Welcome back.
I hope you read my first article, please come and do this first for more background on the master Heinrich Neuhaus.
The plan is to go through the whole book, and try to recapitulate the most essential/direct musical points that can be taken.
The struggle with this, is Neuhaus writes in such a conversational/stream of consciousness kind of style, the urge to not copy and paste the whole book into the article is very hard. Sadly, I will have to sacrifice some of the true integrity of this book², but he is a bit all over the place in this section. As a whole his writing is very coherent, but when you try and simplify it the immense depth of his artistic insights are a sadly a bit dampened. If you’re interested, I highly recommend reading it and not just once but multiple times, as every read it gets better. His writing is a form of art itself.
The last thing I will preface this article with is a rough idea of the structure: I will start with some general quotes that I find excellent from the chapter, speak of his philosophy in general, go over some exercises that are recommended, then finish with musical examples from pieces.
“The piano is not one instrument, it is one hundred instruments.”
— Anton Rubinstein
Ironically enough Czerny and Anton (two wildly differing personalities) both came up with this number to aid their students.
It is clear already from just this trivial quote, that Neuhaus’ dialectical reasoning will make something great of it.
Neuhaus and Anton both value the basis of all music which is the voice. The most primitive music (Gregorian Chant), what instruments were used? The voice of course! If we want to be expressive in piano, we must understand the breadth of the human voice. This is not enough because as well, we have to imitate all real and imaginary orchestral instruments or ‘color’s the piano expresses.
“Although I am a pianist, I consider that the orchestra is the first solo instrument, with the piano as second in importance. I think that this cannot be taken as an offence for either the piano or the pianists.”
-Heinrich Neuhaus
It’s this simple right? We have to just imitate the orchestra on the piano and then we will play great! As Anton said the piano is 100 instruments, and if we follow his advice we will be a master like him! Well, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here..
“First of all, the piano has its own individual beauty of tone, its own “ego” which cannot be mistaken for anything else in the world. Secondly, you have to know and love this individual, particular “ego” of the piano in order to know and master it fully. Anyone who has ever heard how some conductors or singers treat the piano (not knowing it) will know once and for all how not to play it.
I hope that this apparent contradiction will be understood correctly, that everyone will understand the dialectic of this phenomenon and why I speak, practically in the same breath, of the piano being the image of the orchestra, and of the piano as such.”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
Why are we demanding so much of our poor piano? This one instrument is supposed to express the limitless variety of the human voice, Anton’s 100 instruments of the orchestra, and the piano’s own individual ego. As Neuhaus says, which I vehemently agree with: We must demand the impossible to attain all that is possible.¹
Another great quote by Anton which Neuhaus paraphrased that I am particularly fond of.
“Someone asked Anton Rubinstein if he could explain the tremendous impression which his playing made on the audience. He said roughly the following: “Perhaps it is due partly to the very great volume of sound, but mainly because I have put in a lot of work in order to succeed in making the piano sing”. Golden words! They should be engraved in marble in each classroom in each school or conservatoire where piano is taught.”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
I believe this quote speaks for itself, but I think when we hear Rubinstein saying “great volume of sound”, we should really take him literally here in some sense. I’m sure he played with a great volume of extremely RESONANT BEAUTIFUL SOUNDS, anyone who heard Anton play always mentioned how he NEVER banged, but produced a huge sound. This is an important part of the quote, not just the singing aspect. A trivial quote such as this, can be very telling and with some lubrication from great creative forces, it can really provide some great results.
To go on a bit of a tangent on how we can utilize this kind of thinking(maybe H.N. is rubbing off on me) here is an exercise I would recommend every musician to try is before you sit down, or while you’re situating yourself at your instrument. Think “I’m going to play like XYZ artist.”, then really use your imagination for that composer.
If I am imagining I am Johann Sebastian Bach himself, I imagine I have a powdered wig on, and am sitting upright very calmly and saintly, and think of his classic quote “just play the notes at the right time, and the instrument plays itself.”, the effect of this actually is surprising. Try it on Bach’s music, try it on other composers music as well too!
Now that I shared my example, you try your own way, think of any composer/artist/pianist. The more you think of and the more you try and emulate them (especially the ones who DON’T HAVE ANY RECORDINGS), you will be aiming for this ideal. It is so important to aim for an ideal in our play, and not just fall into the trap of playing notes mindlessly.
