The Petri Photo Wiki War - in which I emege Victorious

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, and I do not wish I were a laywer. So sue me!

UPDATE: “Fair use” clarification, and appeal for reform

“Fair use” is an assertion that can be challenged in court and subject the person defending the assertion to massive legal fees. Hence, I consider it a vastly inferior tool generally. Persons who qualify for a Wikipedia entry should be strongly encouraged to provide a public domain photo of themselves, and in the case of deceased persons, their descendents and friends and colleagues should be strongly encouraged to find and secure a public domain photo. If such is not done, the image of the person will not be a matter of record, and will likely be permanently lost to future generations.

The Polish law that allowed success here was reasonable, but no longer applies. I do not consider current law reasonable in the slightest, since anyone taking a snapshot of anything (for example) has an implied right that extends 70 years past their death. Who will keep every deceased person’s belongings for 70 years so that they can be examined for hidden treasures? The answer is no-one.

Rights should terminate at death unless specifically asserted by an heir, at which point it should be recorded that they are now holding a deceased persons copyright. That fact should be discoverable and traceable so that any person can determine when a valuable item becomes public, giving them a good shot at saving it before it is lost, even when greedily coveted by an heir of the deceased. Even with all of that, there is no law that prevents the heir from destroying the item at any time, even if it is a surviving manuscript of a forgotten Mozart concerto.

Bear with me while I illustrate the consequences of these laws as vividly as I can.

In the case of an heir of an author for example, it will be common for the heir to take possession and assert rights over all works in progress, which is esentially a one-liner stating that so-and-so now “owns” the dead author’s unfinished and unpublished works. In some cases this may be entirely against the author wishes. Death can be unexpected. Depending on the author, that heir may become a person of particular interest, especially when the heir uses their right to deprive the world of the author’s works. In such a case, it is reasonable to expect that heir to be closely watched, and regarded as an enemy of the author’s admirers. The right of the general public to honor and celebrate the author’s memory by publishing the work can be easily defeated by any heir holding a grudge. In fact, it is not entirely impossible that the heir expedited the death in some way, and is truly an enemy of the deceased. Imagine if you will the ne’er-do-well offspring of the famous author (and careless parent.) I believe there is actually a motive here for the heir to do wrong, expedite the death, and either profit from or supress the author’s work.

One remedy for the (newly) successful author is to indentify persons to execute the will of the author, beyond what a normal executor would agree to. Such persons might agree to take possession and publish or destroy items, according to instructions. What to do with the rights (and profit) should be easily and clearly described: “All rights and profits from works go to my children, equally.” Or: “All rights and profits go to my dear publisher, wthout whom there would be no rights or profits at all.” Because of the outrageous copyright term, it is hard to predict the total value of any right, as any work may become “popular” and be extremely valuable during the last 50 years of the term. The reason 70 years is outrageous is this: If an author creates and profits from a brilliant work and dies 5 years later, he will have enjoyed 5 years and other persons will get the remaining 70 Only a ten-year-old brilliant author who dies at 80 will enjoy the same actual term as his heirs.

One thing I have not mentioned is that “heirs” can be replaced by “creditors” and “trusts” and other non-human abstract entities such as “media conglomerates” and “holding companies.” That is the fact that predicts this state of affairs. Heirs don’t make laws; politicians prodded by corporate interests do, however. Now imagine “heir” is a mob boss to whom the author owes money, and has assigned rights to in lieu of cash payment. That is all perfectly legal, except the mob boss and loan part. The number of years “after death” is extremely sinister in my view, as it tends to guarantee that the heirs profit much more than the author, and by heir I really mean “creditor” and by “creditor” I mean “vulture” who made sure the death of the author racked up uncovered medical expenses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such debts always get collected well before a penny goes to the poor little 5-year-old orphan. Do you see the thrust of my argument now?

I hope I have made myself clear as to why current law is so wrong, and why it matters so much.

