The THIRD FINGER...

...borders on being a fraud. It elicits the disgust of many pianist, who would gladly exchange theirs if L.L. Bean offered a suitable replacement. As the tallest fellow, it suggests strength, which occasionally it delivers. Yet it imagines itself to be the center axis of the hand, a total delusion, believing therefore it deserves property rights and comparable allegiance. But a portrait of Chopin's hand testifies that the center is closer to the second rather than the third finger, evidence of the hand's inherent duality of structure. Worst of all, the third finger does not react precisely to rhythmic cues; it is clearly sluggish and out of breath after a certain period, and is coordinated more like a clown on stilts than a Watusi warrior. Pay little attention to it, for it only confounds and can never be fully rehabilitated.


- from "Piano Pieces" - by Russell Sherman, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (NY) 1996, 244pp.

BUY the book