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I'm playing Transcendental Etude No. 2, A minor, and there's that really rocky octave arpeggio. I've cropped and shopped these two pictures together to illustrate the measure, and how I feel about it:


Now, every time the figure appears, it's possible to play the second to last note with the thumb left hand instead of 5 in the right hand. It makes it smoother, easier, and all around it sounds better, but I'm under the impression that all the fingerings are the composer's own and he obviously had a reason for asking that the whole figure be played with the right hand. I watched Berezovsky's and Sgouros' performances on youtube and as far as I can tell it looks like they both snuck a thumb in there where it "shouldn't" go. What's your opinion?

It's an etude. There's a certain aspect of technique to be mastered. What's the point of the etude, if you don't do it?

Absolutely do whatever works! You could even play the higher A with LH 1, and the lower A with LH 5 if you want.

Yes, it's an Etude, but is it an etude in fingering or in musical production? I would opt - yes, even for an Etude where the composer has given the fingering - for what produces the best musical result. Surely there's enough other material that the Etude focuses on to give you the training or workout that Liszt required. All hands are not created equal.

Regards,

If it were an etude in fingering, I think the proper fingering of the right hand octaves would be 1 5 1 5 1-5 1-5 1, which involves switching fingers on the descending notes.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Seems to me that particular fingering at that particular moment may very well be about both.

Liszt's fingering does work. And if you cheat on it, you are just cheating yourself out of learning something from one of the more important piano virtuosos in history. But, of course, if you don't care about such things, go right ahead and cheat.

But certainly the 1-5 1-5 you suggest would not be practical at the tempo Liszt requires.

I have worked on the etude, and I feel Liszt's fingerings make the most sense. For all that it is not the most difficult passage in that killer etude.

You don't think so? What would you say is? I feel like it really lets up after the first two pages.

Ignore the title Etude. Using your own fingering is not cheating, it's doing what you are supposed to do. People give the editor or composer's fingering a try, but at the end of the day, what Liszt did with that fingering and what you do are going to be different anyway.

No

Considering it's an etude and the composer provided fingerings, yes it actually is.

Use whatever fingering you like as long as it gets the required effect.

IMO, the effect Liszt wanted depends on using the fingering given, which, of course, is exactly why it is written that way. To me, it is unlikely that he conceived of that figure without the fingering being an intrinsic part of how to get it to sound the way it should sound. Maybe I'm being too literal-minded about it, but it just seems blindingly apparent to me that using the given fingering is the only way to really get the sound Liszt had in mind. There's a certain fire and edginess that gets lost if you change the fingering.

And of course, you've also lost the opportunity to learn something about the physical aspect of playing the piano, as well. I just don't understand why anyone would want to learn an etude, while at the same time trying to subvert one of the reasons for the piece's existence. That's just kind of bizarre, to my way of thinking. There are certain circumstances in which I can understand doing some workarounds as expedient for concert performance, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.

It sounds like you view etudes as fundamentally different from other pieces of music, at least as far as their reasons for existence. I think that's a fine viewpoint-- but I don't share it.

Of course, etudes tend to be difficult, and tend to focus on a particular technical challenge. But that's true of many other pieces too. I approach etudes the same as I approach anything else, as far as what motivates me to learn one, how I deal with technical and musical challenges, what liberties I allow myself to take, etc.

I'm working on Chopin's op.25/1 and his first scherzo right now. Both are fiendishly difficult, beautiful pieces. I've learned a tremendous amount from trying to play them at speed while still being true to their musical essence. Am I being less true to the etude, compared to the scherzo, if I don't follow a composer's fingering, or even redistribute the hands occasionally? I don't think so. I see them as the same kind of thing-- pieces of music.

My teacher says "I don't care if you play it with your nose-- I just care about making it musical." This doesn't mean that she doesn't care about technique and fingering. It means that it's such an incredibly difficult task to be true to the musical essence of a piece, that all these things should just be tools to that end. With this approach, every piece of music is an etude.

-J

To me, that is not the issue. It's more about the composer of the etude giving the pianist something worthwhile they can learn, and if the pianist doesn't take advantage of it by following the instructions, they've missed out on something valuable that is there for the taking.

I do see etudes as a special category of composition. If they weren't, why would they have that special title? It's not just poetic whimsy. They are, in essence, teaching pieces, in a way that other music isn't.

Which is not to say that other music can't be used as teaching material, but that the etude is designed specifically with that in mind, and it usually will contain a "lesson" (or several) to be learned. This doesn't mean that the etude can't function beautifully on a musical level as well - many do - but, again, that isn't the point, I don't think.

To me, the point is that, in an etude, the composer is giving a gift. The gift is in the form of sharing some very particular pianistic and/or musical knowledge they have. The pianist really does have to work on playing it exactly as written, difficult fingerings and all, in order to receive what is being offered.

