Piano Mastery Part 6

In the pauses he talks over with the pupil the character of the piece, and the effects he thinks should be made. In short his lessons are most helpful and illuminating.

I also had the opportunity to attend a pupils' "Practise Concert," and here the results attained were little short of marvelous. Small children, both boys and girls, played difficult pieces, like the Grieg Variations for two pianos, the Weber _Invitation to the Dance_, and works by Chopin and Liszt, with accuracy and fluency. Almost every selection was played from memory. The tone was always musical and often of much power, and the pupils seemed thoroughly to understand what they were doing and the meaning of the music. They certainly exemplified the professor's maxim:

"Never touch the piano without trying to make music."

Not long afterward I received a copy of the new book, which had just come from the press. Its comprehensive t.i.tle is _Musical Interpretation, its Laws and Principles, and their Application in Teaching and Performing_. The material was first presented in the form of lectures; on repeated requests it has been issued in book form. The author at the outset claims no attempt to treat such a complex problem exhaustively; he has, however, selected the following seven points for elucidation:

1. The difference between Practise and Strumming.

2. The difference between Teaching and Cramming.

3. How one's mind can be brought to bear on one's work.

4. Correct ideas of Time and Shape.

5. Elements of Rubato and its application.

6. Elements of Duration and Pedaling and their application.

7. Some details as to the application of the Element of Tone-variety.

Such themes must cause the thoughtful reader to pause and think. They are treated with illuminating originality. The great aim of the teacher must ever be to awaken thought along correct lines; the pupil must be a.s.sisted to concentrate his thought on what he is doing: to constantly think and listen. Teaching does not consist merely in pointing out faults; the teacher must make clear the _cause_ of each fault and the way to correct it. That section of the book devoted to the Element of Rubato, is ill.u.s.trated with many examples from well-known compositions, by which the principle is explained. He shows how frequently this principle is misunderstood by the inexperienced, who seem to think that rubato means breaking the time; whereas true rubato is the _bending_ of the time, but not _breaking_ it. If we give extra time to certain notes, we must take some time from other notes, in order to even things up.

The subject of Pedaling is aptly explained by means of numerous ill.u.s.trations. The author deplores the misuse of the damper pedal, which can be made to ruin all the care and effort bestowed on phrasing and tonal effects by the fingers. The fault can, in most cases, be traced to inattention to the sounds coming from the piano.

There are quotable paragraphs on every page, which in their sincerity and earnestness, their originality of expression, stamp themselves on the reader's imagination. Every teacher who is serious in his work and has the best interests of his pupils at heart, should read and ponder these pages.

XIII

HAROLD BAUER

THE QUESTION OF PIANO TONE

Buried deep in the heart of old Paris, in one of the narrow, busy thoroughfares of the city, stands the ancient house in which the master pianist, Harold Bauer, has made a home.

One who is unfamiliar with Paris would never imagine that behind those rows of uninviting buildings lining the noisy, commercial street, there lived people of refined and artistic tastes. All the entrances to the buildings look very much alike--they seem to be mere slits in the walls.

I stopped before one of the openings, entered and crossed a paved courtyard, climbed a winding stone stairway, rang at a plain wooden doorway, and was ushered into the artist's abode. Once within, I hardly dared to speak, lest what I saw might vanish away, as with the wave of a fairy's wand. Was I not a moment before down in that dusty, squalid street, and here I am now in a beautiful room whose appointments are all of quiet elegance--costly but in exquisite taste, and where absolute peace and quiet reign. The wide windows open upon a lovely green garden, which adds the final touch of restful repose to the whole picture.

Mr. Bauer was giving a lesson in the music salon beyond, from which issued, now and again, echoes of well-beloved themes from a Chopin sonata. When the lesson was over he came out to me.

"Yes, this is one of the old houses, of the sort that are fast pa.s.sing away in Paris," he said, answering my remark; "there are comparatively few of them left. This building is doubtless at least three hundred years old. In this quarter of the city--in the rue de Bac, for instance--you may find old, forbidding looking buildings, that within are magnificent--perfect palaces; at the back of them, perhaps, will be a splendid garden; but the whole thing is so hidden away that even the very existence of such grandeur and beauty would never be suspected from without."

He then led the way to the music-room, where we had an hour's talk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAROLD BAUER]

"I was thinking as I drove down here," I began, "what the trend of our talk might be, for you have already spoken on so many subjects for publication. It occurred to me to ask how you yourself secure a beautiful tone on the piano, and how you teach others to make it?"

Mr. Bauer thought an instant.

"I am not sure that I do make it; in fact I do not believe in a single beautiful tone on the piano. Tone on the piano can only be beautiful in the right place--that is, in relation to other tones. You or I, or the man in the street, who knows nothing about music, may each touch a piano key, and that key will sound the same, whoever moves it, from the nature of the instrument. A beautiful tone may result when two or more notes are played successively, through their _difference of intensity_, which gives variety. A straight, even tone is monotonous--a dead tone. Variety is life. We see this fact exemplified even in the speaking voice; if one speaks or reads in an even tone it is deadly monotonous.

VARIETY OF TONE

"Now the singer or the violinist can make a single tone on his instrument beautiful through variety; for it is impossible for him to make even _one_ tone which does not have shades of variation in it, however slight they may be, which render it expressive. But you cannot do this on the piano: you cannot color a single tone; but you can do this with a succession of tones, through their difference, through their relation to each other. On the other hand you may say any tone is beautiful if in the right place, no matter how harsh it may be. The singer's voice may break from emotion, or simulated emotion, in an impa.s.sioned phrase. The exact note on which it breaks may not be a beautiful one, it may even be very discordant, but we do not think of that, for we are moved by the meaning back of the tones. So on the piano there may be one note in a phrase which, if heard alone, would sound harsh and unpleasant, but in its relation to other tones it sounds beautiful, for it gives the right meaning and effect. Thus it is the _relation of tones_ which results in a 'beautiful tone' on the piano.

