The Art of Singing Applied to the Piano, Op.70

L'art du chant applique au piano, a collection of transcriptions of vocal music assembled to teach pianists how to make the instrument sing. Thalberg argued in his preface that the piano's greatest weakness was its inability to sustain, and that the remedy was to study singers. It is his most enduring contribution. Where his opera fantasias have vanished, the principle behind this collection, that a pianist should learn phrasing and breath from the voice, remains standard teaching advice.