Having twice recently heard Franz Liszt’s gorgeous “La Campanella,” said by many to be the most difficult piano piece ever written, I decided I would try and learn it. Why not?
All of Liszt’s “grande etudes” are notoriously difficult virtuosic pieces. This one has right hand sixteenth note jumps that span two octaves or more, a fourth and fifth finger trill lasting four measures, and left hand jumps of three octaves. It is fourteen pages of technically demanding gorgeousness. Fun!
Oh sure, Liszt had great big hands with long, slender fingers. He could reach 12″! I can reach 7.5″. Back in the day, he and other pianist/composers reportedly cut their finger webbing, in order to improve their reach. Aiyiyi!! Now that’s crazy.
Having twice recently heard Franz Liszt’s gorgeous “La Campanella,” said by many to be the most difficult piano piece ever written, I decided I would try and learn it. Why not?
All of Liszt’s “grande etudes” are notoriously difficult virtuosic pieces. This one has right hand sixteenth note jumps that span two octaves or more, a fourth and fifth finger trill lasting four measures, and left hand jumps of three octaves. It is fourteen pages of technically demanding gorgeousness. Fun!
Oh sure, Liszt had great big hands with long, slender fingers. He could reach 12″! I can reach 7.5″. Back in the day, he and other pianist/composers reportedly cut their finger webbing, in order to improve their reach. Aiyiyi!! Now that’s crazy.
My father, who admired my mother’s piano playing but never took piano lessons himself, wanted to play Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” He worked at it for years. As I recall, he learned a page or two but not the whole thing. But he plugged away at it. So maybe I’m carrying on from where he left off.
At 71, I am seeing the limits of my time on earth and I want to fill what time I have with everything and anything rewarding and wonderful while I can. Why not? Whyever not?
“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” ― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
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Thanks for listening,
Kay
P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”
