You must not place yourself in the middle of the piano, but way up at the trebels, for in this way you have a better chance of flinging your body around and making all sorts of grimaces. You roll your eyes and smirk. When a passage occurs twice, you play it slower the 2nd time; if it comes around a 3rd time, you play it slower still; and when playing a passage you must lift your arm as high as you can, and if the passage requires emphasis, the arm and not the fingers must do this and do it with great purpose and heaviness.... She [Augsburg prodigy pianist, Nanette Stein] is eight and a half years old and she is now learning everything by heart; she has a chance of getting somewhere, for she has real talent; but she won't succeed if she continues this way. She simply won't get the necessary rapidity because she does everything she can to make her hand heavy. She will never be able to get what is most essential and difficult and the principal thing in music: the right tempo, for she has since the earliest youth completely neglected to play in time. Herr Stein [Nanette's father] and I have talked at least 2 hours about this very point. I have pretty much convinced him. He now asks my advice in everything. He used to be very taken by Becché. Now he sees and hears that I can do better than Becché, and that I am not making any grimaces when I play, and yet I play with much expression, and no one — these are his words — has ever played his piano forte as well as I have, and, besides, I always keep correct time. They are all wondering about that. They simply can't believe that you can play a Tempo Rubato in an Adagio, and the left hand knows nothing about it but goes on playing in strict time. As far as they know, the left hand always follows the right....
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in a letter to his father, 23-25 October 1777
Acting In Opera
Hillary
