LISZT ETUDE
A student I had known previously at a school I taught at approached me and told me that he had prepared repertoire for doctorate auditions at several schools. He told me that not one of the schools had accepted him and he didn’t know why. I asked him to play for me so I could answer him better and he decided he would play the Liszt Paganini Etude No. 6.
I explained that in order to be competitive in an audition situation, he needed to learn some new ways of hearing and portraying the music.
The student’s playing, to my ears, did not have enough of a horizontal feeling. I felt it was a little stagnant. I wanted him to start thinking differently about the musical direction of the phrases
The student had come from years of teaching where the only thing that was emphasized was technique. Technique, of course, is extremely important and we all spend hours and hours working on our technique. However, to stand out from the crowd in an audition or competition, he needed to understand that technique must be integrated into the music, not the other way around.
EXCELLENT TECHNIQUE IS A NECESSITY THAT ENABLES THE PIANIST TO FOCUS ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE MUSIC.
