I know that the topic of Rachmininoff having large hands is nothing new, but I was googling around and found this “scientific article” from 2006:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1592053/
I didn’t realize thst there might have been a medical condition involved, nor did I realize that his hands were bigger than most basketball players!
No wonder those chords are so hard to get your hands around!
Interesting! Reminds me of speculation of Van Gogh’s vision problem, too.
Also never realized “All by myself” was inspired by Rach 2 :o
I'm going to vote for "maybe he just had big hands." He would be out on the shoulder of the curve, but I don't think you have to invoke an illness to account for what was likely just normal variation in hand size.
Which makes me wonder--should composers write chords that would be impossible for 95% of the piano playing population to reach without rolling or altering the chord?
Stub If one can reach a 10th, most/much of Rachmaninoff's music will be within your reach.
Stub should composers write chords that would be impossible for 95% of the piano playing population to reach without rolling or altering the chord?
My first reaction to your question here was "they should write whatever they themselves can play." But certainly it depends on the composer's goals of course. For example, if someone wants to sell a lot of sheet music, it needs to be "playable" or accessible .... I would imagine that was a bigger issue in past generations than it is now...
