Valentine’s Day 2022 “You Say It Best When You Say Nothing at All”

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

 

Pierre-Auguste Cot: Springtime

I have never been that interested in American country music, because I naively connected it with bar fights, drinking whisky and plenty of flag waving. To be sure, it has nothing to do with the music or the lyrics, but my dislike was primarily based on my own unfamiliarity with the many styles and subgenres. I read that many of the country ballads had their origin in the “folk music of working class Americans and blue-collar American life, but that it can also touch on cowboy Western music, Southern gospel and spirituals, and other influences.” A good many ballads deal with overcoming hardship, family pride, heartbreak, and love. Basically, it all is very down to earth, and I’ve come across some lyrics that perfectly express what the celebration of Valentine’s Day is all about.

Pierre Auguste Renoir:
Country Dance

It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word, you can light up the dark
Try as I may I can never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes saying you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me wherever I fall
You say it best, when you say nothing at all

Notting Hill is a district of West London, known for its diverse communities and long association with artists. It provides the backdrop for bookshop owner William Thacker and famous Hollywood actress Anna Scott to fall in love. In the featured clip, the stars of the film, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant do a marvelous acting job expressing emotional love in a non-verbal way. As viewers we immediately understand these emotions, and of course it helps to hear the music and the appropriate lyrics at the same time. Music can help us to express emotions that are hard to verbalize, “we are compelled by it, moved by it, and inspired by it.” Music certainly has the ability to touch us in very special ways, and it has frequently been described as “the language of emotions.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Neither love nor music actually needs words to express significant emotions, and one of the most intimate forms of classical music sounds in the combination of two instruments. While the term “Duet” is frequently applied to pieces for two voices, the “Duo” is primarily considered an instrumental work. As you lovingly gaze into the eyes of your beloved on Valentine’s Day 2022, you might consider reinforcing your emotional bond with some Duo music. And what better way to start than with a duo for violin and viola composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart composed this duo during a rather stressful time in his life in the summer of 1783. For one, he had just been fired from his Salzburg job by getting a “kick in the behind” from Count Arco, the chief steward of Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo. Additionally, against the expressed wishes of his father, he had hurriedly married Constanze Weber in Vienna. In 1738, Mozart returned to Salzburg to introduce his new wife to his father, which went surprisingly well. Mozart also met his old friend, the court music director Michael Haydn. Sadly, Haydn was suffering from a long and severe illness and was unable to complete the Archbishop’s commission for six duos for violin and viola. Always the tyrant, the Archbishop threatened to cut off Haydn’s salary until the two remaining duos were complete. As such, as a favor to his old friend and deeply in love with his wife, Mozart composed the missing duos and gave them to Haydn to pass off as his own. The Archbishop, believing them to have been composed by Haydn, was full of praise. In the G-major duo, Mozart treats both instruments as equal partners in the musical discourse, and in the lyrical slow movement he expressed his lifelong love of opera, the human voice, and for his wife Constanze.

Friedrich Hermann

Friedrich Hermann (1828–1907) was one of the first students at the newly established Royal Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. Founded in 1843 by Felix Mendelssohn and Moritz Hauptmann, the institution responded to the growing professional demands of musical life in Germany. All its resources were aimed at meeting the demand for highly skilled orchestral musicians, instrumental soloists and opera singers. However, there was also a need for music teachers to serve the expanding middle class, especially in piano and vocal training. Hermann entered the Conservatory as a violinist, violist, and composer and studied with Moritz Hauptmann, Niels Wilhelm Gade, Felix Mendelssohn- Bartholdy, and Ferdinand David. How is that for an impressive line-up of teachers for your resume? Ferdinand David wrote of Hermann that he “worked diligently and with good conduct, and that he deserved the highest praise. Upon graduation, Hermann became first violin of the Leipzig Orchestra, and in 1847 joined the Conservatory as a Professor. A member of the Gewandhaus Quartet, he also became an important editor for the companies of Peters and Augener, and he composed a symphony, a quartet for wind instruments, and various other works. Among them is a delightful Grand Duo Brilliant for Violin and Cello, published in 1858. Scored in three movements, the work is full of romantic tendencies, and the meditative “Adagio” surly speaks the language of love. We don’t know if Hermann had a specific love interest in mind, but we do know that it was dedicated to one of the great violinists and composers of the mid-nineteenth century, Louis Spohr.

