# The HIP Sound: The Instrument vs. Player



## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

I've been trying to answer this question myself but am putting it out there for others.

What got me going is Hurwitz's (music critic) condemnation of so many HIP performances because he detests the sound produced by HIP performers (which I like). I mean, I don't particularly care what he thinks, but I do think he may be wrong in his implication that the sound produced by an unmodernized Strad is entirely in the player's hands. For example, he detests Faust's performance of the Mozart violin concerti (as do many others for the same reason) but how much of the sound is the result of Faust and how much the "period condition" of the instrument itself? With fortepianos, the answer is clear, but with stringed instruments, perhaps, less so. Beyond obvious choices like vibrato, it's not clear to me that Perlman would produce a notably different sound from Faust's violin than Faust herself.

Do any of you, beyond mere opinion ('cause I got plenty of that) have some insight into this?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

,,...................................................


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> On another thread Purcell's Dido and Aeneas came up. Come on now. Does this
> 
> really *sound better* than this?


To me? Yes. The HIP version *sounds better*, by a long shot, than Britten's version. But none of this addresses my question. I'd rather remain focused on the original question than get distracted by feuds over HIP vs. non-HIP performances.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

^

I think you might give a better example of hip






The Britten performance of course would've been completely foreign to Purcell, however it sounded.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> To me? Yes. The HIP version *sounds better*, by a long shot, than Britten's version. But none of this addresses my question. I'd rather remain focused on the original question than get distracted by feuds over HIP vs. non-HIP performances.


It's going to come down to the sound though, regardless. In sound, what is the difference between the first example above and the second? What is the difference between Anner Bylsma and Rostropovich? A lot of it is the angle of the fingerboard, the use of gut strings and an endpin (in the case of the cello), and a different bow and bowing technique. So yeah, I would think Hurwitz's gripe is with period instruments and techniques.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

JTS said:


> ...
> The Britten performance of course would've been completely foreign to Purcell, however it sounded.


I'm sure he'd recognize his own music, but I'm not sure he would disapprove of a more powerful sound. Same goes for Bach.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> It's going to come down to the sound though, regardless. In sound, what is the difference between the first example above and the second? What is the difference between Anner Bylsma and Rostropovich? A lot of it is the angle of the fingerboard, the use of gut strings and an endpin (in the case of the cello), and a different bow and bowing technique.


I don't understand the point you're making? *What* comes down to sound? Whether you like it or not? That's a question that belongs on a different thread. The question at hand is: To what a degree does a performer control the sound produced by a period stringed instrument? The question isn't whether you like the sound or not.

As for Bylsma and Rostropovich, they're playing different instruments. Much of the difference you're hearing between Britten's performance and later HIP comes down to the instruments themselves, not the players. HIP uses instruments that are physically different from their modern counterparts, a different type of string, bridge, the absence of shoulder and chin rests, and the bows themselves are very different. If Rostropovich played Bylsma's instrument, his tone would be very unlike that produced on a modern cello.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> I don't understand the point you're making? *What* comes down to sound? Whether you like it or not? That's a question that belongs on a different thread. The question at hand is: To what a degree does a performer control the sound produced by a period stringed instrument? The question isn't whether you like the sound or not.
> 
> As for Bylsma and Rostropovich, they're playing different instruments. Much of the difference you're hearing between Britten's performance and later HIP comes down to the instruments themselves, not the players. HIP uses instruments that are physically different from their modern counterparts, a different type of string, bridge, the absence of shoulder and chin rests, and the bows themselves are very different. If Rostropovich played Bylsma's instrument, his tone would be very unlike that produced on a modern cello.


Well then you've answered your own question.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Well then you've answered your own question.


No, I'm just trying to help you understand why HIP produces a different sound. My impression is that you don't/didn't realize that the instruments themselves are/can be very different-not just how they're played. What I'm looking for are other informed opinions as far as that goes (not whether you like HIP or not).