Now, we discussed Vice President of the council of the Piano God’s: Anton Rubinstein, we can maybe refer to the President next on how we should produce tone. The President or Field Marshal to quote Anton Rubinstein is none other than Franz Liszt.
“How can you drink my health, or do me honor as a pianist, when Liszt is sitting at the same table? We are all corporals, and he is the one and only Field- Marshal.
What can we learn from Liszt about tone? Without recordings?! Well we will have to investigate another pithy quote from a great composer-pianist’s mouth, on when he heard Henselt who was known for their extraordinary ‘velvet’ tone.
“Ah, j’aurais pu aussi me donner ces pattes de velours! (I, too, could have given myself these velvet paws! )”
What this simply means, for Henselt the main purpose was this velvet beautiful touch, which I’m sure was beautiful and great. But, for Liszt this was merely a detail of his artistic stroke.
This is where Neuhaus’ dialectics can help us again as he says.
“The concept of beauty of tone is not sensuously static but dialectic; the best tone, and consequently the most beautiful, is the one which renders a particular meaning in the best possible manner. It may happen that a tone or series of tones taken out of context and, so to speak, relieved of all meaning, may appear to some ugly or even unpleasant (let us recall the effect of muted trumpets or the rasping of the double bassoon in the lower register, the shrillness of the E flat clarinet and the jangle of a broken-down old piano, etc. ). But if these sounds, with the exception naturally of the old piano, are used for a definite purpose by a good composer who is an able orchestrator, they will, within the context, become the most expressive, the most necessary; they will be right.”
-Heinrich Neuhaus
This explanation also tags on another important quote from Rimsky-Korsakov, which I will paraphrase: “All sounds of the orchestra and instruments are beautiful.”
This quote builds on the notion that tone is is not just about tone itself, or tone in a vacuum, it is mostly about the relations to other tones is what makes a good performer. The point to hammer on here is despite this article being made about improving tone, it is not just about tone itself. It’s about the evolution of tones in relationship to other tones related to the emotional development and architectural properties of the piece.
Despite all of this, Neuhaus still said that 3/4 of his work with most pupils is related to tone quality and improving it?³ Why is this the case? Well, I believe this to be the case because you need a sensitive or a refined ear for tones. A common problem today, is if you go to a recital of 5 pupils, there will be much difficulty generally speaking in differentiating them. But, when you hear the tones of: Cortot, Sofronitsky, Horowitz, Richter, Gilels, etc. all of them are MASSIVELY individual and different. What makes Cortot Cortot and so on is this process of individuation which can only come from a yearning for tone. The sound must come from the heart or the head first.
How this knowledge is directly applicable is let us consider the touch you would need for Bartok, Debussy, Mozart, and Chopin. These are all completely different touches and if you use a Prokofievian touch in Chopin, you are missing the point. But, if we just purely try and overrate the beauty of tone and think too static, we can actually fall into a trap. I believe that we can actually combine some of these colors that would seem out of place in different styles for a surprise effect, for example maybe using a Bartok/Debussy touch in Chopin for some reason, yes it may sound ridiculous but in the right context anything is possible with enough artistic willpower.
To barrage you with more quotes, let’s consider what Alexander Blok said about what kind of person is a pianist, this is why we need artistic willpower.
“What kind of person is a Poet? Someone who writes in verse? No, of course not; he writes in verse because he is a poet, because he brings words and sounds into harmony…. ”
-Alexander Blok
Neuhaus extends this analogy to piano.
“What sort of a person is a pianist? Is he a pianist because he has a good technique? No, of course not; he has a good technique because he is a pianist, because he finds meaning in sounds, the poetic content of music, its regular structure and harmony, ”
-Heinrich Neuhaus
Now, the quotes will not end here, but, this is just my personal cherry-picking of what I think will be memorable and helpful for the reader as a warming introduction.
Next, we will investigate the general things that he values and believes, then go into some concrete exercises he recommends, and finally go into the musical examples.
While this is not the article dedicated to Neuhaus’ writings on technique (that will be the next one), it is important to consider how Neuhaus defines technique.