Talking about Louis Spohr. He was a man with an insatiable love of life and thirst for knowledge about everything and everyone. He loved to attend parties, was a gifted painter and enthusiastic rose-grower. A keen swimmer and hiker, Spohr played chess, billiards, dominoes and all matter of ball games. He loved to visit cultural attractions, arts galleries and churches, but he also toured factories, mines and industrial installations. In addition, Spohr had an enormous reputation during the 19th century as a composer, violin virtuoso, conductor and teacher. He traveled to Switzerland, Italy, and even took on a job in England with the London Philharmonic Society; the public absolutely adored him. For his contemporaries he was equal to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and ranked among the greatest composers of his time.

Dorothea Schneider

One day, as he was visiting the town of Gotha he “heard a young girl execute a difficult harp fantasy with the greatest confidence, and with the finest shades of expression. I was so deeply moved,” he writes, “that I could scarce restrain my tears. Bowing in silence, I took my leave; but my heart remained behind!”

That young girl turned out to be Dorothea Schneider, and she would eventually be remembered as the premiere harp virtuoso of the early nineteenth century. Spohr soon became Dorothea’s accompanist, and one day they rode to a venue in a carriage together. “Thus alone for the first time with the beloved girl, I felt the impulse to make a full confession of my feelings towards her; but my courage failed me, and the carriage drew up, before I had been able to utter a syllable. As I held out my hand to her to alight, I felt by the tremor of hers, how great had also been her emotion.” Spohr eventually married Dorothea in 1806, and his deepest emotions are expressed in his Duo for Violin and Harp—you say it best, when you say nothing at all.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) finished his Sonata for Violin and Cello in 1922, and he initially simply called it “Duo.” While string duos are often lightweight pedagogical works, “this piece is a tour-de-force, the thinned instrumentation highlighted by blazing string crossings, piercing harmonics, and snapping pizzicatos.” Ravel wrote, “This sonata marks a turning point in my career. The music is stripped to the bone. The allure of harmony is rejected and more and more there is a return of the emphasis on melody.“ Ravel had started his “Duo” in 1920, following the First World War. He had been desperate to join the armed forces, and tried to enlist with the French infantry. However, he came in two kilos under the official weight limit. So he passed his driving test and was declared fit for service as a truck driver. Ravel delivered supplies under artillery fire at Verdun and wrote, “For a whole week I have been driving days and nights – without lights – on unbelievable roads, often with a load double what my truck should carry. And even so I had to hurry because all this was within range of the guns.” Ravel had always harbored ambitions of joining the flying corps, but a diagnosed heart condition made that impossible. While his Sonata does leave Romantic yearning and lushness far behind, it nevertheless looks back tenderly to the memory of Claude Debussy, who had died in 1918, and to whom the work is dedicated. In addition, the two musical voices are united as they speak with one voice against the travesty of war.

Reinhold Gliére (1875-1956) is frequently described as “among the vast torrent of Russian second-raters who had long and distinguished teaching careers yet remained competent composers without much individuality or distinction manifest in their music.” That assessment sounds a bit harsh to me, because Gliére had a well-known gift for expressive melodies and colorful orchestration inspired by Russian folklore. Composing during the early days of the young Soviet Union, his music found favor with the political establishment, and Stalin and his cultural ministers appointed him chairman of the organizing committee of the Soviet Composer’s Union. As such Gliére is almost exclusively described as a political composer. In reality, however, he seems to have been a non-political person and he was certainly conservative as a musician. He was repeatedly criticized for his lack of interest in politics, but he had a special gift of writing music for the cello. His Cello Concerto, Op. 87 is the first-ever Soviet Russian cello concerto and, like so many others, it was dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1909 he composed his intimate Eight Duets for Violin and Cello, Op. 39, and in 1911 he wrote Ten Duets for Two Cellos, Op. 53. This composition is considered one of the few original cycles for this delightful combination, “and while their form and harmony could not be called ground-breaking, Gliére’s melodic richness and talent in his skill to make two string instruments sound like an orchestra, is unique.”

