Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: October 16, 2025
Hardly one student in one hundred had won his way into the most voluminous of the musical biographical dictionaries. The proportion of distinguished graduates to those who fail to gain renown is very high at Leipsic compared with many other institutions. What becomes of the thousands of students all working frantically with the hope of becoming famous pianists?
In his opinion pupils fell under two headings: those who had music in them, and those who had not. The latter, though he might drill them in technique, would never make really satisfactory pianists; the former, by dint of scolding or cajoling, according to his mood at the moment, might derive real benefit from his tuition, and become a credit to him.
This was an unusual opportunity to obtain lessons from so famous a musician and pedagogue, and about twenty pianists were enrolled for the class. A few of these came with the master from Frankfort, where he was then located. Carl Klindworth, pianist, teacher, critic, editor of Chopin and Beethoven, was then the Director of the school.
Speaking in alien languages, they find comparatively little difficulty in expressing themselves with rapidity and fluency. Very few great singers ever acquire a similar ease. These pianists are wonderfully well read, many being acquainted with the literature of three or more tongues in the original.
"I did not know you were musical, Mr. Keith," said an English lady. "You have never before spoken of music." "Perhaps not, madam," he answered. "One does not often speak of what one cares for most of all. But when I am in London I rarely miss hearing our best players." At this point others joined in, and the various merits of eminent pianists were warmly discussed.
I yearn for the world of great singers, violinists, pianists. Several of the greatest of them are of my race and country, and I have met them, but all my acquaintance with them has brought me is a sense of being looked down upon as a money-bag striving to play the Maæcenas.
He warmly defended the principles of the romantic school, if necessary, and had decided opinions of other musicians, especially of the popular pianists of his day who vitiated the public taste with their show pieces; but he generally kept them to himself or confided them only to his friends, whom he even occasionally implored to keep them secret.
Three years afterward the critics spoke of him as one of the best pianists in Berlin. He studied successively under the greatest masters of the time, Clemcnti, Bernhard Anselm Weber, and Abbé Vogler. While in the latter's school at Darmstadt, he had for fellow pupils Carl von Weber, Winter, and Gansbachcr.
Gnekker and the young ladies talk of fugues, of counterpoint, of singers and pianists, of Bach and Brahms, while my wife, afraid of their suspecting her of ignorance of music, smiles to them sympathetically and mutters: "That's exquisite... really! You don't say so!..." Gnekker eats with solid dignity, jests with solid dignity, and condescendingly listens to the remarks of the young ladies.
Even now we are taking piano music very seriously, and are trying to interpret it in a far deeper and broader sense than the pianists of, say, fifty years ago ever thought of doing. I fancy if Clara Schumann, for instance, could return and play to us, or even Liszt himself, we should not find their playing suited to this age at all. Some of us yet remember the hand position Mme.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking