s efforts to climb those slippery
chromatic heights. Here is Mikuli:
[Musical score excerpt]
Kullak's is exactly the same as above. It is the so-called Chopin
fingering, as contrasted with the so-called Czerny fingering--though in
reality Clementi's, as Mr. John Kautz contends. "In the latter the
third and fifth fingers fall upon C sharp and E and F sharp and A in
the right hand, and upon C and E flat and G and B flat in the left."
Klindworth also employs the Chopin fingering. Von Bulow makes this
statement: "As the peculiar fingering adopted by Chopin for chromatic
scales in thirds appears to us to render their performance in
legatissimo utterly unattainable on our modern instruments, we have
exchanged it, where necessary, for the older method of Hummel. Two of
the greatest executive artists of modern times, Alexander Dreyschock
and Carl Tausig, were, theoretically and practically, of the same
opinion. It is to be conjectured that Chopin was influenced in his
method of fingering by the piano of his favorite makers, Pleyel and
Wolff, of Paris--who, before they adopted the double echappement,
certainly produced instruments with the most pliant touch possible--and
therefore regarded the use of the thumb in the ascending scale on two
white keys in succession--the semitones EF and BC--as practicable. On
the grand piano of the present day we regard it as irreconcilable with
conditions of crescendo legato." This Chopin fingering in reality
derives directly from Hummel. See his "Piano School."
So he gives this fingering:
[Musical score excerpt]
He also suggests the following phrasing for the left hand. This is
excellent:
[Musical score excerpt]
Riemann not only adopts new fingering for the double note scale, but
also begins the study with the trill on first and third, second and
fourth, instead of the usual first and fourth, second and fifth
fingers, adopted by the rest. This is his notion of the run in
chromatic thirds:
[Musical score excerpt]
For the rest the study must be played like the wind, or, as Kullak
says: "Apart from a few places and some accents, the Etude is to be
played almost throughout in that Chopin whisper. The right hand must
play its thirds, especially the diatonic and chromatic scales, with
such equality that no angularity of motion shall be noticeable where
the fingers pass under or over each other. The left hand, too, must
receive careful attention and special study. The chord passa
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