But in
our day it has become the practice to begin at the end. We learn the
elements of the fugue from Sebastian Bach's _Wohltemperirte Klavier_,
the piano from the works of Schumann and Liszt, and harmony and
instrumentation from Richard Wagner. All too often we waste our efforts,
just as singers who learn roles and rush on the stage before they know
how to sing ruin their voices in a short time.
Firmness of the fingers is not the only thing that one learns from
Kalkbrenner's method, for there is also a refinement of the quality of
the sound made by the fingers alone, a valuable resource which is
unusual in our day.
Unfortunately, this school invented as well continuous _legato_, which
is both false and monotonous; the abuse of nuances, and a mania for
continual _expressio_ used with no discrimination. All this was opposed
to my natural feelings, and I was unable to conform to it. They
reproached me by saying that I would never get a really fine effect--to
which I was entirely indifferent.
When I was ten, my teacher decided that I was sufficiently prepared to
give a concert in the Salle Pleyel, so I played there, accompanied by an
Italian orchestra, with Tilmant as the conductor. I gave Beethoven's
_Concerto in C minor_ and one of Mozart's concertos in B flat.
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