As the piano evolved a parallel obsession with technique and position of hands and fingers arose. All these inventions including the Chiroplast and the Hand-Guide seem obscure to us today, but it makes sense in a strange way because people at the time were interested in becoming successful musicians like the true virtuosos of the time. We have evidence from this book that all these mechanisms sold like hot cakes. Today people would not allow their children to put their fingers into metal rings attached to a spring- it would seem like a torture chamber. Nevertheless I can see some method in the madness in helping a beginner to play with their fingers without tension.

Upon reading it was interesting to find that Dussek, even before Liszt, turned the piano sideways for recitals and was seen as handsome with a noble profile. Liszt is always given credit for these changes in the recital hall. This goes hand in hand with the obsession with how the hands and fingers looked while playing and to show it off to an audience.

To write a method book seems like something that all pianist-teachers attempted to do. Czerny's statement that the student should play what is appealing to him is interesting. One would think that teachers at that time did not care if a student did not want to play technical exercises or a piece that seemed too difficult. Another statement by him which I agree with is that one can practice a technical difficulty within a piece. It would be far more interesting for a student to practice something that would actually feel like an accomplishment if he achieves it, rather than mindless drilling of an unmusical or uninteresting idea.