Liszt' S Technical Studies: a Methodology for the Attainment of Pianistic Virtuosity
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LISZT' S TECHNICAL STUDIES: A METHODOLOGY FOR THE ATTAINMENT OF PIANISTIC VIRTUOSITY BY NEIL GOODCHILD THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF MUSIC (RESEARCH) THE SCHOOL OF ENGLISH, MEDIA AND PERFORMING ARTS MUSIC AND MUSIC EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES OCTOBER 2007 ABSTRACT In 1970, the Hungarian publishing firm Editio Musica Budapest began a long term project, ending in 2005, that endeavored to compile and publish all Liszt's works in a complete edition titled, The New Liszt Edition (NLE). Through the efforts of this firm, Liszt' s Technical Studies were published in the way that he had originally intended for the first time in 1983. Yet, although the eminent Liszt-scholar Michael Saffle has stated that 'Pedagogy is one of the most thoroughly-mined veins of Liszt material ever uncovered', academic discussions on Liszt's Technical Studies (Walker, 2005), his definitive pedagogical work for piano, are scarce. What it was that Liszt set out as being fundamental to the acquisition of pianistic virtuosity in the Technical Studies and the nature of its trajectory is generally unknown. Through an examination of the didactic instruction Liszt supplied in the Preface of the autograph manuscript to the Technical Studies and specific technical commentaries written by Mme. Auguste Boissier in her Liszt pedagogue, I will argue that the Technical Studies are built on six artistic and mechanical principles, exemplified by Liszt in the exercises, written to help the pianist acquire technical virtuosity. The methodical divisions of the work into sections that deal with specific mechanical objectives are illustrated with musical examples and their technical trajectory defined. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There never will be anyone who deserves more thanks than my father; a friend and companion who has encouraged me, pushed me and has never allowed me to stop. Thanks to Mini for the company on those late nights while writing this Thesis. My sincerest thanks to my supervisor Dr. Christine Logan for giving me the space to learn at my own tempo, the encouragement, consistent advice and finally, guidance through the editorial process. Permission to use musical examples from Liszt' s three volumes of Technical Studies by Istvan Homolya and published by Editio Musica Budapest is gratefully acknowledged. Permission to use musical examples from Schmitt's Five Finger Exercises for the Piano, Op.l6 by Arif Chowndry and published by EMI Allans Music Australia Pty Limited is gratefully acknowledged. iii ORIGINALITY STATEMENT I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the Thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked with at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the Thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this Thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged. iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT . ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ORIGINALITY STATEMENT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v INDEX OF TABLES . vii INDEX OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES. viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 28 2. HYPOTHESIS, SCOPE AND PURPOSE 43 3. LISZT' S TECHNICAL STUDIES: A BRIEF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 56 4. THE GENIS IS OF LISZT' S TECHNICAL STUDIES AND THE FIRST PUBLISHED EDITION 67 5. THE TWO PROTOTYPICAL EXERCISES 73 The "Tapping" Exercise 73 The "Two-Finger" Exercise 104 6. LISZT' S TREATMENT OF SCALE CONFIGURATIONS 119 7. LISZT' S TREATMENT OF ARPEGGIO AND BROKEN CHORD CONFIGURATIONS . 151 8. LISZT'S TREATMENT OF CHORD CONFIGURATIONS 168 v 9o LISZT' S TREATMENT OF CHROMATIC CONFIGURATIONS 175 !Oo LISZT' S TREATMENT OF TRILL AND TREMOLO CONFIGURATIONS 210 The Forearm Tremolo 0 212 The Shaken Tremolo 0 213 II. LISZT'S TREATMENT OF REPEATED CONFIGURATIONS o 236 120 LISZT'S TREATMENT OF LEAPING CONFIGURATIONS 243 130 LISZT'S TREATMENT OF LEFT-HAND EXERCISES 260 140 LISZT' S TREATMENT OF TECHNICAL CONFIGURATIONS SIMILAR TO THOSE OF CHOPIN 0 265 !50 LISZT'S TECHNICAL STUDIES IN CONTEXT: SELECTED METHODS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES 274 16o CONCLUSION 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY 310 Books and Articles 310 Music Scores and Method Works 317 vi CHAPTER! Introduction and Literature Review Following the centenary of Liszt' s death in 1986 there has been a growing scholarly interest in the Hungarian pianist/composer's life and works. 1 Academic interest has largely been focused on Liszt' s pedagogical process, an interest having been fuelled in part by the historical emergence of the Diary-Notes and recollections of his pupils: 2 Gi:illerich, 3 Lachmund 4 and Friedheim. 