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> No, I'm just trying to help you understand why HIP produces a different sound. My impression that you don't/didn't realize that the instruments themselves are/can be very different-not just how they're played. What I'm looking for are other informed opinions as far as that goes (not whether you like HIP or not).


I'm at least as familiar as you are with the differences in string instruments, thanks. Maybe a Baroque violinist can come along and give you an informed opinion. I'm admittedly not a period instrument player though and haven't come across many on the forum. Maybe asking in the Strings section would be more fruitful. Good luck.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

dissident said:


> I'm sure he'd recognize his own music, but I'm not sure he would disapprove of a more powerful sound. Same goes for Bach.


I'm one of these lucky people who can accept that there are more than one way of doing the music


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Two elements of violin sound - intonation and tone.Intonation is down to the player getting just the right position for the note. Tone is (almost) down to the instrument e.g. bowing correctly on an open string should produce a note independent of the player and show the resonance of the instrument. After that you dive into string composition and think about gut versus metal and how that affects the instrument - mainly through tension needed to keep the strings tight.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

vtpoet said:


> Beyond obvious choices like vibrato, it's not clear to me that Perlman would produce a notably different sound from Faust's violin than Faust herself.


I think he would. 
How you play a piece is down to your individual choice of emphases - how fast you move your bow, how hard you press, whether you do lots of retakes, play at the tip or the heel of the bow, near the bridge/ away from the bridge, bow hold, pronation of bow etc.

In HIP baroque playing, the variation comes down to individual notes - a note that doesn't vary during its extent is considered 'a dead note'. Also, baroque music is meant to have 'lots of air' in it - lots of retakes. The baroque bow is a different shape and adapts to the 'living' notes of HIP baroque performance; it also makes chords easier to play.

A violinist trained to more romantic music with lots of vibrato is probably going to approach a piece differently even when s/he doesn't use vibrato in it. Violin playing is very much an expression of the violinist's personality, as well as his/her skills, training and experience.

My former violin teacher (the director of an HIP baroque ensemble) told me that once one of the soloist's strings broke in the middle of a rehearsal and somebody handed him another violin, a cheap modern reproduction unlike the one he was playing. Fiddle Guru expected the sound his friend was producing to be different - but it wasn't, because the violinist's personality was the deciding factor.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I have not heard Faust's performance (I think the only recordings of her I know are "modern" (Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven...) and she has a rather lean sound on these as well) and I might really be a tone-deaf barbarian wrt string playing but with more recent recordings I tend to find the differences in both in solo and ensemble string playing between modern and supposedly historical instruments secondary or even negligible. So I think I agree that the player and their personal style or mannerisms are usually more important. 
Early HIP and maybe still some players do make some rather different sounds and it matters a lot with winds, brass, keyboards and balances between them. But with "pure strings", ca. Bach and later (as opposed to Biber or other 17th century composers/works), I think the instruments are not such a big deal. More recent ensembles and soloist sometimes use very little vibrato and favor a lean, not to say strident sound on their instruments.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"People sometimes say that if Mozart or Beethoven knew the Steinway, let's say, that they would have preferred it. I would say that there's no way that we could prove that one way or another, but one thing is rather clear- to the extent that masters such as they would have written exactly the pieces they wrote, for the Steinway rather than the instruments which they had, to that extent- they would be rather poor composers. Because one writes for the acoustical and aesthetic properties of the instruments at hand and one cannot separate the master works of music from the forces and the instruments and the vocal training, which is associated with these things."
"It doesn't mean that we can be sure that everything we do will be identical with that which was done 200 years or more ago but it certainly gives us a sense of what is expected because every instrument wishes to be played in a certain way, and you either learn that, and you get the instrument to sound the way it wants to sound, and then it will do anything for you. Or you fight it and if you fight it, you will lose the battle."