In the Liszt example, he is teaching the pianist a certain possibility regarding rapidly shifting the hand in a certain kind of musical situation. He is saying, "I want to share with you this amazing thing I've discovered that may look crazy, but you can do it." I don't understand why any serious pianist would want to turn down the opportunity to learn something about playing the piano that comes directly from Liszt, and that is exactly what happens if the fingering and distribution is changed.

As I said earlier, I think that there may be performance situations in which a pianist really does have a legitimate need to cheat (to avoid fatigue in a long program, for example), but I think that should be the exception, and should never be done as the first approach to an etude.

You seem to be making the assumption that I don't think that Liszt, the teacher, would make: that all hands are the same size and and shape, and that all should function at the piano in the same manner. You also seem to be going against the wisdom of many respected editors and performers who do give/use alternate fingerings to what might be "original."

In Liszt's Etude de concert, "Un sospiro," measures 13 through 18 are clearly marked in both my editions to play the broken octave melody with alternating hands. Yet, Earl Wild, a noted "Lisztian," plays the melody with the right hand throughout these measures. Is he playing it "wrong"? Is he not "learning something" coming directly from Liszt that he should be?

How do we know that the fingering in question in the OP's post is Liszt's fingering? I have an Urtext edition (Henle) of the Chopin Etudes with fingerings given by Hermann Keller. Those fingerings differ considerably from those given by Cortot in his edition of the Chopin Etudes. Are you saying that, since these are obviously not Chopin's fingerings that these are not valid?

I fail to see how the changing of a fingering pattern in a few places in a complex work is contrary to what the Etude is "teaching," unless one is so literal-minded that one believes that only one fingering in an Etude will work and must be adhered to from start to finish. What do you suggest when the composer does not give fingering? i.e. Debussy? Why would devising one's own practical fingering where it is not given by the composer by any different than changing what the composer - or maybe an editor - has suggested, if doing so produces the musical results one is aiming for?

Regards,

If a pianist physically cannot manage some aspect of an etude as written, I think they are just flat out of luck, in terms of getting the etude value from whatever it may be. Sure, one can play the piece anyway with cheating, for the musical value that may be found in it, but that removes something from the piece that the composer put into it.

Editors love to mess with the work of others, it's what they do (and earn money from doing). If an editor gives an alternate to what a composer wrote, then the pianist can judge for themselves the value of it relative what the composer provided. Personally, I think little of that practice - it encourages a kind of second-guessing of the composer that I find of questionable value. Which applies to Earl Wild as well as anyone else. The purpose of etudes isn't to learn how to be dodgy, even if that can be a useful thing to know.

Isn't part the lesson in the Debussy etudes to work out one's own fingerings? That doesn't contradict anything I said. He's the composer, and that's his purpose.

My point remains that if the composer does in fact provide a fingering in an etude, then it should be seen as part of what the etude is teaching. Clearly, if no fingering is provided, an editor's suggestion may be valid. Liszt provided the fingering in the OP - it's in the "unedited" first edition.

Although it's an etude, it's not a mere finger exercise; it's also for concert performance, and I don't feel that the purpose of the whole etude is to execute every note with Liszt's fingering. He probably put it there as a suggestion. Each person's hand is different - what works for one person doesn't work as well for another. I would rather hear this performed smoothly with whatever fingering works well for the performer rather than poorly executed with Liszt's suggested fingerings.

Since he didn't provide fingering for most of the etude, it isn't even possible to "execute every note with Liszt's fingering".


A rather convenient and unsubstantiated assumption.

Hey, I know, maybe the tempo is just a suggestion, too, and if it's easier to play as an adagio, then it's just fine for me to play it that way. Right? Or maybe that whole figure is, you know, just this weird idea that Liszt put in as a suggestion...maybe it's okay to just leave it out if it bugs me.


Then again, maybe Liszt had something particular in mind that he thought did apply to pretty much everyone. Of course, if you have the hand the size of an infant, and it is nearly paralyzed with arthritis, and your wrist is in a cast because of RSI... But then, maybe this etude isn't for you if you can't physically do what is asked.



Did anyone say it should be poorly executed with Liszt fingering? I don't think that's the idea...

I'm actually a bit amazed at the effort people are putting into attempting to rationalize away what is right there on the page, as if Liszt didn't know enough about what he was doing to have thought it through. We know he had been gestating and refining these etudes in his mind for years, since he'd already published earlier versions. So, unlike some of his music, it's not likely that anything in them is casual.

For the record, I'm learning it with Liszt's fingerings, but once I'm able to do that at a performance tempo, I'll probably switch to the easier route for performances. Same powerful effect, but much less dangerous. So I'll get what Liszt wanted me to learn from it, and then perform it in a manner that allows for the easiest execution of the best interpretation I can imagine.