"In a good
mechanism," he said, "the aim is not to play everything with an equal
sound, but to acquire beautiful quality of touch and perfect shading."
Of prime importance in his eyes was a clear, elastic, singing tone, one
whose exquisite delicacy could never be confounded with feebleness.
Every dynamic nuance he exacted of fingers that fell with freedom and
elasticity on the keys, and he knew how to augment the warmth and
richness of tone-coloring by setting in vibration sympathetic harmonics
of the principal notes through judicious employment of the damper pedal.
By precept and example he advocated frequent playing of the preludes and
fugues of Bach as a means of cultivating musical intelligence, muscular
independence and touch and tone discrimination. His musical heroes were
Bach and Mozart, for they represented to him nature, strong
individuality and poetry in music. At one time he undertook to write a
method or school of piano-playing, but never progressed beyond the
opening sentences.
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