glissandos

Perfect pitch is as much a curse; I wish I didn't have it. But we digress...

Does anyone know of the earliest keyboard piece with glissando? I can't imagine Bach doing such a thing, Mozart maybe. I imagine it would have been possible only after the forte-piano was invented.

I once read that upon rising from the piano, Chopin had the "sad habit" of running his finger up the keyboard as if to forcibly rip himself from it.

Pete

 

"glissandos" :?: That looks like a spanish word to me... Glissandi is the plural. :wink:
But do carry on... :roll:

 

Brahms's Paganini Variations (Book I, Var. XIII).

Indeed Beethoven meant them as glissandi in the Waldstein Sonata (as well as in the First Concerto), at least, according to musicologists and historically informed pianists. A clue to that is Beethoven's original fingering, which indicates 1-5 on each octave, quite redundant if that weren't the case. As to the difficulty of octave glissandi on a modern piano, yes, they are troublesome, for sure more troublesome than on Beethoven's times fortepianos, whose key dip was shallower and action very light. Arrau himself could drop the Waldstein from his recital program, if the instrument wasn't properly regulated.

 

Octave Glissandi

Some pianists rub the tip of the 5th finger on the greasy part of the head or palm just before doing downward octave glissandi.

 

oooooo

 

I think I have it even though I cannot do it under pressure - I can abstain from music all day and then sing the first note of a song that I know well before it begins, perfectly in tune, but I sometimes can't name a pitch on the spot. I just know that the jukebox at my job has songs that are warped, that go in and out of tune rapidly, and it drives me absolutely batty because I can't convince anyone else that I work with that there's anything wrong with it! Argh!

I heard something for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart in college, I think by Ives, and I remember actually liking it (much to my surprise).

(Digression can be fun.)