File:Piano teaching - its principles and problems (1910) (14592960868).jpg

Identifier: pianoteachingits00hami (find matches)
Title: Piano teaching : its principles and problems
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Hamilton, Clarence G. (Clarence Grant), 1865-1935
Subjects: Piano
Publisher: Boston : O. Ditson

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Text Appearing Before Image:
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof;
The world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods." etc.

The balancing towers of the cathedral (page 112) furnish an
instance of the architect's employment of the same device,
while the conventional Madonna's of the Italian painters dis-
play details which, though varied on either side of the picture,
yet bear the same relation to each other as the two balancing
musical phrases. Note, for example, the perfect equipoise in
Raphaels Madonna di Foligno shown on the opposite page.
Now for the practical application of this principle. Taking
the theme of the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 26,
we find that it is divisible into phrases that are

Structural char-
acter of balancing
phrase-waves

respectively 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2, 6, 4, 4 measures in
length. The pupil should, therefore, render these
phrases in such a manner that those which balance each other
are played with similar expression, with their climaxes at simi-
lar points and their endings of like character, as is the case

PIANO TEACHING 107

Text Appearing After Image:
RAPHAEL, Madonna di Foligno. — PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE.


with groups 1 and 3, and groups 2 and 4. The ultimate result
will be a series of phrase-waves, which, like the waves of the
ocean dashing upon the shore, roll in till they break upon their
climax-notes, and then are swept aside by the next comers;
while the simile is continued by the fact that groups of long
phrase-waves are often succeeded by groups of short ones, and
these by an unusually long swell, as in the example just

108 PIANO TEACHING

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