Piano Technique And Debussy

I'm adding a question, can one approach it without having gone through the studies of Chopin (and Liszt)? Which specifically deal with that technical material?

In an audition I had with Maestro Fausto Di Cesare for my diploma, he told me: "One can play everything on anything". Honestly, I did not quite agree with what he said and, in my own way, expressed this dissatisfaction with his thesis. I would add: "provided that the piano is well regulated and tuned". In my opinion, there is a purely technical approach to the piano keyboard and a psychological approach to the sound produced. Regarding the former, it goes without saying that it is impossible to execute certain technical elements on a keyboard that does not respond as it should. I would like to see a great pianist supporting this thesis try to play a fast tremolo (ribattuto) on a piano with keys that stick due to damaged keybeds. The second thing is that one is psychologically driven to play better and with more expression if the piano sings, and to sing, it goes without saying, it must be well tuned and intonated. I do not believe that a grand piano is necessary to execute tremolos; it certainly helps. I have had the opportunity to play on great upright pianos and on terrible grand pianos, and I conclude by saying that I prefer playing on a good upright rather than on a terrible grand. In Jardin sous le pluie, which I performed for my eighth year, one must utilize many technical elements to avoid arriving at the end of the piece very fatigued or even not reaching it at all. I am somewhat against a rigid wrist and generally against anything that involves contraction. I believe one truly possesses piano technique when one is able to play all technical elements with maximum fluency, without effort. The left hand carries the song; the right hand is the rain. The left must bounce with the fall; for the right, a soft wrist, combining articulation and rotation, all with maximum fluidity. Think of the rain falling on the grass with naturalness and delicacy. The right hand emulates this natural process...

Chopin wrote:

I'm adding a question: can one approach it without having gone through the studies of Chopin (and Liszt)? Which specifically deal with that technical material?

Of course yes! There are many technical studies, not just Chopin and Liszt; once you have acquired the necessary techniques, you can play everything.

TheSimon wrote:

Of course yes! There are many technical studies, not just Chopin and Liszt; once you have acquired the necessary techniques, you can play everything.

...just think that even those who drafted the ministerial programs thought so; practically, you could graduate without playing anything by Chopin... then the results are felt

I am dusting off this writing ....

Marcello Abbado's commentary on Vincenzo Balzani's recording of Chopin's Etudes:

"Chopin's Etudes Op.10 and Op.25 are the most extraordinary treasure that pianists throughout the world can conquer.

They encompass musical contents of dazzling beauty and contain technical problems of an extremely high level.

Only by studying Chopin's Etudes can one become a pianist. The great teachers of the most famous academies in the entire world know this very well. And all the pianists who have been raised and trained with the essential nourishment of Chopin's Etudes know it perfectly.

The most exciting way to stay in total, absolute contact with the piano is to play Chopin's Etudes. It means savoring the transition from major keys to minor keys with which Chopin marvelously constructed the complex of his works: with almost absolute regularity in Op. 10; in a more imaginative way in Op. 25, where minor keys predominate.

It means being stimulated to search for extremely refined sonorities. It means feeling one's hands adhere to the keyboard, as if pianist and piano were a single whole. It means being happy and feeling eternally young.

As Vincenzo Balzani demonstrates in his gripping, fascinating, astonishing recording endeavor".

Marcello Abbado

Talent is what makes the pianist, not Chopin and Liszt's etudes, period! This is nonsense that needs to be debunked... If Chopin's etudes hadn't existed, would there have been no pianists? What kind of nonsense is that? Liszt was a virtuoso and composed pieces that were even technically more difficult than Chopin's, so based on this, can we hypothesize that if Chopin hadn't existed, Liszt wouldn't have existed as a great virtuoso and technician of the past (who performed the etudes of his friend Chopin)? I believe one must start reasoning rather than believing something is true just because it was said by a great person. Certainly, Chopin's etudes are a treasure, to be sure, we didn't need Abbado to say such a thing, but that only by studying Chopin's etudes can one become a pianist...

