I love researching piano music at London's British Library!
There is a really good atmosphere among the researchers of all ages, plus the cafe does the most enormous pear and chocolate muffins!
I was curious to learn more about the Russian pedagogue Safonoff - I remember one of my teachers Yonty Solomon mentioning him. Here's a helpful quote from a 1915 book of his.
"A chord must never be be prepared in a stiff position, for then the sound becomes hard and wooden. The chord must, so to speak, be hidden in the closed hand, which opens, in falling from above for the necessary position, just at the moment of striking the keyboard. This means that the chord must be ready in the thought of the player before the hand opens. This was the secret of the incomparable beauty of sound in the chords of Anton Rubinstein whose playing the author of this book had the good fortune to watch closely for many years."
p 27 Vasily Safonoff
New Formula for the Piano Teacher and Piano Student
pub Chester , London 1915
There is a really good atmosphere among the researchers of all ages, plus the cafe does the most enormous pear and chocolate muffins!
I was curious to learn more about the Russian pedagogue Safonoff - I remember one of my teachers Yonty Solomon mentioning him. Here's a helpful quote from a 1915 book of his.
"A chord must never be be prepared in a stiff position, for then the sound becomes hard and wooden. The chord must, so to speak, be hidden in the closed hand, which opens, in falling from above for the necessary position, just at the moment of striking the keyboard. This means that the chord must be ready in the thought of the player before the hand opens. This was the secret of the incomparable beauty of sound in the chords of Anton Rubinstein whose playing the author of this book had the good fortune to watch closely for many years."
p 27 Vasily Safonoff
New Formula for the Piano Teacher and Piano Student
pub Chester , London 1915
