The Leschetizky Method: A Guide to Fine and Correct Piano Playing

by Malwine Brée

Born in Poland in 1830, Theodor Leschetizky was a pianist, teacher, and composer. Although he toured widely as both a player and conductor, and composed two operas and a number of piano pieces, it was as a teacher that he achieved his greatest renown. A pupil himself of the great Carl Czerny, Leschetizky went on to instruct an entire generation of world-class pianists, including Paderewski, Schnabel, Moiseiwitsch, Brailowsky, and many others.
In this legendary, hard-to-find book, his pupil and assistant Malwine Brée recorded the principles and techniques of the "Leschetizky Method" of piano instruction. Approved by Leschetizky himself, the clear, easy-to-follow text, profusely illustrated with music examples and photographs of hand positions (Leschetizky's own hands), covers every aspect of piano finger exercises, scales, octaves, chords, arpeggios, the glissando, embellishments, dynamics, the pedal, and many other topics. Also included here is a fascinating article, "Practical Hints on Piano Study" by Ignace J. Paderewski, along with other articles on hand and finger exercises, other piano methods, and more. Any student and teacher of piano will want to have this classic instruction manual, difficult to locate in the past, but now available in this attractive, inexpensive edition.

Genres: Music

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[N. N. Santiago · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Paul Wittgenstein became a student of Theodore Leschetizky in 1910, the master was "a Polish octogenarian erotomaniac, hailed as the smartest piano teacher of his age...His teaching method, insofar as he had one, was to insist on beautiful tone production...He liked to enter his students' minds, to explore their private and spiritual lives and to share their innermost secrets. His prettiest female pupils were subjected to excruciating conversations about sex, during which he found it difficult to keep his hands off them. [He] married four of his pupils in succession, the last (who enjoyed a brief concert career as 'Madame Leschetizky') when he was seventy-eight years old. [...]

If the master detected promise [in a prospective student], he would send the applicant for one or two years' preparatory study with one of his assistants,. The most prestigious of these was Malwine Bree...In her youth, she too had studied with Leschetizky (with whom she had fallen in love) and also with Liszt...By the time Paul first met her she was widowed and her professional life was entirely dedicated to the service of Leschetizky. She groomed his pupils assiduously in piano technique and reverence for the master, and in 1902 wrote, with his approval, a book on his pedagogical methods that that would ensure his international reputation for decades after his death." (Alexander Waugh, The House of Wittgenstein)