EASY DOES IT
Are some pieces easier than they sound? And if so, are they worth tackling, or are they just for show-offs? Warwick Thompson investigates and finds that things aren’t so black and white
Being something of a bibliomaniac, I couldn’t resist the alluringly haphazard display in the window of The Sanctuary, a Dickensian-looking second-hand bookshop in Lyme Regis, where I was holidaying. The interior proved to be even more invitingly shambolic than the window. It was a real Curiosity Shop of bookish treasures, piled willynilly and any-old-how. You really just had to let your nose guide you. Mine led me to the basement.
There I found six or seven wide shelves full of piano music, but much of it at a level that I didn’t really think I’d be able to tackle. Lots of the flashier Liszt, some crazy-looking Scriabin, the Tchaikovsky Concerto (yes, I know there are others, but I mean that one), and so on. I picked out a few nicely-bound volumes of Schumann, and took them upstairs to the desk.
If you’re wondering what all this has to do with ‘easier than they sound’, then do bear with me. There is a bit of method to the madness.
The owner explained that all the scores had belonged to Joanna Leach, a concert pianist who had lived nearby. Would I like to take the whole lot – by the way. As I discovered, she was a fine performer, often on square pianos, with a rather unusual career. A delicious factoid about her: her grandmother had studied with Leschetitzky in Vienna.)