Francis Poulenc

Enter Francis Poulenc, who composed his Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon between August and October 1922. Tellingly the work is dedicated “to Madame Audrey Parr.” We know that Poulenc’s personality, psyche, music, and sexual behavior contained contrasts and contradictions that were not alternating but simultaneous. Is it too far-fetched to describe his sonata as an onlooker’s musical description of the Claudel-Audrey relationship?

Carl Maria von Weber

Please allow me to conclude this Valentine’s Day article with a movement composed by one of the most significant composers of the Romantic era. Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) is best known for his romantic operas, but he also composed a number of intimate pieces for the clarinet. His Grand Duo Concertant might not be the greatest duo in the history of music, but just listen how the musical lines intertwine in the language of love. And as in real life, there has to be a bit of bravado and drama. Of course it helps that the piece is performed by two of the hottest artists on the concert stage today. Music can communicate a whole myriad of expressions and feelings without the aid of spoken words. Nevertheless, you should still say “I Love You,” and buy some flower and presents for your beloved on Valentine’s Day .

Satie Discovers Ragtime

By Maureen Buja, Interlude

James Reese Europe returning to the US
with his 15th New York band

Although we associate ragtime music with composers such as Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb, we rarely consider what effect this new musical style might have had internationally. Through performers such as Jelly Roll Morton and band leaders such as W.C. Handy and James Reese Europe the music emerged from the bordellos and into mainstream acceptance.

Erik Satie (ca. 1900)

Ragtime moved to Europe on the boats that moved people across the Atlantic, which needed the latest music to entertain their passengers. James Reese Europe’s 369th Regiment band toured France in 1918 to great approval. They made recordings for the French Pathé company, including some syncopated numbers, such as The Memphis Blues, that were credited as starting ‘….ragimitis in France.’

Hello Ma Baby sheet music (1899)

American band leaders such as John Philip Sousa, who toured internationally, also brought American music to other shores. Combining his usual straightforward march tempos with the syncopations and polyrhythms of the new ragtime style brought his music to the latest style.

Satie and Debussy in Debussy’s home (1911) (photo by Igor Stravinsky)

Erik Satie (1866-1925) led the French avant-garde in music, anticipating many late 20th century artistic developments such as minimalism. When ragtime turned up, he started incorporating it into his style.

Two works show the influence of ragtime, with its emphasis on syncopation, on Satie. The first was in his 1900 work La mort de Monsieur Mouche (The Death of M. Mouche). It was originally written as incidental music for a 3-act play by Satie’s friend, the Spanish poet Patrice Contamine de Latour, writing as ‘Lord Cheminot.’ All that remains of the incidental music is this Prélude, which is evidence of Satie’s first experiments with ragtime.

Kitten on the Keys sheet music (1922)

A work from 4 years later, Le Piccadilly, is much more straightforward ragtime march. The original title was La Transatlantique, the nickname for the American heiresses who were flocking to Europe to marry impoverished aristocrats. Some examples include the Princess de Polignac, born Winnaretta Singer of the sewing machine fame. Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was another of these American ‘dollar princesses.’ The original title memorialized their mode of travel, whereas the new title Le Piccadilly, was more about where they arrived.

You can hear some links in the main theme with an 1899 song, ‘Hello! Ma Baby!’ about that new invention, the telephone, where the beloved is referred to as his ‘ragtime doll.’

