Bernhard says something about Liszt in another thread.
Bernhard speaking :
"Here is my take on the Liszt´s story:
When Liszt was brought to Czerny at age 12, he was already a full fledged pianist, with a few years of concert experience behind him. He played with great ease the most difficult repertory, having been allowed to develop his personal technique intuitively. The result was that he had found movements and motions that were completely natural for him.
That is when he had the great misfortune of meeting Herr Czerny. Czerny was horrified by Lizst´s natural and comfortable movements, since they did not conform to his own fixed ideas. He was convinced one had to play with one´s fingers and generally experience the utmost discomfort when playing. He proceeded to “correct” Lizst´s technique over the next few years, and Lizst complied and actually became very good at playing with a very limited and ultimately inappropriate technique.
In his twentys, he had become just another indifferent pianist playing with an inapropriate technique in Paris, just like so many other pianists in town. This was Czerny´s legacy.
Had Lizst died then, no one would have heard of him. He would just be another mediocre pianist amongst mediocre pianists.
But then two momentous things happened. Pay attention, exercise supporters, because there is a moral and cautionary tale for you all here.
Had Lizst not gone through these two momentous happenings and not died, he would still have been a mediocre pianist, and as he got older, his uncomfortable, inappropriate Czerny style technique would deteriorate and again we would never have heard of him.
Look at this thread to see the fate that would have befallen Liszt (and to a great extent has befallen Cortot):
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,13208.msg143740.html#msg143740(an account on how Cramer’s technique deteriorated with age)
So what were these two life changing events?
It was his meeting with two men. Nothing would ever be the same after that.
The first meeting was with Chopin.
Chopin – like Lizst in his early years – had developed a highly idiossincratic technique (= way to move) when playing the piano. But contrary to Liszt he had not had the benefit of a Czerny to “correct” him. When he first arrived in Paris at 20, the most famous pianist of the day was Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner watched Chopin play and like Czerny with Liszt, was horrified at the neglect of Chopin´s technique. He offered to teach Chopin and estimated that in four years time he could turn Chopin into a piano virtuoso like the many swarming Paris. Chopin was actually tempted by this offer (he was impressed with Kalkbrenner´s playing), but in the end declined.
The interesting thing was that all those virtuoso pianists could not play to satisfaction any of Chopin´s pieces, in spite of their apparent superior technique. This was not lost on Lizst. Apparently Chopin´s idiossincratic technique was necessary for the correct rendition of his pieces.
The second meeting was with Paganini.
After witnessing Paganini in concert, Lizst was so overwhelmed that he vouched to do on the piano what Paganini did on the violin.
And here is where Liszt phenomenal technique starts.
Not with Czerny, because it became completely obvious to him that Czerny was completely inadequate to emulate Paganini, but with Chopin, because the key to the transference of Paganini´s umbelievable virtuosity on the violin to the piano, lies not with Czerny´s limited and limiting pedagogy, but with Chopin´s weird way of playing the piano.
It is now that Lizst will retire from concertizing for a while and feverishly pursue Paganini style virtuosity for up to ten hours a day.
But what do you think Lizst was doing for ten hours? Do you really believe he was practising Czerny or Hanon/Dohnanyi/Cortot types of finger exercises mindlessly hour after hour? Don´t be silly. If this would work, he would already have been the Lizst of legends. After all he had been there and done that with Czerny.
No. What he was doing during these ten hours was investigative practice. Not repetitive mind numbing repetitions of some finger pattern, but intelligent, totally focused piano work. He knew the result he was after, and he knew that in order to achieve it he had to recover the technique of his early years, the one that Czerny had destroyed. Chopin had shown him this, and Paganini was the ultimate proof that this was the only way to go.
When he was finished with the process (it didn´t take that long), he had so completely transformed his technique that it was a different pianist altogether that emerged from that practice room. And everyone noticed.
Lizst always refused to teach technique. He knew that the process through which he had acquired his technique could not be systematized. He knew Czerny was crap (and therefore never told his students to go through it - but being a good, polite boy, he never bashed his teacher for it). He knew that technique was highly personal, highly idiossincratic and could only be achieved by a process of intense investigation as he himself had gone through. Hence he never wrote anything about it.
His masterclasses – in which he never discussed technique – consisted of listening to the student play, and then playing himself in such a superior fashion that the student had to face the same experience he had faced when he first listened to Paganini: “sh*t, I am crap!” (incidentally, Chopin used the same pedagogical approach in his lessons)
After that time of intense, investigative practice – we do not know for sure but I am prepared to bet it was all based on repertory and most likely Chopin´s pieces – he never “practised” again. He had discovered – or perhaps rediscovered – his natural way of playing, and it felt so easy that all he had to do was play. And play he did!
Anyone who believes Liszt practised ten hours of exercises a day until the end of his life should consider this: Where would he have had the time? He was traveling around, bedding whatever pretty face happened to cross his way, running away from husbands, fathers, authorities, concertising, composing prolifically a daring, highly complex musical oeuvre, supporting new pianists and composers, teaching and even dedicating himself to a religious life.
To think that Lizst technique owes anything to Czerny is simply laughable. If so, every Czerny player would have become a Liszt by now.
Best wishes,
Bernhard."
Source :
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=19043.msg206386#msg206386
Topic: Should I focus on studies, exercises, etudes and technical work? (Read 6129 times)