Perhaps I can add a little to what Dejan has to relate about Richters

practice habits. I do not doubt that Richter may have experimented with
various ways of preparing for a concert, some of which may have seemed
unorthodox. e never played exercises of any sort. I !new this from my
aunt Dagmar even before he came to the ".#., he himself confirmed it to
me, and he does so also in $runo %onsaignons film. It seems very much
in character. #ince he never played compositions he did not li!e, why
would he have played exercises& 'nd of course we all wonder how it was
possible for him to ac(uire such a phenomenal techni(ue without ever
playing exercises. e himself was not usually happy with his playing.
)hen I was visiting him in *ew +or! during his ,-./ tour he confided to
me that he had only recently learned to practice properly, and thought
that he would be playing much better if only he could discipline himself
to practice three hours each day. I wish I had pursued the subject with
him in more detail that day, for he did not tell me what proper
practicing was or what he had done in the past that was so wrong.
Perhaps he meant that in the past his approach was less disciplined. %y
aunt used to tell me 0she had visited him in %oscow shortly before the
)ar1 that he might practice endless hours one day and then go several
days hardly touching the piano. )hen I saw him, he tended to practice
by the hour, rather than setting himself a particular goal and wor!ing
at it until he felt he had accomplished it. Perhaps he did that too,
but I did not observe it.
I have heard him practicing in $oston 0,-2/, ,-./1, in *ew +or! 0,-./1,
and in Philadelphia 0,-./1. *ever did I hear a single scale or exercise
of any sort. e would wor! on whatever he was going to perform, playing
things through close to the tempo called for. *ow there may be a
difference here between practicing to maintain repertoire and refreshing
a piece he had not played in while or even learning a new piece. e
told me that he li!ed giving concerts every couple of days because he
had to wor! less hard to !eep in shape than when he had a long layoff.
In ,-2/ I was with him at the Rit3 4arton otel in $oston as he was
practicing the 5chai!ovs!y ,st and the two 6is3t concerti, all in the
course of some two hours. I believe he played them all from beginning
to end, stopping only occasionally to repeat certain passages. e
obviously !new them (uite well 0he was to play the 6is3t with 7ondrashin
the following year1, and when I as!ed him what he was striving for in
his practice session, he said that he wanted to ma!e sure that his
memory of the score was accurate. e seemed to have few technical
problems to wor! out. #imilarly, in *ew +or! in ,-./ I heard him
practicing Pro!ofiev .th #onata, $eethoven 8ar. 9p. :;, :< = .2,
#chuberts uttenbrenner 8ariations, and $arto! ,< ungarian Peasant
#ongs>>all in the same afternoon.
Perhaps his comment to me in ,-./ summari3es his approach. e said
that during practice one should play expressively and carefully observe
all the dynamics, but that one should also hold bac! a little and save
ones full range expression and power for the performance. is practice
fortissimos were certainly not what you heard from him in concert. 5his
notion of saving oneself for the concert may derive from a desire to
allow room for spontaneity. e hated to pic! out pianos for his
concerts and preferred to be surprised 0something he reiterates in
%onsaingeons film1, and I suspect that perhaps the idea of fine>tuning
his performance during practice was alien to him the for that same
reason. #omething had to be left to chance, to the inspiration of the
moment. e said that the mood he was in at a concert played an
important role in its success. %ost of all he feared apathy. #ome of
his best concerts, he said, were when he was angry or elated.
%oods also affected his practicing. 9nce, when he was in *ew +or! in
,-./, *ina and I prepared to go out, but he stayed behind, reluctantly,
saying that he had to practice, even though he did not really want to.
e seemed depressed. I surreptitiously had left the tape recorder on.
e practiced for about an hour the $eethoven 8ariations 9p. .2, and it
was clear that he was very frustrated with how things were going. 6ots
of missed notes, it almost sounded as if he had not (uite learned the
piece or had forgotten it 0yet a few days later he played it brilliantly
at 4arnegie all1. e would stop and repeat certain passages over and
over again, sometimes slowly, but generally most of it was played close
to performance tempo, perhaps just a shade slower. )hen we returned
*ina as!ed how the practicing had gone, and he made a face and said that
his fingers had felt li!e noodles 0?!a! ma!aroni?, in Russian1.
In the spring of ,-./, when he was recuperating from the flu that had
caused him to cancel a number of concerts, he stayed with his 0and my1
aunt Dagmar 0a!a. 5amara1 in #omerville, %'. 5hey had arranged to put a
#teinway upright there 0no room for a grand1, and he religiously
practiced the $eethoven Diabelli 8ariations three or four hours a day.
I was there during one session as he practiced 8ariations @;>::. I sat
by and watched, and occasionally he would comment or as! (uestions. e
said that he had found the best way to play pianissimo was to play from
the shoulder. I understand this to mean that there should be no wrist
or elbow movement. e also believed that because our hands are
interdependent, one hand can help the other out in difficult passages.
9ne several occasions when he made a mista!e in some right hand passage
wor! he would sayA #ee, I didnt help out with the leftB
e tended to wor! on one or two variations at a time, repeating again
and again at near performance tempo. e would observe all the repeats
0but then he is well !nown for that1. #ometimes he would experiment.
)hen practicing 8ariations @2 = @. he as!ed me if I thought that perhaps
8ariation @. 0mar!ed 8ivace1 should be faster 0he was practicing it as
the same tempo as the previous one1, and he proceeded to play Presto.
It was stunning, and I thought it was a nice contrast to the previous
variation. I told him that I li!ed it faster. e thought for a moment
and then said he li!ed it better slower. e did not elaborate, but I
thin! it is often characteristic of him to strive for understatement
0even though he is !nown to go for extreme tempi >>fast or slow, as well
as for great dynamic contrasts1. ' little later, feeling a bit coc!y
and privileged to have had my opinion solicited, I ventured to as! why
he played 8ariatioon @- in such a restrained way. )hy, for instance, in
bars < and 2, he did not ma!e more of the crescendo and diminuendo
mar!ed in the score. is answer was that that would be too much, the
implication being that he wanted to hint at the pathos rather than mil!
every last drop from it. I remember how he expressed great
dissatisfaction with the way 6eonid 7ogan had played the Pro!ofiev
#econd 8iolin 4oncerto 0coupled on the %onitor 6P with Richters $ach D
minor 4oncerto1. e felt it was much too romantic, cloyingly sweet.
+ou should listen to how 9istra!h plays it. he said.
's for the Diabelli 8ariations, he said to me that he thought the last
variation was the most difficult variation to play, perhaps the most
difficult piece in all of $eethoven. 'nd that in the last variation the
most difficult part was the ending, so that if you cant play the ending
well, you cant play the last variation, which means you really cannot
perform the Diabelli 8ariations. e never did play them in 'merica. e
was apparently dissatisfied with how he was playing them, even though
that afternoon he had practiced the redoubtable ::rd variation many
times. )hat I heard was certainly marvelous, and he seemed to be fairly
happy with what he had accomplished that day.
't another time in ,-./, when I was with him in his hotel 0I forgot the
name, but it was on 4entral Par! #outh, in the center of the bloc!, with
a great view of 4entral Par!1, he practiced the Pro!ofiev #eventh. e
tended to play through fairly long sections of the #onata at a fairly
bris! pace, though more slowly than later in performance. 9nly a few
passages, such as the one mar!ed tumultuoso 0first movement, shortly
after the return to the 'llegro1, he would practic more slowly three or
four times, but otherwise everything was in tempo and with relatively
little concentration on specific details. ' few comments he made,
reinforced my impression that his interpretations are often controlled
by visual images which the music evo!es in him. In tal!ing about the
Pro!ofiev #eventh 0and other war time sonatas of his1 he said that you
could hear machine guns firing and explosions. 's he was practicing the
first movement, in the 'llegro section some @/ bars before the return to
the 'ndantino theme 0where it begins in f1, he commentedA )hat he
conveys so well is a sense of dreadB 5here is always something rather
dis(uieting. 'nd I said, thin!ing of the passage mar!ed sen3a Ped.
that the percussive nature of those chords struc! me as machine>li!e.
e answered, *o, no, not really. It is more as if people are riding on
horse>bac! along a road...there are telephone poles passing by...they
are going away somewhere, and it is a !ind of gray overcast day. It
made me recall a similar comment he had made ten years earlier, this
time about the %o3art d minor concerto. It was when I was with him in
$oston as he practiced the 5chai!ovs!y and 6is3t concerti. During a
brea! we tal!ed a little, mostly about music. I as!ed him 0I marvel now
at my chut3pah1 why he played the middle section of the Roman3e so
slowly. aving been introduced to this concerto through a recording by
4lara as!il, who plays the middle section (uite tempestuously, as do
most other pianists I have heard, I found Richters slow pace
inappropriate, if not perverse 0I didnt say that, of course1. 5o me it
conjured up a storm 0I was thin!ing of $eethovens Pastoral #ymphony and
8ivaldis #ummer1. e shrugged and said, $ut you see, what I imagine
here is a running broo!...a waterfall... 't another time, tal!ing about
$eethovens 'ppassionata he remar!ed how the last movement becomes
progressively more wild and then with the Presto it turns into some !ind
of dance of witches and devils. I believe that his playing was always
deeply affected by the visual images the music suggested to him, and
perhaps it was this capacity for visuali3ing sound that may have enabled
him control and balance the larger musical structures so well.
)alter %os!alew
%uncie, I*
wamC...

Re:
How
did
great
pianist
s
practic
e? D
Reply
#3 on:
Eanuary
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@//;,
/:A@@A@
< P% F
5his is a very good (uestion.
owever I thin! one has to be a bit more specific on what is meant by practice. 5here are two
extremes here. In one extreme we have any piano related activity. 'nna %agdalena $ach, simply
by copying by hand copy after copy of hubbyGs compositions could be said to be practising. Does it
include things li!e memorising a piece from the score without ever getting near to the piano& If so,
Hlenn Hould and )alter Hiese!ing were practising for most of their wa!ing hours. 9n the other
extreme, we can define practice 0just for the purposes of this discussion1 as time spent at the piano
repeating patterns of movements. If so, Hlen Hould could rightly claim that he never practised.
'nd here is another interesting (uestion. %ost pianists practised a lot 0whatever your definition1
during their younger years, and much much less in their maturity. Id mentioned 'rrau practising
up to ,J hours before he was twenty. +et in his sixties, he never practised more than : hours a day,
and advised his students to do the same.
#o do they practice less becauseA
i. If you practice ,J hours a day for a number of years, after that you do not need that much
practice. 0$tu you still need to do ,J hours daily for a while1.
ii. 5hey were practising wrongly in their youth and wasting a lot of time, however, as they
figured it out, they realised that you donGt need all that practice anyway, and they just wished they
!new in their youth what they !new in their mature years.
Interestingly enough, you have pianists who firmly believe 0i1 or 0ii1. 0$y that I mean that there is
no consensus1.
Paderews!i 0when under 6escheti3!y1A all day long.
Hlenn Hould K 4laimed he never practised 0that is, at the piano1. owever did a lot of mental
practice.
4laudio 'rrau 0mature1 K @ K : hours daily K too! one month completely off every year.
#viatoslav Richter K 4laimed to practise a few hours a day K immediately dismissed by his wife
who said he was lying and set the record straightA ten hours a day.
%ischa Dichter K ,@ hours a day in his younger years. 5hen ; K 2 hours daily.
Ivo Pogorelich K < hours a day 0when possible1
$ella Davidovich K : hours a day 0sometimes ; or <1
)illhelm $achauss K minimum of , hour a day of scales and technical exercises.
7atharine Hoodson K no more than four hours a day.
Huiomar *ovaes K : K ; hours a day 0never practised techni(ue outside pieces in her mature years1.
'lexander $railovs!y K LI donGt practise very much, only five hours a dayM.
)alter Hiese!ing K LI really need very little practice, as I do not forget what I have learnedA my
fingers donGt forget eitherM. 0$ut then he did a lot of mental practice1. 5oo! two months away from
the piano every year.
#ergei Pro!ofiev K LI do not need so much to practise. %y hands do not forgetM 0$ut then, a lot of
what he played was his own music1.
8ladimir 'sh!ena3y 0in his prime1 K < K . hours daily
'lfred $rendel > 0around ,-J/1 K < hours a day 0I understand that now he tries to confine his
practise even moreA @ K : hours > but he compensates for it with a lot of mental practice1
+ouri Igorov K ; K < hours daily.
Noltan 7ocsis K in his younger years a lot. 5hen no more than ; hours daily.
Harric! 9hlson K : K ; hours daily.
O#ourcesA Eames 4oo!e K Hreat pianists on piano playingP Ilyse %ach K Hreat contemporary
pianists spea! for themselvesP Eeffery Eohnson 0ed.1 K Piano mastery K 5he arriet $rower
interviewsP David Dubal K 5he world of the concert pianistP interviews in several maga3inesQ.
Re:
How did
great
pianists
practice? D
Reply #24
on: Eanuary
,., @//;,
/@A@@A@.
Ruote
perhaps we should now tal! about 9) they practiced, rather than how
%"4
there are a few mostly self taught pianists, such as godows!y, richter,
and c3iffra 0although he did go to the lis3t academy1
i must admit i donSt !now much about the practicing %I59D# of the
P% F
greats> that seems to be their closely guarded secret.