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> "*People sometimes say that if Mozart or Beethoven knew the Steinway, let's say, that they would have preferred it.* I would say that there's no way that we could prove that one way or another, but one thing is rather clear- to the extent that masters such as they would have written exactly the pieces they wrote, for the Steinway rather than the instruments which they had, to that extent- they would be rather poor composers. Because *one writes for the acoustical and aesthetic properties of the instruments at hand* and one cannot separate the master works of music from the forces and the instruments and the vocal training, which is associated with these things."
> 
> "It doesn't mean that we can be sure that everything we do will be identical with that which was done 200 years or more ago but it certainly gives us a sense of what is expected because every instrument wishes to be played in a certain way, and you either learn that, and you get the instrument to sound the way it wants to sound, and then it will do anything for you. Or you fight it and if you fight it, you will lose the battle."


I have always found the statement alluded in the first sentence to be ignorant and presumptuous. The point Levin goes on to make is exactly the same one I've made countless times but, without much success at quelling this specious claim that "if Mozart or Beethoven knew the Steinway ..... "they would have preferred it" .....


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I have always found the statement alluded in the first sentence to be ignorant and presumptuous. The point Levin goes on to make is exactly the same one I've made countless times but, without much success at quelling this specious claim that "if Mozart or Beethoven knew the Steinway ..... "they would have preferred it" .....


At the same time though we do know that Beethoven was quite enthusiastic about advances in piano construction. It's just as specious to assume that he thought a 1790 Walter was the ultimate.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> At the same time though we do know that Beethoven was quite enthusiastic about advances in piano construction. It's just as specious to assume that he thought a 1790 Walter was the ultimate.


I never said or implied that the instruments of 1790, or 1820, or 1856, were the ultimate.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I never said or implied that the instruments of 1790, or 1820, or 1856, were the ultimate.


But you imply that he must've been quite happy with them and that it's "ignorant and presumptuous" to assume otherwise. Maybe he'd prefer a Bechstein over a Steinway. I do.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/09/19/he-w...nos-of-beethovens-time-werent-enough-for-him/


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> But you imply that he must've been quite happy with them and that it's "ignorant and presumptuous" to assume otherwise. Maybe he'd prefer a Bechstein over a Steinway. I do.
> 
> https://www.cpr.org/2020/09/19/he-w...nos-of-beethovens-time-werent-enough-for-him/


I implied nothing of the sort.

Beethoven in his later sonatas did write beyond the capabilities of the piano technology of his time, actually, beyond the current technology, as well, since he wrote swells under held notes, which are impossible to play on any piano. One could say he was a special case, and not instructive.

The issue is more focussed for composers such as Bach, Haydn, and Mozart.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I implied nothing of the sort.
> 
> Beethoven in his later sonatas did write beyond the capabilities of the piano technology of his time, actually, beyond the current technology, as well, since he wrote swells under held notes, which are impossible to play on any piano. One could say he was a special case, and not instructive.
> 
> The issue is more focussed for composers such as Bach, Haydn, and Mozart.


So why is it specious and ignorant to assume he would've preferred a Bechstein to his Broadwood? And with a few exceptions like the Goldbergs, the issue isn't at all focused with Bach. "Clavier" was generic...whatever keyboard you had at your disposal.


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## Metairie Road (Apr 30, 2014)

I have nothing useful to add to this conversation. It's very interesting though, so keep it up.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> So why is it specious and ignorant to assume he would've preferred a Bechstein to his Broadwood?


_Specious_ because it is speculative and anachronistic; _ignorant_ because it displays a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of the period instruments which any competent composer would have exploited, instead of those of instruments of the future.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> _Specious_ because it is speculative and anachronistic; _ignorant_ because it displays a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of the period instruments which any competent composer would have exploited, instead of those of instruments of the future.


Of course it's speculative. HIP itself is speculative. I don't think anyone says they *know* Beethoven would've preferred a modern grand. Heck, he might not approve of listening to his music via streaming and CDs either.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Of course it's speculative. HIP itself is speculative. I don't think anyone says they *know* Beethoven would've preferred a modern grand. Heck, he might not approve of listening to his music via streaming and CDs either.


