The Emergence of a Pivotal Role for the Thumb in Keyboard Fingering During the Early Eighteenth Century and Its Subsequent Impact on Pianistic Idiom

This thesis investigates the underlying changes in the approach to fingering of keyboard music (mainly harpsichord and piano) between the late 1500s and the mid-nineteenth century. The main focus of the work centers around the years c.1700-1775, as fingered sources and treatises of that time establish it to be a period of considerable change in terms of approaches to fingering; specifically, the demise of the older method of strong and weak fingers with the longer turning over shorter ones, yielding to the new equalized use of all five fingers and the pivotal function of the thumb. Important sources which reflect the above changes are F. Couperin's L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin (1717), the three fingered keyboard works of J. S. Bach, F. A. Maichelbeck's Die auf dem Clavier lehrende Caecilia (1738), C. P. E. Bach's Versuch uber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (1753) and Probestucke, and F. W. Marpurg's Die Kunst das Clavier zu spielen (1750/1762). Other materials providing further evidence include Couperin's Pieces de Clavecin, Scarlatti's sonatas and J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Name thesis:degree_name

D.M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Shepherd, Richard Charles

Contributors dc:contributor

• Temperley, Nicholas

• Music
• Education, Music

Identifier

(UMI)AAI9543720

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/70876