11/8/2017 Egon PETRI and the PETRIOTS

Egon PETRI and the PETRIOTS

(by Michaele Benedict)

Egon Petri (1881 - 1962)

The legacy of Egon Petri, who is believed by many to be one of the greatest pianists
of the twentieth century, lives on in his grand-students and great-grand-students,
that is, in the students of his own pupils and in the next generation of pianists.

This pianistic legacy is so distinctive that it is easily recognizable in performers, and

yet in the absence of description by Petri himself, the legacy has been passed on
from teacher to student almost entirely by word of mouth. Is there another example
of teaching in any field, which has existed, essentially unchanged, for more than a
hundred years without the benefit of a text? One is reminded of Mary Renault's
historical novel, The Praise Singer, which describes her idea of the aural tradition of
music teaching in ancient Greece, before notation was invented.

Petri's way of playing the piano, and the way he taught, involved a naturalness and
an ease which could overcome many difficulties. Instead of technical studies, Petri
advocated taking excerpts from the keyboard literature itself, so that the skill
served the music, rather than standing alone. Changes in dynamics were achieved
by the speed of the key's descent, rather than by weight. "Weight is our enemy",
Petri would say. Together with his associate, Alexander Libermann, Petri taught that
the proper way to approach the piano keyboard was to "take" the keys rather than
pushing or depressing them. This subtle difference involved a grasping movement of
the hand, which used muscles rather than brute strength. If one compares the
physical approach to the piano by most excellent contemporary pianists with that of
piano players two generations ago (videotapes allow us to make the comparison), it
is easy to see how things have changed. The tight curved hand has relaxed and
extended; dramatic and sometimes histrionic gestures have given way to an
economy of motion; greater faithfulness to the source of the music has produced
performances with greater subtlety and greater interest.

Much of this change may be credited to Petri and his heirs. Young music teachers
today represent about four generations beyond Petri, who died in California on May
27, 1962, at the age of 81. If the father of our father is our grandfather, then the
teacher of our teacher can be considered our grand-teacher. The great-great-grand-
pupils of Petri are many thousands in number, and yet they are recognizable by
theirs orientation and playing. While reading the pages of my colleague Stefan
Kutrzeba on the Internet, I thought I recognized some of Petri's principles, and our
subsequent correspondence revealed that two of Stefan's teachers were Petri

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11/8/2017 Egon PETRI and the PETRIOTS

students.

My teacher, Robert Sheldon, studied with Egon Petri for many years and tried
faithfully to pass on the Petri legacy. He printed out "Petri-Libermann Notes on the
Art and Technique of Pianoforte Playing", a 33-page, single-spaced treasury of wise
advice. This reference, plus dozens of tape recordings containing Petri anecdotes
and teachings, is the primary source of what I know about Egon Petri. I described
some of this material in an article in the American piano magazine, Clavier, in
November 1997.

So who was this paragon whose name these days is so little known, but whose
method has been so influential in piano playing?

Egon Petri's family was Dutch, but Petri was born March 23, 1881, in Germany,
where his family entertained such legendary composers and musicians as Johannes
Brahms at their home in Dresden. Petri's father, Henri Willem Petri, became
concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra in 1889. Music historians tell us
that Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn conducted this orchestra earlier in the
nineteenth century. As a youth, Petri played violin in his father's quartet, but
according to Sheldon's notes, abandoned a promising career as a violinist for that of
a pianist because it gave him more scope. It may well be that this early expertise on
a stringed instrument fostered some of Petri's ideas about "bowing" and phrasing in
piano music. Piano music should be all curves, Petri said, with no angles, stops or
jerks. Petri's teachers were the legendary Venezuelan pianist Teresa Carreo, who
was called the "Valkyrie of the piano" and Ferruccio Busoni, a family friend. Petri
studied philosophy and earned a doctorate in music from the Manchester Royal
College of Music in England, where he taught from 1906 to 19l0. He taught at the
Hochschule fr Musik in Berlin from 1921 to 1925, and taught in Poland from 1925
to 1939. According to a letter from Forrest Robinson, a Petri student, Petri and his
wife left Poland for England in great haste in 1939, leaving his music books and
grand pianos behind. Petri's sister was killed in an air raid in Hanover during the
war, according to Mr. Robinson. Petri's son became an officer in the British army.
Egon Petri was pianist in residence at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.,
from 1940 to 1946 and in 1947 through 1957 held a similar position at Mills College
in Oakland, California, U.S.A. His colleagues on the music faculty were Libermann
and the French composer Darius Milhaud. He returned to Europe to teach at the
Basel Conservatory in 1957. From 1952 to 1962 he taught at the San Francisco
(California) Conservatory of Music. My teacher, Robert Sheldon, succeeded him at
the Conservatory.

Petri assisted his former teacher, Busoni, in editing Bach's keyboard works. Most of
the Bach/Busoni treatments are still in print, and Petris own transcription of one
Bach work popularly known as "Sheep May Safely Graze" is still in print and is heard
occasionally in concerts. I recently played for a wedding where the mother of the
bride requested this piece. She proved to have been a student of Claire James, an
English student of Egon Petri.

Ferruccio Busoni, whom we know today primarily by his transcriptions of Bach (thus
the Bach/Busoni attributions on concert programs) encouraged Petri to play piano
and taught him in Berlin, Weimar and Dresden. Recordings of Petri playing Busoni's
music as well as performances by Busoni himself have been re-released in recent
years, and recordings of Petri playing the major piano literature are once again

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