Bartók’s Wrists and 19th-Century

Performance Practice:
An Essay on the Historicity of Piano Technique
Mineo OTA
University of Tokyo
Faculty of Letters, Department of Aesthetics
Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyo-ku, 113-0033 Tokyo, Japan
E-mail: [email protected]

(Received: January 2012; accepted: August 2012)

Abstract: Mária Comensoli, who studied under Bartók in the mid-1920s, reports that
her teacher used “peculiar fingerings and peculiar wrist and arm technique.” Examining
such comments and the recordings of the composer-pianist, it becomes clear that
Bartók played the piano partly according to the 19th-century performance practice. He
frequently played chords in arpeggio, even when there were no markings of arpeggio
in the score, and he respected the tone color of each finger by relying on the technique
of leaping. Contemporary documents suggest that one of Bartók’s technical vantages
was the flexibility of his wrists. In Bartók’s case it may have been a fruit of a conscious
training by István Thomán. The writings of the Liszt-pupil Thomán suggest that, like
his master, he valued the “active” use of wrists, even though he basically supported the
modern, “synthetic” piano technique propagated by Breithaupt, who consistently rec-
ommended the “passive” use of the wrists. It is likely that, through Thomán, Bartók
learned many things from the 19th-century performance practice.

Keywords: István Thomán, Mária Commensoli, Breithaupt, Liszt school, piano technique

When examining the performance practice of musical works from the past, the
very things which are not written explicitly in the score often pose the most dif-
ficult questions. Instrumental technique belongs to those things. While several
important studies on Bartók’s performance style have already appeared,1 physi-
cal aspects of his piano technique have not been profoundly examined. In this
paper I would like to discuss technical problems of Bartók’s hands and wrists in
the historical context of performance practice.

1. E.g., László Somfai, Béla Bartók: Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Berkeley – Los
Angeles – London: University of Chicago Press, 1996); Vera Lampert, “Bartók at the Piano: Lessons from the
Composer’s Sound Recordings,” in The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, ed. Amanda Bayley (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 231–242.

Studia Musicologica 53/1–3, 2012, pp. 1–10

DOI: 10.1556/SMus.53.2012.1-3.1
1788-6244/$ 20.00 © 2012 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
2 Mineo Ota

I
A comment of Mária Comensoli, who studied under Bartók in the mid-1920s,
may be a good starting point. She reports that her teacher used peculiar finger-
ings and peculiar wrist and arm technique:

He had small hands. So he developed for himself peculiar fingerings, and pecu-
liar wrist and arm technique in order to smooth out technical difficulties. But he
always emphasized that one should not follow this solution in a slavish manner.
He said: “I solve it in this way, because my physique and my hands demand to
do so. It is your task to look for the way for yourself.”2

Her statement that the composer had “small hands” is disturbing, because it
contradicts our general assumption most players and listeners today tend to believe.
There are many chords with tenth in his piano music that also suggest that Bartók
had relatively large hands.
Did Bartók really have small hands? Probably not. Comments by his contem-
poraries do not always support Comensoli’s opinion. For example, Elisabeth Klein,
who studied privately with Bartók, remembers that his hands were “very large”
and that he had “a stretch of eleven notes.”3 What seems to be more important is
the fact that Comensoli thought that her teacher’s hands were small, for it reveals
something about the composer’s highly personal performance style. Based on her
observation of Bartók’s “peculiar fingerings, and peculiar wrist and arm tech-
nique” and on his explanation (“my physique and my hands demand to do so”),
she – if erroneously – concluded that his hands must have been “small.” Why?
Probably the motion of his hands looked so quick and busy that it reminded her
of the pianists with small hands. As to this, one should examine at first how he
used to play chords with ninth or tenth.
The recording of Bartók’s Second Sonata for Violin and Piano, performed in
1940 by Joseph Szigeti and the composer himself may serve as an example. The
section in question is from bar 42 to bar 47 in movement I. As Example 1 shows,
almost all chords of both hands contain the interval of a ninth or tenth. And the
recording makes it clear that, when Bartók plays the chords with tenth, he does
so mostly in arpeggio. (Chords played in arpeggio are marked with arrows.) As to
the chords with ninth, Bartók struck them simultaneously, except the third chord
in bar 44, which could have been a little uncomfortable to his hand. The case of
the third chord in bar 42 is disturbing, since it sounds as if Bartók omitted the

