The shape of things to come
If there’s one video you should watch in order to learn how to sit correctly at the piano, it’s Khatia Buniatishvili’s YouTube performance of the fiendishly difficult Liszt/Horowitz Rhapsody No 2. What incredible posture! So upright, so grounded, so calm and controlled, even if her brain is obviously working on overtime.
She’s hardly the only pianist with perfect posture – I’ve just watched Stephen Hough sail elegantly through Paderewski’s Nocturne as a Carnegie Hall recital encore – but most of us can only sit and admire such poise. We spend so much time thinking about our fingers that we often forget about the other important body parts – all of which contribute to good piano-playing. Mark Tanner’s masterclass (p16) explains some posture do’s and don’ts, illustrated by example: the good, the bad and the ugly.
What about our hands? What is the perfect hand position? There’s no simple answer: we’re taught from early on to curve the hand (‘think of holding an orange’), but more YouTube study of Vladimir Horowitz, no less, shows him playing Mozart with fingers as straight as an arrow. While looking for the ‘Perfect Curve’ (p70), Warwick Thompson defends the Russian legend (‘The sound! The fire! The tone!’) while finding out from three of today’s top pianists about the value of the curve.
Our cover story (p10) features the Horowitz of our time, probably the most famous pianist alive: Lang Lang, who in my opinion loses nothing by the comparison. He says that the Goldberg Variations have taught him how to enjoy being alone: a lesson we have all had cause to learn for ourselves during this difficult year. As we approach the festive season, concert-hall doors may remain shut and Christmas carol get-togethers may have to be put on ice, but we can still get on with our Scores. As always, with the December issue, I’ve chosen some wintry holiday and Christmas pieces: there’s Franck’s Vieux Noël, an arrangement of Holst’s In The Bleak Midwinter, MacDowell’s By Smouldering Embers and Tchaikovsky’s ‘December’.
Enjoy your playing, and stay safe. editor@pianistmagazine.com