Piano Forum

Specifically, the first page or so of Debussy's incessantly kinetic third image of book one, Mouvement. My question isn't really one of raw technique, but one of hand placement. At measure 5 the fifths (C -G) are placed in the left hand while the right hand begins that iconic semi-mechanical whir in triplets. The tricky bit, noticed even by those who merely admired the score, is that the hands are basically placed atop one another in an awkward sort of mating dance or other.

Awkward indeed.

Most pianists I have observed opt for the left hand to be placed over the right, fingers 2 and 5 poke away at the repetitive fifths, the wrist bent slightly upward to make room for the right hand triplets. And this is all good and well until measure 9, in which the roles are switched and now the left hand now has an arpeggiated figure spanning, at its largest, an 11th.

Most pianists here would drop the wrist of the right hand, hanging the thumb down below the keyboard, playing the fifths between fingers 2-4, and 2-5.

I, being absolutely insane apparently, prefer the opposite approach, placing the right over the left hand throughout. By dropping the wrist of the left hand in the repeated fifths (5-2) the right hand triplets have ample room to run. Come measure 9, the left hand is already in a very comfortable position for the gliding arpeggios and in the right hand, the fingering 1-4 and 2-5 can be used for the fifths (which in my opinion, serves the phrase better and more distinctly).

So that was a bit lengthy, and I apologize. I'm not really sure if my method can really be considered "wrong", Debussy himself being quoted saying, "One is never served better than by one's self," which taken out of context, may erroneously seem to warrant self-indulgence at the expensive of musicality, but I don't think that's the case here. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even so, my method puts me in a firm minority. Whhhhyyy?