Page:Letters to a Young Lady (Czerny).djvu/61

 stumbling, incorrect, and unconnected manner, often coming to a stand-still on false and discordant harmonies, missing the time, &c. &c.

You have, no doubt, Miss, frequently been placed in this situation; and I would wager that you have sometimes impatiently thrown aside a piece which did not much promise to please you. In this manner, you must, in the sequel, have often lost that exquisite enjoyment which the ingenious and elaborate works of the great masters offer to you, if you have the patience to overcome the difficulties generally inseparable from them.

Here more particularly belong compositions in what is called the strict style; as, for example, the works of Handel, Bach, and other masters of this stamp. For the execution of such pieces, generally written in several parts, and in the fugue style, and of such single passages in the same style as we often meet with in the most modern compositions, there are required a strict legato, and a very firm and equal touch; and also a clear enunciation of each single part; and, for the attainment of all this, the employment of a peculiar mode of fingering, which, in general, deviates very much from the usual one, and which chiefly consists in quickly and adroitly substituting one finger for another on the same key, while it is held down, and without sounding it anew.