Ragtime had its start in the late 19th century in middle American, in the black communities around St. Louis, Missouri, but by 1900 had become widely popular all across America. As mentioned above, it travelled to Europe and, along with infecting Satie, it also hit Debussy. In his piano piece Le petite negre, we can also hear the influence of the Hello! Ma Baby melody.

Ragtime faded as the new encompassing style of jazz became the popular favourite. Ragtime was taken over by novelty piano works such as Zez Confrey’s Kitten on the Keys, a work with intentional wrong notes and sudden key shifts that is actually quite difficult to play, particularly at speed.

As music goes around the world, each new country takes what it has received and creates its own version. Satie and Debussy’s takes on ragtime are uniquely French, while being at the same time, ragtime.

After the tragic death of a 12-year-old pianist...

... musicians are deciphering his unfinished composition

Kyan Pennell was a young pianist and composer. Picture: Courtesy of Amanda Brierley

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Kyan Pennell wanted to be a concert pianist, but sadly that dream was never realised.

Seven months ago, 12-year-old Kyan Pennell from Brisbane, Australia, began teaching himself music theory, performance and composition.

He scrimped and saved in order to buy his first piano, and by using YouTube tutorials, he had soon learned to play 30 pieces of classical music by memory, including Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, and Beethoven’s Für Elise.

Kyan tragically died in a freak accident caused by a gate closure on his family’s property in Mary Valley on 31 January 2022.

Kyan was neurodiverse, and his family described his diagnosis as a ‘superpower’ which helped him to focus on and achieve whatever he put his mind to. He loved classical music, and Brierley shared on Facebook that he even learned non-classical pieces just so he could “bring a crowd in, and then educate them [with] the beauty of classical music”.

Unbeknownst to his parents, Kyan had also begun composing classical music prior to his death. When his parents were going through their late son’s belongings, they were surprised to discover an unfinished composition in the middle of a blank exercise book.

“I never heard what he was composing.” Kyan’s mother Amanda Brierley posted on Facebook, sharing a copy of his manuscript, “Is there anyone that can read music and play it and send it to us?

“It would mean the world to us to hear his composition.” It didn’t take long before musicians began responding to the post, which has now received over 150 comments, and 115 shares, with renditions of Kyan’s composition.

In her post, Brierley also explained, “he wasn’t formally trained in reading/writing music, [Kyan was] all self taught so [the notation] could be wrong, I don’t know.

“If I remember rightly he told me about this and there were bits that repeated, and changed tempo, with light and shade, but he didn’t write that down.

“This was just the intro, it is unfinished, he was building up to a grand midsection and then would do an ending, but he never got to complete what was in his mind’s eye.

“He imagined it to be performed by wind and string instruments, and of course his beloved piano.”

Kyan Pennell’s composition. Picture: Amanda Brierley

So far Kyan’s piece has received video performances on the piano, cello, and on various music softwares. And now members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra are meeting to record the piece in time for Kyan's funeral on Sunday 13th February.

“I am extremely humbled by the responses of people,” Amanda told ClassicFM.com. “It makes me see beauty through adversity.”

On Facebook, Amanda also responded to the musicians saying, “[Kyan] would have been so chuffed that all these wonderful people are now playing his music.

“He was so full of life, with a beautiful mind, and passion for classical music. Little did he know he was actually composing his own funeral song.

“He did tell me that many people have to die to become famous, well my beautiful boy, here we are.”

The Heart Symbol and Music

by Maureen Buja , Interlude

  

We don’t really think about what the heart symbol (♥) really means. We know it’s not the shape of a real heart, which is much more asymmetrical. It’s been discovered in jewelry dating back to 3,000 years BCE, and is very much like shape of a seed of a plant used as a contraceptive. It was in the Middle Ages, however, that the equation between the heart symbol and love was made. Starting in the 15th century and continuing today, hearts mean love.

