Assorted Liszt Advice I found important. Assembled in WTKeyboardTeacher

[dnephi]

These are all part of what  Liszt taught.

A.Phrasing of themes should always have variety and repetition of themes should not be phrased in the same manner.

B.New pieces should be studied away from the piano at first.  Then played slowly four or five times focusing on different details each time.
1.   To become acquainted with the notes.
2.   Examine the rythms
3.   Explore expression markings (Sometimes add one’s own)
4.   Develop awareness of the lowest and uppermost parts.
5.   Determine tempo and rubato, planning tempo fluctuations in accordance with the contour and flow of each phrase.
Repetitive practice to begin only after a score has been analyzed and scrutinized in this way. 

C. Have patience.  Place your foot securely on each step in order to reach the heights on secure footing.
D. Sit higher than usual so that the forearm can slope down to the hand.  This helps you to play with extremely great volume and technical difficulty, especially wide skips and crossing or interlocking hands.  Sit upright with torso bent slightly forward, and tilt head back.
E.  Use fleshy part of finger, not tip or nail.  This would be harsh sound. 
F. Octave scales practiced from one end to the other 8 times through all 24 keys, paying attention to tone quality and crescendo and diminuendo nuances.  Hold fingers stiffly and throw arm at key.  Practice chromatic octaves with very stiff thumb joints.  Then play each octave 4 times up a 1 octave scale and do it 40 times in succession. Octaves 8 times in all 24 keys from each end of the keyboard, paying attention to tone quality and crescendo and de.  Also arpeggiated and chord patterns.
G. Repeated note exercise.  Play for hours a day if possible. Play with fleshy part of finger.  Then leave all other fingers unmoving.  The finger being moved must be self-sufficient, free, and lifted high so that its stroke is strong and full.  4th and 5th fingers must be developed most.  USE BALL OF FINGER.  Go from piano to forte, and try even higher dynamic contrasts.


Remember this.  Do it.  Love it. 

:p...

[pianistimo]

come to think of it - the pictures i've seen of liszt show him exactly like that.  fairly high seated at the piano.  but, nowdays - you don't have to expend as much effort and also hurt your back.  the high forearms - the powerful moves can still SOUND powerful without the effort.

it's like the invention of the microwave.  who want to make a cup of coffee the old way.  it's just easier to sit lower and to play with flat hands and let the piano make the sound.  pianos have come a long way since liszt's time.  you don't have to pound it to get a lot of sound.  in fact, with some very responsive pianos - it seems best, imo, to stay really really close to the keys to achieve speed and mostly work the mental part that liszt talked about.

the mental part is hearing it all first in your head and then producing the desired tone, dynamics, phrasing, etc.  it's like a mini-recorder going in your head - slightly before the phrases start - so you know what you want to produce.  you produce it either to your satisfaction or horror (soft notes not sounding - or loud ones too loud).  and, you become adept at rememebering what you are going to do if you lose your spot.

and, when you're really good - how to vary phrasing.  i agree with that completely.  i mean - excepting mozart where people sort of expect you to keep a beat.  liszt seemed to like the unexpected.  a true showman.  not to let anyone second guess what you are going to do.

[maxd]

liszt pianos were much softer in action, it is harder to push the keys down nowadays.

a high seating position permits you to get FF without pushing down akwardly

[ramseytheii]

I had a period once where I decided to read all of the diaries of Liszt pupils I could acquire.  I wanted to get as much a complete picture of Liszt the musician as possible.  Much came out about his personality, especially from the Siloti diary, but the musical advice that was recorded I found on the whole uninteresting. 

This could be for many reasons; perhaps the students were just not very good writers, and didn't capture the essence of what Liszt was saying.  Perhaps he himself was not terribly interested in comprehensive teaching.  In general, his advice seemed to be rather commonplace to what we hear today.  Perhaps this is a testament to his originality; after all, many scenes in Citizen Kane also seem commonplace, but they were pathbreaking at the time.

I think the most though, is that he taught through the force of his personality.  The most unsuccesful diaries recorded what he said, without saying how he said it.  The Siloti actually creates a picture of a real man, not a spouter of musical banalities, such as "phrasing should always have variety" and not a demi-God as in the Friedheim.  And for me this is where most of the inspiration comes, because one can find inspiration for performance in learning about Liszt's dispositions, his moral code, his own source of inspiration.

Walter Ramsey

[liszt-essence]

The talent of liszt really lay in his musical identity.

He 'was' the piano. I mean that quite litterly. Not on a phsysical level, but on an ergetic level. 

He had joined with the piano through his energetic body and the piano had joined with him. They were one being so to say.

Because of this, he developed an amazing technique that enabled him to play anything that he woud like, the way he liked it. It was not the other way around. It was not because he had a great technique, that he could become 'one' with the instrument.

He did practice, just like we do. Yet there is this subtle difference, that when expressed in music, become a difference between day and night. You have great performers, then you have great composers/performers and then there's Bach. But that's another story all together.

If you are looking for the man that further initiated pianism in his time, it's Liszt. At the same time he was alive, he initiated a new way of playing. He reached this when he became about 30 years old. It was a tremendous succes in his days, we all know this from the countless reports of his playing.

But like I said, he did practice. But who thinks that the way he was taught is the same as looking into the Czerny books of today is wrong. Czerny did teach liszt, but the things he told the boy were not just 'practice scales'. Czerny's character, personality, 'energetic' body, was transfered and planted into the young liszt's awareness, who at that point in time was a perfect conceiver for this transfer of pianism. 

It all 'started' with beethoven so to say. Beethoven was the man who wrote the 'new testament'. He did this, because he was 'given' it. Just as I'm inspired to write this text right now. It's all 'fate' in this way.

Some of you will not agree, but I think it's time to say what I really think and also explain things more fully. To make things more understandable.

Conclusion:

Liszt 'was' pianism. This foundation lay in his 'personality', his energetic 'body' which enabled him to become one with the piano. This happend on an ergetic level. Where matter becomes 'one' with conciousness. Or where conciousness becomes one with matter.

He was 'given' this pianism, by czerny, who was ment to his teacher. He on his turn was taught by beethoven.

By becoming one with the piano, you may experience a certain natural 'grip' at the keys. Perhaps even a sensation of energy, circulation through your body, into the piano, and circulation back. As if you were 'sucking' it into your fingers. This happens when an energetic connection has been established.

Technich such as force, weight, jumps, coordination are optimalized, when this energetic flow is optimalized. When you have it mastered, you will struggle no more and everything will fall into place. (This is not to say, there is no effort. But effort and struggle are two different things, though I believe at some point the effort will become effortlessness) But this is something I don't know enough about for me to discuss further in depth right now.

Having said that, I think liszt was a lousy teacher in regard to his written advice. Just as Chopin was for example. The only way to be taught by Liszt, would be in person. He's not the man that is going to show the way to pianism on paper.

I have yet seem to find someone who does. Although I think Bernhard has an extremely effective method. Perhaps the most effective one.. for me that is.

I hope this lightens some things up about Liszt. You probably won't find this in any biography

[pianowolfi]

These are very interesting remarks. What you say about the energetic body is more and more also my daily experience, though I would probably not have described it with the same words.