Pianistic Virtuosity
Inspired by the example of Paganini’s violin playing, Romantic composers made the piano the premier instrument of virtuosity.
Piano technique, stimulated by advances in instrument construction and by the circulation of works on a European scale, evolved towards greater power and speed, especially between 1810 and 1840. Method-books were published, while countless virtuoso pieces explored the instrument’s new possibilities (the études of Liszt and Chopin are the most striking examples). The triumph of the (now professional) pianist over the most insurmountable difficulties set off a poetic quest for tone colour and novelty: above all, the rise of pianistic virtuosity was a catalyst for creativity. Not without excess, of course, which explains why it was not to everyone’s taste. In 1855, the poet Heinrich Heine lambasted the antics of virtuosos as a vulgar rationalisation of performance, in which he saw nothing but “the transformation of man into a sounding instrument”.
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publication date : 17/06/25
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