Liszt and His Pupils
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- Franz Liszt has long been considered one of the great piano teachers of his generation. More than 400 students are known to have passed through his hands and a number of them became eminent. Some of them lived well into the age of the gramophone record and give us a glimpse of a golden age of piano playing now vanished forever.
In this lecture Alan Walker explores Liszt’s approach to teaching and especially his reluctance to give instruction in technique. When Liszt’s biographer Lina Ramann asked him to explain the origins of his mastery of the keyboard, Liszt replied: “Technique should create itself from Spirit, not from Mechanics.” The idea is profound and Professor Walker returns to it in his presentation.
Music selections
Yundi Li playing “La Campanella” at the beginning and the end.
Moriz Rosenthal playing Chopin/Liszt “Meine Freuden.”
Frederic Lamond playing Liszt’s Concert Etude “Un Sospiro”.
Emil von Sauer playing Liszt’s Concert Etude “Gnomenreigen”.
My favorite Liszt-ism (which I recall from your biography) is calling wrong notes “uninvited guests.” I love that.
It's a great idea from Alan Walker to share some of his knowledge about Liszt also via CZcams. Thank you Mr Walker.
My piano teacher at Temple University was Hungarian pianist George Sementovsky, who studied with a student of Liszt in Hungary. Three degrees of separation. The practice methods he taught me have stayed with me to this day. 🙂
Can you imagine the audacity of the town in fining Liszt for playing & practicing with opened windows? As if his music were mere unwanted noise. Wow, speechless 🙊
Passamos por isto ainda hoje. Isto acontece comigo e com todos pianistas. Mas, Madonna etc todos idiotas adoram
I read all three of your books on Liszt years ago and was enthralled. I can't begin to say how much I appreciate seeing you expound on Liszt's personal approach to music and his students. Genie Oblige is the key to Liszt's persona. The obligation to give back what has been given -- the true essence of nobility. He may not have been a saint as a man, but he was a saint as a musician. For Liszt, like any truly great artist-musician, regardless of professional attainment, Music was a spiritual path, as you made so clear. Thank you, Alan.
WELL SAID...by the HOST...PERFECTLY SAID...
Magnificent: it should be mandatory viewing for the fleet-fingered, contest-ready who crowd the halls and studios of the conservatories!
My apologies….I wish to add, that you and your scholarly work has been extraordinarily valuable and for our students as well - because you make it all human and knowable.
Merci Monsieur !
Thank you for teaching me so much over the years, Mr. Walker. I know I'm one of millions, too.
I once asked the American organist (& professor at the Eastman School of Music) David Craighead about his experience with the composer Vincent Persichetti, and what the composer had to say about performing his music. Craighead said that Persichetti said "you have to make the piece your own."
Thank goodness for Alan Walker
Another superb and highly knowledgeable lecture by the distinguished author and professor, Alan Walker.
Wonderful video. The love and appreciation of Liszt has been with me my entire life. My 96 year old mother as a young girl studied piano with one of Liszt last students.
Hi, I'm studying piano in the Federal University of Bahia, and I wished to know you live someday. Your work with Liszt is inspiring. Thanks for give the world you shared for the legacy of Franz Liszt.
I am an engineering student from Berlin, so I am not professionally involved with piano music. Yet I love classical music, play the piano myself and have unbounded admiration for the work and personality of Franz Liszt. My dream is to be able to play these virtuosic pieces one day, so the spiritual approach is something I can align with! This lecture was unbelievably interesting. I would appreciate more of such content! Thank you Dr. Walker.
Thank you. I am in the midst of reading your Liszt biography. Absolutely conquered by the greatness of the man,, and by the labor of love that went into what is rightly lauded as one of the best musical biographies.
Alan Walker: You are a true treasure and I have always enjoyed your incredibly readable scholarship. Your books are fantastic but your thoughtful, common sense approach to understanding the lives of those you study sets the bar incredibly high for all others following in your footsteps! Bravo!
I enjoyed this immensely. Thank you for this wonderful lecture!
Another Liszt lecture? Thank you, sir!!!
What an incredibly accurate painting of Liszt! Looks just like his late photos.
I can just say thank you for your work
Absolutely love your presentation!!!
I’d love to see an episode on Liszt and his religious music, not just the masses, Christy’s and other church music but the themes running through his piano literature.
