A blind man on first recovering his sight can no longer locate himself. He does not know the meaning of his surroundings. The unaccustomed light has obliterated for the moment his only safeguard—the sense of touch—and so altered the condition of familiar things that they have become strange to him. The player who has absorbed the sound and feeling of the notes into his ears and fingers, and not into his thinking brain, is in the same case; for if the mental faculty is unexpectedly called into action it paralyses for the moment the instinctive motor faculties on which he usually relies. The learner must therefore thread his way so carefully through the network of complications which a musical composition presents, that he emerges familiar with every detail; then, if the manual memory fail him, the visual or audital one will take its place. Any lapse on the part of nature after all these precautions can only be regarded as the Act of God, against which no insurance can be taken.
The pupil having now gone through the necessary training to develop his hands and to apply them to the best result upon his instrument, and having learnt also how to study the music written for it, has arrived at the really interesting part of his work—the musical part.
Leschetizky seldom gives the greatest compositions to those whom he feels to be still immature. He sees the unfitness of expecting young, untried natures to deal with what is an expression of the deepest influences of life. They cannot understand. They can only imitate, and he shrinks from the task of trying to convey to them what they cannot possibly realise in its fullest and most intimate meaning. He gives what lies within, or at most just beyond their grasp, so that they may have the satisfaction of discovering what they can do, as well as what they cannot do. His pupils study several compositions at the same time, sometimes variations on some particular difficulty, sometimes differing entirely from each other. Development is more equable and the mind keeps fresher for its work, if energy can be turned into several channels instead of being concentrated along one. The more varied the material, the less chance of the faculties becoming wearied by the monotony of continued effort in one direction, and the better for endurance as a whole.
For this concentrated way of study, this mosaic work, is extremely exhausting at first. It needs much patience to analyse everything so minutely that the mental picture lacks no detail; but it is worth the trouble. Not only is the result good and immediate, but it remains firmly fixed in the memory.
Leschetizky, even in the maturity of his career, never practised more than three hours a day. He considers that four, or at most five hours, should be enough for any one. If it is not, the requisite qualities to make a pianist must be lacking. Hours and hours of practice do compel certain results in a shorter time than they could normally be produced, and, were the supply of energy unlimited, no one would hesitate to devote his entire day to practising, in order to shorten the road to the goal. But this supply being exhaustible, if the student draws it out at a greater speed, or in a greater quantity than can naturally be refunded, it will fail prematurely and leave his nervous organisation without vitality. Technical power means the ability of the hand to carry out the suggestions of the brain, and this will be great or small according to the speed at which the hand can understand and translate these suggestions into action.
Overwork tends rather to retard than to accelerate the telegraphic message, deadening the susceptibility of the wire, and exhausting the nervous force to be transmitted.
The newspapers tell of a wonderful man who has acquired such control over the different parts of his body that he can contract any muscle at will and move his internal organs about as he feels inclined. Leschetizky does not require these results in his pupils, but he does require the concentration that produces them.
Concentrated thought is the basis of his principles, the corner-stone of his method. Without it nothing of any permanent value can be obtained, either in art or anything else. No amount of mechanical finger-work can take its place; and the player who repeats the same passage, wearily expectant that he will accomplish it in process of time, is a lost soul on a hopeless quest. Leschetizky enumerates the essential qualities of good work as follows: First, an absolutely clear comprehension of the principal points to be studied in the music on hand; a clear perception of where the difficulties lie, and of the way in which to conquer them; the mental realisation of these three facts before they are carried out by the hands.
"Decide exactly what it is you want to do in the first place," he impresses on every one; "then how you will do it; then play it. Stop and think if you played it in the way you meant to do; then only, if sure of this, go ahead. Without concentration, remember, you can do nothing. The brain must guide the fingers, not the fingers the brain."
This is a rough indication of the method of study through which Leschetizky's pupils have gained so much.