Every hand is different. Often large hands or hands with wide reach are thought to be an advantage in piano playing. In general, hands are getting bigger as bodies do. That makes some big stretches in old keyboard music more accessible, and less risky. Very wide fingers are a difficulty. It may be impossible to play in between the piano's black keys -- as it was for Walter Gieseking. We know that a few players of the modern piano (Daniel … [Read more...]
One Hand
From the school's library I checked out again the copy of Messiaen's Le merle noir (The Blackbird) that I used last fall when I played the piece with Paula Robison. Since then, many markings were made in the piano part. I don't mark anything in the scores I use, but when I opened the music again there were all the things pianists write: dark circles drawn around printed dynamic markings, fingering, penciled-in lines showing correspondences … [Read more...]