I would also like to remind you that there are very few pianists who have performed the complete cycle of Chopin's etudes... So are only those true pianists? And yet, I seem to remember many names of great pianists from the past who must have played 4 or 5 of them, including a certain Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Famous is the quote by Alfred Cortot when he heard him (A new Liszt is born!).

> Liszt was a virtuoso and composed pieces that are technically even more difficult than Chopin's

...perhaps in certain cases he would have been better off limiting himself a bit

And his studies are a messy copy of Chopin's, I just can't stand him ...

I agree with Simone, whom I also thank for his response. As for Chopin (even from an "heretical" self-taught perspective as I am), I have noticed that my abilities progressed significantly right after tackling some of his studies and the second and third ballades (which I believe I will never finish in my entire life of continuing to study and perfect).

This is because, beyond any praise for the artistic quality of the work, I believe Chopin truly revolutionized piano technique, doing what instrument makers (Erard, Pleyel) were doing during the same period with the structure and mechanics of the instrument.

In the fortepiano, the strings were attached directly to the frames, as in the harpsichord; the keyboard was still very light; then came the cast-iron harp, the double escapement... And so, in the Clementi schools, the primary focus was still on articulation... for this reason, the technical gestures introduced by Chopin (stunning for the era) are found throughout all subsequent literature, and particularly in Debussy who, I believe, from a strictly technical-pianistic point of view, innovated little to nothing.

However, I do not think this means that one must necessarily study that technique specifically on Chopin or Liszt. The important thing is to learn and understand that playing well is perhaps an irreducible mix of articulation, weight drop, rotation, and wrist movement that each of us should achieve in relation to our own physical characteristics and personal taste... until reaching that "state of grace" that requires a good instrument and the right psychological approach.

TheSimon wrote:

So then only those are true pianists? And yet I seem to remember many names of great pianists from the past who must have played 4 or 5, including a certain Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Famous is the quote by Alfred Cortot when he heard him (A new Liszt is born!).

Given that what one has recorded is one thing and what one has studied is another (I was reading that Michelangeli is one of those who has a "private" repertoire), ... here we are referring to what one has or should have studied... Michelangeli has recorded perhaps one of the most difficult pieces by Chopin.

And we all know that Chopin wrote the etudes also for himself and to reach such levels of technique as to allow him to study his repertoire pieces... a bit as if the etudes were not enough

Lucky him!

I liked your post, however I am extracting this part:

pestatasti wrote:

L'importante è imparare e capire che il suonar bene, forse, è un mix irriducibile di articolazione, caduta, rotazione, movimento del polso che ognuno di noi dovrebbe raggiungere in relazione alle proprie caratteristiche fisiche e al proprio gusto... fino ad arrivare a quello "stato di grazia” che vorrebbe un buono strumento e il giusto approccio psicologico.

Technicalities alone are always sterile ... and I would add that talent must also be cultivated by overcoming progressive levels of difficulty, and Chopin, in my opinion, is a very important intermediate step; perhaps as a foundation, I would include Clementi's Gradus

I want to play devil's advocate, then

TheSimon wrote:

one must start reasoning rather than believing something is true just because it was said by a great man

If it applies to Abbado... it also applies to Cortot

TheSimon wrote:

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Famous is the quote by Alfred Cortot when he heard him (A new Liszt is born!).

...let's reason

Yes, but what Cortot said was objective; what Abbado said, in my opinion, not at all... Find me one person who claims that Benedetti Michelangeli lacked technique.

Moving on, regarding the private repertoire. Without a doubt, Benedetti Michelangeli must have had a private repertoire, but one that includes the complete Chopin studies—it seems quite strange to me that he didn't even record one of them. Perhaps he certainly played some. What I am asking is how you can refute a thesis with a hypothesis. The thesis: Benedetti Michelangeli had a very limited repertoire in which the Chopin studies do not appear; this is objective. Your hypothesis is that he had a private repertoire, okay, but which one?

