Piano school
A piano school is a textbook for piano lessons. The word has existed at least since Georg Simon Löhlein's piano school from 1765 and Daniel Gottlob Türk's piano school, or instructions on how to play the piano for teachers and students from 1789.
Music schools that concentrate on giving piano lessons only call themselves “piano schools” in individual cases; specific pianistic traditions are called “schools” of piano playing (such as “older school”, “ Leschetizky school” or “French school”), but not as “piano schools”. Collections of etudes such as Czerny's School of Fluency Op. 299 or collections of technical exercises such as Moszkowski's School of Double Fingering Op. 64 are not classed as “piano schools ” in the true sense.
history
Tomás de Santa María is a pioneer among the authors of textbooks for keyboard instruments with his publication Libro llamado arte de tañer fantasía (1565), which is primarily aimed at clavichord players and deals in particular with improvising fugal pieces; In addition to general music theory and music theory, playing technique is also discussed.
In the second half of the 18th century, a number of important textbooks were published that spoke of the clavichord, the harpsichord and, increasingly, the fortepiano : starting with Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's attempt on the true way of playing the piano (1753 and 1762) through to to Daniel Gottlob Türks already mentioned piano school (1789 and 1802). These textbooks are extensive and text-heavy; they regard the keyboard instrument as a representative of music in general. Technical parts deal with the "finger placement", musical parts with the "manners" ( decorations ), the "presentation" (especially clarity and expression) and the figured bass playing .
The two hundred years that followed were a long heyday of the piano school. In the first half of the 19th century, technical formulas moved more and more into the foreground, in the second half a schooling of the material follows on a lower level. The first half of the 20th century saw the rise and fall of reform pedagogy, the second half ties in with reform pedagogical efforts, whereby the visual design is becoming more and more important. For the German-speaking area, four piano schools are mentioned as examples:
- Johann Nepomuk Hummel : detailed theoretical and practical instruction on piano forte playing from the first elementary lessons to the most complete training , Vienna 1828;
- Theodor Leberecht Steingräber alias Gustav Damm: piano school and melody treasure for the young. Practically proven instructions for thorough learning to play the piano with more than 140 melodic pieces of music for two and four hands and many quick technical exercises , Leipzig 1868;
- Frieda Loebenstein : The first piano lesson. A course to develop the musical in early piano lessons , Berlin-Lichterfelde 1927, Edition A for teachers , Edition B: music book for students . 2nd edition 1928;
- Peter Heilbut : Enjoy playing the piano. School for children from primary and early education courses , Kassel 1977.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the innovative piano schools by Klaus Runze (1971 and 1973) and Harald Bojé (1982 and 1984) appeared.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present. Part 5, Bärenreiter, Kassel 1996, ISBN 3-7618-1106-3 . Article “Piano playing”, column 435.
- ↑ Jutta Schwarting, Heino Schwarting: Piano. In: Christoph Richter (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Musikpädagogik. Vol. 3, Bärenreiter, Kassel 1994, ISBN 3-7618-1083-0 . Section “Piano Schools”, p. 319.
- ^ Stanley Sadie (ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 16, Macmillan, London 1989, ISBN 0-333-23111-2 . Article "Santa María, Tomás de", p. 477: "Chapters 13–19 [of Part ii] constitute the earliest detailed treatment of keyboard technique, including hand position, touch, articulation, fingering [...]"