Piano Practice: Etudes from Planet Impossible

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

Erard piano, c. 1830

Virtuosity is totally intoxicating. To me, there is nothing ambivalent in a performance of a piece of music of such complexity that only the most exceptional artists can tackle it. It’s like an athletic event of the most demanding physicality, and in the case of musical performance, at the highest level of craftsmanship and artistic skill. It was the violinist Niccolò Paganini who first personified the exciting concept of virtuosity. He could extract sounds and effects from his instrument that nobody had been able to imagine. Paganini was capable of such virtuosity that otherworldly powers were ascribed to him. Contemporaries had no qualms suggesting that Paganini had made a pact with the devil. When Franz Liszt heard him in performance, he decided to equal Paganini’s skill on the piano. Liszt’s quest was aided by a piano of better mechanical opportunity and greater dynamic range supplied by the instrument builder Érard.

Franz Liszt

Érard introduced the so-called repetition mechanism, which allowed for more rapid repetition and at the same time increased sensitivity to key touch, which enhanced the possibilities for musical expression. Paris became the center of piano building and virtuoso performance, with “dozens of steel-fingered, chromium-plated virtuosos playing there, including Kalkbrenner, Herz, Hiller, Hünten, Pixis, Thalberg, Dreyschock, and Cramer… There was Dreyschock with his octaves and Kalkbrenner with his passage-work, and Thalberg with his trick of making two hands sound like three.” Heinrich Heine ranked the mightiest piano virtuosos, calling “Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Mme Pleyel a sibyl, and Döhler a pianist.” The cult of the piano virtuoso was exploding in Paris, and as they attempted to outperform each other, etudes of staggering difficulties started to appear. In this blog, we will listen to a brief survey of mind-boggling etudes from the planet impossible. 

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No. 4: ‘Mazeppa’

Franz Liszt was the undisputed superstar, and his performance style was described as “containing abandonment, a liberated feeling, but even when it becomes impetuous and energetic in his fortissimo, it is still without harshness and dryness. He draws from the piano tones that are purer, mellower and stronger than anyone has been able to do; his touch has an indescribable charm.” The reviewer doesn’t actually focus on pianistic pyrotechnics, but on his delicate touch and charm, and “even his handsome profile.” Apparently, Liszt’s performances induced fainting spells among female listeners, which were subsequently dubbed “Liztomania” by Heinrich Heine. This “Liszt-Fever,” as it was called, was thought to have been a medical condition that was extremely contagious.

Franz Liszt, 1858

Heinrich Heine offered an alternate explanation. “A physician, whose specialty is female diseases, and whom I asked to explain the magic our Liszt exerted upon the public, smiled in the strangest manner, and at the same time said all sorts of things about magnetism, galvanism, electricity, of the contagion of the close hall filled with countless wax lights and several hundred perfumed and perspiring human beings, of historical epilepsy, of the phenomenon of tickling, of musical cantharides, and other scabrous things, which, I believe have reference to the mysteries of the Bona Dea (An ancient Roman goddess associated with chastity and fertility). Perhaps the solution of the question is not buried in such adventurous depths, but floats on a very prosaic surface. It seems to me at times that all this sorcery may be explained by the fact that no one on earth knows so well how to organize his successes, or rather their ‘Mise-en-scène,’ as our Franz Liszt.” Seemingly, Liszt already understood that presentation was everything. 

Henryk Siemiradzki: Chopin concert

Still to this day, virtuosity is often considered negatively, “as a performance aimed at a public that outwardly demonstrates exceptional agility in terms of instrumental or vocal technique, especially as related to speed of execution. Such displays are both admired as demonstration of a divine gift and condemned as a diabolical perversion of musical practice.” In the exciting world of the piano virtuoso, Frédéric Chopin held a special position. He was described as “greater than the greatest of pianists, he is the only one.” And an admirer added “not only do we love him, we love ourselves in him.” Liszt and Chopin began their careers at roughly the same time, and whatever has been written down in the history books, they never really enjoyed a close personal friendship. Their professional and personal lives often intersected and overlapped, to be sure, as they appeared together in concerts and as part of events organized for charity, with their performances always the center of attention. Reviews referred to them as the two greatest virtuosos of the day, artists “both of whom have attained the same lofty standard and sense with equal depth to the essence of art.”

