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1) There are a lot of things in anyone's technique that are invisible. Horowitz' fingers often look flat, but that doesn't mean he fails to maintain an arch or bridge. You may not be able to see it.

2) Horowitz performed on his own Steinway D almost exclusively, and it had a feather light action.

3) Horowitz didn't always play with flat fingers. Look at some of his vids playing Scarlatti.

So is he cheating ?

lol no, like Pheblas said, horowitz often performed on his own steinway&sons, it's a bit of a stretch calling it cheating.

Horowitz could play any piano in the world and be just fine. If light actions actually made people sound better, people with Casio Privias and upright pianos would be flying through Liszt rhapsodies at breakneck speed.

Romantic music is played mainly with a warmer tone, thus with the flatter part of the finger as opposed to say baroque and classical where playing the rounded tip is optimal. Naturally the fingers would appear straighter in romantic repertoire as well. Thus, the difference between Scarlatti and his romantic, late romantic technique.

I think Horowitz did what worked for Horowitz. Having a rubber wrist didn't hurt. The famous story, which is in Schonberg's biography, is that one of his students (I forget which) asked him how he practiced his octaves, and he answered that he did so slowly, dropping his hand from the wrist - the same as everybody else.

Glenn Gould is another example of a pianist with a wildly unorthodox technique who nevertheless was able to do just about anything at the piano.

Lang Lang's another example; I remember when I saw him for the first time I was sure his arms were going to fall off before the end of the performance because his motion seemed so jerky.

I don't think pianists should try to emulate these people. Personally, I think Kissin has the most fluid motion; the piano is truly an extension of the person in his case.

I'm sure that's right, but I think the extreme lightness of the action of his piano may have allowed him to play with flatter fingers, etc.

Proof positive. By all accounts, Scriabin's Bechstein was pretty run down by the time Horowitz played it during his Soviet Union tour.

Maybe so, but he did develop focal dystonia and thoracic outlet syndrome.

...and he had a lot more than that too.

Question: If we could play like Glenn Gould -- I mean really play like him -- and we knew it would lead to "focal dystonia and thoracic outlet syndrome," would we still play that way?

I think we would.

And then we'd try to get treatment for those things.

Are you saying that the supremely gifted, such as Horowitz, need to use a technique that is different than that of the average pianist? And that if the average pianist attempts to use a technique that is designed for the supremely gifted, that is when you are risking injury?


They often look close to being straight. Even Horowitz talked about how he thinks that flat fingers, where the entire ball is touching the key as opposed to just the tip, will produce a better sound. However, many pianists are in the habit of curling the fingers, instead of maintaining a natural curve. If someone thinks that a curl is a curve, then I can understand why he would perceive Horowitz' fingers as being excessively flat.


Yes, he talked about how Horowitz used low wrists and flat fingers.


How do you maintain the arch of the hand if the wrist is below the keyboard. Doesn't the arch of the hand automatically collapse when the wrist is too low?

You're taking me a bit out of context.
What I said was that Schonberg talked about how Horowitz used different physical approaches for different kinds of passages -- straight fingers for some, curled fingers for others.

I don't think that follows. I've seen lots of pics and videos of VH with his wrists low, but I can't recall seeing one where his knuckles/arch looks collapsed.

You're right; he talked about that also. Horowitz did use different approaches for different pieces, but I suppose that the most unorthodox approaches are the ones that people remember best.

I'd take the third choice: figure out a way to play that doesn't cause focal dystonia.....

Phlebas, how would you define "arch of the hand"? I understood it to mean that the wrist is level with the knuckles and slightly higher than the keyboard. Am I misunderstanding the concept?

Gould was a dreadful pianist. Very much a creature of his time.

You folks really need to read Schlutz's Riddle of the Pianist's Finger. It's a very dense book but is in reality Shultz's attempt to 'scientifically' verify Horowitz's approach.

You need to have a more open mind.
(Yes, Glenn Gould was terrible.)