ld
make a Normandy dray horse that could compete with a Kentucky
thoroughbred on the race course. It is a pitiful sight to watch students
who could not possibly become virtuosos slave year after year before an
ivory and ebony tread-mill, when, if they realized their lack of
personal qualifications, they could engage in teaching or in some other
professional or mercantile line and take a delight in their music as an
avocation that they would never find in professional playing.

ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION PARAMOUNT

"To some, the matter of touch is of little significance. They are
apparently born with an appreciation of tonal values that others might
work years to attain in vain. Those who imagine that touch is entirely
a matter of finger tips are greatly mistaken. The ear is quite as
important as the organs employed in administering the touch to the
keyboard. The pianist should in reality not think of the muscles and
nerves in his arm, nor of the ivory and ebony keys, nor of the hammers
and strings in the interior of the instrument. He should think first and
always of the kind of tone he is eliciting from the instrument, and
determine whether it is the most appropriate tonal quality for the
proper interpretation of the piece he is playing. He must, of course,
spend years of hard thought and study in cultivating this ability to
judge and produce the right touch, but the performer who is more
concerned about the technical claims of a composition than its musical
interpretation can only hope to give an uninteresting, uninspired,
stilted performance that should rightly drive all intelligent hearers
from his audience hall."

QUESTIONS IN STYLE, INTERPRETATION, EXPRESSION
AND TECHNIC OF PIANOFORTE PLAYING

SERIES VII

OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH

1. What are the two means of administering touch?

2. State the effect of a rigid arm upon piano playing.

3. Can a pianist's playing be distinguished by touch?

4. How do the muscles of the shoulder come into action in piano playing?

5. How should the sense of hearing be employed in piano playing?

6. How did Rubinstein regard the theory of touch?

7. When is the hand touch generally employed?

8. How should the arm feel during the act of touch?

9. Does the virtuoso hamper himself with details of technic during a
performance?

10. What should be the pianist's first thought during the moment of
performance?

LEOPOLD GODOWSKY

BIOGRAPHICAL

Leopold Godowsky wa