That last one can now be removed as the Petri biography now shows this photograph:

Let me say first that my irritation with this process is aimed mainly at the legal disaster we call “copyright” or “intellectual property” law. “Death of the author plus seventy years” is enough time for everyone to forget who the subject is and why they should care! This generous (since amended) Polish copyright law allowed common sense to prevail here. The future looks dimmer.

The rest of my irritation is at the way Wikipedia has addressed this. For example, there is no guideline that tells me to take the action I did. I suppose that’s to be expected, but still, I’m pleased that I was able to make a “public domain” argument successfully, given what little I had.

None of this would have been possible without the reply from Stefan Kutrzeba where he told me he didn’t know anything about the photo, but had scanned it in from the magazine, and that he thought these things were in the public domain.

I knew at the outset it was necessary to “go on the offensive.” I’m sure the editors spend a lot of time answering the same questions. I’m not sure  how many public domain arguments are made, or how successfully.

See how Hammersoft gives me the standard line about why permission isn’t enough, that I need to obtain clearance, etc. etc. he obviously doesn’t realize I’m making a public domain argument here!

DreamGuy, may have read up on Polish copyright law, or perhaps he conferred with others in a chat room. I suspect something went on in the period  between DraeamGuy’s question, and the final green light, but I don’t really know. In that time I did check the Polish to English translation again, making sure it said “Phot. Archive.”

“Fot. Archiwum” “Archeewoom.” “Arkevum.” Don’t people realise w is really v and vice versa? And ch and k same thing? Sheesh. Onward:

Note that I never ever responded to questions about who took the photo, and when, and what the copyright was. These are all typical, but my argument  trumps the questions. I could have said “don’t kow, doesn’t matter, please listen” but I think it is better to realize they think I’m an idiot who doesn’t know what “copyright” means in the slightest.  I knew I was right before I started, so I just waited to get their attention, ignored their questions, and stated my case. I think 40 minutes is quite reasonable for confirmation, and it is encouraging that no other back-and-forth occurred. I suppose that makes the title of this post link-bait. So, sue me again!

from Wikipedia’s “Media Copyright Questions” archive 

I’m extremely irritated with this process. Please help.

I do not wish to navigate your image contribution waters ever again. I am attempting to contribute an old photograph of an important person who did not like to be photographed. He is long dead.

I have a source, another rather important person, who I bothered (he’s preparing master classes right now) in order to contribute this photo. He was kind enough to answer promptly regarding the photo.

Now, if a Wikipedia editor would do me the courtesy of providing assistance, I could go on to other more productive work.

The photo in question is of Egon Petri. My source is the Polish pianist, author and lecturer Stefan Kutrzeba. You can see the photo here.

I can explain why this is all O.K. if an editor deigns to help. Like I said, I’m extremely irritated with this process. The photo has been requested; here it is; here am I. Reechard (talk) 20:17, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

• I can not read the language of that source page you noted, but we’d need to know the age of the photograph before making any judgments about its status under public domain. If it is not under public domain, then the rights to the image must be released under a free license by the rights holder in order for the image to be used here under any free license. See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission. It is not enough to get permission to use the image on Wikipedia. If a release can not be obtained, the image must be used under terms of fair use. See WP:NFCC. In that case, permission from the rights holder is not required. Since the subject of the image is dead, the use of fair use imagery to depict the person is permissible. Hope this helps? —Hammersoft (talk) 20:56, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
• Yeah, we can upload right away as fair use… but if we knew the copyright status that’d be better. Is “Fot. Archiwum” the credit line? Do we know who that is? When the photo was taken (which would be good for the caption anyway)? DreamGuy (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • thank you! Egon Petri was born in 1881 and died in 1962. In 1927 he had made his home at Zakopane in Poland, but in 1938 he moved to America. Please refer to Polish copyright law and understand that my source scannned this photo from this Polish magazine, and it had no copyright notice attached. “According to the Art.3 of copyright law of March 29, 1926 (valid until 1952) and Art. 2 of copyright law of July 10, 1952 of the People’s Republic of Poland, all photographs by Polish photographers (or published for the first time in Poland or simultaneously in Poland and abroad) printed without a clear copyright notice before the law was changed on May 23, 1994 are public domain.” That makes it pretty clear-cut, don’t you think? The photo is eighty some-odd years old, taken in Poland, printed in this magazine, and is one of the only known photos in existence of Mr. Petri. Reprinted in the same magazine in 2006, in an article by my source, about Petri. The photo caption says “Photo archive” meaning it had no photographer credit, no copyright. Reechard (talk) 21:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I’m planning to establish more facts about Egon Petri, I mention that on my User Page, thank you for helping me clear this important hurdle first. I have two sources to draw from which you can see here if you like.Reechard (talk) 22:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Sigh - where did you guys go? Here is the rather poor Google translation from the Polish, which shows clearly the caption says “Phot. Archive”. Should I upload this? I’d prefer it if you did, frankly. Pretty please! I’ll check back later. The Petri talk pages specifically requests a photo, by the way. Reechard (talk) 22:39, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, got it…. when you go to Special:Upload to upload the photo, don’t choose one of the default licenses, just put a {{PD-Poland}} tag in the summary field (along with the rest of the summary, and then fill the rest of the page out. You should just be able to do it right away, but if you have problems post back here for help. DreamGuy (talk) 22:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