Ixcellent ideaB
I didnSt !now that Hodows!y was self>taught.
Hlenn HouldA Did only mental practice.
)alter Hiese!ingA %ostly mental practice.
Rudolf #er!in and )ilhelm $achausA 4ra3y about scales.
'rgerichA practises little. plays a lot.
4laudio 'rrauA )as a great believer in practising on a silent !eyboard.
David $arr>Illam > "sed an interesting practising methodA e played
silently on a real piano, which means that he had to depress the !eys in
such a way that no sound came of it 0very slowly and controlled1. 5ry itB
Eorge $olet > ated practising 0but did it anyway1.
'lfred $rendel > 4onsiders slow practice misguided. 9ne should always
practise at the actual thempo 0or faster1.
Eohn $rowningA ?%any people wor! with tunnel vision. 5hey wor! on
one little section for days and days K or they whi3 through the whole
wor! (uic!ly. I learn carefully, conscientiously observing every
mar!ing, so I donGt have to undo bad habits. I then practise in middle
tempo, not too slow, which is the hardest tempo to practise in. )hen I
feel more or less ready, I play the whole piece straight through, three
times in the day, no matter what goes wrong. I try to achieve a large arc,
which is what you have to do in a performance. +ou cannot stop and
correct yourself when you are onstage.?
Harric! 9lson > Practises from the pieces. #topped playing scales and
arpeggios when he was twelve.
Tor starters...
)hen Richter came to 4luj>*apoca in the early J/s 0a town in Romania1 he stood up until around
@ a.m. practicing around :>; hours on two measures. 5he students who were allowed to watch him
practice fell asleep
5he $itus.
A Short Essay on the Life of a Pianist
'fter a recent post, I received a re(uest in the form of a comment from a reader, suggesting I might
expand on my last paragraph. 5he last paragraph was as followsA
I wonder how many people embar! on serious piano studies because they want to be
performers or because they are passionate about music, about the piano and about
playing the piano& Public performance is (uite a different thing, itGs not for the thin>
s!inned or the faint>hearted.
5he act of performance is an art in itself, distinct from oneGs abilities as a musician or as a pianist. It
is li!e any sort of performance art, be it acting, dancing, or wal!ing the tightrope. 'ctually, wal!ing
the tightrope is an analogy I often use for performing solo piano wor!s from memory in public. 5he
only safety nets are the ones we build in during our practising, and I rec!on I spend a huge amount
of time and energy in my own practice securing the memory. 5his is basically the e(uivalent of
spending a fortune on insurance policies you hope you never need to use. In his later years, the great
pianist #viatoslav Richter gave up playing from memory and brought his scores, along with a
trusted page turner on to the platform with him. e even eschewed the limelight, preferring a muted
lamp by the side of the piano. In interviews, he said the time spent memorising or maintaining the
memory was no longer worth it, and that he could learn a multitude of new pieces in the time it
would have ta!en him to attend to his memory.
5here are those, it seems, who were born to play the piano in public, and I donGt need to go into a
list of the greats 0past and present1 who fulfilled their destinies in this regard. 5he people who are
on the top rung of this particular ladder would need to find playing the instrument, learning and
memorising new repertoire and maintaining old repertoire relatively effortless 0but not necessarily
without a considerable investment of time, li!e any job1. 5hey would also need to be adrenaline
jun!ies to some extent, and to be able to handle travel and spending chun!s of time alone. 're the
great solo pianists born, and not made&
)hether one is a performer or not comes down to talent 0most obviously1, but also temperament
and personality. 5he secret of performance is to be able to get out of oneGs own way, and to free up
the mind so it is not beset by doubts and insecurities 0and therefore tensions1 during the process of
performing. 5he performer becomes one with the music, one with the instrument. )e all !now that
a memory slip can cause panic. Irrors lead to terrors and then to possible paralysis. 5here have
been those who, after the trauma of a memory slip, never played without the score again for the rest
of their careers. Tor others, a memory slip or momentary lapse in concentration can lead to such
acute insecurity that another slip ensues, until it is virtually impossible to carry on. ItGs all in the
mindB #urely the single biggest fear around public performance is that we will forget.