2. Így láttuk Bartókot [This is How We Saw Bartók], ed. Ferenc Bónis (Budapest: Püski, 1995), 146. All
English translations in the paper are by the author.
3. John Moseley, “Remembering Bartók: John Moseley Talks with Elisabeth Klein,” ed. László Vikárius,
The Hungarian Quarterly 200 (2010), 116–128, here 122. In contrast, Júlia Székely, another pupil of Bartók,
describes her teacher’s hand as “rather small.” See Júlia Székely, Bartók tanár úr [Professor Bartók] (Budapest:
Kozmosz könyvek, 21978), 118.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

 Bartók’s Wrists and 19th-Century Performance Practice 3

note F. It is not clear whether he avoided the tenth intentionally, or whether it was
a mistake or there was some technical problem in the recording apparatus.4 In any
case it is certain that, while these chords were printed without arpeggio markings
in the score, Bartók played most of them broken.

EXAMPLE 1 Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, Mov. I. bars 42–47

The frequent breaking of the chords could have been one of the reasons why
Comensoli believed that his teacher had “small hands.” She probably overlooked
one thing: in reality the practice of playing the chords in arpeggio has quite a long
history – practically longer than that of the piano itself. As surviving piano-roll
recordings of other pianists testify, this practice had been still in mode at the
beginning of the last century, when Bartók started his career as pianist. It is like-
ly that he just kept on playing the piano according to this practice.
*
In Comensoli’s comment the expression “peculiar fingerings” also deserves atten-
tion. Recollections of contemporaries suggest that Bartók had been good at chang-
ing positions of hands on the keyboard. Irma Molnár-Kippich, who received lessons
from the composer during the 1930s, writes about this as follows:

I had to play each recurring figure with the same fingering throughout, regard-
less whether there was a black key or not, and wherever it was. Bartók taught
that the touch of every finger had its own special colour, and that one had to
use it throughout the whole series of sequence, so that it sounded uniformly. Of
course to play in this way was much more difficult than usual, but it did not
bother him at all.5

4. The fact that the same F appears in the violin part may give some relevance to this question.
5. Ferenc László, “Ismertem Bartókot” [I knew Bartók], in idem, Bartók Béla: Tanulmányok és tanúságok
[Béla Bartók: Studies and testimonies] (Bucharest: Kriterion, 1980), 298.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

4 Mineo Ota

The principle that the “touch of every finger has its own special color” recalls
an almost Chopinesque 19th-century performance practice, which Bartók must
have learned under Thomán and other teachers such as László Erkel. According
to Molnár-Kippich Bartók told her to play G–Eb in the left hand with “5–4,”
instead of much more comfortable “5–3,” because in the similar figure C–Eb on
the first beat “5–4” was used (Example 2).6

EXAMPLE 2 Ludwig van Beethoven, Thirty-two Variations WoO 80, var. 32, bar 37

Bartók certainly had a good technique of leaping. Péter Bartók writes about
his experience as his father’s pupil as follows:

Instructions found in literature had to be disregarded in playing the scale: my

father had his own method and he did not wish the thumb to be moved under
the rest of the hand in climbing up a scale. Instead, he instructed me to shift
the whole hand and simply jump at the appropriate point, without bending the
thumb sideways; all fingers were to remain in the same relative position as
the whole hand moved. Playing a scale this way appeared nearly impossible …
but my father demonstrated how easy it was (for him).7

