I
Many years ago a certain young man of o’erweening ambition, with a good
piano hand and a scorn for the beaten path, conceived the Gargantuan
idea that by playing _all_ the études written for the piano he could
arrive at perfection by a short cut and thus make up for lost time. He
was eighteen years old when he began the experiment and at twenty-two
he abandoned his task, a crippled, a sadder, a wiser man.
The young man browsed on études by Bach, Czerny, Loeschorn, Berens,
Prudent, Ravina, Marmontel, Planté, Jensen, Von Sternberg, Kullak,
Jadassohn, Germer, Reinecke, Riemann, Mason, Löw, Schmidt, Duvernoy,
Doering, Hünten, Lebert and Stark, A. E. Müller (caprices), Plaidy,
Bruno, Zwintscher, Klengel (canons), Raff, Heller, Bendel, Neupert,
Eggeling, Ehrlich, Lavallée, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Rheinberger, Alkan,
Fétis, Ferd, Ries, Isador Seiss, Arthur Foote, Anton Strelezki,
Carl Baermann, Petersilyea, Krauss, D’Abelli, Golinelli, Berger,
Kalkbrenner, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Dreyschock, Moscheles, Doehler, Carl
Heyman, Hans Seeling, Clementi, Thalberg, Cramer, Chopin, Sgambati,
Liszt, Hiller, Brassin, Paradies (toccata), Hasert, Faelten, Vogt, J.
C. Kessler, Moszkowski, Henselt, the Scharwenkas, Rubinstein, Joseffy,
Dupont, Herz, Köhler, Speidel, Tausig, Schytte-Rosenthal, Von Schlözer,
Schuett, Haberbier, Nicodé, Ketten, Pixis, Litolff, Charles Mayer,
Balakireff, MacDowell, Leopold De Meyer, Ernst Pauer, Le Couppey,
Vogrich, Deppe, Raif, Leschetizky, Nowakowski, Paderewski, Barth,
Zichy, Philipp, Rosenthal and lots of names not to be recalled.
And about the same delightful chronological order as the above was
observed in the order of study.
What could have been the result of such a titanic struggle with such
wildernesses of notes? What could have been the result upon the
cerebral powers of the young man after such a Brobdingnagian warfare
against muscles and marks?
Alas, there was no result. How could there have been?
And music, what became of music in all this turmoil of technics?
Naturally it went begging, and in after years the young man, observing
how many young people, ambitious and talented, were pursuing the same
false track, determined to think the thing out, and first went about it
by asking well-known authorities, and finally formulated the question
this way: What études are absolutely necessary for a mastery of the
keyboard?
Since the days of Carl Czerny--God bless his old toccata in
C!--instruction books, commonly known as methods, began to appear. How
many I do not propose to tell you. You all know Moscheles and Fétis,
the Kalkbrenner, the Henri Herz, Lebert and Stark and Richardson
(founded on Dreyschock). That they have fallen into disuse is only
natural. They were for the most part bulky, contained a large amount of
useless material, and did not cover the ground; often being reflections
of a one-sided virtuosity. Then up sprang an army of études. Countless
hosts of notes, marshalled into the most fantastic figures, hurled
themselves at varying velocities and rhythms on the piano studying
world. Dire were the results. Schools arose and camps within camps.
There were those in the land that developed the left hand at the
expense of the right and the other way about. Trill and double-note
specialists abounded, and one could study octaves here and ornaments
there, stiffness at Stuttgart, flabbiness with Deppe, and yet no man
could truthfully swear that his was the rightful, the unique method.
Suddenly in this quagmire of doubt and dumb keyboards arose a still
small voice, but the voice of a mighty man. This is what the voice said:
“There is but one god in technic, Bach, and Clementi is his prophet.”
Thus spake Carl Tausig, and left behind him an imperishable edition of
Clementi!
It was Tausig’s opinion that Clementi and Chopin alone have provided
studies that perfectly fulfil their intention. It was Tausig’s habit
to make use of them before all others, in the school for the higher
development of piano playing of which he was the head. He also used
them himself. Furthermore he asserted that by means of those studies
Clementi made known and accessible the entire piano literature from
Bach, who requires special study, to Beethoven, just as Chopin and
Liszt completed the scale of dazzling virtuosity.
The Gradus was one great barrier--a mighty one, indeed--against the
influx of barren, mechanical or nonsensical études for the piano. Just
read the incomplete list above, and does not your head wither as a
fired scroll at the prospect of studying such a vast array of notes?