Chopin: Etude Op. 10, No. 4 “Torrent étude”

To be sure, as their relationship as friends and fellow artists developed they did hold shared admiration for each other’s talent. Liszt wrote about Chopin, “never was there a nature more imbued with whims, caprices, and abrupt eccentricities. His imagination was fiery, his emotions violent, and his physical being feeble and sickly. Who can possibly understand the suffering deriving from such a contradiction?” And tellingly he added, “Chopin’s character is composed of a thousand shades which in crossing one another become so disguised as to be indistinguishable.” Long after Chopin’s death, Liszt commented to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, “no one compares to him; he shines lonely, peerless in the firmament of art.” Liszt never highlights the technical aspects of Chopin’s compositions, but focuses instead—as Schumann would do—on the depths of artistic expression. In a sense, virtuosity becomes a necessary evil for complex musical and personal expressions. Chopin, in turn, was critical of the purely pyrotechnical elements of many of Liszt’s compositions for the piano, but he was clearly aware of the magnetic powers of performance offered by Liszt. As he almost jealously writes to Ferdinand Hiller in 1833, “I hardly even know what my pen is scribbling, since at the moment Liszt is playing one of my etudes and distracting my attention from my respectable thoughts. I would love myself to acquire from him the manner in which he plays my etudes.” 

Leopold Godowsky

Heralded as the “Buddha of the Piano” among musical giants, Polish-American pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) once wrote, “I love the piano and those who love the piano. The piano as a medium for expression is a whole world by itself. No other instrument can fill or replace its own say in the world of emotion, sentiment, poetry, imagery and fancy.” Musically speaking, the Chopin etudes really can’t be improved upon. However, Godowsky used them as the basis for creating over fifty monumentally difficult studies that have achieved legendary status among enthusiastic pianists. Fashioned over a number of years, these Studies reflect “Godowsky’s success as a piano pedagogue, his interest in resolving technical problems and developing pianistic vocabulary, his ambition to perfect his own mechanism, his encyclopedic knowledge of piano literature, the need to extend his own repertoire, and his unusual fascination in arranging piano works.” As a famed critic in the 1960’s wrote, “they are probably the most impossibly difficult things ever written for the piano. These are fantastic exercises that push piano technique to heights undreamed of even by Liszt.”

Chopin-Godowsky: Etude No. 25 in A-flat major

Shortly before his death in 1938, Godowsky wrote on the process of arrangement, “To justify myself in the perennial controversy which exists regarding the aesthetic and ethical rights of one composer to use another composer’s works, themes, or ideas as a foundation for paraphrases, variations, etc., I desire to say that it depends entirely upon the intention, nature and quality of the work of the so-called ‘transgressor.’ Since the Chopin Études are universally acknowledged to be the highest attainment in étude form in the realm of beautiful pianoforte music combined with mechanical and technical usefulness, I thought it wisest to build upon their solid and invulnerable foundation to further the art of pianoforte playing. Being averse to any tampering with the text of any master work when played in the original form, I would condemn any artist for taking liberties with the works of Chopin or any other great composer. The original Chopin Studies remain as intact as they were before any arrangements of them were published; in fact, numerous artists claim that after assiduously studying my versions, many hidden beauties in the original Studies will reveal themselves to the observant student.” 

György Ligeti

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed his cycle of devilishly difficult 18 études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001. Ligeti continues in the tradition of the virtuoso piano writing seen in Chopin, Liszt and Godowsky, and his etudes are considered “the most important additions to the solo-piano repertoire in the last half-century.” Technically way beyond the abilities of mere mortals, these works are shaped from influences taken from “the polyrhythmic player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow to the music of sub-Saharan Africa, chaos theory to the minimalism of Steve Reich. In the Études, Ligeti effectively created a new pianistic vocabulary, while remaining exuberantly himself—the moments when the music seems to evaporate in the highest reaches of the keyboard, or flounders in its lowest depths.” The 18 études are arranged in three books of six works each.

Ligeti: Etude No.13 “The Devil’s Staircase”

Originally, Ligeti had only wanted to compose twelve studies, following in the footsteps of Debussy’s Études, but he “enjoyed writing the pieces so much that he embarked on a third book.” Sadly, Book 3 is incomplete as the composed fell ill and died a couple of years later. Ligeti gave the various etudes titles containing a mixture of technical terms and poetic descriptions. In Book 1 we find “Désordre,” a study in fast polyrhythms moving up and down the keyboard, with the right hand playing only white keys while the left hand is restricted to black keys. In “Touches bloquées” two different rhythmic patterns interlock. One hand plays rapid, even melodic patterns while the other hand blocks some of the keys by silently depressing them. “Automne à Varsovie” pays homage to the annual festival of contemporary music in Warsaw Poland, and in Book II we find among others “Galamb Borong,” “Fém,” “Der Zauberlehrling,” and “L’escalier du diable” (The Devil’s Staircase). This hard-driving toccata that moves polymetrically up and down the keyboard might be the most terrifying work in the entire piano repertoire.

