Foundations of repertoire and technique

[liszt-and-the-galops]

Between Czerny, Hanon, and Bach, which do you think provides the best foundation for technique? Are there other composers who are equally as important as these three?

[lelle]

If I had to pick one, I would pick Bach. He offers a wide variety of problems that need a refined technique to do really beautifully and musically. It's also way more interesting musically.

Czerny has a lot of stuff that is more "transcendent" virtuosity style, but if you are coming that far I again think there is better music to work on. But Czerny definitely has had his place in many old-school music educations so it is hard to say.

[pianistavt]

One comment about Hanon "The Virtuoso Pianist" - - by all means this can be a starting point for developing technique, if you don't mind exercises.  While Hanon's introductory remarks come under criticism, the book contains foundations that every piano teacher will assign - scales across multiple octaves in all keys, the same for arpeggios and octaves, as well as other relevant techniques, like thirds.

It's said that some pianists play this book from start to finish (probably over a few practice sessions) as a way of maintaining their technique when they don't have time to work on repertoire.

[jaquet]

Hanon has been most useful for technique ( in a control of the individual fingers and isolation) but bach has helped me most artistically, play his fugues and one can develop tremdous musciality when you labour on each phrase and how it fits toghther with all the other voices, its wonderful really.