Volume 46, Number 16 · October 21, 1999
On Playing the Piano
By Charles Rosen
One of the first things a child is taught when learning the piano is to play a C-major scale. We always begin with the simple fingering 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5, and we are shown how to exploit the special character of the human hand and the mobile thumb by crossing the thumb under the third finger as we play the scale. In other scales (E-flat for example), we cross the thumb even more awkwardly under the fourth finger. This is a basic part of piano technique as it is conceived in conservatories the world over. Nevertheless, it is a mark of the extraordinary variability of approaches to playing the piano that this fundamental practice is not as useful for some pianists as piano teachers think. A pupil of the late Dinu Lipatti, one of the most interesting pianists of this century, told me that Lipatti once remarked: 'You know, it has been at least ten years since I last crossed my thumb under the third finger.'
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