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My first eight weeks in Vienna were spent in learning, first, to control position and condition of hands and arms according to the law of balance; secondly, to direct each motion with the utmost accuracy and speed. To accomplish this I began with the most elementary exercises in five-finger position, using one finger at a time. Then came the principles of the scale, arpeggios, chords and octaves.
Those endless scales, arpeggios and passages, which must be flawless, in which you dare not blur or miss a single note! To play this music with just the right spirit, you must put yourself en rapport with the epoch in which it was written the era of crinoline, powdered wigs, snuffboxes and mincing minuets.
And then suddenly, apropos of nothing except the sweet ache of Lilly's little soul, the second movement would freeze itself into a proscenium arch of music, herself, like a stalagmite, its slim center. At this point, "Melody in F" veils itself in a mist of arpeggios, and Mrs. Becker, who invariably, during the after-school practice hour, sat upstairs with Mrs.
The earliest exercises used for "placing the voice" are in every respect technical studies, single tones and syllables, scale passages, arpeggios, etc. It is impossible to produce even a single tone without embodying some feature of technique.
Kaya quivered a moment: "I am Russian," she said, "I am an exile. Don't ask, Monsieur not here! I am I am afraid." The Kapellmeister went on improvising arpeggios on the piano as if he had not heard. He seemed to be pondering. "That name " he said, "Pou Poussin! Someone called on me the other day of that name. I remember it, because when I came in she was gone. Was it you?" The girl stood silent.
Then the lower notes are developed, mostly by descending scale passages, the lowest note practised being usually C. The high notes are sometimes "placed" by ascending scale passages and arpeggios, but more often by the octave jump and descending scale. There is room for considerable variation in this class of exercises, but they all conform to the same general principle.
That reverie turns upon itself as dreams do; that impressions added together do not always produce a fair judgment; that a private journal is like a good king, and permits repetitions, outpourings, complaint.... These unseen effusions are the conversation of thought with itself the arpeggios involuntary but not unconscious, of that aeolian harp we bear within us.
The grand chords fill the room with exquisite harmony. He plays the extremely difficult passages in the obligato home run in a masterly manner, and when he finishes with that grand te deum with arpeggios on the side, there is that complete hush in the room that is dearer to the artist's heart than the loudest applause. The professor looks around. The room is empty.
I start with ridiculously simple forms just the thumb under the hand and the hand over the thumb a few movements each way, but these put the hand in trim for scales and arpeggios. I practise the latter about half an hour a day. I have to overhaul my technic once or twice a week to see that everything is in order. Scales and arpeggios come in for their share of criticism.
Over the turmoil of its depths rush waters, in swift rhythm, eagerly, ardently. And from the rhythm ascends music, like a vine climbing a trellis arpeggios from silver keys, sorrowful violins, velvety and smooth-sounding flutes.... The country has disappeared. The river has disappeared. There floats by only a strange, soft, and twilight atmosphere. Jean-Christophe's heart flutters with emotion.
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