Be careful though, let one thing be clear, I wouldn't want my message to have reached you as: "Chopin's studies are useless", heaven forbid!! They are very important and constitute a great technical foundation for the pianist who performs them. I am only saying that I don't believe it is absolutely true that one cannot call oneself a pianist if one does not perform Chopin's studies, which is quite different!

It seems to me that I have caught a nuance and I ask...

TheSimon wrote:

one cannot call oneself a pianist if one does not perform Chopin's studies, which is quite different!

Performing is one thing, studying is another, and I have experienced it personally.

Technique, studies, (stepping away from Chopin for a moment) must be studied, but it doesn't necessarily mean they must then be performed (in public) or recorded...

Of course! But Czerny's studies are one thing, and Chopin's studies are another. Many times I have seen at competitions at least one mandatory Chopin étude; it has never happened to me to see Czerny or Cramer études as mandatory. Just to say that usually, those who go through the grind of studying the complete set of Chopin études, in the end, at least someone—I'm not saying everyone, but at least someone—performs or records them.

In my opinion, a professional performer (I'm not saying a great performer) approaches an author by trying to

develop their own interpretation... which cannot emerge from playing only one or two pieces from a collection.

This is fine for encores during a concert

Drawing a parallel with composition, all composers attempt collections to exhaust a subject... so much so that Chopin wrote only one set of "fugues" and then gave up; no one remembers him for this, and it's not even a problem.

I remember the complete studies by Pollini, the nocturnes by Rubinstein, etc., and not study x recorded by Michelangeli. I also find this approach rather uninteresting.

Besides, the repertoire is vast; making choices is normal... but I doubt that Chopin or Debussy are "skippable" stages... it's a bit like saying someone is a finished composer without having done orchestration... then perhaps someone plays only the piano and is even a good improviser, but they will never be a true composer

If, instead, they study it and when they play and write for pf they have an eye for orchestration... well, that's another thing

I also think of performers who study composition. It is not mandatory to do so, but you can tell when a great performer has studied composition. There isn't much to be done about it, then there is instinct, talent, but rationalizing everything with systematic study is extremely important ... even if one "must" go through Chopin

Who knows why nobody complains about also having gone through Bach, yet he is the least pianistic author to play ...

But why is the subject always changed?

Frank wrote:

"...Only by studying Chopin's Etudes can one become a pianist..."

Marcello Abbado

I am criticizing this sentence which, as far as I am concerned, is bull****. I prefer Chopin a million times more than Bach and I feel much more suited to the classical and romantic periods rather than the baroque / harpsichord period. Regarding Chopin, I haven't played everything obviously, but a lot: ballades, Polonaise brillante, scherzos, waltzes, etudes, mazurkas; I am missing the sonatas, which I will look into anyway. The same applies to Liszt. I have performed 2 concert etudes, the first and the third, a Hungarian Rhapsody, Consolations, etc. I don't want to make it seem like I consider myself the pianist par excellence—on the contrary, I am possibly just slightly above mediocrity—I only want to say that if I went to listen to 20 pianists acclaimed by crowds for their technical skills, I wouldn't be able to say how many of them have studied Chopin's etudes. It's not that Chopin invented technique. It was a consequence of various schools and evolved based on the possibilities provided by the instrument. On the early pianos, we could even forget about much of the technical virtuosity that we can afford today. I strongly agree with Pestatasti when he says that technique is a mix of fundamental basic gestures that also depend on genetic possibility. A person with small hands will either forget many of Chopin's etudes or, in any case, will never be able to play them at Chopin's metronome. So, someone who has the misfortune of having small hands and cannot study certain Chopin etudes can never be a pianist according to Abbado's sentence? It seems like absolute nonsense to me!

TheSimon wrote:

So, does whoever has the misfortune of having small hands and cannot study certain Chopin studies will never be a pianist according to Abbado's phrase? To me, it seems like absolute nonsense!

I feel sorry for him but objectively he will always be a half-pianist simply because a good 40% of the repertoire cannot be played... Chopin would be the least of his worries

He would be better off orienting himself towards early repertoire, it might even be better if he became a harpsichordist