EMIL SAUER
One of the most inestimable advantages
I have ever had was my good fortune in having a musical
mother. It is to her that I owe my whole career
as an artist. If it had not been for her loving
care and her patient persistence I might have been
engaged in some entirely different pursuit. As
a child I was very indifferent to music. I abhorred
practice, and, in fact, showed no signs of pronounced
talent until my twelfth year. But she kept faithfully
pegging away at me and insisted that because my grandfather
had been a noted artist and because she was devoted
to music it must be in my blood.
My mother was a pupil of Deppe, of
whom Miss Amy Fay has written in her book “Music
Study in Germany.” Deppe was a remarkable
pedagogue and had excellent ideas upon the foundation
of a rational system of touch. He sought the
most natural position of the hand and always aimed
to work along the line of least resistance. My
mother instilled Deppe’s ideas into me together
with a very comprehensive training in the standard
etudes and classics within my youthful technical grasp.
For those years I could not have had a better teacher.
Lucky is the child, who like Gounod, Reisenauer and
others, has had the invaluable instruction that a
patient, self-sacrificing mother can give. The
mother is the most unselfish of all teachers, and
is painstaking to a fault.
SLOW SYSTEMATIC PRACTICE
She insisted upon slow systematic
regular practice. She knew the importance of
regularity, and one of the first things I ever learned
was that if I missed one or two days’ practice,
I could not hope to make it up by practicing overtime
on the following days. Practice days missed or
skipped are gone forever. One must make a fresh
start and the loss is sometimes not recovered for
several days.
I was also made to realize the necessity
of freshness at the practice period. The pupil
who wants to make his practice lead to results must
feel well while practicing. Practicing while tired,
either mentally or physically, is wasted practice.
Pupils must learn to concentrate,
and if they have not the ability to do this naturally
they should have a master who will teach them how.
It is not easy to fix the mind upon one thing and
at the same time drive every other thought away.
With some young pupils this takes much practice.
Some never acquire it it is not in them.
Concentration is the vertebrae of musical success.
The student who cannot concentrate had better abandon
musical study. In fact, the young person who cannot
concentrate is not likely to be a conspicuous success
in any line of activity. The study of music cultivates
the pupil’s powers of concentration perhaps
more than any other study. The notes to be played
must be recognized instantaneously and correctly performed.
In music the mind has no time to wander. This
is one of the reasons why music is so valuable even
for those who do not ever contemplate a professional
career.
One hour of concentrated practice
with the mind fresh and the body rested is better
than four hours of dissipated practice with the mind
stale and the body tired. With a fatigued intellect
the fingers simply dawdle over the keys and nothing
is accomplished. I find in my own daily practice
that it is best for me to practice two hours in the
morning and then two hours later in the day.
When I am finished with two hours of hard study I
am exhausted from close concentration. I have
also noted that any time over this period is wasted.
I am too fatigued for the practice to be of any benefit
to me.
THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD GENERAL EDUCATION
Parents make a great mistake in not
insuring the general education of the child who is
destined to become a concert performer. I can
imagine nothing more stultifying or more likely to
result in artistic disaster than the course that some
parents take in neglecting the child’s school
work with an idea that if he is to become a professional
musician he need only devote himself to music.
This one-sided cultivation should be reserved for
idiots who can do nothing else. The child-wonder
is often the victim of some mental disturbance.
I remember once seeing a remarkable
child mathematician in Hungary. He was only twelve
years of age and yet the most complicated mathematical
problems were solved in a few seconds without recourse
to paper. The child had water on the brain and
lived but a few years. His usefulness to the
world of mathematics was limited solely to show purposes.
It is precisely the same with the so-called musical
precocities. They are rarely successful in after
life, and unless trained by some very wise and careful
teacher, they soon become objects for pity.
The child who is designed to become
a concert pianist should have the broadest possible
culture. He must live in the world of art and
letters and become a naturalized citizen. The
wider the range of his information, experience and
sympathies, the larger will be the audience he will
reach when he comes to talk to them from the concert
platform. It is the same as with a public speaker.
No one wants to hear a speaker who has led a narrow,
crabbed intellectual existence, but the man who has
seen and known the world, who has become acquainted
with the great masterpieces of art and the wonderful
achievements of science, has little difficulty in
securing an audience providing he has mastered the
means of expressing his ideas.
CLEAN PLAYING VS. SLOVENLY PLAYING
In the matter of technical preparation
there is, perhaps, too little attention being given
to-day to the necessity for clean playing. Of
course, each individual requires a different treatment.
The pupil who has a tendency to play with stiffness
and rigidity may be given studies which will develop
a more fluent style. For these pupils’ studies,
like those of Heller, are desirable in the cases of
students with only moderate technical ability, while
the splendid “etudes” of Chopin are excellent
remedies for advanced pupils with tendencies toward
hard, rigid playing. The difficulty one ordinarily
meets, however, is ragged, slovenly playing rather
than stiff, rigid playing. To remedy this slovenliness,
there is nothing like the well-known works of Czerny,
Cramer or Clementi.
I have frequently told pupils in my
“Meisterschule” in Vienna, before I abandoned
teaching for my work as a concert pianist, that they
must learn to draw before they learn to paint.
They will persist in trying to apply colors before
they learn the art of making correct designs.
This leads to dismal failure in almost every case.
Technic first then interpretation.
The great concert-going public has no use for a player
with a dirty, slovenly technic no matter how much he
strives to make morbidly sentimental interpretations
that are expected to reach the lovers of sensation.
For such players a conscientious and exacting study
of Czerny, Cramer, Clementi and others of similar design
is good musical soap and water. It washes them
into respectability and technical decency. The
pianist with a bungling, slovenly technic, who at the
same time attempts to perform the great masterpieces,
reminds me of those persons who attempt to disguise
the necessity for soap and water with nauseating perfume.
HEALTH A VITAL FACTOR
Few people realize what a vital factor
health is to the concert pianist. The student
should never fail to think of this. Many young
Americans who go abroad to study break down upon the
very vehicle upon which they must depend in their
ride to success through the indiscretions of overwork
or wrong living. The concert pianist really lives
a life of privation. I always make it a point
to restrict myself to certain hygienic rules on the
day before a concert. I have a certain diet and
a certain amount of exercise and sleep, without which
I cannot play successfully.
In America one is overcome with the
kindness of well-meaning people who insist upon late
suppers, receptions, etc. It is hard to refuse
kindness of this description, but I have always felt
that my debt to my audiences was a matter of prime
importance, and while on tour I refrain from social
pleasures of all kinds. My mind and my body must
be right or failure will surely result.
I have often had people say to me
after the performance of some particularly brilliant
number “Ah! You must have taken a bottle
of champagne to give a performance like that.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. A half
a bottle of beer would ruin a recital for me.
The habit of taking alcoholic drinks with the idea
that they lead to a more fiery performance is a dangerous
custom that has been the ruin of more than one pianist.
The performer who would be at his best must live a
very careful, almost abstemious life. Any unnatural
excess is sure to mar his playing and lead to his
downfall with the public. I have seen this done
over and over again, and have watched alcohol tear
down in a few years what had taken decades of hard
practice and earnest study to build up.
JUDICIOUS USE OF TECHNICAL EXERCISES
The field of music is so enormous
that I have often thought that the teacher should
be very careful not to overdo the matter of giving
technical exercises. Technical exercises are,
at best, short cuts. They are necessary for the
student. He should have a variety of them, and
not be kept incessantly pounding away at one or two
exercises. As Nicholas Rubinstein once said to
me, “Scales should never be dry. If you
are not interested in them work with them until you
become interested in them.” They should
be played with accents and in different rhythms.
If they are given in the shapeless manner in which
some teachers obliged their unfortunate pupils to
practice them they are worthless. I do not believe
in working out technical exercises at a table or with
a dumb piano. The brain must always work with
the fingers, and without the sound of the piano the
imagination must be enormously stretched to get anything
more than the most senseless, toneless, soulless touch.
Technic with many is unmistakably
a gift. I say this after having given the matter
much careful thought. It is like the gift of speech.
Some people are fluent talkers, precisely as some
people can do more in two hours’ technical work
at the keyboard than others could accomplish with
four. Of course, much can be accomplished with
persistent practice, and a latent gift may be awakened,
but it is certainly not given to all to become able
technicalists. Again some become very proficient
from the technical standpoint, but are barren, soulless,
uninspired and vapid when it comes to the artistic
and musicianly interpretation of a piece.
There comes a time to every advanced
pianist when such exercises as the scales, arpeggios,
the studies of Czerny and Cramer are unnecessary.
I have not practiced them for some years, but pray
do not think that I attempt to go without exercises.
These exercises I make by selecting difficult parts
of famous pieces and practicing them over and over.
I find the concertos of Hummel particularly valuable
in this connection, and there are parts of some of
the Beethoven concertos that make splendid musical
exercises that I can practice without the fatal diminution
of interest which makes a technical exercise valueless.
STUDY ABROAD
In the matter of foreign study I think
that I may speak without bias, as I am engaged in
teaching and am not likely to resume for some years.
I am absolutely convinced that there are many
teachers in America who are as good as the best in
Europe. Nevertheless, I would advise the young
American to secure the best instruction possible in
his native land, and then to go abroad for a further
course. It will serve to broaden him in many
ways.
I believe in patriotism, and I admire
the man who sticks to his fatherland. But, in
art there is no such thing as patriotism. As the
conservatory of Paris provides, through the “Prix
de Rome,” for a three years’ residence
in Italy and other countries for the most promising
pupil, so the young American music students should
avail themselves of the advantages of Old World civilization,
art, and music. There is much to be learned from
the hustle and vigorous wholesome growth of your own
country that would be of decided advantage to the German
students who could afford a term of residence here.
It is narrowing to think that one should avoid the
Old World art centers from the standpoint of American
patriotism.
VERSATILITY
Few people recognize the multifarious
requirements of the concert pianist. He must
adjust himself to all sorts of halls, pianos and living
conditions. The difference between one piano and
another is often very remarkable. It sometimes
obliges the artist to readjust his technical methods
very materially. Again, the difference in halls
is noteworthy. In a great hall, like the Albert
Hall of London, one can only strive for very broad
effects. It is not possible for one to attempt
the delicate shadings which the smaller halls demand.
Much is lost in the great hall, and it is often unjust
to determine the pianist’s ability by his exclusively
bravura performances in very large auditoriums.
CULTIVATING FINGER STRENGTH
The concert pianist must have great
endurance. His fingers must be as strong as steel,
and yet they must be as elastic and as supple as willow
wands. I have always had great faith in the “Kleine
Pischna” and the “Pischna Exercises”
in cultivating strength. These exercises are now
world famous, and it would be hard for me to imagine
anything better for this particular purpose.
They are somewhat voluminous, but necessarily so.
One conspicuous difficulty with which teachers have
to contend is that pupils attempt pieces requiring
great digital strength without ever having gone through
such a course as I advocate above. The result
is that they have all sorts of troubles with their
hands through strain. Some of these troubles
are irremediable, others are curable, but cause annoying
delays. I have never had anything of this sort
and attribute my immunity from weeping sinews, etc.,
to correct hand positions, a loose wrist and slow
systematic work in my youth.
VELOCITY
Velocity depends more upon natural
elasticity than strength. Some people seem to
be born with the ability to play rapidly. It is
always a matter of the fingers, but is more a matter
of the brain. Some people have the ability to
think very rapidly, and when these people have good
supple hands they seem to be able to play rapidly
with comparatively little study. When you fail
to get velocity at first, do not hesitate to lay the
piece aside for several weeks, months or years.