It is perfectly possible to be an ama3ing pianist without being an ama3ing musician, and to be a
great musician and yet have (uite average s!ills at an instrument. I recall the apocryphal story of the
debut of 'dele %arcus, one of the most significant and brilliant teachers of piano of the second half
of the last century. #he was responsible for producing an impressive list of pianists, and yet had no
real performing career of her own. It is said that at her debut with the #chumann concerto, so
nervous was she that she vomited on the !eyboard and left the stage, never to return. 5his did not
mean she was not a PI*9%I*'6 pianist, able to play with ease the most fiendish pieces in the
piano repertoire and to toss off scales in double notes at the drop of a hat. It meant that her vocation
was as a teacher of the piano, not a performer. 5hin! of one of the other great teachers of the era,
%aria 4urcio K not !nown as a performing pianist, at all. ' great virtuoso might not ma!e a
constructive or insightful teacher because they might never have had to struggle with the
instrument. Iverything came naturally to them, and they have little idea how to build a pianist. '
great teacher may also be a great performer, but very often they are two different animals.
)hen I loo! at the students who have gone through my hands over the years, I have had the gamut.
Do I loo! at the small handful who are now ma!ing careers as concert pianists as being better than,
or more successful than others who have thriving piano teaching studios or those who decided to
pursue more general musical careers, or those who played for a time and then stopped& *o, not at
allB 5he elderly person who wants to !eep up their piano playing because it brings them joy and
!eeps their mind active, the lawyer who canGt live without $eethoven sonatas even though he has
very limited time to practise K these are just as valid 0no more or less so1 in the grand 0no pun
intended1 scheme of things than the talented child who absorbs music li!e a sponge or the tertiary
level students about to play their practical exams. eaven forbid that everyone who comes to me for
lessons has aspirations for a career as a concert pianist. Imagine a world overta!en by concert
pianistsB )hat a nightmare thoughtB
5here are very many reasons why people start having piano lessons in their childhood. 5hose who
are destined to be pianists will usually 0although not always1 ta!e to it li!e a duc! to water and race
ahead. Tor those others, many find solace in the act of playing, a channel for self expression, an
appreciation of the music, and the deep satisfaction of mastering an instrument. Tor myself, it was a
burning passion to play the piano that, for various reasons, had to wait a bit. I thin! I was just as
smitten with music itself as I was with the piano, and perhaps my yearning to play had its roots in
the need 0yes, need1 to express music through my fingers. Imbar!ing on tertiary level piano studies
at the R4% was in many ways an irrational decision, based on an overriding passion for the subject
0not necessarily for performance, though K this came later as a necessary evil1.
I thin! there is a lot of angst among piano students as they draw to the end of undergraduate studies.
%ost of them decided to follow this path because of their passion, yet what sort of job will there be
at the end of it& #hould I be a performer or a teacher, or a bit of both& ow will I support a family,
or even pay the rent& 5his crisis of identity is common, and there are big decisions to be made. 's
for the LperformerM dilemma, it doesnGt matter how much you may enjoy doing it and feel li!e this
is the life for you, if you havenGt excelled in exams and college competitions by your final year, you
need to see this as some sort of barometer for how you will stac! up against the fierce competition
in the professional world. Remember K nobody thin!ing of boo!ing 8ladimir orowit3 ever as!ed
his agent if he had a doctorateU
"nless you love the idea of teaching piano, then the realities of this path may not always be
glamorous. Tor me, it was a vocation from the beginning and it still gives me enormous satisfaction.
+et we donGt need to be so cut>and>dried about things K a portfolio career is absolutely the way of
the future for conservatory graduates, and modern institutions are preparing their students for this
0along with business management and other tools I wish I had learned bac! then1. #ome playing,
some ensemble wor!, some teaching, some writing, even something else non>musical. )hy not& '
freelance career based on mixed activities li!e this would be the envy of many trapped in a more
regular job. 'nd in these uncertain times, if one area dried up, you would still have the others.
5he point I am slowly coming to is that everyone can find their niche in the wider world of the
piano. )e embar! on a career in this area because we love it, and as such we are extremely
fortunate already.
Practising on o!r
I have been away for the past three wee!s on a concert and teaching tour of #ingapore and
'ustralia, the focus of my wor! there was three performances of $achGs Holdberg 8ariations. I
thought it might be of interest K and hopefully of use K to tal! about how I prepared this magnum
opus for performance having not played it at all in about a decade, and how I approached the
practice time I had while on the tour itself.
