Piano Forum

Yes.  The flowing motion helps her timing, I think.

I'm not talking about note values, but the subtle undetectable but perceivable differences in overlap between notes and voicings, and that's on both the press and the release of the note.

I believe that to be if not the sole element of touch, then at least 98% of it.  

That's also true, but as I clarified above, it also relates longer tonal relations that aren't directly adjacent on the surface (while also artistically absorbing the elaborative or ornamental notes in a coherent manner).  

Faster music always should have a slower underlying structure that is always felt and used as reference points for the superficial notes, and it is at that level that you will almost see the same gestures that are seen more obviously in slower music.  Expert timing relates the slower, more tonal-rhythmically important notes, and elegantly spaces out the elaborations.  

On a more technical level, timing of articulation and release of individual notes are related to efficiently working with the mechanism of the piano (a see-saw canon!) while they are absorbed by the continuous, forward-moving, long-line rhythm of both the score and its physical counterpart in a total, centralized coordination. To speak of mere pressing of individual notes or even their release does not embody the full picture. For example...what of rests or different rubatos?  

The problem of gestures, slower music, and long held notes are also related to the rests and rubatos like retards . From the same writer I quoted above:

Are rests an interruption of rhythmic continuity?

They certainly should not be. Rests should be as full of action toward the desired goal as the held tone should be. Probably that is a bad simile, for too many pianists unfortunately rest on held tones. Say, rather, as full of progression as is the body of the polo pony when its feet are off the earth, as we see it in a slow-motion picture.

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Ends of phrases should not let down -- they should carry over. Rests in the music are places to hold the power at attention not for a release of power and a cessation of the rhythmic follow-through. Nothing is more harmful to a musical performance than letting each phrase die at the end. Retards are only vitally effective when they are played in such a manner that the audience waits with bated breath for what is about to follow. Only one retard should be final in its conception and that is the one at the close of the composition. Only it basic rhythm can make retards exactly right. If a retard is felt between articulations rather than as an extended holding of the phrasewise rhythm it will never have any convincing emotional quality.

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The problem of activity in the upper arm (both for power in producing tones and continuity in activity between tones) as it heads for the musical destination is one which needs to be dealt with in a very detailed manner.

Beware forever of the held tone! If it is held with static power there will, of necessity, be a fresh use of power for the next tone and, thereby, a frustration of the greatest subtlety in modeling the phrase. Static holding means static listening, and a performance of the utmost sensitivity cannot take place under those circumstances.

Teaching must be concerned primarily with implementing a continuity in power (activity in the upper arms) which is active from the first tone through every tone until the musical message has been projected. Rests, as well as tones, must be filled with activity.

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Even independence between the arms is a false concept.  Both arms are dependent upon the torso for its acting as a fulcrum and for its emotional response to the music. If one arm picks up preponderantly the emotional quality of the torso, there will result an inadequate performance which lacks subtlety in expressing the mood of the music. Even rests should be played by both arms consistently; there should never be relaxation during rests, a letting-down or letting-go of the musical mood. (Bold my emphasis) Quite the reverse: Both arms are always alive and subject to the same emotional current from the torso. When this is not the case, and one arm rests in between activity for tone production (in other words, does not stay active in between articulations and during rests), there is never the same kind of control in dynamics which is produced when there is constant tapping of the emotional current of the torso by both arms.