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    Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing
    Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing
    Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing
    Ebook60 pages48 minutes

    Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing

    By Josef Lhevinne

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    About this ebook

    This little book, written at the height of his career by Josef Lhevinne, the "inward poet of the piano," is a clear statement of principles based on his lifelong experience in performance and teaching. Lhevinne was, with Rachmaninoff, Schnabel, and Hoffman, one of the great modern masters, and was the first artist invited to teach at the newly formed Julliard Graduate School of Music.
    Technique, through essential, must be subordinate to musical understanding. Complete knowledge of scales, apprehended not mechanically but musically; understanding of the uses of rests and silence, which Mozart considered the greatest effect in music; a feeling for rhythm and training of the ear; these are the basic elements of a thorough grounding in musicianship and are accordingly emphasized in the opening chapters.
    The heart of the book is devoted to the attainment of a beautiful tone. Anyone who has heard Lhevinne play or has listened to one of his recordings will know how great were his achievements in that area. The secret lay, at least in part, in the technique he called "the arm floating in air," and in the use of the wrists as natural shock absorbers. The achievement of varieties of tone, of the singing, ringing tone, of brilliancy, of delicacy, and of power are all explained in terms of a careful analysis of the ways in which the fingers, hand, wrist, arm, and indeed the whole body function in striking the keys. There are further remarks about how to get a clear staccato and an unblurred legato, about the dangers of undue emphasis on memorization and the need for variety in practicing, and special comments on the use of the pedal, which should be employed with as much precision as the keys.
    Throughout, specific musical examples are presented as illustrations. The author draws not only upon his own experiences and methods, but upon the examples of Anton Rubenstein and of his teacher, Safonoff, for this remarkably lucid and concise formulation of basic principles.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateApr 9, 2013
    ISBN9780486317403
    Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing

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      Book preview

      Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing - Josef Lhevinne

      PLAYING

      CHAPTER I

      THE MODERN PIANO

      The possibilities of the piano have been a matter of continual development. The highly developed instrument of today is the descendant of many attempts at perfection. When Bartolomeo Cristofori, in the early years of the eighteenth century, sought to improve the keyboard instruments he was manufacturing, he found that it was necessary to start out upon an entirely new line of attack. The instruments of the time (clavicembali, harpsichords, etc.) were limited in expression because the wires were plucked with quills, much as a zither is played. By inventing an instrument in which the wires were struck with hammers, instead of being plucked, he made a distinct departure. He called it the Forte-Piano, because it could play both loud and soft. Later, doubtless for euphony, it became the pianoforte, and then the piano. But it could do far more than play loud or soft. It permitted the production of different classes of sound quality within its range. These are controlled by touch; and it is because of this that one of the basic problems of its use is the matter of touch, with which we shall have a great deal to do in this series. Rubinstein called the pedal the soul of the piano. But the pedal can be used like a soul in purgatory or like one in paradise. The finest pedaling in the world, however, is worthless unless the student is familiar with the basic principles of

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