I Cover the Hanonfront: Research into the question of 'Practice in All Keys'

[maxim3]

I was looking into the single-beat vs. double-beat historical metronome marks debate, you know, Wim Winters vs. pianopat etc. and I decided to ask Winters a question about Hanon. Here's a copy of my message to Winters:

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Greetings Mr. Winters. I would love to hear your opinions (if any) on Hanon's Le pianiste virtuose en 60 exercises of 1873, especially since it is another topic which gets people so amusingly bent out of shape. (Georges Mathias approved of Hanon, by the way, and I'm sure you're aware of what Rachmaninoff had to say on the matter.)
 
Tempo information: Hanon himself states in the Avertissement (Preface), "On joue entièrement ce volume en une heure [The entire volume can be played in an hour]." This makes it easy to calculate that his metronome markings are single, not double.

Two questions are regularly debated concerning Hanon: One, are the five-finger exercises worthwhile at all, and Two, did Hanon himself intend them to be played in anything other than C major? I am concerned here with this second question.

The publication history is murky. Hanon seems to have initially acted as his own publisher for the first edition of the work in 1873. But on the cover of a 1929 edition, it says:

"Nouvelle Édition revue et augmenteé par Alph. Schotte" [New edition reviewed and augmented by Alphonse Schotte]
"Copyright 1923-1929 by Alph. Schotte & Cie"
"Alph. SCHOTTE & Cie. Successeurs de HANON & DESENCLOS, 1, Impasse Rue de Lille, Boulogne s/ mer."

[IMSLP, and probably everyone else on the planet, has confused this Schotte & Cie with the German publisher Schott. Worse yet, Schott also publishes Hanon -- in the version edited by "Schotte, Alphonse"!]

In this 1929 Alph. Schotte & Cie edition, following Hanon's own Preface, variations on the exercises appear: "Quelques Variantes proposées pour l'étude du rythme et de l'articulation des doigts et du poignet et que l'on pourra appliquer aux 35 premiers excercices du Pianiste Virtuose. [A few variations, proposed for the study of rhythm and articulation of fingers and wrists, which are to be applied to the first 35 exercises of The Virtuoso Pianist]." 22 rhythmic variations follow.

On the next page we read: "Quelques autres variantes plus difficiles qui peuvent s'appliquer aux 22 formules précédentes en conservant le doigté d'ut majeur [Some other, more difficult variations, which may be applied to the 22 preceding forms, while conserving the fingering of C major]." Hanon's exercise no. 1 then appears twice; first in C# Major, then in C# Natural Minor.

Did Hanon himself write any of this? Or did Alphonse Schotte add it as part of his 'augmentation'?

Next we read, also on this page: "Toutes les gammes, les arpèges et les accords de septième en arpèges une fois appris tels qu'ils sont indiqués dans ce cahier, nous conseillons de les étudier avec les rythmes variés ci-après, préconisés par mon vénéré et regretté Maitre, Monsieur Ch. de Bériot, professeur au Conservatoire de Paris [We suggest that all the scales, arpeggios, and seventh-chord arpeggios, once learned according to the instructions in this volume, should be studied with the various rhythms given below, as so strongly recommended by my venerated and much-missed former master, Monsieur Ch. de Bériot, professor at the Paris Conservatory]." More variations follow.

Charles Wilfrid de Bériot became a piano professeur at the Conservatoire in 1887, when Hanon was 68 years old. I think it is most probable, therefore, that all the material after the Avertissement in this 1929 edition was added by Schotte, who was obviously some decades younger than Hanon, and was probably Bériot's student.

These 'variantes' do not appear in the 1900 Schirmer English translation of The Virtuoso Pianist, strengthening my belief that they were the work of Alphonse Schotte.

Unfortunately I do not have access to a copy of the very first (1873) edition of Le Pianiste Virtuose. I am quite confident that Hanon himself proposed no variations of any kind, then or later, but research always results in surprises, no?

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A glance at an original 1873 version would clear up the question completely.

Therefore, until I see other evidence, I conclude that Hanon himself did not propose any rhythmic or key variations on his exercises. It seems that several decades went by until someone first put this suggestion into print, and that first person may have been Alphonse Schotte.

Sources: See The Virtuoso Pianist page at imslp.org. Only the covers and a few pages of the 1929 Alph. Schotte & Cie edition are available -- here is the exact URL:
https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/306312/pnno

[maxim3]

I received an answer from Winters to the above. Here it is in full:

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Thanks for sending me this info!
Hanon is on my list since long time, but, as you said, there is so little to be found on him in spite of these excercices being so important for the history of piano development.

The MM are very interesting, many exactly half of those of Czerny 299. Or the same if you will. Hanon is single beat without doubt and that's the more interesting to talk about him. The duration btw does not always tell if the MM is single or whole beat. See for instance Milchmeyer's duration (before the metronome), but even there he must have thought in periodic unities, even in timing, these works (for beginners) are beyond imagination fast. There is much work to do on that field as well. As the few timings of Smart that are usable: my opinion is that he just gave a MM for the work, and counted (starting from whole beat and ending in a ""whole beat"" duration. We have also a very interesting source where one explains how to 'measure the tempo', in a kind of reversed way, counting the half seconds. Again, the last thing hasn't been said about this.

Now, I happen to have played Hanon quite a lot (not the complete bundle though) and I do have one of the original prints. I wished we had his letters!
The people who make fun of these excercices put themselves above people like Rachmaninoff... it's amazing how it helps shape the hand. As Czerny's excercices are quite brilliant in this regard as well.

Happy to receive info on Hanon if you find some always!
best wishes,
Wim

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[cuberdrift]

Pretty sure Rachmaninoff and his folks intensified it and challenged themselves to play at twice the speed in all keys. Not a bad exercise at all, if not repetitive.

There is no way the entire Hanon can be played in an hour - if the instructions are followed (you are to repeat a lot of the exercises FOUR TIMES!). I doubt it even if you doubled the speed.

It's possible to do it, I believe, in an hour if no repeats are done.

[maxim3]

cuberdrift: The idea is that you would play the entire volume without repeats once it is thoroughly learned. All the repeats are for the initial training stages.

This Australian-Chinese fellow, Alan Chan, plays the whole volume on Youtube in 1 hour 38 minutes; but he is playing slower than the indicated tempos, and there are short pauses between each exercise. If he stuck to indicated tempos and did not pause at all, it would be much closer to an hour:

He is representing something called "Con Brio Examinations (CBE) [which] is the world's first online music assessment system." The outfit is headquartered in Shanghai. Their Piano Syllabus includes Hanon exercises, in every grade up to grade 7, it seems. (In their Grade 7, students are required to play Hanon exercise no. 60.)

[cuberdrift]

cuberdrift: The idea is that you would play the entire volume without repeats once it is thoroughly learned. All the repeats are for the initial training stages.

This Australian-Chinese fellow, Alan Chan, plays the whole volume on Youtube in 1 hour 38 minutes; but he is playing slower than the indicated tempos, and there are short pauses between each exercise. If he stuck to indicated tempos and did not pause at all, it would be much closer to an hour:

He is representing something called "Con Brio Examinations (CBE) [which] is the world's first online music assessment system." The outfit is headquartered in Shanghai. Their Piano Syllabus includes Hanon exercises, in every grade up to grade 7, it seems. (In their Grade 7, students are required to play Hanon exercise no. 60.)

An admirable effort.

Still waiting for that one guy who decides to post a Youtube video of himself playing every Hanon exercise in every key at 216 bpm like Rachmaninoff. :p