• thank you x 100 will do it now. Reechard (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
• I think it worked, it has that re-assessment warning though, I’m assuming that comes with {{PD-Poland}} Anyway, good enough, I’ll put it to use now. Thanks again DreamGuy! - Reechard (talk) 23:05, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Needless to say, it’s not quite the entire story. This thread between myself and two editors was preceded by more frustrating navigation around Wikipedia, in an attempt to clear legal hurdles.

This legal clearance bar is set so high that most people will give up and walk away. I certainly don’t plan on doing much more of this sort of thing, unless I can streamline a process, and contribute lost items from a certain Polish magazine that fall within a timeframe, for example.

 

Update on 20090410 at 19:00 by richardwalker

Carefully reading DreamGuy’s question:

“Yeah, we can upload right away as fair use… but if we knew the copyright status that’d be better. Is “Fot. Archiwum” the credit line? Do we know who that is?”

leaves me wondering whether I may be qualified for editor-hood because of my knowledge of more than one language in addition to whatever knowledge I have about law, music and technology.

Egon Petri Biography - Classics Online

Egon Petri

via Egon Petri - Classics Online

The pianist Egon Petri was born in Hanover in 1881 and had his first violin lessons at the age of five from his father, the Dutch-born violinist Henri Petri, a favourite pupil of Joseph Joachim. Henri Petri had become Konzertmeister at the Royal Theatre in Hanover in 1881 and two years later took up a similar position with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, before moving in 1889 to lead the Royal Chapel Orchestra in Dresden Egon Petri started his study of the piano in 1888, going on to further work under Richard Buchmayer, a musician and scholar with a strong interest in earlier music, and with Teresa Carreno.

He also studied the organ, the French horn and composition, while completing his general education at the Dresden Kreuzschule in 1899. His first employment was as second violin in his father’s quartet and as a member of the Royal Orchestra in Dresden, but by 1901 it had become apparent to him that his true vocation was that of a pianist, a decision in which he was encouraged by Ferruccio Busoni, a friend of the family.

Petri went on to take lessons with Busoni in Berlin, where he also studied philosophy, continuing his studies under Busoni in Weimar and Dresden, before embarking on a concert career, at first in Holland and Germany, then throughout Europe and in the United States. One of the first foreign musicians of stature to visit the Soviet Union, he won considerable and continuing success there.

Image via Wikipedia

His association with Busoni, with whom he appeared in London in 1921 in two-piano recitals, remained of importance, influencing his style of performance and making him one of the foremost interpreters of Busoni’s work. Enjoying, at the same time, a very considerable reputation as a teacher, Petri served as a professor at the then Royal Manchester College of Music from 1905 to 1911, following this with similar work in Basle and at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik. In 1927 he had made his home at Zakopane in Poland, but in 1938 he moved to America, spending the war years as pianist-in-residence at Cornell University and becoming an American citizen.

