Book II. has a study—No. 8—in octaves which might be profitable but I shall not emphasize its importance, for the Kullak octave school should never be absent from your piano rack. No. 10, however—a unisono study—is very good and is a foundation study for effects of this sort. It might be practised before attacking the last movement of the B flat minor sonata of Chopin.
But that about comprises all of value in the volume. Book III. has little to commend—a study, No. 13, same stiff, nasty figures for alternate hands; No. 15, for the wrist, excellent as preparation for Rubinstein’s staccato étude, and No. 18, some Chopin-like figuration for the right hand. Book IV. contains but three studies: No. 20 for left-hand culture. No. 21 for stretches and a facile thumb, and No. 24, a very stiff study, which is bound to strengthen the weaker fingers of the hand. Look at these Kessler studies, or, better still, study a dozen of them, and you will find the bridge between Clementi and Chopin, and a very satisfactory bridge at that; for to the solidity of Clementi, Kessler has added a modern technical spirit. One year’s experience with Kessler would make you drop your goody-goody Moscheles, or at least play him for the historical interest only.
Naturally every pupil cannot be mentally pinioned to the same round of studies. There are many charming studies before Cramer; for instance Heller; try Eggeling and Riemann as preparatory to Bach, Jadassohn’s scholarly preludes and fugues with a canon on every page, and in the C sharp minor prelude and fugue you will find much good, honest music.
Then there are lots of pretty special studies. William Mason’s Étude Romanza is a scale study wherein music and muscle are happily blended; Schuett’s graceful Étude Mignonne, Raff’s La Fileuse, Haberbier’s poetical studies, especially the one in D; Isador Seiss’ very musical preludes, in which the left hand plays an important part; Ludwig Berger’s interesting studies, and a delightful étude of Constantin Von Sternberg in F, which I heartily commend. Ravina, Jensen and many, many others have written études for which a light wrist, facile fingers and agreeable style are a necessity, but could all be easily dispensed with. We must not forget a little volume called Rhythmical Problems, by Heinrich Germer, of great value to teacher and pupil alike, for therein may be found a solution of many criss-cross rhythmic difficulties. Adolph Carpé’s work on Phrasing and Accentuation in Piano Playing, attacks the rhythmical problem in the boldest and most practical fashion.
Works of special character, like Kullak’s Art of Touch and Ehrlich’s Touch and Technic, should be read by the enterprising amateur.
We have now reached the boundaries of the Chopin studies, that delightful region where the technic-worn student discerns from afar the glorious colors, the strangely plumaged birds, the exquisite sparkle of falling waters, the odors so grateful to nostrils forced to inhale Czerny, Clementi and Cramer. O, what an inviting vista! Yet it is not all a paradise of roses; flinty is the road over which the musical pilgrim toils, and while his eye eagerly covets joyous sights, his feet and fingers often bleed. But how easily that pain is endured, for is not the Mount of Parnassus in sight, and does not every turn of the road disclose fresh beauties?
II
Some have expostulated regarding the admission of Henselt into the Pantheon of pianists—as if we were self-constituted keepers of its key—and the assertion was made that Henselt’s day was past, his études—of course with one exception, the Bird Study,—useless for technical purposes, and his music, generally rococo. There is a certain amount of unpalatable truth in all this that jars on one, but nevertheless I refuse to give up my belief in the Henselt études or even in the somewhat artificial and overladen F minor concerto.
This is an eminently realistic period in piano literature. The brutal directness of the epoch is mirrored in contemporary music, and with the introduction of national color the art is losing much of its old, well-bred grace, elegance and aristocratic repose. Norwegian, Russian, Bohemian, Finnish, Danish peasant themes have all the vitality of peasants and all their clumsiness, too. When I listen to this sort of music I see two stout apple-cheeked Bauern facing each other and furiously, after the manner of tillers of the soil. Such company seems odd and out of place when introduced into the drawing room. But with the Henselt, how different! how much at home in palaces he is! His refined, polished speech is never conventional, nor does he tear passion to tatters, after the approved modern manner. A high-bred man of the world, raffiné a bit, blasé, but true to the core—a poet and a musician. No, Henselt must not go, for who may replace him? His gentle, elegiac nature, his chivalry, his devotion to the loved one are distinctively individual. His nights are moonlit, his nightingales sing, but not in the morbid, sultry-fashion of Chopin; even his despair in the Verlorne Heimath is subdued. It is the despair of a man who eats truffles and drinks Chateau Yquem while his heart is breaking. But there is a note of genuineness that is lacking, say, in Mendelssohn, who played Ariel behind many musical masks. Henselt is never the hypocrite; he is franker than the Hebraic Felix, whose scherzino nature peeps forth in solemn oratorio, mocking its owner’s efforts at conventional worship. Henselt is a dreamer with one eye open; he never quite forsakes the real for the ideal.
But what charming études are in op. 2 and op. 5! What a wealth of technical figures, what an imperative legato is demanded! and then, above all else, touch, euphony! To play Henselt with a hard, dry touch would be Hamlet with the melancholy Dane not in it. I remember reading in the preface to a book by Ehrlich (some études of his) that in the modern sense a beautiful touch was a drawback, for while it might be ever grateful to the ear, yet if it were not colored and modified to suit the exigencies of modern music it would simply be a hindrance. The writer quoted Thalberg as an example of a pianist with a beautiful touch, but invariably the same style of a singing touch. Liszt was instanced as a man whose singing touch lacked the fat, juicy cantabile quality, but whose tonal gamut was all comprehensive, and who could be tender, dramatic, poetic and classic at will; of course this is the modern ideal of piano playing—although the color business is a bit overdone, variety in tinting at the expense of good, solid brush work—yet we cannot dream of Henselt being played with a bad touch. Fancy mangling that delicious Bird Study by a “modern” dramatic touch! Fancy stroking rudely the plumage of this beautiful bird, and have it pant its little life away in your brutal grasp! I have heard pianists play this étude as if the bird were a roc, and they were throttling it Sindbad fashion for its fabulous egg. Ah, Vladimir Pachmann, how that little bird did sing under your coaxing touch! and how tenderly you put it away into its silvery cage when it had trilled its sweet pipe! You triple locked the cage, too, black bearded Pashaw that you were, by playing three chords in F sharp, mounting an octave at a time!