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Outo
Whas been recommended to me is to position my hand somewhere in the middle of the two notes and then do use quick wrist rotation between the low and high. I do find that hand position makes a big difference to me

Won't work for the passage in question. Nahum was the first to solve it. I just gave an alternate.

This is simply HORRIBLE writing. It is arrogant for a composer to assume everyone can reach that far and immediately makes it impossible for many hands.

Time to go to another composer. Even Rachmaninov, who had a huge hand, showed arpeggios for things that large. And Chopin. And Liszt.

Who write this mess?

Come on Gary D. - don't hold back your true thoughts !

I'm really glad you said this! I totally agree, but I'm an amateur and it's nice to hear it from a piano professional.

I've googled around and it seems that it's jazz that uses 10ths the most. Is that true? I want to know what to avoid! (I can reach a 10th, even "technically" reach an 11th, but I suspect playing such large intervals regularly might might injure my hands...)

I guess it's his right to write for big hands and I get the non arp thing...it's a fugue. But why on the last measure when everything before was completely fine for my hands...Missed it when I browsed them and only noticed when reading on the piano.

It's from Viktor Poltoratsky's 24 preludes and fugues. This one is one of the easiest. But seems there was a catch...

I guess the only option would be to somehow rewrite the passage...I wonder what would happen if the middle voice changes octaves? I'm certainly no expert on composing fugues...should put this in MIDI to know what it is supposed to sound like.

And what should I have said?

Wow, this is great writing. Everyone should admire a composer who writes 10ths and tells the performer not to arpeggiate?

If it is something transcribed for piano, just to see the score, but is written for several instruments, then it's fine.

But I'll continue to call a spade a spade. If I wrote something that dumb, people would rightfully call me on it.

By the way, I have big hands. I can play those 10ths. But I've only taught people very rarely who could play this.

Jazz uses even larger intervals of 13ths, but they are always inverted so that you never really stretch that far. Anyway, you don't need to worry about exact notes when playing jazz as the style is mostly improvised.

Rachmaninov was notorious for having big hands, but here is a possible solution.

I LOVE THIS GUY!!!!

He's great, isn't he!