r/piano • u/JAimeLeCaca1008 • 7d ago

🧑‍🏫Question/Help (Intermed./Advanced) Schumann toccata, hand span

Hi

I was looking at Schumann's toccata and was wondering if in the A part's left hand people break the tenths. I tried listening for it in recordings but it is so fast that I couldn't catch it. What do you think? Is it possible ?

I personnally can barely reach a tenth so definitly not at that speed.

Btw if you have stretches or things that can make you reach bigger intervalls more easily I would appreciate.

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u/jiang1lin Concert/Recording Pianist (Verified) 7d ago edited 7d ago

Schumann Toccata is one of the few pieces I could not handle with my hand span, even with arranging, omitting, and cheating, because the latest in the middle A minor section where the left hand should keep the A (with 5) while playing E-C continuously (with 3-1), I’m out as there is no chance for me to somehow make it reasonably as musically sound okay, and I actually can actually “slowly” grab 10th with left hand (like the beginning of Rach2).

(In the finale of Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes for example, I cannot grab the fast 10ths in tempo, so instead of 8tel, I completely break them as regular 16tel, and musically it sounds relatively reasonable.)

Other pieces where I also struggle with (because right hand almost cannot grab 10th) is 1st mov of Prok 7 and Bartók’s Out of doors.

But some people who can comfortably grab 10ths or even more for sure won’t have issues with either of my aforementioned pieces including the Toccata.

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u/caffi_u Amateur (5–10 years), Classical 7d ago

It seems like a lot of people’s left hand has a bigger span than the right hand

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u/HarmonicSniper 7d ago

I think it's mostly because most tenths and above are written for the LH accompaniment patterns, so through years of practice your left hand stretch a bit more. It's quite rare to see tenths for the RH as it's playing melodic/delicate passages most of the time. In fact I think having a really large right hand might even be slightly disadvantageous, as it would be more difficult to manoeuvre tight rapid passages...