What is not speculative is the knowledge of which instruments Bach, Mozart, and Haydn wrote; and it is also not speculative that specific aspects of these instruments determined how the music was played.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> What is not speculative is the knowledge of which instruments Bach, Mozart, and Haydn wrote; and it is also not speculative that specific aspects of these instruments determined how the music was played.


But with Bach at least there is zero evidence that he had any specific instrument in mind when he composed the WTC. There's no evidence that the music was fitted to anything other than range limitations. With Mozart and Haydn, sure, play their music on a fortepiano, if that's to your liking. But would Beethoven's Broadwood be inappropriate for Mozart? Is playing Chopin on anything but an 1840s Pleyel inappropriate? Brahms can really only be played on a c. 1870 Streicher. If you get that granular then there are going to be almost as many appropriate and proper instruments as there are composers. You can play Mozart only on Mozart's exact piano, since individual fortepianos can be so different.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> But with Bach at least there is zero evidence that he had any specific instrument in mind when he composed the WTC.


Well, we do know he did not have a Steinway D in mind.



> With Mozart and Haydn, sure, play their music on a fortepiano, if that's to your liking. But would Beethoven's Broadwood be inappropriate for Mozart? Is playing Chopin on anything but an 1840s Pleyel inappropriate? Brahms can really only be played on a c. 1870 Streicher. If you get that granular then there are going to be almost as many appropriate and proper instruments as there are composers. You can play Mozart only on Mozart's exact piano, since individual fortepianos can be so different.


Nothing is inappropriate, artistic license is limited by nothing but taste and technical capability.  However, _I_ consider it added value to hear the music played by a musician who's studied the period performance practice and is using an instrument of the time.

YMMV.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Obviously "x would have preferred modern instruments" is totally speculative. It's not even an argument.

However, if one looks at the developments of the pianoforte and most brass or woodwind instruments from the late 18th to the mid 19th century the changes usually go in ONE direction only, namely toward the features that the modern versions have: loud and penetrating to fill larger halls and evenly good sound over all registers, thus often a "loss" of some register-specific sound color. I have not studied this in detail and am happy to be corrected but I am not aware of any changes toward softer instruments or to those with more tinkly sticking out discant register 

So the "boring homogeneity" deplored by those who prefer period instruments was apparently an important goal in the development of newer instruments during this time. There might have been dissidents but overall musicians and audiences apparently preferred the newer instruments and took the changes not as zero-sum but as improvements. They were not satisfied with the instruments and the changes/improvements went overwhelmingly in one direction.

I personally do sometimes appreciate the additional colors of period wind instruments; my favorite Schubert octet is Archibudelli/Mozzafiato, my favorite Mozart wind serenades Zefiro and similarly for baroque music with winds/brass.
In most concerto recordings beyond Bach's sons, Haydn or ca. Mozart K 449, i.e. already in Mozart's K 466-67, certainly in Beethoven, I find that period keyboards tend to get easily overwhelmed by the period orchestra. Solo period keyboard (and up to trio) from Haydn to Schubert is often interesting but rarely revelatory for me.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Well, we do know he did not have a Steinway D in mind.


It has a keyboard and it produces tones, so I don't think it's automatically excluded, either. He didn't compose his vocal work for female singers either. That doesn't mean he thought the situation he had to deal with was ideal.



> Nothing is inappropriate, artistic license is limited by nothing but taste and technical capability. However, _I_ consider it added value to hear the music played by a musician who's studied the period performance practice and is using an instrument of the time.
> 
> YMMV.


It's just another possible approach. A lot of HIP demonstrates why improvements to instruments were probably inevitable.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> It has a keyboard and it produces tones, so I don't think it's automatically excluded, either. He didn't compose his vocal work for female singers either. That doesn't mean he thought the situation he had to deal with was ideal.