The word ‘technique’ comes from greek. It’s predecessor technikós, for one who ‘creates’ or ‘develops’, related to téchnē, instance in which it refers to ‘art’ or ‘skill’ in the creative sense, with obvious roots in the Indo-European *teks-, for ‘to make’ or ‘to create’.
Neuhaus simply put it as it comes from the greek word ‘τέχνη’ and that means art.
This is completely different to the conception most people have nowadays on technique. Most people consider technique as: speed, bravura, evenness, accuracy in jumps, making a LOUD forte (that is generally not beautiful), etc.
This is a deeply problematic issue that must be resolved, to defer to the traidic form of the dialectic (which is Fichtean not Hegelian, but Neuhaus seemingly uses dialectical reasoning very broadly) is that the Thesis can be: bad mechanical technique (uneven scales, slighting notes, slow playing, etc.), and it’s Antithesis would be good mechanical technique (the opposite of the former). The synthesis is the greek word “to create art”, somehow this narrow focus on just mechanically practicing things in effort to create art is not the whole, the whole is to create art.
We have to go through this process, because nobody is born a virtuoso.
This is exactly why Neuhaus says if you have virtuosity on the brain to listen to performances by composer-pianists: Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, etc. because they do not have mechanical technique on their mind at all. Yes, at some stage it is important to develop this because we need it to create great art, but, this is only the beginning and it shouldn’t be praised.
To me, a litmus test of great technique is to be able to play a scale with a beautiful tone. No notes slighted, fully go to the bottom of the key for each note, and a fluid connected feeling from note to note.
Neuhaus says that it is just as wrong to play a scale with the improper tone, than it is to play a Chopin Etude or Ballade. Very wise words, it is essential that you never practice in a purely mechanical dull way TOO much, because this will make your playing dull.
These things are common sense, but to steal from Neuhaus…
“All this is very simple and very well known, and honest to goodness I wouldn’t repeat these truisms if… well, if I did not feel daily more convinced of the fact that not only pupils, but even many accomplished pianists, are not aware of this.”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
Another principle of Neuhaus I would like to introduce here is something that he noticed from his breadth of experience teaching. He taught pupils from the utterly unmusical, to Richter (one of the greatest musical geniuses of our time), but the one thing he believes about genius is what Pushkin thought as well. It is just diligence.
To provide an example of how this can provide great results, let’s refer to another quote.
“It is told of Tausig, the famous pianist, that when he came home after a concert he would play the whole of his programme all over again, very softly and not too fast. An example worth following! Softly — that means with utmost concentration, carefully, conscientiously; accurately, painstakingly, with a beautiful tender tone; an excellent diet not only for the fingers but also for the ear, an instant correction of any inaccuracies or accidents that inevitably occur during an impassioned, temperamental concert performance!
— Heinrich Neuhaus
Why is this such a genius thing? Why does it require so much diligence? Well, Lhevinne even himself said that it takes TREMENDOUS strength of the will to practice slowly. We all love music and want instant results, but, the diligence it requires is and attention to detail is a very challenging task.
Now, we will move onto more practical advice of Neuhaus.
For these there is not much commentary needed, perhaps I will boil it down to some just aphoristic things.
- “Play beautiful melodic passages from Chopin slowly.”
- “From the locomotor point of view, “good” tone is always accompanied by fullest flexibility (but by no means weakness), 52 relaxed weightiness (in other words, an arm which is relaxed from the back and shoulder to the fingertips touching the keys, for all accuracy is concentrated in the fingertips! ) and a sure, adequate control of this weight from a hardly perceptible contact in quick, extremely light notes53 to a tremendous pressure using if necessary the whole body in order to obtain the maximum tone. All this mechanism is not at all complicated for anyone who can hear well, has a clear purpose, is able to realize the flexibility and freedom of body with which nature has endowed him and knows how to put in a lot of stubborn work on the piano.”
- “There is no tone “in general”, just as there is no interpretation “in general”, or expression “in general”; nothing is “in general”. In this connection I would recall those pages of Stanislavsky’s book in which he refers to the expression “in general” as a very great misfortune.”
- “I shall not repeat all that has been known so well and for so long; that polyphony is the best way of obtaining a diversity of tone, that melodic cantabile pieces are indispensable for learning to sing on the piano, 1 etc., etc., that it is essential to develop the strength of the fingers, a strong attack in order to play rapid passages with all the necessary clarity and accuracy and to be able to tackle the toccata-type literature of the piano.”
