Why did composers write stretches they themselves can't manage

[pianoplayjl]

This especially applies to Scriabin. I can bet my  are just as big as his, who could only manage a C to E at best, I think....I distinctly remember looking at some of his sheet music and seeing some stretches and chords he cant have played. Perhaps even Chopin whose music stretches the limit of my hand size. Any explanations?

This does not apply to: when the score hints the chord should be rolled, the unreachable notes be able to be taken by the other hand, and when 2 notes can be played by the thumb or pinkie.

JL

[ajspiano]

You don't have to be able to play something to compose it. You just have to know what sound you want.

[49410enrique]

if my recollection on some of his earlier years are correct, scriabin was a pianist first and composer second (this in contrast to his classmate rachmaninoff who has been referred to by music historians as composer first and pianist second--they were pretty much neck and neck pianistically early on , scriabin winning second and rachmaninoff winning first at the conservatory/school's piano competition).

i dont remember which liszt piece it was exactly but the story goes scriabin was practicing it for hours and hours on end and he essentially overpracticed/overtrained/whatever you want to call it but ended permanently injuring his right hand, cutting his dreams as a concertizing pianist short.  

we can see and hear evidence of his in his first sonata the final movement in particular (funeral march) which is a musical farewell so to speak, the death of a dream...

supposedly partly due to the fact that the injury mainly affected the right hand, he continued to compose (focusing more on composition  later on just like rachmaninoff continued to be pianist/performer later on) some very demanding parts for the left hand in particular, much of his music has notoriously hard sections for the left hand to maneuver while the right hand remains relatively  docile, benign almost.

my take? he could have played anything and everything he wrote prior to the injury. he was that fine a pianist.

edit: just came across this, it was the Don Juan fatansie by Liszt:
"...Scriabin started out as a prodigy pianist, studying as a boy with the renowned Moscow pedagogue Nikolai Zverev, whose other star pupil was Sergei Rachmaninoff—interestingly, Scriabin started out as a pianist and ended up a composer, and to a large extent, Rachmaninoff started out as a composer and ended up a pianist. A hand injury, suffered supposedly while over-practicing the Don Juan Fantasie of Liszt, forced Scriabin to turn to composition—two of the most famous left hand pieces in the piano repertoire, the Nocturne and Prelude Op. 9 were of course, a direct result of this, and later, also the 1st Piano Sonata. Although he eventually returned to the concert-stage, his right hand never was quite the same, and may explain why in so many of his compositions the left hand is technically the equal (and often surpasses) the right hand. Cesar Cui, in a concert review of Scriabin from 1905 complained that Scriabin’s left hand actually overwhelmed the right..."

[ahinton]

You don't have to be able to play something to compose it. You just have to know what sound you want.

Of course - and you don't in any case need to be a pianist to compose for the piano (and I should know!)...

Best,

Alistair

[_nisa_]

-- sorry, I read sketches instead of stretches --

[general disarray]

Perhaps even Chopin whose music stretches the limit of my hand size. Any explanations?

This does not apply to: when the score hints the chord should be rolled, the unreachable notes be able to be taken by the other hand, and when 2 notes can be played by the thumb or pinkie.

JL

My guess would be for acoustic reasons, particularly in Chopin's case where he exploits overtones on a regular basis.  A tenth sounds more resonant than a third on the piano.  Perhaps this may be one reason.

[slane]

Chopin had small hands, but he also had a piano with keys just a teensy-eensy bit smaller than todays standard. Over an octave, that added up to almost a whole keys worth, so he could stretch a ninth. I read a review somewhere of a modern piano with the same key width, and the reviewer was surprised that he had no trouble playing it. But what to do if you're playing someone else's piano? Just skip the raindrop prelude I guess.

[fftransform]

Why would Bach write suites for solo cello?

[forgottenbooks]

who could only manage a C to E at best, I think..

I've read that Scriabin could only manage a ninth. Chopin, on the other hand, didn't have very large hands, but I think he could stretch them pretty wide. There's a stretch of an eleventh in the left hand in one part of his Etude Op. 25 No. 10, which I think it's impossible to play without rolling. I can barely manage a ninth myself, so I tend to edit the music to make it easier to play. Switching the top and bottom notes, or omitting the topmost note, for the left hand and omitting the bottommost note in the right hand are my strategies.

[slobone]

I read somewhere that Schubert couldn't play the Wanderer Fantasy. And then there's Conlon Nancarrow, who didn't even try -- he composed pieces for player piano (and fabulous stuff it is).

[sevencircles]

Rachmaninov did thankfully not write any pieces that where you have to stretch a 14:th with the left hand. That was his maximum stretch 

His hands were not that big really but he had hypermobile joints. So does Wang 

[richard_strauss]

I've read somewhere that when Satie was to show (I'm guessing to the Apache group) his gymnopedies he couldn't play the piece so Debussy had to the piece for him. Anybody knows about this?

PS: Play it "like a nightingale with a toothache"
                                               ~Erik Satie

[j_menz]

The best answer for this question has just been posted as a new thread here:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?action=post;topic=45495.0

[indianajo]

I've been wondering what span Russians can manage, actually.  On television some people seem to have really long fingers.  I've been practicing Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" a lot since I quit working. It is really not a suitable piece for me to perform because of the octave and a fifth stuff.  But I really like it. I've owned a Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony LP since 1967 and have owned the piano folio since 1982.  My hands are pretty small:  I have several native American ancestors, and am really stretching to get an octave and a third. On Tuileries Movement, I cheat and play a different octave than the written C#-E#. But on Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle movement,  The Bbb to Gb in the third line I can't reach with either hand, and I feel it is really important to strike the Db in the correct lower octave.  I don't like the pedal symbol, either, too radical a difference in tone.  So I have been cheating there by playing the Db with my left heel.  Try that big people!   Short arms and legs have some advantages.  And no,  I've never had any of the fungi of the foot that Europeans and Africans seem to suffer from.