north wind--brisk but chilly. I must add that the
most luscious and melting tone I ever heard on the piano was produced by
Thalberg and after him Henselt. Today Paderewski is the best exponent of
their school; of course, modified by modern ideas and a Slavic
temperament.
But now technic no longer counts. Be ye as fleet as Rosenthal and as
pure as Pachmann--in a tonal sense--ye will not escape comparison with
the mechanical pianist. It was their astounding accuracy that extorted
from Eugen d'Albert a confession made to a friend of mine just before he
sailed to this country last month:
"A great pianist should no longer bother himself about his technic. Any
machine can beat him at the game. What he must excel in
is--interpretation and tone."
Rosenthal, angry that a mere contrivance manipulated by a salesman could
beat his speed, has taken the slopes of Parnassus by storm. He can play
the Liszt _Don Juan_ paraphrase _faster_ than any machine in existence.
(I refer to the drinking song, naturally.) But how few of us have
attained such transcendental technic? None except Rosenthal, for I
really believe if Karl Tausig would return to earth he would be dazzled
by Rosenthal's performances--say, for example, of the Brahms-Paganini
_Studies_ and, Liszt, in his palmy days, never had such a technic as
Tausig's; while the latter was far more musical and intellectual than
Rosenthal. Other days, other ways!
So tone, not technic alone, is our shibboleth. How many teachers realize
this? How many still commit the sin of transforming their pupils into
machines, developing muscle at the expense of music! To be sure, some of
the old teachers considered the second F minor sonata of Beethoven the
highest peak of execution and confined themselves to teaching Mozart and
Field, Cramer and Mendelssohn, with an occasional fantasia by
Thalberg--the latter to please the proud papa after dessert. Schumann
was not understood; Chopin was misunderstood; and Liszt was _anathema_.
Yet we often heard a sweet, singing tone, even if the mechanism was not
above the normal. I am sure those who had the pleasure of listening to
William Mason will recall the exquisite purity of his tone, the
limpidity of his scales, the neat finish of his phrasing. Old style, I
hear you say! Yes, old and ever new, because approaching more nearly
perfection than the splashing, floundering, fly-by-night, hysterical,
smash-the-ivories school of these latter days. Music, not noise--that's
what we are after in piano playing, the _higher_ piano playing. All the
rest is pianola-istic!
Singularly enough, with the shifting of technical standards, more
simplicity reigns in methods of teaching at this very moment. The reason
is that so much more is expected in variety of technic; therefore, no
unnecessary time can be spared. If a modern pianist has not at _fifteen_
mastered all the tricks of finger, wrist, fore-arm and upper-arm he
should study bookkeeping or the noble art of football. Immense are the
demands made upon the memory. Whole volumes of fugues, sonatas of
Chopin, Liszt, Schumann and the new men are memorized, as a matter of
course. Better wrong notes, in the estimation of the more superficial
musical public, than playing with the music on the piano desk. And then
to top all these terrible things, you must have the physique of a
sailor, the nerves of a woman, the impudence of a prize-fighter, and the
humility of an innocent child. Is it any wonder that, paradoxical as it
may sound, there are fewer great pianists today in public than there
were fifty years ago, yet ten times as many pianists!
The big saving, then, in the pianistic curriculum is the dropping of
studies, finger and otherwise. To give him his due, Von Bülow--as a
pianist strangely inimical to my taste--was among the first to boil down
the number of etudes. He did this in his famous preface to the Cramer
_Studies_. Nevertheless, his list is too long by half. Who plays
Moscheles? Who cares for more than four or six of the Clementi, for a
half dozen of the Cramer? I remember the consternation among certain
teachers when Deppe and Raif, with his dumb thumb and blind fingers,
abolished _all_ the classic piano studies. Teachers like Constantine von
Sternberg do the same at this very hour, finding in the various
technical figures of compositions all the technic necessary. This method
is infinitely more trying to the teacher than the old-fashioned,
easy-going ways. "Play me No. 22 for next time!" was the order, and in a
soporific manner the pupil waded through all the studies of all the
_Technikers_. Now the teacher must invent a new study for every new
piece--with Bach on the side. Always Bach! Please remember that.