In 1947 he moved to Mills College in California, holding a similar position there and only interrupting his stay to teach briefly in Basle. He died in 1962.

Update on 20090408 at 23:02 by richardwalker

To anyone wondering about my right to publish the Classics Online biography here, you have a point. I’ll gladly take it down, after I publish an improved Petri biography on Wikipedia.

Egon Petri and the Petriots - by Michaele Benedict

Notes and Sources (by Richard Walker)

This is a re-edit of a reprint of an article by Michaele Benedict. Benedict was a student of Robert Sheldon, as was I; we met at Sheldon’s frequent and informal Sunday evening student recitals. A debt of gratitude is due to her and to the Polish pianist Stefan Kutrzeba, the author of the online reprint at www.pianoeu.com. I’ve improved on the photographs where possible, including one high-resolution scan of Robert Sheldon. I was unable to locate an improved photograph of Alexander Libermann.

The “Petri on composers” section has been folded in here for completeness, originally from Benedict’s records, but not in the original published article.

In addition to being a valuable historical record, this re-edit of the article eschews unnecessary font colors, graphics and formatting. Dead or poor links have been removed or modified. Other relevant links were added, to improve the overall “value” of the article. For example, “The Great Pianists” book reference links to the Amazon page for that book.

Thankfully the reprinted article is linked from Wikipedia’s extremely inadequate entry on Egon Petri, which I find inadequate given Petri’s influence over modern piano technique.

Sources used in this re-edit:

• www.pianoeu.com/petri.html

• www.pianoeu.com/comp.html

Kutrzeba’s site: “Idea-Image-Technique - Method of the Piano” - in English & Polski, with a few articles in Deutsch & Suomeksi

• www.chopin.strefa.pl/site.html (site map)

Unrelated article on Petri, “Casus – Petri” by Stefan Kutrzeba

• www.chopin.strefa.pl/petri.html

About Michaele Benedict

UPDATE: Benedict is now retired and resides in California.

Michaele Benedict is on the music faculty of Skyline College in San Bruno, California, U.S.A. She is a nationally certified member of Music Teachers National Association and has written a piano method book, A Workbook for Organic Piano Playing, as well as articles for Clavier Magazine and The American Music Teacher. She studied with Robert Sheldon, a student of Egon Petri, for 14 years after graduating from San Francisco State University. She would be delighted to hear from students and grand-students of Egon Petri. E-mail her at mlbenedict@att.net

Egon Petri and the Petriots

by Michaele Benedict

The Master with some representatives of First Generation of the Petriots. Standing, from left: Newman POWELL, Leonard KLEIN, Alexander LIBERMANN, Egon PETRI, Lois MAER, Phillip MORGAN, Robert SHELDON, John SWEENEY. Seating, from left: John MORIARTY, Terry WOHL, Alice RAY, Ruth ORR, Ruth PREUSSER, Forrest ROBINSON. This photo has been taken at Petri’s Studio at MILLS COLLEGE, Oakland, California (probably in late 1940’s).

 Egon Petri (1881 - 1962) 

The legacy of Egon Petri, who is believed by many to be one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, lives on in his grand-students and great-grand-students, that is, in the students of his own pupils and in the next generation of pianists.

This pianistic legacy is so distinctive that it is easily recognizable in performers, and yet in the absence of description by Petri himself, the legacy has been passed on from teacher to student almost entirely by word of mouth. Is there another example of teaching in any field, which has existed, essentially unchanged, for more than a hundred years without the benefit of a text? One is reminded of Mary Renault’s historical novel, The Praise Singer, which describes her idea of the aural tradition of music teaching in ancient Greece, before notation was invented.

