I agree that technique should in theory not be separated from musicianship. Everyone can try to play a piece faster and faster until it sound good to someone without an ear for music. You can do it with a metronome or by practicing in several ways. We all have heard and seen 10 year olds play fast to many audiences amazement. But why is that always confirmed as a good technique? I think the word technique has become misused. It is less common to hear a good tone, a beautiful legato or singing sound and it is also unusual that when somebody has the latter skill that we refer to it as a good technique. Perhaps we say they are musical. Therefore it seems that we tend to think of technique as purely an unmusical ability to play fast and correct. It is important to note that the piano mechanism has not changed much since Lebert and Stark. We can still, if one wishes to do so, use their writings as a model for playing today.

I must say Marks's Digitorium sounds like a torture device. The finger gymnastic exercises that would help so to such an extent that you would not have to practice sounds like a "Verimark" product. I also wonder how Liszt could have given them to his students the year he died. Was it a final hope to improve their bad techniques? You would think that he would know how to teach technique by then.

Mason’s finger exercises surely seem to focus on legato playing and on the forearm. Did he only have two fingers?

Leschetizky also started teaching at a very young age. Many great pianists are said not to be as good teachers as they are pianists. Could one say it is experience from a young age that is the most essential part of becoming a good teacher? How much can a pianist practice and gain teaching experience at the same time at an early ages these days. Especially when you are 14 to say 21? I was forced to go to school at that age.

Leschetizky speaks about being able to hear the melody stand out from the harmonies (voicing?) and that the piano sounded like a completely different instrument when he heard Schulhoffs playing. This is the first time that the book mentions the word technique in two different ways, the brilliant technical ways of the past and the new style of playing. It is mentioned that Chopin had influences Schulhoff. Was Chopin then the initiator of this style? It surely gives him a lot of credit in the field of technical development. I also like the idea that Leschetizky described having a certain sound in his head that he wanted to reproduce. And all the descriptions on page 274 are fantastic: Listening between notes, singing a melody, pp sound from far. 4 hours of concentrated practicing. Brain guides fingers not vice versa. These are things that I constantly heard in piano lessons throughout my life but I have never seen it written before. These sentences are written by pianists who understood very well what they had in mind. It is realy amazing to read this book.