B-a-c-h--Bach. Your daily bread, my children.
We no longer play Mozart in public--except Joseffy. I was struck
recently by something Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler said in this matter of
Mozart. Yes, Mozart is more difficult than Chopin, though not so
difficult as Bach. Mozart is so naked and unafraid! You must touch the
right key or forever afterward be condemned by your own blundering. Let
me add here that I heard Fannie Bloomfield play the little sonata,
wrongfully called _facile_, when she was a tiny, ox-eyed girl of six or
seven. It was in Chicago in the seventies. Instead of asking for candy
afterwards she begged me to read her some poetry of Shelley or
something by Schopenhauer! Veritably a fabulous child!
Let me add three points to the foregoing statements: First, Joseffy has
always been rather skeptical of too _few_ piano studies. His argument is
that _endurance_ is also a prime factor of technic, and you cannot
compass endurance without you endure prolonged finger drills. But as he
has since composed--literally composed--the most extraordinary
time-saving book of technical studies (_School of Advanced Piano
Playing_), I suspect the great virtuoso has dropped from his list all
the Heller, Hiller, Czerny, Haberbier, Cramer, Clementi and Moscheles.
Certainly his Exercises--as he meekly christens them--are _multum in
parvo_. They are my daily recreation.
The next point I would have you remember is this: The morning hours are
golden. Never waste them, the first thing, never waste your
sleep-freshened brain on mechanical finger exercise. Take up Bach, if
you must unlimber your fingers and your wits. But even Bach should be
kept for afternoon and evening. I shall never forget Moriz Rosenthal's
amused visage when I, in the innocence of my eighteenth century soul,
put this question to him: "When is the best time to study etudes?" "If
you must study them at all, do so after your day's work is done. By your
day's work I mean the mastery of the sonata or piece you are working at.
When your brain is clear you can compass technical difficulties much
better in the morning than the evening. Don't throw away those hours.
Any time will do for gymnastics." Now there is something for stubborn
teachers to put in their pipes and smoke.
My last injunction is purely a mechanical one. All the pianists I have
heard with a beautiful tone--Thalberg, Henselt, Liszt, Tausig,
Heller--yes, Stephen of the pretty studies--Rubinstein, Joseffy,
Paderewski, Pachmann and Essipoff, sat _low_ before the keyboard. When
you sit high and the wrists dip downward your tone will be dry, brittle,
hard. Doubtless a few pianists with abnormal muscles have escaped this,
for there was a time when octaves were played with stiff wrists and
rapid _tempo_. Both things are an abomination, and the exception here
does not prove the rule. Pianists like Rosenthal, Busoni, Friedheim,
d'Albert, Von Bülow, _all the Great Germans_ (Germans are not born, but
are made piano players), Carreño, Aus der Ohe, Krebs, Mehlig are or were
artists with a hard tone. As for the much-vaunted Leschetizky method I
can only say that I have heard but two of his pupils whose tone was
_not_ hard and too brilliant. Paderewski was one of these. Paderewski
confessed to me that he learned how to play billiards from Leschetizky,
not piano; though, of course, he will deny this, as he is very loyal.
The truth is that he learned more from Essipoff than from her then
husband, the much-married Theodor Leschetizky.
Pachmann, once at a Dôhnányi recital in New York, called out in his
accustomed frank fashion: "He sits too high." It was true. Dôhnányi's
touch is as hard as steel. He sat _over_ the keyboard and played _down_
on the keys, thus striking them heavily, instead of pressing and
moulding the tone. Pachmann's playing is a notable example of plastic
beauty. He seems to dip his hands into musical liquid instead of
touching inanimate ivory, and bone, wood, and wire. Remember this when
you begin your day's work: Sit so that your hand is on a level with,
never below, the keyboard; and don't waste your morning freshness on
dull finger gymnastics! Have I talked you hoarse?