Then came Von Bülow with his Cramer edition, and another step was
taken in the boiling down movement. Moreover the clever Hans took the
reins in his hands, and practically said in his preface to the Cramer
edition: “Here is _my_ list; take and study it. You will then become a
pianist--if you have talent.” Here is his list:
Lebert and Stark--abomination of angular desolation; Aloys Schmitt
exercises, with a touch of Heller to give flavor and flesh to the old
dry bones; Cramer (Bülow), St. Heller, op. 46 and 47; Czerny daily
exercises, and the school of legato and staccato; Tausig’s Clementi;
Moscheles, op. 70; Henselt, op. 2 and 5, and as a bridge Haberbier’s
Études Poésies; Moscheles, op. 95, characteristic studies; Chopin,
ops. 10 and 25, glorious music; Liszt studies, Rubinstein studies,
and finally, as a “topper,” C. V. Alkan with Theodor Kullak’s octave
studies on the side.
Now this list is not bad, but it is nearly twenty-five years since it
was made, and in this quintessentializing age, a quarter of a century
means many revolutions in taste and technic. Condense, condense is the
cry, and thereupon rose Oscar Raif, who might be called the Richard
Wagner of piano pedagogues, for with one wave of his wand he would
banish all études, substituting in their stead music, and music only.
Pick out the difficulties of a composition for slow practice, said Mr.
Raif, and you will save time and wear and tear on the nerves.
Raif made a step in piano pedagogy, nihilistic though it seemed, and
to-day we have those remarkable daily studies of Isidor Phillip, which
are a practical demonstration of Raif’s theory.
Then came forward a few reasoning men who said: “Why not skeletonize
the whole system of technic, giving it in pure, powerful but small
doses to the student?” With this idea Plaidy, Zwintscher, Mason and
Mathews, Germer, Louis Koehler and Riemann have published volumes
literally epitomizing the technics of the piano. Dr. William Mason in
his Touch and Technic further diversifies this bald material by making
the pupil attack it with varying touches, rhythms and velocities.
Albert R. Parsons, in his valuable Synthetic Method, makes miracles
of music commonplaces for the tender, plastic mind of childhood. But
all these, while training the mind and muscles, do not fringe upon
the problem the young man attempted to solve. That problem related to
studies only. His hand was supposed to be placed--in a word--to be
posed.
He incidentally found that Heinrich Germer’s Technics or Mason’s Touch
and Technic were sufficient to form the fingers, wrist, forearm and
upper arm; that on a Virgil clavier every technical problem of the
flat keyboard could be satisfactorily worked out, and then arose the
question: What studies are absolutely essential to the pianist who
wishes to go to the technical boundaries of the flat keyboard?
Technics alone would not do, for you do not get figures that flow nor
the sequence of musical ideas, nor musical endurance, not to mention
style and phrasing. No one work on technic blends all these requisites.
Piano studies cannot be absolutely discarded without a serious loss;
one loses the suavity and simplicity of Cramer, a true pendant of
Mozart; the indispensable technics and foundational tone and touch of
Clementi, a true forerunner of Beethoven, and then what a loss to
piano literature would be the destruction of the studies of Chopin,
Liszt and Rubinstein!
No; there lurks an element of truth in the claims of all these worthy
thinkers, experimenters and seekers after the truth. Our young man, who
was somewhat of an experimental psychologist, knew this, and earnestly
sought for the keystone of the arch, the arcanum of the system, and
after weary years of travail found it in Bach--great, good, glorious,
godlike Johann Sebastian Bach, in whose music floats the past,
present and future of the tone art. Mighty Bach, who could fashion a
tiny prelude for a child’s sweet fingers, a Leonardo da Vinci among
composers, as Beethoven is their Michel Angelo, Mozart their Raphael.
With the starting point of the first preludes and exercises of Bach
the young groper found that he had his feet, or rather his hands, on
terra firma, and proceeded with the two and three part inventions and
the suites, English and French, and the great forty-eight preludes and
fugues in the Well Tempered Clavichord, not forgetting the beautiful A
minor fugue with its few bars of prelude.
Before the Clavichord is reached the pupil’s hand is ready for Cramer,
and some of these beautiful music pieces, many poetical in the extreme,
may be given. What could follow Cramer more fitly than Clementi,
Tausig’s Clementi? A great teacher as well as a great virtuoso, Tausig
pinned his faith to these studies, and so does that other great
virtuoso. Bach was also Chopin’s daily bread.
