finger independence and touch
discrimination and color are to be gained by playing the preludes and
fugues of Bach. Chopin started a method but it was never finished and
his sister gave it to the Princess Czartoryska after his death. It is a
mere fragment. Janotha has translated it. One point is worth quoting.
He wrote:

No one notices inequality in the power of the notes of a scale
when it is played very fast and equally, as regards time. In a
good mechanism the aim is not to play everything with an equal
sound, but to acquire a beautiful quality of touch and a
perfect shading. For a long time players have acted against
nature in seeking to give equal power to each finger. On the
contrary, each finger should have an appropriate part assigned
it. The thumb has the greatest power, being the thickest
finger and the freest. Then comes the little finger, at the
other extremity of the hand. The middle finger is the main
support of the hand, and is assisted by the first. Finally
comes the third, the weakest one. As to this Siamese twin of
the middle finger, some players try to force it with all their
might to become independent. A thing impossible, and most
likely unnecessary. There are, then, many different qualities
of sound, just as there are several fingers. The point is to
utilize the differences; and this, in other words, is the art
of fingering.

Here, it seems to me, is one of the most practical truths ever uttered
by a teacher. Pianists spend thousands of hours trying to subjugate
impossible muscles. Chopin, who found out most things for himself, saw
the waste of time and force. I recommend his advice. He was ever
particular about fingering, but his innovations horrified the purists.
"Play as you feel," was his motto, a rather dangerous precept for
beginners. He gave to his pupils the concertos and sonatas--all
carefully graded--of Mozart, Scarlatti, Field, Dussek, Hummel,
Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Weber and Hiller and, of Schubert, the
four-hand pieces and dances. Liszt he did not favor, which is natural,
Liszt having written nothing but brilliant paraphrases in those days.
The music of the later Liszt is quite another thing. Chopin's genius
for the pedal, his utilization of its capacity for the vibration of
related strings, the overtones, I refer to later. Rubinstein said:

The piano bard, the piano rhapsodist, the piano mind, the
piano soul is Chopin. ... Tragic, romantic