Petri’s way of playing the piano, and the way he taught, involved a naturalness and an ease which could overcome many difficulties. Instead of technical studies, Petri advocated taking excerpts from the keyboard literature itself, so that the skill served the music, rather than standing alone. Changes in dynamics were achieved by the speed of the key’s descent, rather than by weight. “Weight is our enemy”, Petri would say. Together with his associate, Alexander Libermann, Petri taught that the proper way to approach the piano keyboard was to “take” the keys rather than pushing or depressing them. This subtle difference involved a grasping movement of the hand, which used muscles rather than brute strength. If one compares the physical approach to the piano by most excellent contemporary pianists with that of piano players two generations ago (videotapes allow us to make the comparison), it is easy to see how things have changed. The tight curved hand has relaxed and extended; dramatic and sometimes histrionic gestures have given way to an economy of motion; greater faithfulness to the source of the music has produced performances with greater subtlety and greater interest.

 Much of this change may be credited to Petri and his heirs. Young music teachers today represent about four generations beyond Petri, who died in California on May 27, 1962, at the age of 81. If the father of our father is our grandfather, then the teacher of our teacher can be considered our grand-teacher. The great-great-grand-pupils of Petri are many thousands in number, and yet they are recognizable by theirs orientation and playing. While reading the pages of my colleague Stefan Kutrzeba on the Internet, I thought I recognized some of Petri’s principles, and our subsequent correspondence revealed that two of Stefan’s teachers were Petri students.

My teacher, Robert Sheldon, studied with Egon Petri for many years and tried faithfully to pass on the Petri legacy. He printed out “Petri-Libermann Notes on the Art and Technique of Pianoforte Playing”, a 33-page, single-spaced treasury of wise advice. This reference, plus dozens of tape recordings containing Petri anecdotes and teachings, is the primary source of what I know about Egon Petri. I described some of this material in an article in the American piano magazine, Clavier, in November 1997.

So who was this paragon whose name these days is so little known, but whose method has been so influential in piano playing?

Egon Petri’s family was Dutch, but Petri was born March 23, 1881, in Germany, where his family entertained such legendary composers and musicians as Johannes Brahms at their home in Dresden. Petri’s father, Henri Willem Petri, became concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in 1889. Music historians tell us that Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn conducted this orchestra earlier in the nineteenth century. As a youth, Petri played violin in his father’s quartet, but according to Sheldon’s notes, abandoned a promising career as a violinist for that of a pianist because it gave him more scope. It may well be that this early expertise on a stringed instrument fostered some of Petri’s ideas about “bowing” and phrasing in piano music. Piano music should be all curves, Petri said, with no angles, stops or jerks. Petri’s teachers were the legendary Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreño, who was called the “Valkyrie of the piano” and Ferruccio Busoni, a family friend. Petri studied philosophy and earned a doctorate in music from the Manchester Royal College of Music in England, where he taught from 1906 to 19l0. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin from 1921 to 1925, and taught in Poland from 1925 to 1939. According to a letter from Forrest Robinson, a Petri student, Petri and his wife left Poland for England in great haste in 1939, leaving his music books and grand pianos behind. Petri’s sister was killed in an air raid in Hanover during the war, according to Mr. Robinson. Petri’s son became an officer in the British army. Egon Petri was pianist in residence at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A., from 1940 to 1946 and in 1947 through 1957 held a similar position at Mills College in Oakland, California, U.S.A. His colleagues on the music faculty were Libermann and the French composer Darius Milhaud. He returned to Europe to teach at the Basel Conservatory in 1957. From 1952 to 1962 he taught at the San Francisco (California) Conservatory of Music. My teacher, Robert Sheldon, succeeded him at the Conservatory.

 Petri assisted his former teacher, Busoni, in editing Bach’s keyboard works. Most of the Bach/Busoni treatments are still in print, and Petri’s own transcription of one Bach work popularly known as “Sheep May Safely Graze” is still in print and is heard occasionally in concerts. I recently played for a wedding where the mother of the bride requested this piece. She proved to have been a student of Claire James, an English student of Egon Petri.