When we see books in the shapes of hearts, then, what are we to think of them? In this anonymous late 15th century painting of St. Jerome and St. Catherine, she’s reading a book. The two saints are surrounded by their attributes: St. Jerome and his lion and St. Catherine and the shattered wheel (known as a Catherine Wheel) representing the unsuccessful torture of Catherine by Emperor Maxentius. In her hands, she holds a heart-shaped book.

Anonymous: St Jerome and St Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1480 – c. 1490) (Rijksmuseum)

Another image from the same time shows a young man holding a heart-shaped book. Here, it’s thought that the heart shape might be related to St. Augustine, whose attribute was a flaming heart.

Master of the View of Sainte Gudule: Young Man Holding a Book (ca. 1480)
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

When heart-shaped books are closed and held between the hands, they form, in the liturgical sense, the shape of praying hands.

The Chantilly Codex, held in the museum at the Château de Chantilly, France, has an unusual musical work that was added to the beginning of the book. The book dates from ca. 1350-1400 and contains 112 musical works, mostly by French composers. The added work was written by the composer Baude Cordier (ca. 1380-ca. 1440) and is written in the shape of a heart – the top curved lines are the top voice and underneath are the Tenor and Contratenor lines. Below, filling out the point of the heart, are additional lyrics. The text, ‘Belle, bonne, sage, plaisant..’. means ‘Beautiful, good, wise, and pleasing…’ and after giving her his songs, the first verse closes with : ‘…my heart I also give to you.’ It’s a song for the new year and he urges his lover to take them as her due.

Belle, bonne, sage, plaisant (Chantilly Codes)

The heart-shaped music is a play on the name of the composer, where ‘cor’ of ‘Cordier’ means ‘heart,’ in addition to being his gift to her.

An entire music book in the shape not of a single heart, but a double heart was created in the Chansonnier Cordiforme (Heart-shaped Songbook). This sumptuously decorated double-heart book was commissioned between 1470 and 1475 by Jean de Montchenu, the Bishop of Agen (1477) and then Vivier (1478-1497). The book is bound in red velvet. The 44 pieces of music come from both Italian and French sources. The music is bordered with elaborate gold-touched illustrations of animals, including cats, dogs, and birds, and flowers and plants. In this page of music, there’s a fantastic beast on the left, a monkey with a book at the bottom of the page, and an elongated bird at the top and on the right side.

Detail of Chansonnier Cordiforme, with Bedyngham’s O rosa bella
(Bibliothèque nationale de France)

As a double-heart book, the design is intended to represent two lovers who are sending message to each other in the songs. The songs seem to reflect both his and her points of view: he goes out one morning and encounters a shepherdess, when he asks if she could love him, she replies that she loves another who entertains her with his pretty flageolet (L’autre jour). In another song, she says she is a pure girl and complains that jealousy is bearing false witness against her but says that virtue will be her defense (Be lo sa Dio). He compares his lover to a goddess because she is so full of goodness that everyone should pay her homage (De tous biens plaine). Each side can speak its part and say, often in coded words, how they regard the other.

There are two striking illustrations in the book: in this image from the beginning of the book, Cupid in the sky shoots arrows at a young girl and to the left, Fortune stands on her ever-turning wheel.

Chansonnier Cordiforme, fol. 3v, with J’ay pris amours (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

On another page, 2 lovers walk in a room. In the margins, a cupid has his arrow at the ready and floral and fauna fill the other corners of the heart. Those are the only two full-page images in the book – the other pages are filled with music.

Chansonnier Cordiforme, fol. 23v, with Gentil Madonna (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

The music in the book is given without composer’s names, but in the centuries since the book was created, the composers have gradually been identified and include the big names of the 15th century: Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnois and other smaller names: Hayne van Ghizeghem, Vincenet du Bruecquet, the theorist Johannes Tinctoris, and English composers such as Robert Morton and Johannes Bedyngham.

There are other heart-shaped books, but they’re very rare. One example is the 16th-century Danish Hjertebog (Heart book), that contains 83 love ballads in Danish.

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?