The 1934 version of the Romanian Folk Dances, in which the composer revised
the fingering based on his own experience of concert performances, shows how
closely the remark of the composer’s second son is related to the essence of
Bartók’s technique of leaping (Example 3). In bar 8 the composer wrote “4–2”
for D–Ea, while in the first version and the 1927 edition he just proposed the
ordinary fingering: “1–2.”8 Bartók must have been quite familiar with this kind
of rapid leaping. Considering this, it is likely that in Comensoli’s eyes the motion
of her teacher’s hand seemed so quick and busy, while this did not necessarily
mean that he had “small hands.”
Whether Bartók’ s hands were really “small” or not, the discussion above seems
to be meaningful in itself: it shows how deeply the 19th-century performance

6. Ferenc László, “Ismertem Bartókot,” 299.

7. Péter Bartók, My Father (Homosassa, Florida: Bartók Records, 2002), 36.
8. The 1934 version of Romanian Folk Dances was based on Bartók’s own copy of the 1927 reprint, which
he used at his concert performances. It contains several changes of fingerings. I am grateful to László Somfai
for drawing my attention to the questions concerning different versions of this work.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

 Bartók’s Wrists and 19th-Century Performance Practice 5

EXAMPLE 3 Romanian Folk Dances, 1934 version, no. 3

practice of the piano conditioned the motion of his hands. If we wish to clarify
the peculiarity of the composer’s style of performance, we should consider the
historicity of his technique.

II
The discussion about Bartók’s hands suggests that his piano technique was based
on a good hand-wrist-arm coordination. His wrists could have been good “medi-
ators” and appropriately transmitted the weight of arms to the keyboard. Some
documents also suggest an active role of the wrists in Bartók’s performance.
Henrik Horváth, piano teacher in Kolozsvár/Cluj, refers to this point:

His touch gains its richness in dynamics and in colours from a combination of wrist
technique and weight technique. It exploits every possibility of the piano.9

“Weight technique” is the term of Ludwig Deppe’s theory, which was one of
the new and influential theories at that time, while another term, “wrist tech-
nique,” reminds us of the “active” use of wrists which had been common in the
19th-century. So it seems that Bartók’s piano technique was a kind of mixture of
the old practice and the new. Irma Molnár-Kippich also emphasizes the impor-
tance of Bartók’s wrist technique:

9. Henrik Horvát, “Bartók Béla zongoraestje” [Béla Bartók’s Piano Recital] (1924), quoted in János
Demény, “Bartók Béla megjelenése az európai zeneéletben (1914–1926)” [Béla Bartók’s Appearance in the
European Musical Life (1914–1926)], in Zenetudományi Tanulmányok. Bartók Béla megjelenése az európai
zeneéletben. Liszt Ferenc hagyatéka, ed. Bence Szabolcsi and Dénes Bartha (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959)
(= Zenetudományi Tanulmányok 7), 5–425, here 311.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

6 Mineo Ota

He did not allow his students to play with spectacular motions of arms, while
one should admit that he could play easily even with slight motions of arms,
for he had magnificent wrists. He based the whole technique of piano playing
mainly on his wrists. That is why those Bartók staccatos, which were like the
clattering of hailstones, sounded so wonderfully.10