5 The re appearance and subsequent purchase of the supposedly "lost" third volume of the Technical Studies for piano in 1975 by the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar6 has also shed "new light"7 on Liszt's didactic approach to the piano especially in relation to the acquisition of virtuosic technique. Yet, despite the fact that "Pedagogy is one of the most thoroughly-mined veins of Liszt I. Michael Saffle, '"The Liszt-Year" 1986 and Recent Liszt Research,' Acta Musicologica, Vol. 59, fasc. 3. (Sep.- Dec., 1987), 273. 2. Allan Walker, Introduction in, Living with Liszt, from The Diary of Carl Lochmund, An American Pupil of Liszt, 1882-1884, by Carl Lachmund, Franz Liszt Studies Series #4, (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), xxxix. 3. August Gollerich, The Piano Master Classes of Franz Liszt, 1884-1886: Diary Notes of August Gollerich, Wilhelm Jerger ed., translated, edited and enlarged by Richard Loius Zimdars (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indianan University Press, 1996). 4. Lachmund, Living with Liszt, 1995. 5. Arthur Friedheim, Life and Liszt: The Recollections of a Concert Pianist (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1961). 6. Imre Mezo, Preface in, New Edition of the Complete Works: Supplements to Works for Piano Solo; Technical Studies vol. [, compiled by Adrienne Kaczmarczyk and Imre Mez6 (Budapest: Editio Musica; Kassel: Biirenreiter-Verlag, 2006) XXII, n. 15. 7. Paraphrased by this author from the book title: Analecta Lisztiana II: New Light on Liszt and His Music, Essays in Honor of Alan Walker's 65th Birthday, Michael Saffle and James Deaville eds (Stuyvesant, New York: Pendragon Press, 1997) iii. 28 29 material ever uncovered," 8 commentary on Liszt's Technical Studies is scarce. This chapter provides an introduction to the thesis, sets the Technical Studies in a scholarly context, provides a frame for the approach of the current study and suggests reasons why this work has generally been overlooked by pianists. The possible reasons as to why Liszt's Technical Studies have been almost entirely overlooked by both academics and pianists alike are hard to discern. However, some possible reasons for this proposed by the current author include: I) The anti-Lisztian sentiment which hindered the spread of Liszt's work as a pianist and pedagogue during his lifetime but also following his death. 9 2) Liszt's poor reviews as a composer by Schumann, 10 his wife Clara, 11 Fetis12 and other "classicists"13 also detracted from the spread of his work during and after his lifetime. 3) Several technical configurations prepare for the problems encountered in Liszt' s piano scores alone. These include the exercises in "Liszt 8. Saffle, The Liszt Year, 291. 9. Allan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, Vol. 2, (London: Faber and Faber, 1989), 349; Franz Liszt; The Final Years, Vol. 3 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1996), 14-17. See also: Walker, Living with Liszt, xxxv. 10. Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians, edited by Konrad Wolff (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946), 146-148. II. Walker, The Weimar Years, 138. 12. See remarks made by Fetis: "You are the offspring of a school which ends and has nothing more to do ... " Lina Ramann, Franz Liszt: Artist and Man vol. II, translated by E. Cowdery (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1882), 246-247. 13. Such as; Brahms, Joachim, Grimm and Scholz. Walker, The Weimar Years, 349. See also: Raruann, Artist and Man, 53-55. 30 octaves" 14 as well as tremolos; features which are seldom encountered in the works of other composers. 4) The technical difficulties in many of them are too great for all but the most advanced pianists. requiring an unrelenting determination in order to master them. 5) The missing third part15 of the work was not recovered until 1974 (over one hundred years following its initial completion) which meant that the complete work, that Liszt had originally intended as a three volume manual was not available until 1983 following its presentation by Editio Musica Budapest. 16 6) A general pedagogical shift away from methods has book-shelved these works, the acquisition of technique being replaced by the study of Etudes and actual pieces. 17 14. Allan Walker, 'Liszt's Technical Studies: Some Thoughts and Afterthoughts,' in Reflections on Liszt (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 205-206. 15. Peter Raabe, Liszts Schaffen, (Stuttgart: I. G. Cotta, 1931), 244, in Imre Mez6, Preface to the Technical Studies for Piano Vol. II (Budapest: Editio Musica, 1983), XI-XII. 16. Mezo, Technical Studies for Piano, Vol. II, XI-XIII. See also: Walker, Reflections on Liszt, 215. 17. Heinrich Neuhaus, The Art of Piano Playing, translated by K.A. Leibovitch (London: Kahn & Averill, 2001), 89-90; Bertrand Ott, Lisztian Keyboard Energy/Liszt et Ia Pedagogue du Piano, an essay on the pianism of Franz Liszt, translated by Donald H. Windham, preface by Norbert Dufourcq (Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press 1992), 246-247.