Learn How to Play Piano from Expert

I now come to the loud or sustaining pedal, which Rubinstein aptly called “the soul of the piano.” It certainly is the best friend the pianist has at his disposal for helping him to overcome the material drawbacks of the pianoforte’s constitution, and without it no legato playing or prolongation of tone would be possible at all.

Of course, there are two pedals on the modern pianoforte, even sometimes three, but the soft one is only used, as its name implies, for deadening the sound. The loud pedal, as it is called, is the real important factor, and when I speak of the pedal in future as a general term, it is always to this one that I am referring. The name “loud pedal” is really a misnomer, as its function is rather to sweeten the sound and render it more open, and also to add brilliance to the tone rather than actual loudness. If the pedal is a good friend it can also be the worst possible enemy if badly employed. Nothing is more terrible than the general blur cast over everything by the pedal when it is applied without expert knowledge. A few simple rules about how it should be used are as follows.

I have already mentioned that the pedal must be changed on different harmonies; it should also never be taken directly on the first beat of the bar to obtain the best results, but in syncopation with that beat, as in the example below.

In fact, the keyboard ought never to be struck hard at all in legato passages or in melody of any kind. On the contrary, the keys must be caressed with a sort of almost stroking movement, to obtain the requisite tone-values. And in connection with this there is another thing to which I attach great importance, namely, that the hand in its attitude on the keyboard should reflect in some degree the spirit of the music.

For instance, it would not be natural to hold the hands as formally when playing Chopin as in the performance of sixteenth century music. Again, in a vivacious piece the hands should look sprightly and full of energy, while in slow cantabile movements they should present a soft and sinuous appearance. For even the fact of the hand looking hard and stiff during playing will assuredly affect the sound adversely, and rob it of beauty of quality.

All these things are intimately connected with the preparation of a fine touch upon the piano. The word “touch,” as a musical term, signifies really the mode by which the fingers attack the keyboard. For the great difficulty to be contended with on the piano when it is necessary to produce a singing tone lies in this, that by its mechanical composition, if once a key is struck upon the instrument, no further modification of the sound-quality is possible. No vibrato or mellowing of the tone can be afterwards applied as on stringed instruments; with the piano, all is over when the ringer has once fallen and the hammer has struck the strings.

Therefore anything that can be done to sweeten the tone must be attempted before the striking of the note. By this I mean that an infinitesimal time should elapse between the action of lifting the finger to strike and the definite falling of the finger upon the key. Touch must be thus prepared in the playing of all melody and singing passages with a slow pressing movement of the hand and fingers. This caressing touch could not, of course, be employed in rapid difficult passages, where direct quick blows of the fingers are indispensable in order to save time. In such cases, and in the higher development of technical brilliance, no more lifting of the fingers is necessary than is compatible with distinct articulation.

As far as the general rules of interpretation are concerned, I will give a few which appertain to what might be called the syntax of music. Such are the following. An ascending passage should be played with a crescendo, a descending passage with a diminuendo. The pedal must be changed according to the harmonies, in order to blend the tones, and to enable notes to be held on which the fingers could not manage without its assistance. Rhythm, too, as distinct from time, must be clearly marked, so as to indicate where accents ought to fall, and to create atmosphere. Music played without true rhythm will always sound colourless and insipid. Time should also be well defined, that it may preserve the general form of the composition.

Skilful use of all these means makes up the art of interpreting, and it is for the mentality of the pianist to employ them in their varying degrees, to mould them, combine them, and dispose of them, and thus invest the whole work with the pulsating breath of actuality. No doubt there must exist in the interpreter a natural good taste which will govern his outlook, and this can only spring from a sound musical instinct trained by education, and by hearing great artists perform. For it goes without saying that there are no absolute rules about interpretation. There can but be some broad outlines of style and taste to stimulate the imagination of the student, and help him in his task.

As I have already pointed out, the interpretations of the masterpieces of music by great artists become established as traditions. Still the personal thought of the performer should make its influence felt in the rendering of all music, even of the most classical type, if that rendering is to be of any -real value and interest, only this personality has to conform to the general dicta of the style. Thus it will be found that no two fine artists will interpret a piece in the same way. There may be a thousand differences of expression in their particular performance, and each of them equally correct. This fact only illustrates how imagination and colour may be infused into interpretation in much variety. For great musical compositions may well be compared to beautiful landscapes, which are ever changing in colour and effect through the action of atmospheric conditions. On no two days does the country look alike, yet its composition and outline remain fixed, everlasting.

It is told of Beethoven that he played over one of his own compositions to a talented pupil in order to give him some idea of the interpretative side, and then asked the student to play the same piece again. This was done, and the master complimented him, remarking that although it differed greatly from the original, it was decidedly better.

This reminds me of Tchaikovsky, who was asked, after conducting a composition of his own, why he did not do so in the same way as he had once done before. “My friend,” the master replied, “if you ever see me conduct this again, it will be different still. It is merely a matter of mood.”