Ferruccio Busoni, whom we know today primarily by his transcriptions of Bach (thus the Bach/Busoni attributions on concert programs) encouraged Petri to play piano and taught him in Berlin, Weimar and Dresden. Recordings of Petri playing Busoni’s music as well as performances by Busoni himself have been re-released in recent years, and recordings of Petri playing the major piano literature are once again available on compact disc. Sheldon, however, said that these early recordings, made from 1929 to 1942, are not representative of Petri’s playing. Recordings of the day were primitive, to say the least. Tempi were set according to how much music would fit on the disc, there was only one microphone, and often the recording engineer, smoking his cigar in one corner of the room, would wave his arms to urge the pianist to play faster. There was, of course, no way to correct mistakes, so in one sense these recordings may be considered “live”, but not necessarily as typical of the artist’s playing than concerts where the player could screen out distractions and set his own tempi.

Harold Schonberg wrote in The Great Pianists (Simon and Schuster, New York) that Egon Petri was “a superb technician, and a musician of intellect, refinement and strength.” The fifth edition of Grove’s Dictionary (1954) says that Petri was “acclaimed everywhere as a superb artist whose works is profound, muscled, and subtle…he brings clear thinking to each composition and the direct action of a pair of wonderful hands which never make an unnecessary movement.” (Petri could reach an eleventh on the piano.) Sheldon’s notes say “Petri’s playing (was always) noted for its breadth and grandeur, power and virtuosity.” The late, great Rudolf Firkusny said “Petri was not merely a great pianist, but one of the greatest of all time.” An article in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1981, the centenary of Petri’s birth, called him “one of the great pianists of the last generation” and said that he carried the “Liszt-Anton Rubinstein tradition.” He was noted, the Chronicle article said, “for the integrity and fantastic clarity of his performances of classical and virtuosic repertory.” Artur Rubinstein, one of the most famous pianists of the 20th century, often sent students needing technical help to Petri and Libermann. Sheldon’s notes say that the main personal difference between the playing of Petri and that of Libermann was the matter of taking jumps and leaps. Libermann believed in preparing everything on the keys, but Petri preferred what he called “the braver way” of slowing the preparatory movement over the key instead of stopping it, and taking the key with a continuous swinging movement from just barely above the key. Libermann’s method made for absolute security but tended, Sheldon said, to produce a slight jerkiness of stopping and starting at fast tempos and when exaggerated made for a certain cautiousness in bravura playing.

 

Alexander Libermann was born near Kiev in the Ukraine. After the communist revolution, he was put in charge of music instruction of Kiev’s children. With the rise of the Stalin regime, he made his way to Berlin, where he studied with Petri, but with the spread of Hitler’s regime, Libermann moved to Paris. When the Germans occupied Paris, Libermann went to the south of France, where he opened a music school in Nice with the help of Artur Rubinstein. Once again, however, he had to flee for his life. Egon Petri was instrumental in having the Libermanns settle at Mills College. One anecdote about the move, told by Mr. Sheldon, is nearly as chilling as the many last-minute escapes. Apparently Petri had invited the Libermanns to come to Oakland, but in an absent-minded moment forgot about the invitation. Libermann and his wife had crossed the Atlantic and 3000 miles of the continental United States to arrive in California, speaking almost no English, owning only what they could carry in a suitcase. Libermann knocked at Petri’s door. Petri answered and said “Why Sasha, what are you doing here?”

The following are a few of Petri’s teaching principles, gleaned from Robert Sheldon’s notes and remarks:

GENERAL APPROACH

• Never try to gain volume by hitting the keys.
• Try to find out how little effort you need.
• People are too interested in the beginning of sounds and not in their continuation.
• Continuity of movement is one of my obsessions.
• Draw your attention to the vibration of the strings rather than the knocking of the hammer.
• I know all the rules, but if the rules don’t fit, I break the rules rather than break the music.
• Think primarily in terms of fingers and keys rather than arm.
• What happens at the end of the fingertip is what is important.
• When you change fingers unnecessarily, you invite trouble.
• In very soft playing, the firmer the hand, the more control you have.
• The greatest finger activity is in the knuckle joint. The fingers are prepared for both the black and white keys by the first two finger joints.
• At the instant the key reaches the bottom (keyboard), four things happen: You hear the sound, you feel a resistance which stops you, you free yourself (either by releasing the key or by holding the key down lightly. Fourth is the moment you count “one” or feel the beat. This rebound feeling makes piano playing seem to be upwards.
• Practice is arranging things in your mind until they become automatic.
• Do not try to overcome difficulties; find another approach that causes these difficulties to vanish.

