ossip gabrilowitsch
"Modern pianoforte teachers in many instances seem to make deliberate attempts to complicate the very simple matter of touch. In the final analyses the whole study of touch may be resolved into two means of administering force to the keyboard, i. e., weight and muscular activity. The amount of pressure brought to bear upon the keys depends upon the amount of arm weight and upon the quickness with which the muscles of the hand, forearm, full-arm and back permit the key to be struck. Upon these two means of administering force must depend whatever differentiation in dynamic power and tonal quality the player desires to produce. The various gradations of tone which the virtuoso's hand and arm are trained to execute are so minute that it is impossible for me to conceive of a scientific instrument or scale to measure them. Physiologists have attempted to construct instruments to do this, but little of value has come from such experiments.
A Rigid Arm Undesirable
"Only a comparatively few years ago thousands of teachers were insisting upon having their pupils keep the arms in a still, even rigid, condition during practice. This naturally resulted in the stiffest imaginable kind of a touch, and likewise in a mechanical style of playing that made what has come to be known in later days as 'tone color' impossible.
"At this day the finger touch as it was formerly known has almost gone out of existence. By finger touch I refer to the old custom of holding the hand and forearm almost rigid and depending upon the muscular strength of the fingers for all tonal effects. In fact, I so rarely employ the finger touch, except in combination with the arm touch, that it is almost an insignificant factor as far as my own playing is concerned. By this the reader must not think that the training of the fingers, and particularly the finger tips, is to be neglected. But this training, to my mind, is not so much a matter of acquiring digital strength to produce force as to accustom the fingers to strike the notes with the greatest possible accuracy and speed. This belongs rather to the realm of technic than to that of touch, and behind all technic is the intellect of the player. Technic is a matter of training the finger tips to attack and leave the keys under the absolute discipline of the brain. Touch has a much broader and wider significance. It is touch that reveals the soul of the player.
Touch a Distinguishing Characteristic
"Touch is the distinguishing characteristic which makes one player's music sound different from that of another, for it is touch that dominates the player's means of producing dynamic shading or tone quality. I know that many authorities contend that the quality of tone depends upon the instrument rather than upon the performer. Nevertheless, I am reasonably confident that if I were to hear a number of pianists play in succession upon the same instrument behind a screen and one of these performers were to be my friend, Harold Bauer, I could at once identify his playing by his peculiarly individual touch. In fact, the trained ear can identify different individual characteristics with almost the same accuracy that we identify different voices. One could never forget Leschetizky's touch, or that of many another contemporary pianist.
"No matter how wonderful the pianist's technic—that is, how rapidly and accurately he can play passages of extraordinary difficulty, it is quite worthless unless he possesses that control over his touch which enables him to interpret the composer's work with the right artistic shading. A fine technic without the requisite touch to liberate the performer's artistic intelligence and 'soul' is like a gorgeous chandelier without the lights. Until the lights are ignited all its beauty is obscured in darkness. With an excellent technic and a fine touch, together with a broad musical and general education and artistic temperament, the young player may be said to be equipped to enter the virtuoso field.