"What you hear is about eighty percent of what you play. My listening is constantly evolving. [...] And then I also change as a human being, and along with me, my way of listening transforms."
"Touch is a personal matter; it comes spontaneously, it is not something that can be studied. It is born from hearing and consists of transmitting what you feel to the rest of the body. But I don't know how it works. Personally, I love listening to old violinists or old pianists, perhaps because they lived in an era when music was particularly alive, in which there wasn't much difference between classical music and popular music. Thibaud and Casals, for example, alternated serious music with nights in nightclubs: one thing did not exclude the other."
Certainly, in fact, I would say that he only cites some aspects of the subject in question. What is called "bel tocco" or "bel suono" deals with talent, with the musician's cultural level, and with "good taste." There are, however, certain elements and study suggestions that improve "touch." I will never tire of saying that in cantabile, the right hand must play louder than the left, even in piano. Rubinstein was a Master at this. One only has to listen to his Chopin nocturnes to notice that it is difficult to perceive the left hand acting as the background. Background. A gifted pianist knows how to treat sonic planes just as a painter uses different color planes to create "depth perspective." Even in painting, however, sometimes, deliberately, the painter highlights an infinite plane that should be "subtle." This is the case of what is called "a felt element." This also exists in Music. Therefore, I believe that for this and a thousand other reasons, the problem of "touch" emerges as complex, and I think that, anyway, it must be treated with "lightness" of thought. Cortot spoke of "diction," as in the word. Another brief concept that is close to my heart (without becoming too "cerebral") is the intensity of each note in the cantabile succession relative to the overall intensity. When a student is suggested, from the very beginning, to "sing" on the piano, they are encouraged to develop one of the most difficult concepts of pianism, but in my opinion, a fundamental one.