Ruite early on in the life of this blog I devoted a whole post to how I set about learning the
Holdberg 8ariations in the first place, very much an obsession and a labour of love. #ometime last
year, I was engaged by the 7awai #eries at the Rueensland 4onservatorium in $risbane to play the
Holdberg this IasterP a piece eminently suitable in its grandeur and magnificence for such a Testival
0especially given $achGs own strong religious views1. I played the #higeru 7awai, the model IV
concert grand, and wonderful it was tooB
Trom this engagement, I was also invited to play at the +ong #iew 5oh 4onservatory of %usic in
#ingapore, and on the 5eam of PianistsG series in %elbourne. In addition to my performances, I gave
masterclasses and taught a fair number of individual lessons as well as giving a lecture for the Piano
Pedagogy programme at the Rueensland 4on. I thoroughly enjoyed all of these experiences.

I started to resurrect the Holdberg 8ariations just before 4hristmas, figuring that I would need four
months to get the piece bac! into my fingers and into my head. 5his would also allow enough time
for what I can only describe as the 9lympian training component K regular play>throughs as part of
my practice routine as well as in front of others. I canGt overemphasise the importance of
developing the physical and mental stamina in this wayA deciding when I would commit to a come>
what>may performance in my practice room with absolutely no stopping, going over troublespots or
otherwise tin!ering with the process I call Lpractising a performanceM. )hile I would not presume
to include myself in such august company as #viatoslav Richter, even he needed the ears of a few
select colleagues before he would ta!e his wor! from the practice room to the stage, and before my
one house concert and two lunchtime recitals in 6ondon before I set sail, I did feel the need to play
for two colleagues I completely trust. It is absolutely part of the process.
$efore I was ready to do this, though, I needed to start bac! at s(uare one, and I began with the nine
canons that form the bac!bone of the piece. aving learned the wor! very thoroughly initially, and
also having performed it at least @/ or so times 0I never counted them upB1, it did not ta!e long at all
before I had the notes bac! in my fingers and in my memory. %ind you, I was careful to go through
each line of the counterpoint again, as tho!gh " were learning the piece fro# scratch$ In order to
ma!e sure each line was !nown independently of muscular memory, I played it from memory with
one finger. I also played all combinations of two voices with one finger, or 0for variety1 in double
octaves.
Trom there, I added the rest of the variations almost on whimsy, starting with the ones I felt would
need the most wor!. $efore too long, I had the piece bac! in my fingers but what I would describe
as deliberately plain and bland. I soon noticed that, if each variation could be described as a
character in a play, their old costumes were tired and they needed a ma!eover. I found as soon as I
recharacterised one variation, the next one was affected so I found I was recreating the piece in my
imagination, my conception had changed and grown over time. $ecause I have changed, so has the
way I approach this music.
$etween the #ingapore performance and the $risbane one, I had a few days to practise as many
hours as I wanted with very few other distractions. It was during this period that I noticed a small
handful of the variations really wanting to assume different characters, and this felt absolutely right.
#o I went with this and made a few significant changes to how I was going to shape chun!s of the
wor!. $ecause the pedal of the $risbane #higeru was impeccably regulated, I was able to create
pedal effects that 0although I do say so myself1 were (uite beautiful. 6et me interject here that I
absolutely use pedal in $ach playing, very discreetly and in a very considered way. I use the right
pedal for resonance and colour 0piano sound without the pedal is, after a while, horribly boring1 and
the left pedal as a registration. 5here are two variations where, on this piano, I decided to !eep the
left pedal down all the way, not because I wanted it softer but because I wanted the silver (uality
that the shift pedal offers when it is regulated well. I would add that there were many variations
which did not need any pedal whatever, and I rested my feet on the ground during these.
$etween the performances of the tour, I absolutely practised daily, from between three to five hours.
It was important to me to go through the whole wor! slowly every day. I hardly ever needed to loo!
at the score K my maxim all along has been to have the score ')'+ from the piano and not to do
my memorising with the score on the des!. 5his way, I could develop the proper reflexes from the
beginning. It is hard at first, but it gets much easier K with practiceB 9ne thing I found myself doing
daily was to practise the canons and other variations that are strictly linear by bringing out a
selected voice forte while !eeping the others pianissimo. 5hus, in the canons I practised each repeat
three times so that each voice had its moment in the limelight. 5his enabled me, in performance, to
shape the individual lines with extreme control, and to vary the voicing and layering on the repeats.