Charles-Valentin Alkan

In his day, Charles-Valentin Alkan (1819- 1888) was mentioned in the same breath with Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. Not only was Alkan—he was born of Jewish parentage as Charles-Valentin Morhange—one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century, he was also a most unusual composer, “remarkable in both technique and imagination.” Alkan gave his first public concert as a violinist at age seven. By that time, he already had been a student at the Paris Conservatoire for almost 2 years, and during his piano audition the examiners reported, “This child has amazing abilities.” By age fourteen, Alkan had composed a set of piano variations on a theme by Daniel Steibelt, published as Opus 1. He soon performed in the leading salons and concert halls of Paris, and made friends with Franz Liszt, Eugène Delacroix, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. He continued to publish piano music, including the Trois Grandes Etudes, one for the left hand, one for the right hand, and the third for both hands together. Robert Schumann commented on these pieces as follows, “One is startled by such false, such unnatural art…the last piece titled ‘Morte’ is a crabbed waste, overgrown with brush and weeds…nothing is to be found but black on black.” By the age of 25, Alkan had reached the peak of his career, with Franz Liszt providing glowing reviews of his performances and even recommending him for the post of Professor at the Geneva Conservatoire. And his “Train Journey” must be one of the most demanding etudes in the piano repertoire.

Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux

We could seemingly go on forever and find fiendishly difficult and often musically satisfying etudes by Alexander Scriabin, Anton Rubinstein or Moritz Moszkowski, to name only a selected few. But I wanted to conclude this blog with an etude by the relatively little-known Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux (1802-1874). A French composer, pianist, piano teacher, musicologist and music critic, he was initially groomed to enter the legal profession, but he also received first prize in a piano competition at the Lycée Charlemagne. Desperate to pursue a career in music, he was allowed to take harmony lessons from Anton Reicha at the Conservatoire de Paris, and he published his first works at the age of 14. Today, he is probably best known for his 60 Grandes Études, Op. 63, compositions of immense technical difficulty. Marc-André Hamelin considered them more difficult than those of Charles-Valentin Alkan. However, he also calls them unmusical. This simple statement underscores the idea that rapid velocity, large intervals within very short periods of time, escalations of ornamentation and variations, notes doubled an octave apart are “processes of pointless acrobatics and soulless agility.” We all know that virtuosity can be seen as an elaborate magic trick, but does this make it any less exciting? Even the digital midi version of the “Scherzo alla Neapolitana” offers plenty of excitement, don’t you think?

Piano Practice From Czerny to Chopin

 by Hermione Lai, Interlude

Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould is my favourite pianist. There, I said it. The reason I like him is because he is unconventional; unconventional in his approach to the stuffy world of classical music, unconventional in his interpretations, and unconventional in his mannerisms. Maybe I should have said idiosyncratic or eccentric. Eccentricity and non-conformity are no doubt part of the cultivated public image, but there is something very powerful in the way he tenderly strokes the keys like it is the memory of a long lost lover, or how he hums and groans incomprehensible along with the music. But there is one more thing I really liked about Glenn Gould, and that is the fact that he hated practicing. He would go days or even weeks without touching the piano, and he once claimed that the “best playing I do is when I haven’t touched the instrument for a month.”

Czerny: The School of Velocity

Piano practice just wasn’t very high on his list, and supposedly he practiced less than most during his concert years. After his retirement, he spent even less time at the piano. It is said, that from the mid-seventies, “he was practicing, when at all, as little as half an hour a day, usually about one hour, never more than two.” For us mere mortals, however, piano practice is essential, and countless composer have written dedicated exercises to keep our fingers nimble and wrists supple. We thought it might be fun to look and listen at music specifically composed for the purpose of piano practice, all starting with the probably most hated composer in the history of piano playing, Carl Czerny.

Carl Czerny

The name Carl Czerny (1791-1857) seems to automatically evokes great fear and loathing in aspiring pianists, but his technical exercises remain an essential part of nearly every pianist’s training. The idea that Czerny was a mere pedagogue churning out a seemingly endless stream of uninspired works actually originates with Robert Schumann. He writes, “It would be hard to discover a greater bankruptcy in imagination than Czerny has proved.” I think Schumann misses the point. The School of Velocity, The Art of Finger Dexterity, and countless others didactic pieces are solely and stubbornly concerned with acquiring and maintaining piano technique.

