Solomon

On Mondays I often visit the National Sound Archive at the British Library in London. It's a great resource for pianophiles! You can listen to such an array of great performances from the past. Also you can consult books from their archive of literally millions of books. I had a look at Solo, a Biography of Solomon Cutner, perhaps the greatest British pianist of the 20th century. Solomon's first teacher was a pupil of Clara Schumann, and his next teacher a pupil of Leschetizky. Solomon wrote:
In teaching technic, I avoid excessively high finger action. Some teachers make so much of the up-motion: I make more of the down. The first aim is to teach a pure legato. Many think they are playing legato when they are not. And no doubt the effort to lift the fingers high is the cause of much of the strain that prevents a pure legato... (p151, Solo, by Bryan Crimp).
And what a peerless pearly legato his playing has!

Another matchless legato I admired this week is a rare recording from the BBC archive of Dinu Lipatti playing Liszt's La Leggierezza. Wow! It reminds me of Mozart's dictum: 'the notes should flow like oil'...