Leschetizky's " method" was introduced in chapter 13. In his methods, he didn't care too much of physical technique. But, he focused on tone and musical expression. The book, The Groundwork of the Leschetizky Method, contains some points of his view about touch, chords, hand, wrist and arm. I believe his influence on piano pedagogy transcend his reputation as a pianist. His individualistic approach was applied to every student's personality. It is remarkable that he regarded himself as a doctor to find remedy for his students.
Also, I found Leschetizky who was a good piano educator not only had professional ability, but also had charming personality. As mentioned in this chapter, "there was magnetism in the Leschetizky personality". I believe that no matter being a successful piano teacher or performer, he or she may have some unique attractive personality. Besides the excellent ability of performance, lots of famous pianist must have their own characters which allow audience to remember them.
As a student, we usually say "I like this teacher". In a sense, the reason why we like this teacher is not only based on his professional knowledge but also his personal character. In my opinion, Anton Rubinstein was not a good teacher, although he was such a wonderful pianist. It looks every student was afraid of him. And it is hard to believe he screamed to his student and asked him to practice a passage 3000 times. If a student is afraid of his teacher, how could this student express his most inner feeling before this teacher on the piano? We can see that not every good pianist is able to be a good piano teacher.
使用新一代 Windows Live Messenger 轻松交流和共享！ 立刻下载！
I think Leschetizky's method is very valuable. As you said he did not care too much physical technique, but he did care about the elbow, wrist and arm. I think the caring about the elbow, wrist and arm is the best and fudamental requirement to relate with the piano techniques. If student are well trained his/her arm, elbow and wrist they might not have any big problems about techniques I quess.
ReplyDelete