Great Pianists on Piano Playing / Study Talks with Foremost Virtuosos. A Series of Personal Educational Conferences with Renowned Masters of the Keyboard, Presenting the Most Modern Ideas upon the Subjects of Technic, Interpretation, Style and Expression

by James Francis Cooke

XVII

SYSTEMATIC MUSICAL TRAINING

alfred reisenauer

"I can never thank my mother enough for the splendid start she gave me in my early musical life. She was a wonderful woman and a veritable genius as a teacher. See, I have here to-day on my piano a copy of the Schumann Sonata in F sharp minor which she herself used and which she played with a feeling I have never heard equaled. There is one thing in particular for which I am everlastingly grateful to her. Before I was taught anything of notes or of the piano keyboard, she took me aside one day and explained in the simple and beautiful tongue which only a mother employs in talking to her child, the wonderful natural relationships of tones used in making music. Whether this was an inspiration, an intuition, or a carefully thought out plan for my benefit, I cannot tell, but my mother put into practice what I have since come to consider the most important and yet the most neglected step in the education of the child. The fault lies in the fact that most teachers at the start do not teach music, rather musical notation and the peculiarities of the instrument.

Nothing could possibly be more stultifying to the musical instinct of the child. For instance, the plan generally pursued is to let the child grope over the white keys of the piano keyboard and play exercises in the scale of C, until he begins to feel that the whole musical world lies in the scale of C, with the scales of F and G as the frontiers. The keys of F sharp, B, D flat and others are looked upon as tremendously difficult and the child mind reasons with its own peculiar logic that these keys being so much less used, must, of course be less important. The black keys upon the keyboard are a 'terra incognita.' Consequently at the very start the child has a radically incorrect view of what music really is.

"Before notation existed,—before keyboards were invented,—people sang. Before a child knows anything of notation or a keyboard, it sings. It is following its natural, musical instinct. Notation and keyboards are simply symbols of music—cages in which the beautiful bird is caught. They are not music any more than the alphabet is literature. Unfortunately, our system of musical symbols and the keyboard itself are very complex. For the young child it is as difficult as are Calculus and Algebra for his older brother. As a matter of fact, the keys of F sharp, B, and D flat major, etc., are only difficult because fate has made them so. It would have served the musical purpose just as well if the pitch of the instruments employed had been adjusted so that what is now F sharp, would be the key of C major. That, however, would not have simplified matters and we have to receive our long established musical notation until we can exchange it for a better one.

"At a very early age, I was taken to Franz Liszt by my mother. Liszt immediately perceived my natural talent and strongly advised my mother to continue my musical work. At the same time he said 'As a child I was exposed to criticism as a Wunderkind (prodigy), through the ignorance of my parents, long before I was properly prepared to meet the inevitable consequences of public appearance. This did incalculable damage to me. Let your child be spared such a fate. My own experience was disastrous. Do not let your son appear in public until he is a mature artist.'

"My first teacher, Louis Köhler, was an artist and a great artist, but he was an artist-teacher rather than an artist-pianist. Compared with many of his contemporaries his playing suffered immensely, but he made an art of teaching as few other men have done. He did not play for his pupils to any extent, nor did he ask them to imitate him in any way. His playing was usually confined to general illustrations and suggestions. By these means the individuality of his pupils was preserved and permitted to develop, so that while the pupil always had an excellent idea of the authoritative traditions governing the interpretation of a certain piece, there was nothing that suggested the stilted or wooden performance of the brainless mimic. He taught his pupils to think. He was an indefatigable student and thinker himself. He had what many teachers would have considered peculiar ideas upon technic.