Busoni's book of exercices

[nachoba]

Hi,
I´m looking for the series of book Busoni made on piano technique. I was told that he enforced something called "symetrical practicing" and I would like to see what is all about.
By chance anyone has these books?
thanks in advance
N.

[iumonito]

Play the G-flat major scale, contrary motion starting either of gb - bb or bb - gb.

I have some compositions on the principle.  It feels good, even though it not always sounds good.

[ramseytheii]

This might be what you are looking for.

[thalbergmad]

If that is the case, i can fill in the missing ones if so required.

Thal

[ramseytheii]

Please do anyways, so I can get the whole thing!

Walter Ramsey

[iumonito]

Offenbach-Busoni is just darling.  So is La ci darem la mano.

No symmetry, though.

Or perhaps what you are referring to is Busoni's suggestion that when working on a type of technique in on epice, to jump around the repertoire to practice the same type of problem in other pieces (hence the little tidbit of Waldstein and others here and there in his excercises).

[ramseytheii]

I honestly can't remember where I read this, but somewhere in Busoni's writings he was pontificating on the nature of the hand.  Maybe this is what you are thinking of?  He said that the hand was divided into three parts: the inner (thumb through middle finger), the middle (index through ring) and the outer (middle through pinkie).  He conceived of playing the piano as always using some combination of those divisions, though as you can see they overlap.  It's a useful conceptual device, and perhaps one not native just to Busoni.  Thinking of Beethoven's fingering, passages in opus 58 or opus 111 he marked to be played exclusively with 1-2-3.  Think of Chopin op.10 no.2, where 3-4-5 play constantly.  Maybe this was an idea of Chopin instead of Busoni.  Hopefully someone will recognize this and point us towards the source!

Walter Ramsey

[nachoba]

Ramseytheii thanks! In fact these are!
Thalbergmad would you post the ones that are missing?
Thanks in advance!
greetings