In Clementi one may discern all the seeds of modern piano music, and
studying him gives a nobility of tone, freedom of style and a surety
of finger that may be found in no other collection. Tausig compressed
Clementi into twenty-nine examples, which may with discrimination be
reduced to fifteen for practical use. The same may be said of Bülow’s
Cramer, not much more than half being really necessary.
Bülow’s trinity of Bs--Bach, Beethoven and Brahms--may be paralleled in
the literature of piano studies by a trinity of Cs--Cramer, Clementi
and Chopin. And that leads to the great question, How is that ugly gap,
that break, to be bridged between Clementi and Chopin? Bülow attempts
to supply the bridge by a compound of Moscheles, Henselt and Haberbier,
which is obviously tedious, and in one case--Henselt--puts the cart
before the horse.
I believe the gap can be safely crossed by using the two very valuable
Hummel concertos in A and B minor, for between Chopin--the early
Chopin--and Hummel there is a certain resemblance. Some of Hummel’s
passage work, for example, is singularly like Chopin’s juvenile style,
and Chopin, as everyone knows, was extremely fond of the Hummel
concertos. Of course the resemblance is an external one; spiritually
there is no kinship between the sleek pianist of Weimar and the genius
of Warsaw.
Yet pieces and concertos do not quite serve the purpose, and may the
Fates and Joseffy pardon me for the blasphemy, but I fear I do not
appreciate the much vaunted Moscheles studies. To be sure, they are
fat, healthy, indeed, almost buxom, but they lack just a pinch of
that Attic salt which conserves Cramer and Clementi. Understand, I do
not mean to speak irreverently of Moscheles. I think that his G minor
concerto is the greatest conservatory concerto ever written, and his
various Hommages for two dry pianists serve the agreeable purpose of
driving a man to politics. I wish merely to estimate the op. 70, 95 and
51 from the viewpoint of a utilitarian.
There is nothing in op. 70 that has not been done far better by
contemporaries of the composer. For instance, the double note study is
weak when compared with that best of all double note studies, Czerny’s
toccata in C. En passant, that is one of the most remarkable special
studies ever written, and is certainly number one in the famous trio
of double-note études, the other two being the Schumann toccata and
Chopin’s G sharp minor study. Include by all means the Czerny toccata
in your list, and get the Moszkowski edition, which is remarkable for
nothing except that it omits the celebrated misprint at the close of
the original edition.
There are studies by Kalkbrenner noticeable for their virtuoso
character. Ries, too, has done some good work, notably the first of
the set in the Peters’ edition. Then there is Edmund Neupert. His
hundred daily exercises are really original, and contain new technical,
figures, and his études in the Edition Peters are charming. They
suggest Grieg, but a more virile, masterful Grieg.
Take the Thalberg studies; how infinitely more “pianistic” and poetic
than the respectable Moscheles! I know that it is the fashion of the
day to sneer at Thalberg and his machine-made fantaisies, but we
should not be blind to the beauties of his Art of Singing on the
Piano, his études, op. 26, one of them in C, a tremolo study, being
more useful than Gottschalk’s famous Tremolo, not forgetting the op.
45, a very pretty theme in repeated notes.
Thalberg has written music that cannot be passed over by any
fair-minded teacher or pupil. Another objection to Moscheles is that he
is already old-fashioned. His style is rococo, his ornamentation trite
and much of his work stale. Study him if you will; a half dozen of his
études will suffice; but do not imagine that he prepares the hand for
Henselt or Chopin, as Von Bülow so fondly fancied.
There is one man might be suggested--a composer who is as much
forgotten as Steibelt, who wrote a Storm for the piano, and thought
that he was as good a man as Beethoven. Have you ever heard of Joseph
Christoph Kessler?
It is difficult to discover much about him, except that Chopin
dedicated the German edition of his preludes, op. 28, “à Monsieur J. C.