It is unlikely that Bartók used wrists exclusively. But as Molnár-Kippich sug-

gests, it is possible that he did not use arms so much and relied more on his wrist
technique than his contemporaries did. That he did not like spectacular motions
of arms in piano-playing seems to be true: in his student years Bartók made an
ironical remark on Emil Sauer, pupil of Deppe and Liszt, in one of his letters to
his mother.11 As to the use of wrists, let us examine the historical context more
closely.
*
It is well known that theorists of piano pedagogy at the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury harshly attacked the “active” use of wrists.12 Partly as a consequence of their
influence, later it became unpopular. But before then, the “active” use of wrists
had been favoured especially in octave and staccato playing, as the relevant ped-
agogical works of the day – such as the two-volume Oktavenschule by Theodor
Kullak – suggest.
It is also important to notice that Franz Liszt, teacher of Bartók’s piano pro-
fessor István Thomán, also relied on the wrist technique. According to Auguste
Boissier’s lesson-diaries, which date from the early 1830s, Liszt repeatedly told
students to play with wrists, “without any interference by arm.”13 In later years
technical innovations of the instrument’s mechanism and the change of taste of
the period could have changed the composer-pianist’s performance style to a cer-
tain degree. Still, several documents suggest that Liszt continued to use the wrist
technique. Based on his own observation August Stradal, one of his pupils, writes:
Since new theories of motions of arm are proposed in our time, it must be
emphasized that Liszt, if he still lived, would have kept his distance from such
theories, for his whole technique was the wrist technique alongside the finger
technique.14

10. Cf. Ferenc László, “Ismertem Bartókot,” 299.

11. “By the way, it was also interesting how he [Sauer] postured. He repeatedly lifted his hands 1 meter
high, moved his head here and there.” Letter, Bartók to his mother, January 21, 1900, in Bartók Béla családi
levelei [Béla Bartók family correspondence], ed. Béla Bartók, Jr. and Adrienne Gombocz (Budapest: Zenemû-
kiadó, 1981), 22.
12. “The modern playing of wrist should be passive throughout, with the combination of upper arms and
elbows. Every good octave, etc. comes from shoulder, upper arm, and elbow.” Rudolf M. Breithaupt, Die natür-
liche Klaviertechnik: Die freie, rhythmisch-natürliche Bewegung (Automatik) des gesamten Spielorganismus
(Schulter, Arme, Hände, Finger) als Grundlage der “klavieristischen” Technik (Leipzig: Kahnt, 1905), 57.
13. Cf. Alan Davison, “Franz Liszt and the Development of 19th-Century Pianism: A Re-Reading of
Evidence,” The Musical Times, 147/1896 (Autumn 2006), 38–39.
14. August Stradal, Erinnerungen an Franz Liszt (Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1929), 159.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

 Bartók’s Wrists and 19th-Century Performance Practice 7

“New theories of motions of arm” clearly mean those propagated by Rudolf

Breithaupt, Deppe, and others. As Jakov Isakovich Milstein argues,15 Stradal’s
statement may be exaggerated, for it is unlikely that Liszt used fingers and wrists
only. But it is possible that Liszt depended more on his wrist technique than the
new school of piano pedagogy would have accepted.
The question whether one should play the piano with “active” wrists or not,
was a hot topic at the beginning of the last century. István Thomán, teacher at the
Royal Academy Budapest, reports the contemporary situation in the preface of
his Technique of Piano Playing, Book 4, as follows:

Just when this writing is published, a big controversy goes on among piano
teachers concerning octave playing, mainly about whether we should play them
with active wrists or passive wrists. The old school practically exclusively recom-
mends active wrists. In contrast the new totally refuses them.16

Thomán was basically a supporter of modern, “synthetic” piano technique

propagated by Breithaupt. But about this topic it seems that he formulated his
opinion with reservation. He writes:

Whatever our opinion about these advices may be, it is certain that we should
not refuse them thoughtlessly. And if these revolutionists exaggerate the story,
it is certain that they stand on a definitely proper and progressive ground.
However, just one thing: est modus in rebus [=There is a middle course in all
things].17

It seems that Thomán hesitated to take the new theory of “passive” wrists
at face value. Relating to this, two things must be considered: first, as Kálmán
Chován’s Methodology of Piano Playing, textbook for piano-playing at the Music
Academy in Budapest shows, the theory of “active” wrists were still recom-
mended in Hungary at that time;18 and second, Thomán studied the piano under
Franz Liszt, who probably used wrist technique quite often. These circumstances
explain why Thomán never criticized the “active” use of wrists in his writings.
Moreover, he even recommends it in places.19 In the Preface of Book 3 he com-
ments as follows:

