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THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF
PIANOFORTE PLAYING
BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE AUTHOR’S
“THE ACT OF TOUCH”
DESIGNED FOR SCHOOL USE, AND INCLUDING
TWO NEW CHAPTERS
DIRECTIONS FOR LEARNERS
AND
ADVICE TO TEACHERS
BY
TOBIAS MATTHAY
Copyright © 2017 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Tobias Matthay
Tobias Augustus Matthay was born on 19th February 1858, in Clapham, Surrey, England. He was an English pianist, teacher and composer.
Matthay’s parents originally came from northern Germany and eventually became naturalised British subjects. He studied composition at the ‘Royal Academy of Music’ (London) under Sir William Sterndale Bennett and Arthur Sullivan, and piano with William Dorrell and Walter Macfarren. Matthay served as a sub-professor there from 1876 to 1880, and became an assistant professor of pianoforte in 1880, before being promoted to professor in 1884.
Alongside Frederick Corder and John Blackwood McEwen (both composers and music teachers), he founded the Society of British Composers in 1905. This organisation was established with the aim of protecting the interests of British composers and to provide publication, promotion and performance opportunities. It was disbanded thirteen years later, in 1918. Matthay remained at the Royal Academy of Music until 1925, when he was forced to resign because McEwen – his former student who was then the Academy's Principal – publicly attacked his teaching.
In 1903, after over a decade of observation, analysis, and experimentation, Matthay published The Act of Touch, an encyclopaedic volume that influenced piano pedagogy throughout the English-speaking world. So many students were soon in quest of his insights that two years later he opened the Tobias Matthay Pianoforte School, first in Oxford Street, then in 1909 relocating to Wimpole Street, where it remained for the next thirty years. He soon became known for his teaching principles that stressed proper piano touch and analysis of arm movements. He wrote several additional books on piano technique that brought him international recognition, and in 1912 he published Musical Interpretation, a widely read book that analyzed the principles of effective musicianship.
Many of Matthay's pupils went on to define a school of twentieth century English pianism, including York Bowen, Myra Hess, Clifford Curzon, Moura Lympany, Eunice Norton, Lytle Powell, Irene Scharrer, Lilias Mackinnon, Guy Jonson, Vivian Langrish and Harriet Cohen. He was also the teacher of Canadian pianist Harry Dean, English composer Arnold Bax and English conductor Ernest Read.
In his private life, Matthay married Jessie (née Kennedy) in 1893, the sister of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (the Scottish singer, composer and arranger). She sadly died in 1937.
Tobias Matthay died at his country home, High Marley, near Haslemere, on 15th December 1945. He was eighty-seven years old.
PREFACE.
THIS little work is issued to render the teachings of “The Act of Touch” better available for the School-room and Classroom, and as a Text-book for Examinations. It is intended as an Introduction to the subject.
The supreme importance of early training in this subject—the mechanism of playing—need not be further dilated upon here, since it has been proved that Agility itself, and all those contrasts of Tone and Duration which enable us musically to express ourselves through the Pianoforte, depend immediately on the proper fulfilment of the laws of Touch, the polemics of which have been amply dealt with in “The Act of Touch.”
This “Introduction” consists of the promised “Extract” from the original work, from which I have drawn the Preface and a selection from its Recapitulatories and Summaries. To these selections I have added two new and important Chapters: “Advice to Teachers and Self-teachers,” and “Directions and Definitions for Learners.” This last Chapter roughly covers the whole ground. It is intended for those beginning the study of Touch, and I have endeavoured to couch it in language simple enough to fit it even for children.
Its study—accompanied by constant experiment at the keyboard—should be followed by the perusal of the “Extract”; taking this in the following order: (1) the final Summary and Conclusion; (2) the Summaries of the four Parts; and (3) the Recapitulatories of the Chapters of each of these Parts.
Constant reference to the “Directions for Learners” should accompany subsequent Practice.
Students sufficiently earnest and intelligent to desire more detailed information should follow this, by study of the “Advice to Teachers,” and of “The Act of Touch” itself; first referring to the “Contents” of its Chapters, and finally to the text of these.
The flattering reception accorded to the parent work leads me to hope that this, its offspring, may prove even more directly helpful alike to Teacher and Pupil. The promised extra Part, “Relaxation—Exercises in Muscular-discrimination,” is also in preparation.
The second Edition is a reprint of the first, except that some slight misprints have been corrected, and some additions made to pages 1, 126, 129, etc.
TOBIAS MATTHAY.
HAMPSTEAD, LONDON.
CONTENTS
DIRECTIONS AND DEFINITIONS FOR LEARNERS
SUMMARY —REMINDER OF MAIN POINTS
EXTRACT FROM “THE ACT OF TOUCH.” *
Summary of Part I:“The Act of Playing”
