Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: cottonbro studio
Beethoven's hands were not especially big and Schuman invented a hand-stretching device because he felt his hands were too small. The result was broken fingers and several painful months in recovery.
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Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.
Learn More »For pianists and admirers of famous piano players, the question often arises about hand size and shape. Rachmaninov, for example, is supposed to have had enormous hands that could stretch a comfortable (for him), 12th (ie: C to the G an octave above), and include the E flat in between. Even for large hands, this is an incredible span to cover, coming in at roughly 12 inches, but then Rachmaninov was around six feet, six inches tall, so perhaps it is not so surprising that his hands were so large. By contrast, the pianist and songwriter Sir Elton John can only just stretch an octave, making how he plays the instrument quite characteristic. Concert pianist Daniel Barenboim, famous for numerous excellent recordings both as pianist and conductor has a span of a 9th which is for the most part perfectly fine but quite small when compared to Rachmaninov. Beethoven’s hands were not especially big and Schuman invented a hand-stretching device because he felt his hands were too small. The result was broken fingers and several painful months in recovery.
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Read More »When you consider this further, it means Liszt’s fingertips would have had a large surface area in contact with the piano keys that would be a significant advantage as a pianist. It would probably have given Liszt a great deal of dynamic control that combined with the strength of his fingers, excellent articulatory delivery of every note. Those who were privileged to hear Liszt play commented amongst other things, that his accuracy even at extreme speeds was superb with every note being heard. Chopin’s hands, although quite different in shape to Liszt’s also had a flexibility that is not common to many pianists. According to some sources, Chopin’s entire body was incredibly flexible. Comments were made during Chopin’s lifetime regarding the ability of his hands to ‘expand’ to encompass huge spans of the piano with little effort. Similar to Liszt, it appears that the physical construction of these pianist’s hands is the key not only to their style of compositions but how they were able to play in the way they did. There also appears to be a certain muscularity in the appearance of Liszt’s hands that whilst not entirely unexpected, is not always the case with the hands of other pianists. The natural shape of Liszt’s hands together with his life-long belief that he was not a brilliant pianist meant that he would practice four to five hours every day to improve his technique and command of the piano. It is not surprising then that his hands give a gentle impression of strength as well as dexterity. Today Liszt’s music is widely performed and he is rightly celebrated as a virtuoso pianist and innovative composer whose compositions number around seven-hundred. Like many gifted pianists, Liszt worked throughout his life to extend and enhance his natural facility with the piano. It is also important to recognize the contribution his hand structure made to his ability to reach the dizzy heights that he climbed to.
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Read More »Pianists across the world aspire to learn and perform Liszt’s music, sometimes purely for the display of virtuosity, sometimes for the ingenuity and mastery of musical form; perhaps both. Liszt’s work presents a substantial challenge for any pianist if they are aiming to play the way the composer would have and do justice to his music. Liszt’s hands were as unique as the man himself. Maybe we should as pianists, not be too hard on ourselves if we find playing Liszt’s compositions a herculean challenge as I suspect not many of us have hands like him, making the task of playing these pieces a touch more difficult. Nevertheless, Liszt has left us with a rich and diverse catalog of beautiful music that we can enjoy even if we do not aspire to be a virtuoso pianist.
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