I love these lectures so much
I learned something. Thank you
Thank you for this colorful tour of Liszt's teaching via the reminiscences and recordings of several of his pupils. I do gather from your books and a few other sources that sometimes it seems Liszt would rather have been elsewhere during these master classes........the prospect of having to contend with uncertain and unformed playing, uncongenial pieces, and there were times when he refused to hear even his finest pupils (Rosenthal in the Don Juan Fantasy, and Lamond in the fugue from the "Hammerklavier") after they had diligently prepared the works. There's a deflating impression of one class by von Sauer in an Etude magazine from about 1915. On the other hand, von Sauer once turned cartwheels after hearing Liszt play (the piano part in a Beethoven violin sonata, I think)......"where the devil does he get the technique?"
Thank you for this wonderful post!
Glad to see you return
Your content and delivery are so hypnotizing, it made me understand our common friend Nadejda. Kudos
Dear Alan, thank you so much, I always learn so much with you. I wonder, will you ever turn your mighty mind towards Schubert as a focal point?
Marvelous lecture!
Enlightening as always. I especially enjoyed the quotes at around the 19 minute mark about the "singer trying to get out" and at about 32 minutes from Liszt and interpretation by Dr. Walker. 😆
Dr.Alan Walker It Is many years i am passionate and studying all recordings and witnesses of Liszt's pupils in the Hope to have a glimps of the master's playing.I myself am a pianist mostly involved into correpetions and Opera.Thanks to your authorative contribution.And your many articles i have Always read with the higher ethusiasm.
Spirit creates technique because realizing a poetic concept of a passage makes higher requirements of physical consistency and variation (of say, touch) than the super-ego is capable of imposing by force of will. It's effect is like acquiring wings and inhabiting three dimensions instead of two.
I just discovered your videos and they are fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you for such a great lecture
What an interesting lecture. I think I will have to watch it again.
Alan Walker, we thank you reaching us❤❤❤❤
What an enlightening video. Thank you Sir.
I have long been intrigued with the principle that one can master technique by musical will, fueled by emotion and intellect, and spirit. However, remember that Liszt himself, according to his only major teacher, Czerny, benefitted from considerable technical instruction. His comments about muscular contraction were insightful and reveal that he was not "above" considering the physical body in relation to piano playing. Those who absolutely refuse to address that aspect may simply lack the knowledge, despite their own natural ability to play well.
This was exceedingly fabulous.
My teachers ,teacher was Alfred Cortot,who himself was a direct descendant of Liszt & the plethora of greats he passed his legacy on to.
I play Stravinsky's Petroushka,Balikeriev's Islamey, Ravels Gaspard de la nuit & Rachmaninoff's 3rd Concerto.......... & I often find myself imbued with Liszt's spirit & imagine how he may have played any or all these & other great works.
I've always instructed students that the best piano playing is derived from content;Who you've known,books you've read,places you've been to, & a vast repertoire of musical experiences to draw from. Hanon & Czerny et al are infinitely disposable in my opinion.
We are constantly in a state of musical evolution.....& like TS Elliiot said" when we conclude all our explorations & wondering, we will arrive @ the beginning & know it for the first time."(!!!!!)
Como estudar para ser virtuoso? Soltar os músculos de todo braço? Falar que não se toca com dedos e sim com a cabeça é fácil; difícil é ensinar como fazer Isto em exemplos práticos. Você faria isto?
Amo a Lizst.
I am really fond of Liszt! Thank you for this video!
Great respect to master Franz Liszt. Nevertheless, I have found Brahms' music and piano exercises more satisfying and more elevated. Brahms' pianism and piano music conception amazes me.
Wonderful! I have been waiting for another lecture. Can't wait to watch!
Thank you so much for such an interesting lecture !!!!!
Thank you!
LAMONT was magical!!!
Very inspiring. Thank you!
Thank you! Informative and interesting.
Carmen Reyes Ponce.
De manière ultime, bien sûr, mais c'est oublier un peu vite que Liszt a travaillé avec Czerny, il pratiquait lui-même chaque jour un programme très exigeant en abordant toutes les difficultés mécaniques, le tout en lisant de la littérature en même temps c'est-à-dire ne prêtant pas une attention particulière à son activité technique. Quand des élèves venaient à lui, il attendait d'eux qu'ils soient déjà virtuoses sur le plan technique. Il est en effet compliqué d'aborder les mystères et la poésie de la musique avec quelqu'un qui peine déjà à jouer les notes. Ce principe ne peut fonctionner qu'avec des personnes très avancées et qui ont reçu un bon enseignement. Cela n'est malheureusement pas toujours le cas, et bien souvent la technique et la musicalité vont de pair, ainsi la révélation du bon geste instrumental peut ouvrir un horizon nouveau de poésie. Dans bon nombre de conservatoires, dans des classes demandées ou dans des stages onéreux, on rencontre cette répugnance à détailler l'aspect mécanique du jeu, Franz Liszt donnait cours gratuitement, était un des plus grands compositeurs de l'histoire de la musique, un lien entre Beethoven et des compositeurs comme Debussy et Ravel, alors oui il pouvait demander à ne pas avoir à réaliser le travail des assistants, expliquer à un jeune musicien comment bouger ses doigts, ses bras, ecaetera, que tous les autres n'oublie pas qu'ils ne sont pas des démiurges mais des artistes artisans et que le savoir-faire se partage en bon compagnonnage.