15. Jakov Iszakovics Milstejn, Liszt, Hung. trans. István Subik (Budapest: Zenemûkiadó, 1965), 537.
16. István Thomán, A zongorázás technikája / Grundlage der Klaviertechnik, 6 vols. (1906), reprint (Budapest:
Editio Musica, 2004), IV. (Oktávgyakorlatok / Oktaven), 2.
17. Ibid.
18. “The touch of the octave playing, which occurs from wrists, plays an important role in piano playing.
… There is a great difference between the arm technique and the wrist technique. Each of them is valuable in
itself, but one should practice them separately.” Kálmán Chován, A zongorajáték módszertana (methodika) mint
nevelési eszköz [Piano method as pedagogical means] (Budapest: Pesti Könyvnyomda, 1892 [21905]), 77.
19. “We should play this octave exercise written in crotchets from the joints of wrists, of elbows and of
shoulders. And for each of the touches we should practice it in tenuto and staccato, thus in six ways. The follow-
ing (quavers and triplet quavers) should be played only with wrist technique in tenuto and staccato.” Thomán,
A zongorázás technikája, II. (Hangsoriskola / Tonleiterschule), 21.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

8 Mineo Ota

With wrists we only rarely play chords. However, it will be good for variety of
timbre, if another way of touch is available for us. Especially in light staccato
chords we can benefit from this way of touch.20

The latter example is particularly important, since it suggests Thomán’s own

predilection for wrist staccato. Presumably he was ambivalent: while he basical-
ly supported the new theory propagated by Breithaupt, he could not deny what he
himself had learned from his master.
*
Thomán’s textbook, based on the curriculum of the Royal Academy, appeared
around 1906, a few years after Bartók’s graduation. But it is likely that Thomán’s
method described in it had already been used during the years of Bartók’s piano
studies. In fact the composer’s recollection in 1927 shows that his teacher did not
conceal his interest in the new theory:
I must have been a real “savage” as a pianist when I first came to Thomán. My
technique was good enough, but thoroughly crude. Thomán taught me the cor-
rect position of the hands and all the different “natural” and “summarizing”
movements which the newest pedagogy has since made into a truly theoretical
system and which, however, Liszt had already applied instinctively and Thomán,
a former pupil of Liszt, could acquire directly from his great master.21

It should be noted that here Bartók tries to connect two different schools with
each other: although there had probably been a gap between the “theoretical sys-
tem” of the new school and the Lisztian tradition of piano technique, Bartók sim-
plifies the whole story. Perhaps he did not understand properly his teacher’s
ambivalence toward the new school.
However, if Bartók had learned “natural” and “synthetic” motions from Thomán,
it is possible that he had learned them in accordance with the latter’s artistic
predilection, which had its root in 19th-century performance practice. And in fact
it seems that Thomán did not give up encouraging his students to use the wrist
technique. The evidence is Bartók’s letter to his mother written in July 1900.
On Saturday I was at Mr. Thomán’s; he was very friendly. … He mentioned
also that I have very good wrists for octave playing; if I develop them diligently,
I will carry out wonderful things with them.22

The letter was written in Bartók’ s first academic year at the Royal Academy
of Music, when he exceptionally was allowed to study the materials of the second
year. From the curriculum of the Royal Academy it becomes clear that at that

20. Thomán, A zongorázás technikája, III. (Hangzatok és hangzatfutamok / Akkorde und Arpeggien), 2.
21. Béla Bartók, “About István Thomán” [1927], in Béla Bartók Essays, ed. Benjamin Suchoff (London:
Faber Faber, 1976), 490.
22. Bartók Béla levelei [Béla Bartók letters], ed. János Demény (Budapest: Zenemûkiadó, 1976), 16.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

