The Advantage of Legato Over StaccatoIs it better for me to practise more staccato or more legato?Give the preference to legato, for it produces the genuine piano tone, and it develops the technique of the fingers; while the staccato touch always tends to draw the arm into action. If you playfrom the arm you cannot expect any benefit for the fingers. For the acquisition of a legitimate legato Chopin's works cannot be highly enough recommended, even in the transcriptions by Godowsky, which become impossible when tried with any touch other than legato. He wrote them, so to speak, out of his own hand, and his legato is so perfect that it may well be taken as a model by anybody.
The Advantage of Legato Over Staccato
Is it better for me to practise more staccato or more legato?
Give the preference to legato, for it produces the genuine piano tone, and it develops the technique of the fingers; while the staccato touch always tends to draw the arm into action. If you playfrom the arm you cannot expect any benefit for the fingers. For the acquisition of a legitimate legato Chopin's works cannot be highly enough recommended, even in the transcriptions by Godowsky, which become impossible when tried with any touch other than legato. He wrote them, so to speak, out of his own hand, and his legato is so perfect that it may well be taken as a model by anybody.