Taxis at Ratisbon. He will assuredly enter into your project with pleasure and enthusiasm,
and the small distance from Ratisbon makes it not too difficult for him. You would only
have to arrange it so that the lectures come quickly, one after the other.
Where Sasch Winterberger is hiding I have not heard. Presupposing many things, he
might equally serve your purpose. In order to save you time and trouble, I will send you
by the next opportunity your analysis of my Sonata, which you left behind at the
Altenburg. [The analysis has not come down to us.]
Draeseke is coming very shortly through Weimar from Lucerne. I will tell him your wish
in confidence. It is very possible that he would like to go to Vienna for a time. I have
not the slightest doubt as to the success of your lectures, in conjunction with the musical
performances of the works, -- I would merely advise you to put into your programme
works which are universally known – as, for instance, several Bach Fugues (from “Das
Wohltemperierte Clavier”), the Ninth Symphony, the grand Masses of Beethoven and
Bach, which you have so closely studied, etc. [The proposed lectures never in fact took
place.]
Well, all this will come about by degrees. First of all a beginning must be made, and this
will be quite a brilliant one with the three Sonatas. Later on we will muster Quartets,
Symphonies, Masses and Operas, all in due course! ’
CRESCENDO
Crescendo is an increase in the volume of piano sound in a musical phrase. It is obtained
by increasing by degrees the pressure with which the fingers strike each note.
Crescendo is a common way of playing an ascending phrase, just as diminuendo is a
common way of playing a descending phrase. Crescendo is marked by the composer by
the word ‘crescendo’ or its abbreviation ‘cresc,’ or by an increasing ‘hairpin’. Crescendo
is a vital part of the cantabile style and of all expressive piano playing.
In a crescendo it is vital to plan the dynamic level so that it starts sufficiently softly so
that the crescendo can be made effective. Liszt pupil Hans von Bülow emphasised this
point in one of his masterclasses.
There are times in the Liszt Sonata, and in countless other piano works, where the
composer has not marked a softer dynamic level at the start of the crescendo but this is
implied.
CRISTOFORI
Bartolomeo Cristofori of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Prince Ferdinand de Medici
as the Keeper of the Instruments, is regarded as the inventor of the piano. The Medici
family owned a piano in 1709 and there may have been a piano built in 1698 and a