 Bartók’s Wrists and 19th-Century Performance Practice 9

time Bartók must have studied “three of four études from Kullak’s Oktaven-
schule” for the development of wrist technique.23
It seems that Thomán successfully trained the young student. For in a few years’
time Bartók started to play piano works full of rapid octave passages quite often:
Funerailles by Franz Liszt, the transcription of Schubert’s Erlkönig also by Liszt,
La Campanella, and so on. True, his wrists may have been flexible by birth. But
his choice of pieces can also be regarded as a consequence of conscious training
directed by Thomán.24
These circumstances explain why Bartók later could write such extraordinarily
difficult compositions as the Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, which
demand highly developed technique of octave and staccato playing throughout.
Bartók probably knew exactly where his technical merits were.25 On the other
hand, leggero playing with a slight agogic accent, which is so typical of his
recording of the Capriccio in B minor by Brahms, suggests that several parts of
his music (“A Bit Tipsy” and the second theme of the first movement of the
Second Concerto, to name but a few) may have been written for displaying his
own great skill of wrist staccato.
Of course one cannot deny that Bartók used a hammer-like touch here and there.
For example, Lajos Hernádi, one of his best pupils, points out that a “mechanism
of hitting,” which relies on “hands and arms with fixed wrists” was the main
characteristic of his teacher’s performing style.26 However, the present paper shows
that the flexibility of hands and wrists could have been another main character-
istic of Bartók’s style, and that in this respect his piano technique had its own
roots in 19th-century performance practice.
Bartók’s own statement that he learned the “proper posture of hands” from
Thomán may seem to contradict the fact that his pupils regarded his posture of
hands as peculiar. Considering the historicity of the wrist technique, the contra-
diction may be interpreted as follows: probably because of physical conditions
and of tendencies of the repertoire, he kept on using some elements of 19th-cen-
tury wrist technique, while in the main stream of 20th-century piano playing the
same technique became more and more obsolete.

23. We can read the details of the curriculum of the academic course in the yearbooks of the Royal Academy,
see A Zenemûvészeti Fôiskola Évkönyve 1900/1901 [Yearbook of the Music Academy 1900/1901], 18.
24. As to the instrument, it is possible that the pianos Bartók used did not demand such a heavy touch as
the pianos of today. However, this time, I could not examine this point.
25. It may not have been a mere coincidence that one of the critics, who attended the Vienna première of
the Second Piano Concerto in 1933, mentioned Bartók’s “extraordinarily powerful wrists”: “He showed that one
could be very youthful even with gray hair (born in 1881) and that one can have extraordinarily powerful wrists
at his disposal even with frail appearance. … The composer works with rapid staccato playing at the piano. In
some places he does so like a revolutionary sewing-machine.” See János Demény, “Bartók Béla pályája dele-
lôjén. Teremtô évek – világhódító alkotások (1927–1940)” [Béla Bartók at the Summit of his Career. Creative
years – World-conquering Works], Zenetudományi Tanulmányok Bartók Béla emlékére ed. Bence Szabolcsi and
Dénes Bartha (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1962) (= Zenetudományi Tanulmányok 10), 449.
26. Lajos Hernádi, “Bartók Béla, a zongoramûvész, a pedagógus, az ember” [Béla Bartók the pianist, the
pedagogue, the man], Új Zenei Szemle 4/9 (September 1953), 5.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

 10 Mineo Ota

Conclusion
The examination of Bartók’s hands and wrists in relation to the performance
practice of the day may seem to be marginal. But in a unique way, I think, it shows
how much Bartók owed to the 19th-century culture of performance. Even if a musi-
cal score by Bartók reflects his quite modernist spiritual personality, one should
not forget that his hands and his wrists were more or less conditioned by the 19th-
century tradition of performance practice. Under this tension between mind and
body, his music had been performed during his lifetime. The sonority of his per-
formance must have been rather light in places, because of the frequent use of
arpeggio and wrist technique.
Of course one should pay attention to what is written explicitly in the musical
score, but that is not enough for a productive interpretation of Bartók’s music.
Even if Bartók’s spirit demands to play faithfully what is written in the score, one
should occasionally think of how his own body reacted to his music.

Studia Musicologica 53, 2012

View publication stats