Tor some reason, I have added five minutes playing time to my performance, which now runs one
hour and twenty five minutes without intervalB #orryB
5his brings me to the thorny (uestion of what one does on the day of the concert itself, and here I
can give no formula because we are all different. I have spo!en to many colleagues about this and
everybody has their own set of rituals that wor! for them. Tor myself, if youGre interested, I avoid
caffeine and sugar. I li!e to go through my programme slowly and calmly in the morning then eat a
good meal with some protein. #weet potatoes are supposed to be a very good thing as they release
their energy slowly. $y the middle of the afternoon, I am usually starting to feel the anxiety that
most performers feel on concert day. It may surprise you to !now that many of the worldGs best>
loved and most successful musicians and actors suffer from stage fright. %y experiences have been
that I am fine as soon as I wal! out onto the stage but the feelings of anxiety and nausea from mid
afternoon to the time in the green room just before you have to play are pure torture. I canGt eat
anything before I play, for fear that it might end up on the stage.
' final word about performing K I wonder how many people embar! on serious piano studies
because they want to be performers or because they are passionate about music, about the piano and
about playing the piano& Public performance is (uite a different thing, itGs not for the thin>s!inned
or the faint>hearted.

Painting the %orth &ridge: Learning the
'old(erg )ariations
%y first experience with this incredible wor! of art was hearing 'ndras #chiff play it at Dartington,
as the preface to his inspiring wee! of teaching in the summer of ,-J@ K masterclasses that remain
as vivid as yesterday. Iighty minutes of music and a peerless performance that touched every part
of me, so that when I left the Hreat all, the trees and the lawn were different, everything had
changed. 5his experience had (uite literally changed my life.
5he #irens were calling immediately, and I !new I had to learn and to play this magnum opus, so
when the wee! of classes was over, I duly began. $ut postgraduate studies in the "#' were
imminent, and it would be twelve years before I would first dare play the piece. I would li!e to
describe the labour pains that I went through before my first performance in 4hichester 4athedral.
#ince then I have played the wor! many times over the course of over a decade, on four different
continents, and I am boo!ed to play it again next year in #ingapore and 'ustralia.
aving returned from my postgraduate years in *ew +or! in ,--/, I settled into a life in 6ondon
where I was teaching specialist young pianists at the Purcell #chool three days a wee!, teaching
also at #t. PaulGs HirlsG #chool and the 4entre for +oung %usicians, a fair amount of private wor!
and playing a 695 of chamber music and other professional engagements in 6ondon, Iurope and
the "#'. I should add that I commuted to *ew +or! once a month for teaching purposes but when I
thin! of it now, I shudder at the prospect. 0I made use of the flying time by writing out the Holdberg
8ariations from memory, a useful tas! which really showed up gaps in my understanding of it.1
#o how was I to fulfill my yearning to learn and present this great wor!, which had turned into an
all>consuming passion& I would get home from my day at the Purcell #chool about 2 or . pm, pretty
exhausted from giving my all to the young pianists in my charge, !nowing that I had to repeat the
process the day after. 5he very last thing I wanted to do was to sit at the piano and practise for two
hours, but I forced myself to do just that. It was necessary. I had virtually no creative juices left, at
the end of such a day, so I resorted to a sort of mechanical practising, !nowing I had to produce the
goods somehow. 96D I5B %echanical practising& 5his is such a dirty wordB )e are supposed to
live by the muse, to shun anything that smac!s of fingerwor! or routine, or autopilot, but fran!ly, I
was already running on empty.
#o, I developed a strategy which I neither advocate to my students, nor do I forbid it. It was born of
necessity and when all is said and done, it wor!ed. In an ideal world we would approach the
!eyboard for our daily wor! filled with creative energy, our fingers ready to realise our innermost
visions of the music without recourse to mechanics. 5his is what teachers espouse but fran!ly I
donGt believe it is always possible. %ost teachers donGt actually get up and play, so this can end up
as idealised teacher babble. 6et those who have scaled %ount Parnassus tell how it is doneU
' memorised performance of anything that lasts eighty minutes without a brea! involves building
into the practising as many safety features as possible. I had to be as certain as I could that I would
be able to wal! onto a concert platform and play the piece with as much security as is humanly
possible. I couldnGt just hope it would go 97. #o, I always practised from memory. 5he Holdberg
8ariations comprises :/ variations, each in two symmetrical halves. #ubdividing these variations,
we uncover canons at ever>increasing intervals every third variation, and these form the bac!bone
of the wor!. 08ariation : is a canon at the unison, 8ariation 2 a canon at the second, and so on1.
Iach variation of the Holdbergs is either in strict linear counterpoint, or is strongly contrapuntal.
