Leschetizky was a noble, generous, and broad-minded man. His attitude toward life and
toward art was exemplified by the fact that many of his students had their lessons from
him entirely free, when they could not pay. He could easily have been rich. He was the
formost pedagogue during several generations and could, like others in the same position
in other times, have become a millionaire. They knew how to keep what they had and
wanted to. But Leschetizky was very generous. He died poor. I do not believe he owned
anything much but his house in Vienna.
He was lively and full of good humor. There was nothing he enjoyed more than a good
anecdote or a good joke. Some people called him “difficult” but I would rather say he
was moody, like all great artists – and do not forget he was a great artist, besides being a
great teacher.
One of his idiosyncracies was to walk at night. He took no exercise during the day at all,
but after midnight or 1 o’clock he would set out for a walk and often be gone several
hours.
The essence of Leschetizky’s instruction was that every one of his pupils had to play
musically. Brilliance and technical skill were put second, or rather let us say he
considered it merely a matter of course and worthy of no particular notice that one who
aspired to be a pianist should at first have conquered the difficulties that stood in the way,
should have agile fingers and supple wrists.
Those ‘who know the ‘brilliant” school that had prevailed, in which dazzling “effects”
were the demand of the hour, will know that at that time a man who demanded above
everything else that the inner spirit and the beauty of a composition should be brought out
differed from the average.
That is why the “Leschetizky method” is not, as it is often referred to, a set of exercises
for building up a technique. No such thing merely could result in the condition that I
believe to be a fact – that every one who studied with Leschetizky plays more musically
than the mass of students of any other one man or system.
Music must be lyric first. The nearer an instrumental player can approach the singer, the
more essentially musical is his work. That is what Leschetizky cared for – to have the
lyric side of the art in the place of most emphasis.
To a great extent he derived his first conception of this spirit from Schulhoff, who was
the first of the virtuosos to play with a big, singing tone. Schulhoff influenced Rubinstein
and all the pianists of his time, and on Leschetizky the influence was great. He was never
reticent about admitting the debt he owed Schulhoff, and never asserted that the origin of
the ideas he exemplified lay entirely in himself. This was characteristic.
As a virtuoso Leschetizky could have been as great as the greatest, had he not chosen to
devote his principal attention to teaching. Liszt and Rubinstein represented the summit of
achievement at the time, and while their influence on the public was unlimited their