Brahms-works need large hands?

[juliuskrause]

in my last piano lesson i talked with my teacher about my oppinion to the Brahms Sonatas I like them very much - he told me: 'especially for Rach and Brahms - you need large hands'

i got small hands, i play only a year, and now i can play a none
- so i looked in the score of the f-minor sonata by brahms, and already in the second line i saw a nice 5-voice-chord (e-flat, g, b-flat, e-flat, g) - well, it's a arpeggiert (how do you call this in england? ;-) one, but can you play such things

there are so many women which play brahms, but women mostly have small hands than men - it's true isn't it?!

i'm very curious about your advices

[pskim]

If you only played the piano for a year, I'd put off playing Brahms' sonatas and Rachmaninoff.  They are too difficult even for people with large hands.  I also have small hands, believe it or not.  And I also used to complain about having small hands until I saw one of my classmate, a Chinese girl, with the smallest hands I had ever seen.  She could only reach a 7th from her thumb and the pinky.  So she had to play octaves with her 4th finger.  But the pieces that she played were big!  She played the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Schumann's Fantasy stucke, and so on.  And since then I have stopped complaining about my small hands.  My hands were bigger than hers.

Anyway, small hands are not a problem.  There are many ways of getting around technical difficulties with small hands.  Believe me, you can play big pieces with small hands.  John Nakamatsu, one of the previous winners of the Van Cliburn competition has one of the tiniest hands of professional pianists and he played the Rachmaninoff 3rd concerto at the final round.

As for the rep, you should build up your technique before you attempt anything too difficult to handle at your present level.  But with proper practicing and technical training, you can play difficult pieces with small hands.  I can now.

[juliuskrause]

thanks for the help, it wasn't in my mind, to play the sonatas or rachmaninoff,

 it was only a look in the future- in the kind of 'when i can play good enough, i wanna play this pieces' - and i thougt there would be a physical border - but after that what you said - i have hope again

[SteinwayTony]

Brahms' hands were reportedly larger than average.

To answer your question bluntly, it does help to have large hands, but none of his pieces require it perse.  Chords usually won't be the problem...it's generally awkward leaps, usually in the left hand (Brahms loved the bass register).

[galonia]

I have quite small hands (full stretch gives me an octave) and I have no problems playing Brahms.  Sometimes it's a bit uncomfortable, but you just have to figure a way around it - there's always a way.  The large leaps are no problem at all if you practise them carefully and keep close to the keys.

a Chinese girl, with the smallest hands I had ever seen. She could only reach a 7th from her thumb and the pinky. So she had to play octaves with her 4th finger. But the pieces that she played were big! She played the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Schumann's Fantasy stucke, and so on. And since then I have stopped complaining about my small hands. My hands were bigger than hers.

This is interesting - I think it depends more on the shape of your hand rather than the size.  There's no way I could reach an octave using my 4th finger; this girl must have really long 4th fingers.  But it means that each person has to work out for themselves how best to accommodate large chords with the hands they have.

[pianowelsh]

Not true  - You don't have to have big hands to play all Brahms. Maybe in the sonatas it helps with fistfulls of chords but Helene Grimaud has release a Brahms cd and I'm quite sure her hands are not that large. Flexibility is much more important than size!

[anda]

no, but it sure helps 

[johnnypiano]

I spoke to Rosalyn Tureck and had a close-up view of her hands.  Her fingers were about one and a half inches long.  Really!  Yet she plays the Brahms B flat concerto.   

[etudes]

it doesnt matter how big your hands (yeah as mentioned big hand can helps)
think more about flexible technique and working hard
am sure if you can manage to play octave and then you develop your technique
then the sky is the limit..

[kaff]

You may find your span stretches a bit anyway, over time.  I took up playing piano seriously again a bit less than 2 years ago, after about a twenty year gap.  At that time, I could stretch only an octave, and it was quite difficult to play a lot of octave runs in a piece.  Now less than two years later I can stretch a ninth, and the octave runs are reasonably comfortable.  I have been deliberately working on this, playing scales in octaves, and keeping going with some pieces which I find quite a stretch.  Chopin etude 10/3 I've found quite helpful at stretching my hands, even though it's sixths rather than octaves - the sixths are played not only with thumb and fifth fingers, but also with second and fifth fingers, or thumb and third fingers and doing those stretches seems to have helped my octave span too.  This is probably not a piece for someone who has only been playing for a year, but the principle could be applied to develop an exercise in sixths.

I was pretty much shamed into doing this by my teacher, who is a typically small Chinese woman with tiny hands, who can nevertheless play wider spans than I'm comfortable with!

Kathryn

[whynot]

Same here, very small hands but play lots of Brahms.  Good luck with your studies!

[robertp]

As others have pointed out, it's a canard. Cliburn has very large hands, for all the good it's done him. Serkin had rather small ones and it hardly hindered him. I'm reminded of a tale (from The Great Pianists, I think) about Hoffman and Godowsky at a reception. Someone gushed at them about how wonderfully they played, but asked "how do you eve do it with such small hands?" H. replied "who ever gave you the idea we play the piano with our hands?"

Actually, large hands aren't all they're cracked up to be . I easily get a tenth, which means playing octaves can be...different.