Do you play the beginning of Beethoven's Hammerklavier with one hand or two?<br><br>In this lesson, Ben Laude sits down with esteemed Juilliard professor Jerome Lowenthal to discuss this debated topic, along with general ideas on narrative and personality in performance.

Esteemed Juilliard professor Jerome Lowenthal sits down with tonebase Head of Piano Ben Laude to discuss the rise of Schubert in the 20th Century, what Lowenthal learned from Kapell and Cortot, performing Rachmaninoff with Stokowski, and what to make of composers' recordings of their own music.

Join esteemed Juilliard professor Jerome Lowenthal for a deep dive into the art of pedaling. His vast experience and immersion in the 20th-century Golden Age of piano playing are on full display: this lesson is full of vibrant, nuanced ideas that give you the keys to expressive pedaling. Witty anecdotes abound: Lowenthal’s profound understanding of culture – music, French poetry, history, and more besides – gives this lesson a charming, convivial atmosphere, as if you were invited to an evening of conversation with a master.<br><br>The lesson starts with the basics: what part of your foot do you pedal with? where should you keep your left foot? how can you pedal with subtle control rather than stomping? Lowenthal’s demonstrations reveal that using the pedal is as essential and natural as breathing.<br><br>The bulk of the lesson is devoted to musical examples representing a wide range of composers –– ranging from Bach, Haydn, and Liszt to 20th-century masters like Bártok, Prokofiev, Ravel, and Debussy, as well as a particular emphasis on Beethoven and Chopin. Each example reveals the expressive possibilities of nuanced pedaling: long pedals to sustain bass notes without muddling the rest of the texture, slow releases and half-pedaling for softening the piano’s percussive edge, and Chopin’s "breathing pedal" –– all of which play a part in crafting idiomatic and beautiful phrases.<br><br>Lowenthal closes the lesson with remarks on how best to use the left and middle pedals –– the una corda and sostenuto, respectively. With his insights, you’ll find that the soles of your feet will help you play with soul!

In this lesson, American pianist Jerome Lowenthal introduces Schubert's first set of four Impromptus, Op. 90 (D. 899), before walking you through No. 1 in C minor. This work, as Lowenthal demonstrates with several examples, is an example of an artist borrowing from his predecessors, in this case Beethoven. <br><br> Emphasizing a narrative approach, Lowenthal likens the lyrical first theme to the opening of Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto. He then demonstrates the character of the music as it transforms and moves to the second theme. <br><br> Lowenthal shows reveals how the work is structured in a quasi-sonata form, and how you can make sense of this unusual structure by applying the narrative interpretation and developing the drama. In the technically challenging middle section, Lowenthal urges you to mold your mechanism to the music, so that technique is never divorced from expression. A grasp of the meter and a sense for how the phrases are shaped aids in developing facility. <br><br> In the end, Lowenthal quotes Robert Browning – "a man's reach should never exceed his grasp" – to encourage you to tackle this works challenges, both technical and musical.