"The frequent trouble is that piano teachers and players generally do not understand their instrument. A singer understands his, a violinist, flutist or drummer knows his, but not a pianist. As he only has keys to put down and they are right under his hand, he does not bother himself further. To obviate this difficulty, for those who come to me, I have had this complete model of piano-key mechanism made. You see I can touch the key in a variety of ways, and the results will be different each time. It is necessary for the pianist to look into his instrument, learn its construction, and know what happens inside when he touches a key.

"As you say, there are a great many methods of teaching the piano, but to my mind they are apt to be long, laborious, and do not reach the vital points. The pianist may arrive at these after long years of study and experimenting, but much of his time will be wasted in useless labor.

"In my own case, I was forced by necessity to make headway quickly. I came to Paris years ago as a violinist, but there seemed no opening for me then in that direction. There was opportunity, however, for ensemble work with a good violinist and 'cellist. So I set to work to acquire facility on the piano as quickly as possible. I consulted all the pianists I knew--and I knew quite a number--as to what to do. They told me I must spend many months on technic alone before I could hope to play respectably, but I told them I had no time for that. So I went to work to study out the effects I needed. It didn't matter to me _how_ my hand looked on the keyboard; whether my fingers were curved, flat, or stood on end. I was soon able to get my effects and to convince others that they were the effects I wanted. Later on, when I had more leisure, I took more thought about the position of hand and fingers. But I am convinced that much time is spent uselessly on externals, which do not reach the heart of the matter.

"For instance, players struggle for years to acquire a perfectly even scale. Now I don't believe in that at all. I don't believe a scale ever should be even, either in tone or in rhythm. The beginner's untrained efforts at a scale sound like this"--the speaker ill.u.s.trated at the piano with a scale in which all the tones were blurred and run into each other; then he continued, "After a year's so-called 'correct training,'

his scale sounds like this"--again he ill.u.s.trated, playing a succession of notes with one finger, each tone standing out by itself. "To my thinking such teaching is not only erroneous, it is positively poisonous--yes, _poisonous_!"

"Is it to be inferred that you do not approve of scale practise?"

"Oh, I advise scale playing surely, for facility in pa.s.sing the thumb under and the hand over is very necessary. I do not, however, desire the even, monotonous scale, but one that is full of variety and life.

"In regard to interpretation, it should be full of tonal and rhythmic modifications. Briefly it may be said that expression may be exemplified in four ways: loud, soft, fast, and slow. But within these crude divisions what infinite shades and gradations may be made! Then the personal equation also comes in. Variety and differentiation are of supreme importance--they are life!

"I go to America next season, and after that to Australia; this will keep me away from my Paris home for a long time to come. I should like to give you a picture to ill.u.s.trate this little talk. Here is a new one which was taken right here in this room, as I sat at the piano, with the strong sunlight pouring in at the big window at my left."

On a subsequent occasion, Mr. Bauer spoke further on some phases of his art.

"As you already know I do not believe in so-called 'piano technic,'

which must be practised laboriously outside of pieces. I do not believe in spending a lot of time in such practise, for I feel it is time wasted and leads nowhere. I do not believe, for instance, in the struggle to play a perfectly even scale. A scale should never be 'even,' for it must be full of variety and life. A perfectly even scale is on a dead level; it has no life; it is machine-made. The only sense in which the word 'even' may be applied to a scale is for its rhythmic quality; but even in this sense a beautiful scale has slight variations, so that it is never absolutely regular, either in tone or rhythm.

"Then I do not believe in taking up a new composition and working at the technical side of it first. I study it in the first place from the musical side. I see what may be the meaning of the music, what ideas it seeks to convey, what was in the composer's mind when he wrote it. In other words, I get a good general idea of the composition as a whole; when I have this I can begin to work out the details.

"In this connection I was interested in reading a statement made by Ruskin in his _Modern Painters_. The statement, which, I think, has never been refuted, is that while the great Italian painters, Raphael, Coreggio, and the rest have left many immature and imperfect pictures and studies in color, their drawings are mature and finished, showing that they made many experiments and studies in color before they thought of making the finished black and white drawing. It seems they put the art thought first before the technical detail. This is the way I feel and the way I work.

AVOID RESTRICTING RULES

"Because our ancestors were brought up to study the piano a certain way, and we--some of us--have been trained along the same rigid lines, does not mean there are no better, broader, less limited ways of reaching the goal we seek. We do not want to limit ourselves or our powers. We do not need to say: 'Now I have thought out the conception of this composition to my present satisfaction; I shall always play it the same way.' How can we feel thus? It binds us at once with iron shackles. How can I play the piece twice exactly alike? I am a different man to-day from what I was yesterday, and shall be different to-morrow from what I am to-day.

Each day is a new world, a new life. Don't you see how impossible it is to give two performances of the piece which shall be identical in every particular? It _is_ possible for a machine to make any number of repet.i.tions which are alike, but a human, with active thought and emotion, has a broader outlook.

"The question as to whether the performer must have experienced every emotion he interprets is as old as antiquity. You remember in the Dialogues of Plato, Socrates was discussing with another sage the point as to whether an actor must have felt every emotion he portrayed in order to be a true artist. The discussion waxed warm on both sides.

Socrates' final argument was, If the true artist must have lived through every experience in order to portray it faithfully, then, if he had to act a death scene he would have to die first in order to picture it with adequate fidelity!"

THE QUESTION OF VELOCITY

In speaking of velocity in piano playing and how it is to be acquired, Mr. Bauer continued: