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Page 13
"Soon after this incident, I was taken to the Professor's studio. He
examined me, considered I had talent, and thought it should be
cultivated. So he took me in hand. I was then five, and my real musical
education began at that time.
"From the very first I adopted a position of hand which seemed to me
most convenient and comfortable, and no amount of contrary instruction
and advice has ever been able to make me change it. I play scales and
passages with low hand and flat fingers because that position seems the
most favorable for my hand. When practising, I play everything very
slowly, raising my fingers high and straight from the knuckle joint.
This gives me great clearness and firmness. In rapid passage work the
action is reduced, but the position remains. I am said to have a clear,
pearly touch, with quite sufficient power at my command for large works.
"After five years of study with my first teacher, Rudolph Heim, a pupil
of Moscheles, I entered the Moscow Conservatory, and continued my
studies under Professor Pabst, brother and teacher of the composer of
that name. I was then ten years old. Professor Pabst was very
conservative, very strict, and kept me at work on the music of the older
masters. This kind of music suits me, I think; at least I enjoy it. Even
here I still clung to my ideas of holding my hands and of touching the
keys, and always expect to do so.
"I remained with this professor about six years and then began my public
career.
"You ask about my present studies, and how I regulate my practise.
During my periods of rest from concert work, I practise a great deal--I
wish I could say all the time, but that is not quite possible. I give an
hour or more a day to technical practise. As to the material, I use
Chopin's �tudes constantly, playing them with high-raised, outstretched
fingers, in very slow tempo. One finds almost every technical problem
illustrated in these �tudes; octaves, arpeggios, scales in double thirds
and sixths, repeated notes, as in number 7, broken chords and passage
work. I keep all these �tudes in daily practise, also using some of the
Liszt _�tudes Transcendantes_, and, of course, Bach. The advantage of
using this sort of material is that one never tires of it; it is always
interesting and beautiful. With this material well in hand, I am always
ready for recital, and need only to add special pieces and modern music.
"In learning a new work I first study it very slowly, trying to become
familiar with its meaning. I form my concept of it and _live_ with it
for months before I care to bring it forward. I try to form an ideal
conception of the piece, work this out in every detail, then always
endeavor to render it as closely like the ideal as possible."
VII
ETHEL LEGINSKA
RELAXATION THE KEYNOTE OF MODERN PIANO PLAYING
The brilliant young pianist, Ethel Leginska, who is located for a time
in America, was seen in her Carnegie Hall studio, on her return from a
concert tour. The young English girl is a petite brunette; her face is
very expressive, her manner at once vivacious and serious. The firm
muscles of her fine, shapely hands indicate that she must spend many
hours daily at the keyboard.
"Yes, I have played a great deal in public--all my life, in fact--ever
since I was six. I began my musical studies at Hull, where we lived; my
first teacher was a pupil of McFarren. Later I was taken to London,
where some rich people did a great deal for me. Afterward I went to
Leschetizky, and was with him several years, until I was sixteen; I also
studied in Berlin. Then I began my career, and concertized all over
Europe; now I am in America for a time. I like it here; I am fond of
your country already.
"The piano is such a wonderful instrument to me; I feel we are only
beginning to fathom its possibilities; not in a technical sense, but as
a big avenue for expression. For me the piano is capable of reflecting
every mood, every feeling; all pathos, joy, sorrow--the good and the
evil too--all there is in life, all that one has lived." (This recalls a
recently published remark of J. S. Van Cleve: "The piano can sing, march,
dance, sparkle, thunder, weep, sneer, question, assert, complain,
whisper, hint; in one word it is the most versatile and plastic of
instruments.")
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