Then you will doubtless find that the matter of velocity
will not trouble you. Too much study upon a piece
that fails for the time being to respond to earnest
effort is often a bad thing. Be a little patient.
It will all come out right in the end. If you
fuss and fume for immediate results you may be sadly
disappointed.
TALENT
Talent is great and immutable.
Take the case of Liszt, for instance. I recently
heard from a reliable source the following interesting
story: One day Liszt was called away from his
class at Wiemar by an invitation to visit the Grand
Duke. Von Buelow, then a mature artist, was present,
and he was asked by Liszt to teach the class for the
day. Liszt left the room, and a young student
was asked to play one of Liszt’s own compositions.
Von Buelow did not like the youth’s interpretation,
as he had been accustomed to play the same work on
tour in a very different manner. Consequently
he abused the student roundly, and then sat at the
keyboard and was playing to his great satisfaction
when the tottering old master broke in the room and
with equal severity reprimanded Von Buelow, and sat
down at the keyboard and gave an interpretation that
was infinitely superior to that of Von Buelow.
It was simply a case of superiority of talent that
enabled the aged and somewhat infirm Liszt to excel
his younger contemporary.
BE NATURAL
In closing, let me enjoin all young
American music students to strive for naturalness.
Avoid ostentatious movements in your playing.
Let your playing be as quiet as possible. The
wrist should be loose. The hands, to my mind,
should be neither high nor low, but should be in line
with the forearm. One should continually strive
for quietness. Nothing should be forced.
Ease in playing is always admirable, and comes in time
to all talented students who seek it. The Deppe
method of hand position, while pedantic and unnecessarily
long, is interesting and instructive.
Personally, I advocate the use of
the Etudes of Chopin, Moscheles and the Etudes
Transcendante to all advanced pupils. I have
used them with pupils with invariable success.
I have also a series of thirteen Etudes of my own
that I have made for the express purpose of affording
pupils material for work which is not adequately covered
in the usual course.
Young Americans have a great future
before them. The pupils I have had have invariably
been ones who progress with astonishing rapidity.
They show keenness and good taste, and are willing
to work faithfully and conscientiously, and that,
after all, is the true road to success.
TALENT COUNTS
If you think that talent does not
count you are very greatly mistaken. We not infrequently
see men who have been engaged in one occupation with
only very moderate success suddenly leap into fame
in an entirely different line. Men who have struggled
to be great artists or illustrators like du Maurier
astonish the world with a previously concealed literary
ability. It is foolish not to recognize the part
that talent must play in the careers of artists.
Sometimes hard work and patient persistence will stimulate
the mind and soul, and reveal talents that were never
supposed to exist, but if the talent does not exist
it is as hopeless to hunt for it as it is to seek
for diamonds in a bowl of porridge.
Talented people seem to be born with
the knack or ability to do certain things twice as
well and twice as quickly as other people can do the
same things. I well remember that when all Europe
was wild over the “Diabolo” craze my little
girl commenced to play with the sticks and the little
spool. It looked interesting and I thought that
I would try it a few times and then show her how to
do it. The more I tried the more exasperated
I became. I simply could not make it go, and before
I knew it I had wasted a whole morning upon it.
My little daughter took it up and in a few minutes’
practice she was able to do it as well as an expert.
It is precisely the same at the keyboard. What
takes some pupils hours to accomplish others can do
in a few seconds with apparently less effort.
The age of the pupil seems to have little to do with
musical comprehension. What does count is talent,
that peculiar qualification which seems to lead the
student to see through complex problems as if he had
been solving them through different generations for
centuries.
QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION
AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING
SERIES XVI
EMIL SAUER
1. Can missed practice periods ever be made up?
2. Does piano study cultivate concentration?
3. What is a good arrangement of practice hours?
4. What are some remedies for slovenly playing?
5. How is one’s playing affected by health?
6. Are stimulants good or bad?
7. Is listening important in pianoforte playing?
8. How may finger strength be cultivated?
9. Upon what does velocity depend?
10. What part does talent play in the artist’s
success?