PRACTICE

 An article in The American Music Teacher in 1939 quoted Petri regarding practice:

A pedestrian who was on his way to Athens met a peasant working by the roadside and asked him “How far is it to Athens?” The peasant replied, “Walk!” The man said “I know I have to walk, but tell me how long will it take me to get there?” The peasant repeated, “Walk!” When the third inquiry drew forth the same information, the traveler, giving the peasant up as a hopeless idiot, walked away with great strides. After a few seconds the peasant called out: “Half an hour!” Greatly surprised, the man turned back and said: “Why did you not tell me that at once?” Whereupon the peasant replied, “How could I tell you before I saw how you walked?” So what would be the use of telling a pupil how long to practice without knowing how he practiced? You can’t help being your own teacher and pupil when you practice. If you learn quickly and incorrectly, that’s bad. If you learn quickly and correctly, that’s good. If you learn slowly and correctly, that is also good. But is you learn slowly and incorrectly, that’s the worst. If you do the exercises right, you don’t need them. If you do them wrong, they may do you harm.

PITHY SAYINGS

1. Art consists of a lot of very fine details made correctly.
2. I am here to defend the composer.
3. In playing, think everything in curves: no angles, no stops, and no jerks.
4. This is a principle of life: Calm is based on confidence.
5. Subtle differences of accent are a case of mental division. Like “men’s wear” as opposed to “men swear.”
6. Meter is something invented by man, like the metronome, the clock, etc.
7. Rhythm is something in nature, where nothing is quite alike.
8. Pedal: A very beautiful but dangerous instrument.
9. Rubato is like a man walking his dog. Sometimes the dog is ahead, sometimes behind, but both go and come back together.
10. Phrasing in music is like speaking or reading, observing punctuation marks, and dynamics are like voice inflection. Don’t overdo or underdo either.
11. Remember that technique is mental rather than physical. Therefore, it is necessary to will a movement before making it.
12. Music is so lovely when it’s left alone.
13. Any child can make a loud and nasty sound on the piano.
14. Most pianists spend their expression in small coin.
15. People who talk too much about interpretation are apt not to be humble enough. I try not to overshadow the composer.

PETRI ON COMPOSERS

On Bach and Busoni

• Long notes (in Bach) are not necessarily to be brought out; for example, in the first Bach PreludeWell-Tempered Clavier, Book I.) (
• “Bach sublimated all his contemporaries—swallowed them all up.”
• Of the Bach Chromatic Fugue: “Paint with a broad brush.”
• Chromatic Fantasy: Petri liked a minor ending, as the major ending makes a D7 chord with the beginning of the fugue.
• “I don’t like staccato (in Bach) as much as I used to. Make it always singing and melodious. You must always have the feeling that music is flowing. If one feels the other way, one should play the typewriter.”
• Quoting Busoni: The expression of the face is more important than the lines.
• Quoting Schoenberg, after listening to a transcription for orchestra of a Bach fugue: “I always hear the theme; I never hear the fugue.”
• “Sometimes I don’t know what Busoni is and what I am.”
• “Busoni’s teacher, Meyer Remey, called the first four Bach Preludes and Fugues (Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I) the Elements: Water, Fire, Air and Earth.” The B-flat major fugue he called “The Fair” (with gossiping women).
• “Overtone pedal and legato pedal can be used in Bach, but not to prolong values.”