- -We speak of the fingers fusing with the keyboard, of “growing into the keyboard” (Rachmaninov’s expression) as if the keyboard were resilient and one could “sink” into it at will” (I will add that Josef Hofmann said imagine you are crushing a ripe strawberry, with your fingers).
- “One of my favourite pieces of advice is the following: play a note, or several notes simultaneously with a certain amount of force and hold them until the ear ceases to detect even the slightest vibration of the strings, in other words until the tone has completely died away. Only those who clearly hear the continuity of the piano’s tone (the vibration of the strings) with all the changes in volume, can, first of all, recognize all the beauty, the nobility of the piano (since this continuity is in part much more beautiful than the original tone when struck)47; secondly, they will be able to master that essential variety of tone which is necessary not only for playing polyphonic music, but for any clear rendering of harmony, the relationship between melody and accompaniment, etc., but especially, in order to create tonal perspectives which are just as real for the ear in music as for the eye in painting.”
- “Repetitio est mater persuadendi (repetition is the mother of persuasion).”
- “Cold reason and a warm heart” — this is my educational slogan, and cold reason will not despise this mite of precise knowledge gathered and tested by experience.”
Now onto the musical examples he recommends.
“Here is an exercise which I sometimes recommend as equally useful for developing the ear and for getting to know the keyboard:
The significance of the exercise lies in the fact that each consecutive note is played at the same level of volume as that to which the previous note has dwindled at the time and not at which it was originally struck — (detestable word! ). This exercise, which is a protest against the percussive quality of the piano (for one must first of all learn to make the piano sing, and not only “strike” it).
Another one he recommends at the early stage of pianistic development to be played in multiple keys (three or four specifically, but do all if you have the will), practice these in a moderate tempo and fast, and change the articulation of the lower line, and higher line. Sometimes make the top line staccato, sometimes make it legato, etc.
Another passage I recommend doing this for this.
I personally practice this everyday, focusing on the inner voice and outer voice, also, I recommend playing it broken doing this. Play it broken and really make an accent, on the inner voice everytime, and the opposite. After you try this a few times, play it as written close to the keys and legato as possible. These exercises will help quite quickly.
From WTC Book I, no. 8. Try out this articulation.
A few more things I must reiterate before we move onto more musical examples is, that you MUST pay attention to the dynamic similarity of melody and accompaniment. This is a fault of which many conductors are guilty as well, when they allow the wind instruments, specially the brass, to play too loudly in places where they should only supply the harmony.
Another important thing is when the composer marks crescendo, one at that place should play piano, and if the indication is a diminuendo one should play forte. If you immediately crescendo it ruins the whole culmination of the composers intent.
“Every experienced pianist knows that to get a tender, warm, penetrating tone you have to press the keys very intensively, deeply, keeping the fingers as close to the keys as possible, with “h” at a minimum, or in other words “h” equal to the height of the key before it is depressed. But to get an open, broad, flowing tone (think of Caruso or Gigli) you have to use the whole swing of the finger and hand (with a completely flexible legato). These are but two small examples but they can be multiplied ad infinitum;”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
“ Time and again I have to remind pupils that long notes (minims, semibreves, notes lasting several bars) must, as a rule, be played with more force than the shorter notes that accompany them (quavers, semiquavers, demi-semiquavers, etc.). This again being due to the fundamental “defect” of the piano: the extinction of its tone (with the organ this rule obviously does not apply). I have often been amazed to find that even very talented pupils did not always appear to have a sufficiently demanding ear in this respect and did not render the musical texture with sufficient plasticity. An insufficiently educated ear is also frequently reflected in too much volume in the bass when playing f (“booming”). This booming is particularly unpleasant in Chopin, where a rough, thundering bass is definitely not permissible (in Liszt, on the other hand, one can often hear kettle-drums and cymbals in the bass, but this in no way implies that one can thump and bang on the piano)”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
Now, one of the hardest tasks as pianists, is to render a multiplane tonal texture.
Consider Chopin’s op. 10 (No. 6).
The foreground: melody
The second level: bass, long bass notes lasting a bar or half a bar.
The third level: semi quaver movement in the middle part.
