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Rating: 
Summary: Good for Intermediate Pianists
Review: Reading this book was informative to some extent, but disappointing in gereral. The exercises are very boring, and are pretty useless for the beginner. Relatively advanced pianists (Grade 8 and above) will find little in the book. The pictures are of an excellent quality, and are a definite guide, especially the ones about passing the thumb. A more well written book is "Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing" by Josef Lhevinne (ISBN: 0486228207). This book offers superior advice on improving one's playing, and can be used by all but the most competent pianist.
Rating:
Summary: Good for Intermediate Pianists
Review: Reading this book was informative to some extent, but disappointing in gereral. The exercises are very boring, and are pretty useless for the beginner. Relatively advanced pianists (Grade 8 and above) will find little in the book. The pictures are of an excellent quality, and are a definite guide, especially the ones about passing the thumb. A more well written book is "Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing" by Josef Lhevinne (ISBN: 0486228207). This book offers superior advice on improving one's playing, and can be used by all but the most competent pianist.
Rating: 
Summary: The text was easy to understand and apply.
Review: The Leschetizky Method is by Malwine Bree, who was Leschetizky's pupil and later, his assistant. Leschetizky was a student of Czerny, who studied with Beethoven. There is a charming dedication to Leschetizky--a bit of history--where Bree thanks him for all he has taught her and asks him to ensure that she has accurately recorded his teachings. His response glowingly praises her book as having faithfully followed his methods, and he adds that he recognizes the sketches of his hands on the keyboard. The book is a quality paperback that will take a lot of spreading open at the piano without falling apart. As a student of the Russian Technical Regimen, a method directly derived from Leschetizky's teachings, I found the book to be an excellent supplement. Its 92 pages are crammed full of piano technique, including finger dexterity and independence, timing, use of the metronome, scales, chord playing, arpeggios, embellisments (such as grace notes), use of the pedal, performance tips, suggestions for memorizing, and a lot more, and has either exercises for or examples of each, with sketches of Leschetizky's hands on the keyboard demonstrating hand position for the chords and exercises. The editor offers a few tips that inject just a bit of modern theory. The text was easy to read, the exercises easy to understand and apply, and both are thoroughly enjoyable as well as helpful for the pianist.
Rating:
Summary: Might not be for beginners!
Review: This book is full of notations that I think are for advance students in music education or for piano players looking improve their skills. Enlarging the front cover shows the type of notation and fingering that will be found. It's not obvious from the title of this book that this book might not be for beginners who are trying learn on their own.
Rating:
Summary: Read it if you're curious enough
Review: This book is not for the beginners just like Leschetizky never taught any beginners. The more advanced pianist may not take much interest in it either-- as the pedagogue himself used to say, I have no method. His method instead concentrated on phrasing and interpretation and musicality, as explained by his pupil Moiseiwitsch. So even if this book is really authentic, it is not too instructive: its basically a book by one of his mistresses who wasn't exactly his pupil not who is not much of a pianist. There are however some pictures of hand positions and some finger excercises that are of marginal values.
Listen instead to his pupils, particularly Ignaz Friedman whom he observed to be technically better than himself. Simon Barere is perhaps even more awesome, but here Blumenfeld's and Anton Rubinstein's influence is equally strong though. Moiseiswitch and Horszowski are wonderful too, and Paderewski too. We still have some fine historic recording of the padagogue himself which could tell you much more than any words or pictures could.
Nonetheless, there are dozens of pictures showing hand positions for various chords etc presumably they were Lechetizsky's hands. The fingers so so curved that at times that the knails would hit the key instead! Moiseiwitsch did play with rather curved fingers, though not to that extent. Anton Rubinstein on the other hand, preferred the flat fingers. But Hofmann from this school didn't play with very flat fingers.
Rating:
Summary: Read it if you're curious enough
Review: This book is not for the beginners just like Leschetizky never taught any beginners. The more advanced pianist may not take much interest in it either-- as the pedagogue used to say, I have no method. His method instead concentrated on phrasing and interpretation and musicality, explained his pupil Moiseiwitsch. So even if this book is authentic, it is not very instructive. Listen instead to his pupils, particularly Ignaz Friedman whom he observed to be technically better than himself. Simon Barere is perhaps even more awesome, but here Blumenfeld's and Anton Rubinstein's influence is equally strong though. Moiseiswitch and Horszowski are wonderful too, if Paderewski wasn't. We still have some fine historic recording of the padagogue himself which could tell you much more than any words or pictures could. Nonetheless, there are dozens of pictures showing hand positions for various chords etc presumably they were Lechetizsky's hands. The fingers so so curved that at times that the knails would hit the key instead! Moiseiwitsch did play with rather curved fingers, though not to that extent. Anton Rubinstein on the other hand, preferred the flat fingers. But Hofmann from this school didn't play with very flat fingers.
Rating:
Summary: Solid .... but rather dull
Review: This book was actually written not by the famous Leschetizky himself, but by his student Bree, and then later endorsed by the master. In any event, it is solid in the sense that it provides some basic finger exercises that are still useful and presents some basic good advice. The commentary is probably quite correct but generally does not really reveal anything new, neither in content nor in presentation. Perhaps the best part of the book are the illustrations of various hand positions. At the end there is also a perhaps historically interesting article by Paderewski. For finger exercises, I think Hanon is better and more complete, and for a method as such, have a look at Seymour Bernstein's '20 Lessons in Keyboard Choreography'.
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