Kessler.” This same Kessler was born in Augsburg in 1800; he studied
philosophy as well as music at Vienna, and at Lemberg in the house
of his patron, Count Potocki, he composed his op. 20, twenty-four
studies, dedicated to J. N. Hummel. Kessler was a brilliant pianist,
met Chopin at Warsaw, and later dedicated to him his twenty-four
preludes, op. 31. He was highly thought of by Kalkbrenner, and Fétis,
and Moscheles incorporated some of his études in their Method of
Methods. In 1835 Kessler attracted Schumann’s attention, and that great
critic said that the pianist had good stuff in him. “Mann von geist
und sogar poetischem geist,” he wrote, but somehow his music fell into
disuse and is hardly ever heard. Fancy a pianist playing a Kessler
étude in concert, yet that is what Franz Liszt did, and though the
studies themselves hardly warrant a concert hearing, there is much that
is brilliant, effective and eminently solid in many of them.
Kessler died at Vienna, January 13, 1872.
Let us examine more closely these studies. In four books, published
by Haslinger, they are too bulky, besides being fingered badly. Out
of the twenty-four there are ten well worthy of study. The rest are
old-fashioned. Book I., No. 1, is in C and is a melody in broken
chords that is peculiarly trying to the fourth finger. The stretches
are modern and the study is very useful. No. 2, in A minor, is an
excellent approach to all interlocking figures occurring in modern
piano music. This, too, is very valuable. No. 3 I can recommend, for it
is a melody in chord skips. No. 4 is very useful for the development of
the left hand. No. 5 is confusing on account of hand crossing, and it
could be dispensed with, while No. 6 serves the same purpose as No. 4.
If you can play Nos. 4 and 6 of Kessler you need not fear the C minor
or C sharp minor studies of Chopin, wherein the left hand plays such an
important part.
Book II. has a study--No. 8--in octaves which might be profitable but
I shall not emphasize its importance, for the Kullak octave school
should never be absent from your piano rack. No. 10, however--a unisono
study--is very good and is a foundation study for effects of this sort.
It might be practised before attacking the last movement of the B flat
minor sonata of Chopin.
But that about comprises all of value in the volume. Book III. has
little to commend--a study, No. 13, same stiff, nasty figures for
alternate hands; No. 15, for the wrist, excellent as preparation for
Rubinstein’s staccato étude, and No. 18, some Chopin-like figuration
for the right hand. Book IV. contains but three studies: No. 20 for
left-hand culture. No. 21 for stretches and a facile thumb, and No. 24,
a very stiff study, which is bound to strengthen the weaker fingers
of the hand. Look at these Kessler studies, or, better still, study
a dozen of them, and you will find the bridge between Clementi and
Chopin, and a very satisfactory bridge at that; for to the solidity
of Clementi, Kessler has added a modern technical spirit. One year’s
experience with Kessler would make you drop your goody-goody Moscheles,
or at least play him for the historical interest only.
Naturally every pupil cannot be mentally pinioned to the same round of
studies. There are many charming studies before Cramer; for instance
Heller; try Eggeling and Riemann as preparatory to Bach, Jadassohn’s
scholarly preludes and fugues with a canon on every page, and in the C
sharp minor prelude and fugue you will find much good, honest music.
Then there are lots of pretty special studies. William Mason’s Étude
Romanza is a scale study wherein music and muscle are happily blended;
Schuett’s graceful Étude Mignonne, Raff’s La Fileuse, Haberbier’s
poetical studies, especially the one in D; Isador Seiss’ very musical
preludes, in which the left hand plays an important part; Ludwig
Berger’s interesting studies, and a delightful étude of Constantin Von
Sternberg in F, which I heartily commend. Ravina, Jensen and many, many
others have written études for which a light wrist, facile fingers and
agreeable style are a necessity, but could all be easily dispensed
with. We must not forget a little volume called Rhythmical Problems, by
Heinrich Germer, of great value to teacher and pupil alike, for therein
may be found a solution of many criss-cross rhythmic difficulties.
Adolph Carpé’s work on Phrasing and Accentuation in Piano Playing,
attacks the rhythmical problem in the boldest and most practical
fashion.
Works of special character, like Kullak’s Art of Touch and Ehrlich’s
Touch and Technic, should be read by the enterprising amateur.
We have now reached the boundaries of the Chopin studies, that
delightful region where the technic-worn student discerns from afar the
glorious colors, the strangely plumaged birds, the exquisite sparkle
of falling waters, the odors so grateful to nostrils forced to inhale
Czerny, Clementi and Cramer. O, what an inviting vista! Yet it is not
all a paradise of roses; flinty is the road over which the musical
pilgrim toils, and while his eye eagerly covets joyous sights, his feet
and fingers often bleed. But how easily that pain is endured, for is
not the Mount of Parnassus in sight, and does not every turn of the
road disclose fresh beauties?