%y first safety feature was to unravel the music and wor! on the lines 0or voices1 independently. I
decided to get to !now, intimately, each line by itself first of all. 5his I could do while tired, since it
was either right or wrong. I would ta!e a variation, divide it into four subsections 0an J>bar unit1
and analyse each voice in turn. $y analyse, I mean (uic! and dirty at the !eyboard, in whatever way
made sense to me at the time. 5his does not have to be #chen!erian, it can simply be what you see
and what you notice by way of design on any given day.
I would ta!e this line and test my understanding of the geography K its inner meanderings K by
playing it with one finger, or with the other hand, or by deciding to ta!e the blac! notes with one
hand and the white notes with the other, or by playing every other note with the other hand. In other
words, I was deliberately trying to cement the structure of the line and how it sounded into my brain
witho!t muscle memory, which 0as I have long appreciated1 is a false friend K easy come, but very
easy go under the pressures of a performance.
9nce I was able to play, from memory, J bars with each voice in turn with one finger 0sometimes I
played it in octaves or even double octaves, which achieves the same result1, I put two voices
together, painfully slowly, again with one finger. 5ime consuming& +es, of course, but I wanted to
build my house on roc! and not on sand. Tortunately, most of the writing is in two or three voices so
the stepladder approach wasA
soprano
tenor
bass
soprano and tenor
soprano and bass
tenor and bass
soprano, tenor and bass 0clearly by this stage I had wor!ed out my fingerings1
Iven when I had learned the whole piece and was practising complete run>throughs, I still went
bac! to this process regularly, and I will absolutely do so again before next year. Iach time I do this,
I get to !now the music better.
If you have a contrapuntal piece in four voices 0#'5$1, this is how the process loo!sA
#
'
5
$
#'
#5
#$
'5
'$
5$
#'5
#'$
#5$
#'5$
I have even heard it suggested that you can play three voices and sing the fourth. 5ry it out and see
if it helps. Personally, I canGt do it.
Tor added control and to hear how each voice fitted into its surroundings, I also practised playing all
the voices together but playing a selected voice forte and the other0s1 pianissimo. 5his is li!e
shining a laser beam onto that voice. 'nother version of this type of wor! is to play one voice but
dummy the others. #end the !eys down a fraction of a s(uilimeter, aiming not to sound them at all K
incredible for motor control and coordination. 05his is very hard at first, but you do get better at it.1
I would wor! through both these processes for a ;>bar section before moving onto the next ;>bar
section. 5he wor! was very thorough, very painsta!ing and yet 0I would stress this1 very
permanentB
' further safety feature I chose to build in was practising transposition. It seems incredible to me, as
well as unrealistic, to read in 4ortotGs edition of 4hopinGs Itude op ,/ no ,A
It will prove excellent practice when once the #tudy is thoroughly perfected, to play it
slowly, transposing it in every key while keeping the fingerings of key C. O4ortot,
'lfred. Frdric Chopin. 12 tudes, op.10. Wdition de travail des oeuvres de 4hopin.
ParisA Wditions #alabert, ,-,<.Q
0's an upstart student, I added the word Lreally&M to my score.1
)hile I did aim to !eep the fingerings of 0in this case1 the !ey of H, I certainly did not feel it was
necessary to transpose into every !ey 0in the immortal words of #tan 6aurelA L6ife isnGt short
enoughM1. #o, again from memory, I chose three or four !eys and spent a bit of time playing
sections of the music very slowly in these !eys. 5his is a brilliant test of memory and is in itself one
of the best forms of ear and brain training. I found this very challenging, but it repaid the effort. %y
advice to students is to ta!e those passages of their pieces they are having memory trouble with 0it
might only be here and there1 and to do the transposition practice very slowly in two other !eys. I
li!e one !ey to be a semitone away in either direction, and the other to be on the opposite side of the
circle of fifths 0thus pieces in H major get transposed to H flat or ' flat major, plus D flat major1.
'nother way of practising variations is to ta!e a phrase from the theme and play just that phrase in
each variation in turn. It is (uite a neat way of seeing how the composer develops it, and it is a great
memory strengthener. If you play bars , K J 0which in the Holdberg 'ria is the first big cadence in
the tonic !ey1, you can then play the variations of only these eight bars for the whole wor!B 5his
means the next section will be from bars - K ,2 and you will have to start from there in each
variation, with no reference to the bars that have gone before. I hope you are seeing the benefit of
this. It is always good to be able to start from different places in your piece, and not always from
obvious places li!e phrase beginnings. 0Remember the game Pin 5he 5ail 9n 5he Don!ey& 4lose
your eyes, place your index finger anywhere on the page and start from there, even if it half way
through a bar.1