On Beethoven

• Concerning certain edited editions of Beethoven: “Go away. You stand between me and Beethoven.”
• Apropos of the tapping motives in Beethoven: “My theory is that Beethoven stuttered.”
• “The tradition in Beethoven and Weber is to hold back the tempo on crescendi.”
• Concerning Beethoven sonatas: “I learned everything from Bülow, and did I have trouble in unlearning everything!”
• “Bülow was a kind of arbitrary man.”
• Of the Bülow edition of Beethoven in once place: “This edition, which I detest, unfortunately is right.”
• “Bülow always begins ornaments from Bülow (below). Of course, if Beethoven had written it that way I would hiccup and obey.”
• Beethoven Sonata, Op. 2, No. 3: “This is the Waldstein-Sonata when it was a boy.”
• Beethoven Sonata, Op. 2, No. 2: “Beethoven’s fingering is best for the Scherzo left hand, to jump the thumb.” Concerning this Scherzo: “Beethoven loves to poke people. Of a section of the last movement, “Obstinate Beethoven. It’s like doing exercises and being very mad at having to do them.”
• “A C major fortissimo in Beethoven isn’t just C major fortissimo, but triumph!”
• Of the Beethoven Sonata Op. 90 (second movement): “More liquid calm”.
• Of the small note values in the second movement of the Beethoven C minor Concerto: “They look so black, but they sound ever so much whiter”.

On Brahms

• Quoting Brahms: A measure is not like a box of cigars, which will only hold 52 cigars and not 53.
• Brahms Rhapsodie in E-flat: “Prepare chords in the air (just over the keys) without touching the keys beforehand.” “Not so much rubato. Brahms was not that kind of person.”
• Repeats in the Brahms-Handel Variations: I start out with something, then do something different the next time (neither calculated alike nor different).”
• Last movement, Brahms B-flat Concerto: “Never practice the thirds loud and slow, but light and quick. Everything in curves and continuous. Don’t play up and down.”

On Chopin

• “Pull the blinds down when you play Chopin. Not too much sunshine.”
• Of Chopin played too percussively: “Knock-turn”.
• Sonata in B minor, 3rd movement: “You must feel your way in the dark harmonically.”
• “Chopin is very careful about writing pedal, but he always writes it wrong.”
• “The best thing (with pedal) is to educate your foot by your ear.”
• F minor Fantasy: “Rather go by the notes than by the pedal marks.” Of the Lento section: “Dreaming and sort of searching. The forearm Rotary Club.”
• Of a crescendo in the Chopin Nocturne in C-sharp minor: “Spread your crescendo very thinly, like butter.”
• Of the Funeral March: “The Lento is not too slow in Chopin; not Adagio.”
• Of a passage in the Sonata in B minor: “That is my think, not my know.”
• Chopin Etude, Op. 10, No. 3: “Legato doesn’t have so much to do with evenness (of tone) as with dynamic and rhythmic values.” Cadenza on the diminished seventh: “Practice connecting the middle notes. Practice the fifth fingers supported (by the arm) and staccato.”
• Chopin Etude, Op. 10, No. 2: “Practice legato with the fingers on the keys. Practice with finger staccato, pulling the fingertip back slightly.”
• Etude, Op. 25, No. 12: “The windshield-wiper study.”
• Etude, Op. 25, No. 5, middle section: “Sometimes on the tops of the phrases a flower comes out. Slowly, with the notion of the motion.”

On Liszt

• Mephisto Waltz: “The best thing is to count in four bar periods. The same is true of the Chopin Scherzos. Liszt is always very regular. Of the first section: This is not Mephisto yet; these are the peasants dancing. Don’t try to be devilish here; rather, be heavy and clumsy.”
• Of the second theme: “Quite a different atmosphere: a smell of sulfur.”
• In Liszt, you must play groups.
• Of his Impromptu performance of a certain work, Petri commented: “This conception is quite all right, but it’s not immaculate.”

On Mozart

• Of Mozart played without nuances: “Notes-art”.
• Concerto in D minor, first movement: “Don’t make a habit of echo effects. They are like Dresden china. Make it intense and passionate, but not furious.”
• Concerto in D minor, last movement: “There is no occasion for making a row here.”
• Mozart Concerto, K. 414: “Mozart is here very gay and lively and has no use for all these finicky details.”
• Sonata, K. 333: “Mozart’s instrumental compositions are operas in disguise. A new person comes in, fat and lively.”
• Busoni often played (the tenuto followed by slurred couplets) lingering and a little louder.”
• D Major Sonata, slow movement: “Like a lake, perfectly quiet. Don’t throw any crescendo stones into it.”