ABSTRACT
Lightness of touch is indeed very important, especially because present-day pianos have a tone that is basically too full for Mozart’s music. A hard touch does indeed make the tone of a modern piano brighter, but it also makes it uglier, since at a certain level many non-harmonic overtones take part in the vibration process. Piano technique is based on a small number of constantly recurring principles, such as finger action (staccato, legato), the passing under of the thumb, trills, octaves, chords, etc. Legato playing is often made easier by keeping the fingers flat, sometimes almost stretched out, as if the fingertips wanted to stroke the keys. There are frequent pedaling problems in playing Mozart. It is an art to use the pedal with discretion and taste. There are many arpeggios that sound best when played with hardly any pedal, since they occur in passages where a slender sound is most appropriate.
