Piano Video Lesson: Is it Okay to Re-Divide the Hands in Piano Playing?

If you can't achieve that, if somebody could hear the difference in the way it sounds, then you should avoid redividing the hands.

Hi, I'm Robert Estrin, this is livingpianos.com. The question today, is it okay to redivide the hands in piano playing? There are many schools of thought on this subject. In Beethoven in particular, there are many who feel that it's very important to play the music exactly as it is in the score and not to redistribute the notes between the hands in a way that Beethoven didn't write it. Other people think, nonsense, as long as it sounds good, what's the difference? Well, is there a difference? And that's what we're gonna explore today. And I've chosen a certain passage in the Mozart fantasy in D minor, which I'm gonna show you first, and then I'm gonna talk about the redividing the hands, even what I'm talking about there so you understand the premise of this discussion. And then we'll go through and see if it's valid, if it's something you should consider doing, or try to shy away from. So there's a number of cadenzas, and there's one in particular, now I just divided the hands, but it could be.

So the question is, should you divide the hands or not? Well, it really depends upon how you execute the music. So in this one, for example, if you played it the way Mozart wrote it, or you could do it like this to make it easier.

So the question is, can you make it sound the way it was written by redividing the hands, or is it gonna sound different? So if it sounds like this, that's fine, but if it sounds like this, then that's no good. So if you know the sound that the composer intended, and you redivide the hands in a way that sounds the same, but it's easier to negotiate, in my opinion, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. And sometimes there are really awkward things in music, like for example, the end of Dr. Gratis at Parnassum of Debussy, you have... I always redivide the hands there like this. So it's written to play two notes in each hand. But you can just easily play... It's actually far easier to go...

So in my viewpoint, as long as the integrity of the sound is maintained based upon how the composer wrote the music, there's absolutely nothing wrong with redividing the hands to be able to negotiate the passage more cleanly and faithfully. But if you can't achieve that, if somebody could hear the difference in the way it sounds, then you should avoid redividing the hands. But it could be a lifesaver in a lot of instances, making the music sound better, playing it cleaner, always having in mind the intent that the composer had in the way they wrote it in the score. So that's my opinion. Love all your comments here at LivingPianos.com and YouTube. Let me know and others know how you feel about my feeling about this, which is as long as it doesn't sound different, it's fine. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Eshren here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. Ring the bell, the thumbs up, you know the drill. We really appreciate it and look forward to seeing you next time.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/is-it-okay-to-re-divide-the-hands-in-piano-playing/

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