If this structure is not observered, the whole composition is ruined. A common mistake Neuhaus observed is the quavers in the middle part are too loud, if they are louder than the bass the whole structure is ruined. This is precisely why Anton Rubintsein called the two fifth fingers ‘conductors’ leading the music. As a pianist, you must take special care of developing the fifth fingers to be flexible, strong, and skilled as they are what’s leading the music.
Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, repetition of the first subject (agitato).
While there is a lot of harmonies supporting this allowing it to be full very easily, the fifth finger (melody), must shine above all. A method of exaggeration is play the melody very forte, the accompaniment piano, and the bass mezzo piano (approximately).
Scriabin’s Fourth Sonata the whole ending (ff).
Despite the fact there is seven or eight part chords, and a full bass in octaves, the poor fifth finger is tasked with a lot, but we must DEVELOP it relentlessly to be the strongest pillar of the dome of the hand.
An easier multiplanal tonal texture to render is the D flat Scherzo due to the contrast in register, also the fact that is horizontal and not vertical like the other examples.
Another fault that is very prevalent especially people with small hands is the thumb overpowering the pinky in chords and octaves.
To solve this, I recommend (or should I say Neuhaus does) playing each part separately and thoroughly.
Another issue people fall into with small hands, is that the fingers that are not being used in octave playing are tensed up. He recommends observing a true virtuoso such as Gilels to see how whenever he plays octaves, the fingers that fingers are always at a proper distance from the keys without ever touching them.
In addition to taking care of these details, it is recommended to play the exercises in Godowsky’s thirds etude in the left hand based off op 25 no 6.
The purpose of stopping on the first octave for the above exercise is the hand should maintain the stretch of the octave after playing one note, and not close on accident.
Now finally, you may ask why are these exercises in the chapter on tone should they not be in technique? In ultimate dialectical fashion, Neuhaus’ response to this is simple.
“I want to stress once more that work on tone is work on technique and work on technique is work on tone.”
— Heinrich Neuhaus
Well, that’s enough for now! Stay tuned for the next chapter on technique!..
On second thought, let’s end on an aphorism of Neuhaus’ it is only fitting.
“tone must be clothed in silence; it must be enshrined in silence like a jewel in a velvet case.”
¹ There is also undertones of Hegel here. How I justify this is that the difference between Kant and someone like Hegel is Kant basically says we don’t have access to the ‘impossible’ or don’t have access to the noumena/thing in itself. What differs Kant from Hegel/Schelling (the absolute idealists) is that Hegel thought we could access it, but also that this metaphysic is actually a contradiction. The thing in itself is a nothing.
²“Textbook methodology, which mainly lays down prescriptions, so-called hard and fast rules (even if they are tested and reliable) will always be but a primitive, primary, simplified method, which at any moment when coming into contact with reality needs development, rethinking, clarifying, livening up, in short — a dialectic transformation. “Teaching (and I have in mind a good teacher-performer) where the ways of influencing a pupil change constantly and are infinite in their variety while unwaveringly pursuing one aim, fully bears out this statement. -HN
³ ““In actual fact “work at tone” is just as inaccurate an expression as that of work on the artistic image. We are too enslaved by our inaccurate words and expressions, we trust them too much. People always say of any good pianist: What a beautiful tone! How wonderful it sounds! etc. But what gives us the impression of a beautiful tone is in actual fact something much greater; it is the expressiveness of the performance, or in other words, the ordering of sound in the process of performing a composition. I am convinced that you could never say of a not very musical performer that his playing sounds wonderful, even if he knows hundreds of ways of producing tone and has gone through the whole business of working at tone quality. In the best of cases, it will sound good in places, but not throughout. With a really creative artist and pianist “a beautiful tone” is a most complex process combining and ordering the relationship of tones of varying strength, varying duration, etc., etc., into a single entity. All this proves yet again what I have just said: tone is one of the means of expression available to the artist…”
“In my work with my pupils, I can say without exaggeration that three-quarters of all work is work on tone. It may be said that the sequence, the causal relationship in our work naturally falls into the following pattern: first — the image (i. e. the meaning, content, expression, the what-it-is-all-about); second — tone in time41 — the embodiment, the materialization of the image, and finally, the third — technique as a whole, as the sum total of all means essential for solving the artistic problem of piano playing as such, i.e. mastery of the muscular movements of the performer and of the mechanism of the instrument.” — HN