# Preferring Fortepianos lately...



## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Just wondered if anyone felt the same way. Like a sucker, I continue to buy the CDs I like on Spotify. I'm hopeless, but a CD's sound is always so much better.

Anyway, I find myself buying music I already have but played on the fortepiano--Haydn's Trios, Beethoven, Schubert especially, even Schumann and Mendelssohn. Each instrument is so different and characterful whereas I can rarely tell the difference between one concert grand and another (though there are a handful of exceptions that may also have to do with the pianists). Modern grands are beautiful, but also homogeneous and generic in sound.

I have a recording of some very late Bach being played on a fortepiano that would have been available during the last decade of his life and I'm floored by the sound of it. It doesn't sound like a glorified clavichord, but really sounds like an early piano. I love the pianos that Vermeulen and Badora-Skoda and Schiff have found. I find the same to be true of "period" violins, though perhaps less so than with pianos.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There was something really good released last month, normally I wouldn't have bothered with the music, not my sort of thing, but this opened my eyes a bit


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Thanks! I'm listening to it right now. Already sounds like a strong possibility for a CD purchase. 
Do you know what kind of square piano it is? Sounds like it has too much base to be one of the small ones that I'd normally call a spinet.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

It would not always be my first choice, but I find sensitive and informed performances of some works on historical fortepianos to be very interesting. Overall, it makes me appreciate composers who seemed to be pushing beyond the limitations of the instruments, perhaps assuming that they would continue to make improvements (which they did).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I wonder if it could be said that the modern piano stopped "improving" by the early 20th century?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

vtpoet said:


> Thanks! I'm listening to it right now. Already sounds like a strong possibility for a CD purchase.
> Do you know what kind of square piano it is? Sounds like it has too much base to be one of the small ones that I'd normally call a spinet.


Square piano by Clementi 1812


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Thanks. That's a substantial instrument. Do the liner notes say whether the instrument was in Schubert's collection, or one like it?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> Modern grands are beautiful, but also homogeneous and generic in sound.


I wholeheartedly agree:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I wholeheartedly agree:


Really fascinating stuff. I've been listening to all of them, all the way through.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

vtpoet said:


> Thanks. That's a substantial instrument. Do the liner notes say whether the instrument was in Schubert's collection, or one like it?


See if you can read this

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/39/000134993.pdf


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I haven't heard that "cd's sound better"...only LP's sound better, and they do! I love the way fortepianos sound and also those clavichords


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's one with a good piano









And this Scarlatti CD on YouTube uses a cristofori






If you can tolerate the composer's music, this is an interesting experiment


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> See if you can read this
> 
> https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/39/000134993.pdf


I can; and thanks. Am reading it now.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I haven't heard that "cd's sound better"...only LP's sound better, and they do! I love the way fortepianos sound and also those clavichords


There are a couple of my LPs that I miss, that have never appeared on CD, but I remember playing the first CD. It was a revelation. Complete silence when there was supposed to be silence. No popping. No static. No dust. Nowadays, I would consider LPs if I had a thousand dollar turn table and a hermetically sealed sound room --- and lots of Elmer's Glue for cleaning the LPs.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I have the WF Bach by Robert Hill. His version is my favorite among all the versions of these pieces (and I love these pieces). But for the earliest pieces, I find WF Bach more convincing on the fortepiano.

The Scarlatti is really beautiful on this instrument. Never heard these versions before.

As to the Beethoven, and unlike the great WF Bach, never heard of him. An obscure composer I suppose. Sounds Hungarian. I'll try out these pieces. See if they're tolerable.


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