Czerny: The Art of Finger Dexterity

We all know how difficult it is to build up muscle dexterity and muscle memory, and how easy it is to fall off the cliff. The great violinist Jascha Heifetz once said, “If I don’t practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.” Czerny’s aim is clear, get your piano technique sorted first and then worry about making music. Czerny was pretty thorough in his aim, and his various “Schools” combine pedagogy with revelations about contemporary performing practices. Chopin greatly admired Czerny, as did Franz Liszt. In fact, the much-hated Carl Czerny is actually “considered the father of modern piano technique.”

Friedrich Burgmüller

It’s one thing to train the muscles of your hand, but quite another to keep your mind and ears interested in the process. As such, composers and pianists far and wide have tried to make the process of piano practice more interesting. Take for example Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874), a German composer and pianist. He settled in Paris and made his living as a much-esteemed piano teacher. His compositions proved successful among amateurs, as he wrote pieces of limited technical challenges, but coupled with the satisfaction of musical interest. Today, we primarily remember him for three collections of children’s etudes for the piano. These studies range from early intermediate to more advanced skills, and instead of simply numbering them from 1 to 12, Burgmüller provides descriptive titles. The charming salon pieces of his opus 105, for example, carry evocative names like “Chant du printemps,” “L’enchanteresse,” “L’heure du soir,” “Harpe du nord,” and others. These lovely little miniatures are an absolute joy to play, and they still “provide the basis for piano teaching and the development of technical proficiency.”

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) seems to have been born on a piano bench. In time, as we all know, he became the greatest piano virtuoso of his time, and possibly the greatest pianist of all time! His sensational technique and captivating concert personality turned him into the ultimate rock star of the 19th century. His incredible aptitude for playing the piano manifested itself at an early age, and in 1819, Liszt became a student of Carl Czerny. Czerny recalled, “He was a pale, sickly-looking child, who, while playing, swayed about on the stool as if drunk… His playing was…irregular, untidy, confused, and… he threw his fingers quite arbitrarily all over the keyboard. But that notwithstanding, I was astonished at the talent Nature had bestowed upon him.” It seems that even the great Franz Liszt was made to work through a number of Czerny exercises to stop throwing around his fingers arbitrarily. Liszt must have understood very early on that the key to success was found in technical proficiency. Why else would he have started work on the most significant of his first published compositions, the Etude en douze exercices at the age of thirteen. The collection consists of twelve different exercises, each an independent study dealing with a certain technical problem. These exercises did become the basis for Liszt’s “Grandes Etudes,” but at the time, they “appeared to be an excellent alternative for the more demanding studies of Czerny.”

Stephen Heller

Born in Hungary, Stephen Heller (1813-1888) was also looking to study with Carl Czerny in Vienna. However, Czerny was not only very famous, he was also very expensive. Heller couldn’t afford the tuition and learned his craft elsewhere. He did embark on an extensive concert tour through Hungary, Poland and Germany at the age of fifteen, and by the age of twenty-five, he settled in Paris. Heller established a distinctive concert presence, which eventually paved the way for the establishment of his well-respected piano studio. He was a prolific composer for the piano, and the first of his more than 160 published piano compositions date from 1829. Even the normally suspicious Robert Schumann predicted “a successful musical future for Heller.” He was first noticed in Paris as a composer of piano and concert studies, which were actually performed by Liszt and others throughout Europe. Scholars have suggested, “His reputation as a composer primarily of studies became so entrenched that he had difficulty in gaining recognition for his other music.” When it comes to piano practice, however, Heller’s studies have a great sense of rhythmic vitality and lyricism, and they are really fun to play.

Muzio Clementi

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) published his three-volume Gradus ad Parnassum in 1817, 1819, and 1826. It represents, according to scholars “the culmination of his career, showcasing a veritable treasury of compositional and pianistic technique compiled from all periods of his work.” Clementi was in great demand as a piano teacher, and his students included members of London high society who could afford his substantial fees.

