Two Romantic era piano lessons are wedded beautifully together

Why not pair Mendelssohn and Chopin in a harmonious duo. Two piano lessons transmitted over the Internet were framed by the same period expression: mellifluous melodic threads against relentless rocking motions in the bass. A Boat song and Nocturne respectively swayed in TWO, requiring an examination of recurring bass line arpeggios that frequently spanned beyond…

Piano Technique: Playing Lyrical Legato Octaves

I recall my beloved teacher, Lillian Freundlich, teaching me how to play singing tone, legato octaves through a process that separated the upper fingers, 4 and 5, from the lower thumb progressions. She would not advance to the actual octave spread until voicing between upper and lower notes was separately clarified and each line was…

An adult piano student floats a Chopin Nocturne

The E minor Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 has a redundant flowing broken chord bass that becomes intensified through melodic climaxes. Still, the binary division of each measure, with some relief on the second half of each, preserves a relentless rocking motion throughout the composition. In this lesson-in-progress, an adult student who returned to the…

What “authentic” edition should a piano student use when learning repertoire of the Masters?

I'm thinking back to my ancient days studying with Lillian Freundlich in New York City. During this period, like any fledgling I relied on my teacher as an "authority" figure to recommend what Mozart Sonata edition, for example, I should buy down at Patelson's. (This was decades before the quaint hub for musicians seeking authenticity…