As a matter of historical fact we know he did not contemplate a Steinway grand piano. Yes, one can, and many have, performed Bach on a modern piano which I have enjoyed. Andras Schiff, e.g., does an admirable job. I like many pianists playing Bach.

But the discussion was about what instruments Bach had available to him.



> It's just another possible approach. A lot of HIP demonstrates why improvements to instruments were probably inevitable.


I don't agree that HIP demonstrates anything of the kind. One of the flaws of humanity, IMO, is a compulsion to constantly seek technological "improvements." I am not convinced that all change is progress; and I offer social media as Exhibit A.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

None of the famous non-HIP practitioners has given proper insights or justifications why the modern grand is so appropriate for performance of early keyboard music.
All they say is just "the composers would have preferred the later instruments", "I like the sound of the modern grand better".
They have no right to accuse, for example, Glenn Gould about his aesthetic tendencies (ie. "the Synthesized Brandenburgs are the best Brandenburgs")


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> So the "boring homogeneity" deplored by those who prefer period instruments was apparently an important goal in the development of newer instruments during this time. There might have been dissidents but overall musicians and audiences apparently preferred the newer instruments and took the changes not as zero-sum but as improvements. They were not satisfied with the instruments and the changes/improvements went overwhelmingly in one direction.


There's no evidence Mozart was not satisfied with the fortepiano of his time. Look at this video (especially the things said in the end)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

dissident said:


> It's just another possible approach. A lot of HIP demonstrates why improvements to instruments were probably inevitable.


The weren't "improved", they were simply "changed". Maybe you're just not used to the sound.





The "negative attributes" of the modern grand in pre-Romantic music performance are still an "elephant in the room":
1. Crossed-strung bass muddy, lacks clarity and focus.
2. Equal distribution of voices creates unpleasant, confusing sound picture.
3. Favors legato and staccato touch, limits in-between lengths
4. Massive sound makes chamber music problematic.





"I think that instruments from every period have effects and colours that cannot be reproduced on today's pianos-that compositions were always conceived with the instruments of their time in mind, and only on those can they achieve their full effect" (Anton Rubinstein, 1892)

"We cannot do full justice to music from other periods unless we hear it as its creator did, and attempt to reproduce it, as far as possible, in the style and with the resources of the period when it was written" (Paul Badura-Skoda)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"The frustration with playing Mozart, and I think the problem that many performers on the modern piano face - is that there is this constant battle between the instrument that we have at our disposal, let's say the Steinway, and the music in question.

And so as a young pianist, you grow up playing these pieces, and everyone yells at you all the time about playing "mezzo piano", and gracefully, and "grazioso", and not too heavy here, and don't bend too hard, and phrasing and all this..
And it was very clear to me early on that this couldn't be right. The man who is precocious, and full of attitude, and has all these strong ideas, and a very high opinion of himself as well, could not be the same person who plays this kind of constant "mezzo piano" on the Steinway.

So when I discovered the fortepiano, I suddenly could play in an unbelievably visceral, dramatic style. I could play very "fortissimo" and very "pianissimo", and the scale of the piano didn't go too far. It went just far enough that one could recapture this sense of Sturm und Drang and tempestuousness that I'm sure is present in Mozart's music and that he would have wanted.."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I think the "masses" are "brainwashed" into thinking the terrible run-on sentences they hear in non-HIP Mozart performances are what Mozart actually intended.






"there is the famous D minor Concerto, which has this theme in the piano... ( A-A'-C# ) ( E-D-D ) ... As we can see, in the score, these connecting slurs, are very, very clearly marked by Mozart, and they separate this...( A-A'-C# )... from this...( E-D-D )... In my opinion, that's what the expression is.

Let's play it over here on the Steinway. I don't believe it's really possible to do this here because if I separate... Those separations sound very artificial. The reason again that they do, is here is this large powerful instrument that is endeavoring to carry the tone for a long time and I'm cutting it off in the middle of its singing.

