Piano Video Discussion Group #1: Martha Argerich's Scarlatti

YouTube has an amazing wealth of piano videos. It occurred to me to create a thread where I post some of them and we start talking about how these wizards are doing what they are doing. To get the ball rolling, check this out: It's Martha Argerich playing the Scarlatti Toccata in D minor, K.141. The first thing that strikes me is the tremendous vivacity and elan of her performance. It's witty, her fingers fly like the wind - she simultaneously charms and amazes you. The next thing that strikes me is her pronounced metacarpal-phalangeal arch - it is really obvious that the strength of her tremendous agility is reflected in her really wise use of her innate hand structure. The other remarkable aspect of her physical relation to the piano is the large muscular bulk of her forearm. Running up from her wrist to her elbow, it widens out much as a cobra's body widens as it approaches its head. And baby, believe me, that ain't fat, it's pure muscle! I remember my teacher, Laurie Milkman had similar forearms - they obviously developed to meet the task at hand... Somehow this confirms a suspicion I have always had about cautionary words one hears, advising one to minimize the use of the superficial and deep flexors, to curve rather than curl, to use gravity as the main source of energy, etc. - all the things you need to do to avoid injury. Somehow when you look at this video, it is plain to see that something else altogether is going on here! Her fingers fly, and it's her muscles that are moving them! She doesn't have to worry about hurting herself because her pianistic machine WORKS AS IT SHOULD, at top capacity. It's like a car - when it is well-tuned, it doesn't break but runs well. All parts function as they should, and no parts grind against any others. No parts fail to do their part of the job, thus no other parts are over-stressed. And her actual muscular strength plays a big part in that. Yes, she uses her structure well, and yes, doubtless she is suitably relaxed - but that's not the end of it! Any thoughts on this? For or against? AFF

In your post you mentioned that muscular strength was a big part of Argerich's technique and I was wondering if you could elaborate more on her use of muscular strength at the piano. To many people this idea of muscular strength sounds contradictory to the idea of skeletality as the most important part of piano technique, but in the case of Argerich sheer muscular strength is working positively. Is muscular strength something we should be aiming for along with skeletality? pp16

hmmmm... You really know how to ask a provocative question! Obviously we need muscular strength. The thing is, how to go about getting it? If I say, 'Yes, we should be cultivating muscular strength as well as skeletality,' it opens up nightmare scenes of people doing body-building-type exercises and creating a whole mess in their technique. That's definitely not what I want. But when I do a "skeletal" exercise well, I will often feel that certain muscles are working more than they are used to. I find I am developing a sense of overall strength in my hand and arm, . I believe this is a realistic and attainable goal, and much of my work is oriented towards achieving it. My goal is to be so well-organized skeletally that I could, for instance, vigorously flex my distal and medial phalanges for an 'out-the-back-door' movement the fear of hurting myself. Or to be able to 'shake the piano' as I show in the film, again without fear of damage! I guess I could say that this is the context of my entire film: it aims to empower the pianist in developing muscular strength effective body organization. For a certain period I went to the gym and worked out on the Nautilus machines. That was interesting! I would set the weights at 1/10th or 1/5th the normal amount, and use the weight-lifting to get a real, tangible sense of which muscles were working. Those machines are great at isolating the work of certain muscle groups. I devised a way of . I tried to cultivate and sense a functional cooperation between bones and muscles. Isolation can be a very bad thing: we aim for integration of all the body into every movement. Thus when a Feldenkrais practitioner sees people warming up at a gym class and they are moving their head in circles, this to us is stupid. But as an educative practice that will eventually be integrated into whole-body function, isolation of the work of certain muscles can be very informative. So yes, do aim for muscular strength. But aim for it . Kind regards, AFF

Bit of another question, which fingersetting is she using on that fast notes? I can't see it clearly...

I didn't notice. On the repeated notes I use 3 2 1 3 2 1 in each bar... It seems to work nicely.

At the speed that Martha Argerich plays the notes i find 321321 so difficult for me. On the other hand wouldn't 432132,432132 be a bit better for a tempo like that?I find that i can play repeated notes like these much faster if i use 432132 than 321321. I am confused!

How do you move from the note F down to the adjacent E when you finish the group of 6 notes on your 2nd finger and have to start the next group on your 4th? I find that finishing each group on my thumb allows me to get to the first note of the next group with maximum agility, no matter whether the note is higher or lower. However it might indeed be possible to play non-legato with your fingering and navigate lower or higher as is needed. To each his own! Any OTHER fingering suggestions for this one? AFF

Not directly connected to the discussion of Martha's excellent performance but searching on youtube i found this : it is the same sonata of scarlatti performed on harpsicord by Aline d'Ambricourt . It is interesting to watch that repeated notes she plays are played with the same finger and sometimes with a birdbeak technique by connecting the thumb to the other fingers. Maybe in harpsicords it is not possible to use piano techniques like the use of different finger on each repeated note? I haven't ever played the harpsicord but would like to know your opinion regarding this performance.

Somehow her hand, although at times it does show some use of the metacarpal-phalangeal as a sort of support or keystone, more often is just slightly flat. And funnily enough, so is the music. It goes along metronomically but actually begins to tire the ear quite soon. In other words, I see a direct link between the lack of a really potent arch in her hand and the lack of real musical flexibility... As for repeating the notes with a bird beak: FASCINATING idea and one I never would have thought of. But of course it limits her speed and agility... Thanks for showing us this! AFF

Bird beak repetitions My late teacher Steven De Groote played the repeated notes in Ravel's Scarbo all with the 2nd finger. He just kind of vibrated. I still don't know exactly how he did it. Obviously, he kept the finger really, really close and only allowed the key to rise enough to allow the jack back under the key action knuckle. He didn't release the key all the way. There were some interesting advantages to his approach. Not only could he do it very, very fast, but he could play the repetitions very softly, and above all there were no undesirable accents which are such an easy consequence of grouping in 321321 or 43214321. Well, Argerich doesn't have that problem after all, but she's an animal and hearing or seeing her play is, frankly, erotic isn't it?