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I read the Gieseking book. It is fascinating. Gieseking seemed very self absorbed and pompous. He bragged in the book that he insisted his students memorize their pieces before they even started playing them on the piano. They would do this by memorizing the music measure by measure by deeply understanding the differences between each measure. I don't think I could ever do that.

]Very few pianists, even very advanced ones, can. Another extreme outlier technique not appropriate or useful for 99+% of pianists. While it may have been useful/possible for Gieseking, that doesn't mean it makes sense for others.

Fredric Chiu gives seminars for groups of extremely advanced young concert pianists. He did have them(I don't remember why) try to memorize the first half of a Scarlatti Sonata and perform it the next day. Most/all of them were not successful and these were young pianists who had won competitions and had performing careers.

I do it regularly with passages (several measures at a time), but have not done an entire piece. On a small scale like that, it's more accessible for us mere mortals (as opposed to Gieseking), and it's great practice and training.

And, I also do it to test and reinforce memory.

Especially recommended to write only the accompaniment (in polyphony -
counterpoint) - there are hidden major memory problems.

Why do you say so?
My time to sit at the piano and practice is limited, but during my commute time, I thought I can do this exercise, for very short and simple pieces to start with. Over time, I thought I would be able to expand this approach towards learning larger pieces. Am I wrong?

Great post!!!

It is extremely helpful. I've never done it with an entire piece or anything close to that, but I've done it for passages on which I was having trouble feeling confident about the memory, especially passages that somehow felt confusing.

What I've done more often, and which is similar, is to imagine in my mind's eye exactly what's in the score and to make sure I know exactly. This is a very interesting process to me because of how it's a mixture of imaginary visualization and just imagining the details but without visualization per se. Like, to some extent it's getting a picture in my mind of what a measure or phrase actually looks like in the score, but more so, it's not necessarily having a mental picture but just knowing, "It's such-and-such notes of such-and-such lengths, and the marked dynamic is forte (or whatever), and in the other hand we have....." I find myself going back and forth between those 2 things, not by intent by just according to whichever feels easier for each place in the piece.

I would add that the purpose isn't just "to test your memory." It's also to help reinforce it, to help "cement" it. There are various ways that we can reinforce and cement the memory, and to me this can be a very valuable additional one.

P.S. After typing this, I realized that I got some of the 'inspiration' about this, although not exactly the specifics, from a brief conversation that I had, years ago, at an amateur competition with a fellow competitor (and very gifted writer) named Peter Schlueer, who talked about how he thinks "mental practice" is underrated. He also mentioned another thing about memorization which I immediately absorbed and which has become a major part of how I approach learning and playing a piece. (In fact.....I don't think I've ever told him, and I certainly haven't thanked him enough, so I'll look for a way to send him this thread.)

He talked about how being able to play by ear is a valuable asset for playing by memory, which is a good point in itself; but he then went on to say this thing which, to me, vaulted it into a higher realm: ".....and eventually it becomes the memory."

Wow!
This is huge.
If you can play by ear, even just 'sort of'; and if you simply know 'how the piece goes' and how you want it to sound, you don't any longer exactly need to remember all the notes or all the markings or whatever. You play what you have in your head and heart and soul, based on what you've gotten into your head and heart and soul from having studied and learned the piece.
Well, I don't "play by ear" nearly well enough to do this fully, but, even if you just 'sort of' can do it, it's enormously helpful, and not just for memory but for everything about making the music. It enables you to not worry very much about the memory, because you know that even if you were to get stuck, as long as you know "how the music goes" you can always give at least some good semblance of it. I don't mean it's OK to just be approximate; I mean that this relieves some of the worst fear and anxiety about memory. Plus, of course, it helps toward the basic goal of "making music" as opposed to just playing notes.

In an amateur competition a few years later, I was 'saved' by this. I made the finals, completely unexpectedly, having not practiced my finals piece for quite some time, and, because of some mix-ups by the event as well as on my own part, I didn't even have a chance to go through the piece on the day of the finals. What enabled me to do all right (more or less) was, I said to myself, "you know how it goes, just play it the way you like hearing it." It wasn't great (need I say) but this ability kept me from being nervous in the least, it "went well," and I was able even to be having a good time up there (in large part because of bemusement over the fact that this approach was actually working), which is tough in a competition even when you're well prepared.

Now, to try to find a way to send this to Peter....

This always seems to be the "helpful" suggestion of someone like a saxophone-playing theory teacher to pianists. 😀

[It seems Bronfman must do something like it, because he apparently also knows all the measure numbers for things he plays, and can play either left or right hand separately or together for any given measure in a piece. I don't see how he could do that without knowing the piece well enough to write it out.

I once heard Marc Andre Hamelin tout it as the "gold standard" for knowing that you thoroughly know a piece. On the other hand, I don't remember that he said he actually did it.

I also vaguely remember Hélène Grimaud talking about doing the mental version of it, and saying something to the effect that it was huge revelation it was when she first tried it, because it showed her that she had numerous weak spots in a piece she thought she knew quite well.

It seems Bronfman must do something like it, because he apparently also knows all the measure numbers for things he plays, and can play either left or right hand separately or together for any given measure in a piece. I don't see how he could do that without knowing the piece well enough to write it out.

I once heard Marc Andre Hamelin tout it as the "gold standard" for knowing that you thoroughly know a piece. On the other hand, I don't remember that he said he actually did it.

I also vaguely remember Hélène Grimaud talking about doing the mental version of it, and saying something to the effect that it was huge revelation it was when she first tried it, because it showed her that she had numerous weak spots in a piece she thought she knew quite well.

It seems Bronfman must do something like it, because he apparently also knows all the measure numbers for things he plays, and can play either left or right hand separately or together for any given measure in a piece. I don't see how he could do that without knowing the piece well enough to write it out.

He can do that if he has 'photographic memory', without ever having to write out a single note.

]What's good/appropriate for pianists at the level of those three is probably not good at all for more than 99% of the rest of the population.