This past week Eleanor Sokoloff passed away at the age of 106. She taught at the Curtis Institute of Music for decades; actually since 1936.
Although I had never met Mrs. Sokoloff, I have benefited greatly from the training she passed on to her students. We have had Susan Starr at Cairn University in masterclass, for example. And, my good friend, Hugh Sung studied with her at the age of 8 before he debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of 11. Hugh's friendship and advice on piano playing has been instrumental for me in the last few years in bringing a turnaround in how I approach the piano and life, really.
And so, I found myself yesterday watching videos of remembrances of Mrs. Sokoloff.
I came across this video of Hugh Sung interviewing Mrs. Sokoloff in 2015.
I want to commend it to you.
In this video, she mentions the technical exercises of Rafael Joseffy. He studied with Carl Tausig and Franz Liszt. Later on in his life, he 'retired' from concertizing and focused on teaching.
The exercises are available on IMSLP ( https://bit.ly/2OxXhh9 ) in the original edition. For the rest of the month of July and August, I am going to be going through these exercises in my daily practice as part of my warm up.
As pianists, we stand on the shoulders of giants and we lost a giant this past week.