Another detail which it is necessary for the student to bear in mind is that technical passages ought never to be played as if they were of purely digital dexterity, as this method makes of such passages only hard, uninteresting interludes of display, wearisome to the listener and of no value musically. All technical passages, even the most difficult ones, should be considered as embroideries of the main harmonies; in fact, they are the rhetoric of the composition.

Melody also should not be knocked out with unbalanced enthusiasm to the entire detriment of the accompaniment, nor should any two notes of a melody be given with exactly the same tone colour, for this will create monotony of sound. Every single tone should be on a general scale of gradation, each having its own place in the scheme of chiaroscuro; because the mechanical tone of the piano itself, with which we are dealing, makes it imperative that every device to conjure up perspective and charm should be brought into service, and above all typewriting effects of precise striking must be strenuously avoided.

And what is musical style? I think it can be explained as the impression reflected upon the music by the manners, customs, and modes of thought which were characteristic of the epoch when it was written. For, after all, people lived, loved and suffered every kind of emotion in former centuries just as we do now, only each period has had its diverse ways of expressing these things in the arts.

What, then, do we mean by the interpretation of music itself for the purpose of performance? Is it not the employing of all possible technical means to infuse the spirit of life into the inanimate musical form, and cause it to be kindled into a definite sound picture for the mind of the listener? On the pianoforte this is done by means of accents, variations of tone-values (crescendo and diminuendo), variations of rhythm (accellerando and ritardando), variety of touch, and manipulation of the pedals. Accents enable the pianist to bring into prominence certain notes, or groups of notes, which might be comparable to cries, exclamations, interjections in the elocutionary art, or to sudden bursts of colour in painting.

These and other similes could be followed up through the whole scale of human emotions, for the well-trained hand of the pianist, being the pliant tool of his imagination, represents to him what the brush does to the painter, or the voice to the actor. And many of the same aesthetic laws govern all these in their work as far as is possible, when the difference of circumstance and material is taken into account.

It is to-day, as always, the mission of the authoritative interpreter to amplify and throw new lights upon these traditions, and not be content to accept the general version which his less-gifted brethren have to subscribe to with reverent faith. Still, even for the great artist the fundamental principles must remain the same, and for him, as for the student, they will form the guiding line of his mental vision.

Of course, I know that there is a school of musical thought which practically condemns any effort at interpretation or emotion in music. They like to be given just the notes as they were written down, like so many words recited without a shadow of life or expression. Artists have often been much called to task by critics who hold such views because their interpretations of the masterpieces of music are based on the natural conviction that the greater the music, the more power of colour, fine feeling and poetry it ought to be able to express. It is difficult to understand the people who talk with arrogant authority about how exactly a musical work should be interpreted. They like to invest it with a sort of traditional dryness of expression which tends to render especially the older of the great classics a sort of trial of tediousness which many genuine music lovers submit to endure only as a kind of educational duty. It is, I am sure, a good deal a matter of temperament that controls these radical divergences of ideas about musical performance. It seems to me that to hold such views is not to get any further than mere arrangements of detail and narrow perspective, while the true majesty of the picture is missed. I have many times met truly musical people who found Bach and Beethoven dull, and were surprised at having been stirred by a great fugue or sonata which they had never appreciated before. And I am certain it was because they had never been allowed the opportunity of realizing the full glory of such music. For can one imagine a nobler or wider range in which to find every wealth of imagination, intellect and feeling than is to be found in the great sonatas of Beethoven.

The earliest pianoforte music we know of was written in the form of simple dance measures such as courantes, allemandes, pavanes, gigues and so forth. These were performed upon very primitive-keyed instruments, amongst the best known being the virginals, harpischords and spinets, and they were only suitable to the plainest methods of treatment.

Indeed, the story is told of Dr. Arne, the celebrated eighteenth century English composer, that he said about one of those instruments, ” It is the devil’s own instrument, my masters, like the scratch of a quill with a squeak at the end of it.”

Only since the variety and capacity of instruments have developed, and also since Bach created the complex and polyphonic harmonies which revolutionized pianoforte music, has the scope of harmonical expression become so greatly enlarged, and the problems which surround it so complicated. The discovery of the pedal, too, changed the whole complexion of interpretation on the piano, while in the light of modern technique it seems strange to think that before the advent of Bach the use of the thumb and also of the 5th finger was absolutely forbidden by the best teachers.

In those days the wrist was held high and the hand stiff; a high chair was no doubt also used for sitting at the instrument, and the whole attitude while playing must have been one of rigidity and precision. Any rendering of this primitive music was necessarily very quiet and limited in the means employed. All violent crescendo or diminuendo effects were impossible, and the rhythm was confined to the swaying but monotonous lilt of the gigues of that day, or to the more stately measures of the pavanes. Certainly it would seem, to say the least of it, indecorous to play a piece of the sixteenth century even on a modern pianoforte with the abandonment of a Liszt Rhapsody, or, vice versa, to render the passionate music of Chopin or Liszt with the demure coldness of the early masters. This is where a sense of style should come in, to help the artist in his conception of the different aspects of musical composition.