June 26th, 2008
Neuhaus stressed the same key muscles of the hand in piano technique
Yesterday I had lunch with Uwe Balser, head of the piano department at the Musikschule in Heidelberg, Germany. We got to talking about our respective paths of development and he told me of a pianist named Andre Esterhazy who lives in London. A pauper living alone on social assistance with his 5 cats, Esterhazy was a former student of the great Henrich Neuhaus. He looked and played like Richter – “A complete Richter clone, in body type, hands on the keyboard, sound, musicianship, everything; it was uncanny,” Herr Balser tells me. He had very few students, generally only the occasional person who heard that he could help pianists with problems. That this situation could exist in one of the musical captitals of the world is in itself extraordinary. But his teaching was also extraordinary, pure gold, as Herr Balser put it. “One thing I remember him saying was about the key muscles of the hand for a pianist: the giant thumb muscle of course, then the big big of muscle around the fifth metacarpal, and the muscle in betweeen thumb and forefinger.”
This is of course the first dorsal interosseous that I mention in my film – it was nice for me to hear it confirmed by such an impeccable source! The more I hear about the teaching of the past masters, the more I am sure that there is nothing new in my approach to piano technique, I just tried to systematize it in a new way.
Nothing New in My Approach to Piano Technique
June 26th, 2008
Neuhaus stressed the same key muscles of the hand in piano technique
Yesterday I had lunch with Uwe Balser, head of the piano department at the Musikschule in Heidelberg, Germany. We got to talking about our respective paths of development and he told me of a pianist named Andre Esterhazy who lives in London. A pauper living alone on social assistance with his 5 cats, Esterhazy was a former student of the great Henrich Neuhaus. He looked and played like Richter – “A complete Richter clone, in body type, hands on the keyboard, sound, musicianship, everything; it was uncanny,” Herr Balser tells me. He had very few students, generally only the occasional person who heard that he could help pianists with problems. That this situation could exist in one of the musical captitals of the world is in itself extraordinary. But his teaching was also extraordinary, pure gold, as Herr Balser put it. “One thing I remember him saying was about the key muscles of the hand for a pianist: the giant thumb muscle of course, then the big big of muscle around the fifth metacarpal, and the muscle in betweeen thumb and forefinger.”
This is of course the first dorsal interosseous that I mention in my film – it was nice for me to hear it confirmed by such an impeccable source! The more I hear about the teaching of the past masters, the more I am sure that there is nothing new in my approach to piano technique, I just tried to systematize it in a new way.