wow
It seems that Liszt took an intuitive approach to playing, practicing and mastering the piano, not an analytical approach. I use an analytical approach to teaching piano technique, because I believe it's the only way to obtain "maximum results in minimum time", in one's endeavor to master the piano.
Ya. Ne lla se.
I’m really interested to see what Dr. Walker would think of Wim Winters.
ethanbrownpiano. I am sorry for my inadequate English. Wim Winters is a manipulator, I believe that Mr. Walker knows enough to explore him.
Cory Hall (Bachscholar) is maybe even worse.
THANK YOU.🌺
Your video is posted just minutes after I received the terrible news of Chicago's (my city of residence) newest Mayoral election results.....
It is important to keep one's mind on the true, the good, and the beautiful- especially in the midst of political disasters.
Solo va a habllar? Ya me lo se
Thank you for this, and I look forward to more lectures. I hope you will educate us on his late pieces. It's impossible to say which piece of Liszt's is the greatest, but his Via Crucis - Station IV: Jesus begegnet seiner Heiligen Mutter might just get my vote. And the recording of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, with Reinbert de Leeuw directing and on piano is my choice.
czcams.com/video/UjHheD2v4jk/video.html
Disagree - the body and mind are often interrelated. Yes, ouvert movements and looks are ridiculous , but mind, body, heart and ears are the essence
I think Emil Sauer couldn't play like he does in this video on a current Steinway, the action has become so heavy compared to pianos of his days. I wonder what Liszt would have thought of what happened to pianos, it has stiffled and destroyed the possibility of improvising and music vocations. Now piano action is so demanding that the hand wrist elbow must completely memorize the muscle memory to play anything complex which is why improvising on a modern piano is limited to rudimentary music because the action won't allow advanced pianism that has not been practiced in advance. It also explains why performer and composer are no longer commonly united in one pianistic artistic vocation.
Quite litterally Steinway is the worst thing that has happened to the piano since Liszt's time.
have you never listened to jazz? ofcourse you can still improvise on piano, people just suck in harmonic knowledge
@@kakoou3362 You must not be a pianist, you have no clue. Jazz finger doodling on the piano bears no comparison to classical piano clean technique.
@@ericastier1646 I must say you dont play the piano or nothing but below intermediate level. Go watch art tatum's video tape and it is the technique equivalent to hofmann's. Sounds like you are blaming on the piano when you can't improvise well.
Sauer recorded in the late 20s to 40s of the last century. The modern keyboard you disparage is not to any real degree different from those of the 1880s. I would suggest the deficiency lies with in your own hands. The fact that classical pianist rarely improvise is a function of changed expectations and education and certainly not the bizarre thesis you present.
@@ericastier1646 Yes. Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett are pretty poor piano players... they could really practice scales and arpeggios a little more.
Too bad the Campanella was used for credits, it's not the most intersting work and the melody is from Paganini. There are so many quotes, from études (eg., Mazeppa, Feux-follets), his Sonata, his Années de pèlerinage, Rhapsodies hongroise (the Rhapsodie espagnole has so many beyond beautiful potential quotes), or his Mephisto. Among melodies from others, there is an uncountable amount of Opera paraphrases and fantasia (eg., Don juan, Rigoletto), and even his Beethoven symponies transcriptions ! I'm certain Liszt would ban la Campanella from being played at some point.
La Campanella is an integral part of the lecture. At time code 8:37, the sheet music is shown together with Liszt’s amusing advice to players who fail to hit those high D-sharps: “Do not look for the house number!”
Does anyone know how I could contact Dr. Alan Walker? I would like to send him an email or a letter. Please, it's very important. I would be very grateful if you could provide me with any information.
See my private message to you via Facebook messenger
Puttroppo non conosco l'inglese
I’ve watched so many of these videos with Mr.Walker. Nothing but the best information on composers. But I gotta say the audio quality on this one was just awful. That click and buzzing 😑