Clementi: Gradus ad Parnassum, Op.44

The Gradus is a collection of 100 pieces for keyboard that shows the full diversity of Clementi’s keyboard music. From finger drills to preludes, fugues, canons, character pieces, and sonata movements, more “than half the individual pieces are explicitly arranged into tonally unified suites of three to six movements… If the music in these volumes seems bent on exhausting all the possible varieties of keyboard figurations and textures, it also shows an underlying consistency.” Pianists of all levels have studied this treasury of compositional and pianistic technique continuously. This monumental work was designed to ascend to the highest level of musical and technical perfection. What a fabulous source of piano practice, as it trains your fingers and simultaneously hides that particular fact under cover of various musical styles and textures.

Johann Baptist Cramer

Let’s stay in London for a bit, and look at the piano practice of Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858). If you have ever taken formal piano lessons, there is a good chance that you will have played some of Cramer’s celebrated set of 84 studies for the piano. Published in two sets of 42 each in 1804 and 1810 as Studio per il pianoforte, it is still considered a cornerstone of pianistic technique today. With this collection, Cramer contributed directly to the “formulation of an idiomatic piano style through his playing and his compositions.” Cramer was a highly respected pianist, and Beethoven “considered him the finest pianist of the day.” He established a highly successful private piano studio in London, commanding top fees for his instruction. His “Studies for the Pianoforte” seem primarily concerned with matters of touch and the achievement of a singing tone. Yet at the same time, they are not mere exercises useful for an aspiring pianist, but also musically attractive to the listener. During his long professional life he witnessed monumental changes in musical styles and conventions, which he summed up by saying, “in the old days pianists played very well, and now they play awfully loud.”

Benjamin Godard

The French composer Benjamin Godard (1849-1895) might not be a household name today, but he was frequently compared to the young Mozart in his time. Godard entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten as a violinist child prodigy, and he turned to composing shortly after. Godard, like a good many child prodigies was quickly forgotten, because he “somewhat abused his talent for commercial gain.” Nevertheless, Godard’s music is described as “full of charm and breathing a gentle spirit of melancholy.” An English critic wrote, “He can conjure up visions of the past, stir up memories of forgotten days … the best that was in him was perhaps expressed in works of small caliber, songs and pianoforte pieces.” Some of these delightful visions emerge in a set of three etudes published as Opus 149. The second volume, a set of six Etudes mélodiques opens with “Intimate Conversation,” in the manner of a Mendelssohn “Song without Words.” We also find a bright “May Song,” a “Nocturne Italien,” and a “Twilight Boating-Song.” Piano practice should be this much fun all the time, don’t you think?

Johann Nepomuk Hummel

Like many of his colleagues, Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) was an enthusiastic writer of etudes. Without doubt, Hummel was one of Europe’s most famous pianists, and he was even hailed as the greatest of all the pianists on the continent. His playing was described as “full of clarity, neatness, evenness, pearly tone and delicacy, as well as an extraordinary quality of relaxation and the ability to create the illusion of speed without taking too rapid tempos.” Hummel was also one of the most important and expensive teachers in Germany, and both Schumann and Liszt were desperate to study with him, but never did. It almost goes without saying that Hummel was a prolific composer for his chosen instrument, and towards the end of his life he published a set of 24 studies in August 1833. A number of these etudes require great athletic ability, but “Hummel seems more interested in delicacy, color, expressiveness, emotional directness and, interestingly, veneration for the keyboard works of J.S. Bach.” The set is organized around the circle of fifths, and also includes some brilliant, witty, and song-like miniatures. Robert Schumann called the 24 studies “old-fashioned and not particularly relevant to modern pianists,” but he might have somewhat missed the point.

Frédéric Chopin

If you have ever taken serious piano lessons, you must surely remember countless hours of practicing scales and exercises to train and refine specific aspects of piano technique. To conclude this little survey on piano practice, I want to pay homage to Frédéric Chopin for turning mundane and boring finger exercises into a veritable art form. There is no arguing that his etudes are carefully constructed pedagogical pieces with a specific technical aim. However, they are simultaneously character pieces full of imagination, passion and poetry “seemingly communicating the essence of human experiences and emotions.” And what is more, they are composed for the concert hall. Chopin composed three sets of études between 1829 and 1839, and they “not only represent a developing style of playing that reflects the new aspects of the piano, but also provide an encapsulation of Chopin’s unique style.” Many etude composers before him had tried to achieve a balance between technical and artistic aims, but according to Schumann, in Chopin “imagination and technique share dominion side by side.” For me personally, these are probably the greatest etudes ever written. Many of the sampled composers have tried to find ways of transforming the sometimes frustrating, monotonous and always strenuous labor of practicing into a rewarding musical experience. What’s your favourite etude?