Chapter III

"In the art of piano playing we have much the same line of curve. At first there was childlike simplicity. Then, with the further development of the art, we find the tendency toward enormous technical accomplishment and very great complexity. Fifty years ago technic was everything. The art of piano playing was the art of the musical speedometer--the art of playing the greatest number of notes in the shortest possible time. Of course, there were a few outstanding giants, Rubinsteins, Liszts and Chopins, who made their technic subordinate to their message; but the public was dazzled with technic--one might better say pyrotechnics. Now we find the circle drawing toward the point of simplicity again. Great beauty, combined with adequate technic, is demanded rather than enormous technic divorced from beauty.

"Technic represents the material side of art, as money represents the material side of life. By all means achieve a fine technic, but do not dream that you will be artistically happy with this alone. Thousands--millions--of people believe that money is the basis of great happiness, only to find, when they have accumulated vast fortunes, that money is only one of the extraneous details which may--or may not--contribute to real content in life.

"Technic is a chest of tools from which the skilled artisan draws what he needs at the right time for the right purpose. The mere possession of the tools means nothing; it is the instinct--the artistic intuition as to when and how to use the tools--that counts. It is like opening the drawer and finding what one needs at the moment.

"There is a technic which liberates and a technic which represses the artistic self. All technic ought to be a means of expression. It is perfectly possible to accumulate a technic that is next to useless. I recall the case of a musician in Paris who studied counterpoint, harmony and fugue for eight years, and at the end of that time he was incapable of using any of his knowledge in practical musical composition. Why? Because he had spent all of his time on the mere dry technic of composition, and none in actual composition. He told me that he had been years trying to link his technic to the artistic side of things--to write compositions that embodied real music, and not merely the reflex of uninspired technical exercises. I am a firm believer in having technic go hand in hand with veritable musical development from the start. Neither can be studied alone; one must balance the other. The teacher who gives a pupil a long course in strict technic unbroken by the intelligent study of real music, is producing a musical mechanic--an artisan, not an artist.

"Please do not quote me as making a diatribe against technic. I believe in technic to the fullest extent in its proper place. Rosenthal, who was unquestionably one of the greatest technicians, once said to me: 'I have found that the people who claim that technic is not an important thing in piano playing simply do not possess it.' For instance, one hears now and then that scales are unnecessary in piano practice. A well-played scale is a truly beautiful thing, but few people play them well because they do not practice them enough. Scales are among the most difficult things in piano playing; and how the student who aspires to rise above mediocrity can hope to succeed without a thorough and far-reaching drill in all kinds of scales, I do not know. I do know, however, that I was drilled unrelentingly in them, and that I have been grateful for this all my life. Do not despise scales, but rather seek to make them beautiful.

"The clever teacher will always find some piece that will illustrate the use and result of the technical means employed. There are thousands of such pieces that indicate the use of scales, chords, arpeggios, thirds, etc., and the pupil is encouraged to find that what he has been working so hard to acquire may be made the source of beautiful expression in a real piece of music. This, to my mind, should be part of the regular program of the student from the very start; and it is what I mean when I say that the work of the pupil in technic and in musical appreciation should go hand in hand from the beginning.