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laboriously indeed, but in an inattentive and thoughtless manner, and by hastily playing over all kinds of difficulties innumerable times. These persons play till their fingers are lamed; but how? confusedly, over hastily, and without expression; or, what is still worse, with a false expression.
We may escape all this by keeping the right medium between these two ways. When, therefore, you begin to learn a new and somewhat difficult piece, you must devote the first hours to decyphering the notes strictly and correctly in a slow time. You must also fix upon the fingering to be employed, and gain a general insight over the whole. This, in a single piece, can at most require but a few days. Then the whole piece must be played over quietly and composedly, but at the same time attentively, and without any distraction of ideas, till we are enabled to execute it without trouble, and in the exact time indicated by the author.
Single passages of great difficulty may be practised apart. Still, however, they ought to be often repeated in connection with the rest of the piece.
All this too may be completed in a few days. But now begins the time when we must also learn to play it with beauty and elegance.
Now, all the marks of expression must be observed with redoubled attention; and we