I'm sure there are people who think ( A-A'-C#-E-D-D ) is more expressive than ( A-A'-C# ) ( E-D-D ). But it's absolutely there in the score, and it really is, in my opinion, the essence of Mozart. You know there are sketches of Mozart, incomplete scores of Mozart. In Piano Concerto K537, he didn't even bother to write in the left hand, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._26_(Mozart)#The_unfinished_keyb oard_part but there's never a single bar without these articulation slurs - because they are what makes the music speak - and that's what they thought in the 18th century. "Music is like speech and it must be inflected properly.""


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

I, too, have listened in dismay to Hurwitz's condemnation of all things HIP. But I suspect that he is in fact railing against anything post-baroque that is performed in a pedantically HIP style, rather than, say, pre-1750 music. And on this I would agree. Once you get into the galant style and beyond, especially the romantic repertoire, I think anything goes. Many interpretations are equally valid, and I get a lot out of both.

Bach, Handel, or Telemann performed as though they were great late-romantic works, however? Tosh! Hurwitz can stick his opinion up his generous (no doubt) preverbial whatsit.

The one exception I make here is baroque keyboard music, which sounds equally wonderful performed on any instrument or any style. I'll gladly take Bach or Scarlatti performed by Ton Koopman, Wendy Carlos, Rosalyn Tureck, or Murray Perahia. All are superb and deserve space in my collection.

Bach performed by the Boston Symphony, however … you can stick that in the trash where it came from as far as I am concerned.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Taplow said:


> I, too, have listened in dismay to Hurwitz's condemnation of all things HIP. But I suspect that he is in fact railing against anything post-baroque that is performed in a pedantically HIP style, rather than, say, pre-1750 music. And on this I would agree. Once you get into the galant style and beyond, especially the romantic repertoire, I think anything goes. Many interpretations are equally valid, and I get a lot out of both.


I don't know about validity, but I must say, the more experience I have of, for example, Schumann's music, or Haydn's, and Beethoven's small scale music the more I feel that it's more my cup of tea to hear authentic practices and instruments. While with Baroque music, it's not so obvious to me -- I like Walcha for example playing Bach on organ and Cziffra playing Couperin.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think the "masses" are "brainwashed" into thinking the terrible run-on sentences they hear in non-HIP Mozart performances are what Mozart actually intended.


Apart from the notes on a page, how do you know what Mozart actually intended? That may be my biggest objection to HIP, this idea that "I know THE only correct and proper way to perform __________ because I know exactly what __________ had in mind." And then anything that deviates from the wheezy, thin and tinkly is garbage. Out with Karl Richter because he uses more than an anemic string quintet in his recordings. Out with most Bach recordings period, actually, because I can tell you Bach obviously intended for there to be no female voices heard in his liturgical works.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Taplow said:


> I, too, have listened in dismay to Hurwitz's condemnation of all things HIP. But I suspect that he is in fact railing against anything post-baroque that is performed in a pedantically HIP style, rather than, say, pre-1750 music. And on this I would agree. Once you get into the galant style and beyond, especially the romantic repertoire, I think anything goes. Many interpretations are equally valid, and I get a lot out of both. ...


That's interesting. Why the dividing line at 1750? Why is galant and on "anything goes" but things before are not? I don't get it.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Apart from the notes on a page, how do you know what Mozart actually intended? That may be my biggest objection to HIP, this idea that "I know THE only correct and proper way to perform __________ because I know exactly what __________ had in mind." And then anything that deviates from the wheezy, thin and tinkly is garbage. Out with Karl Richter because he uses more than an anemic string quintet in his recordings. Out with most Bach recordings period, actually, because I can tell you Bach obviously intended for there to be no female voices heard in his liturgical works.


You re characterizing the HIP view in a rather obsolete fashion. There was a time when "authenticity" was a huge issue, but that view has been tempered quite bit from what you heard back in the 80s. No one really argues authenticity anymore, everyone understands that we are approaching this music from the standpoint of a modern culture, and that will influence everything we do.

That said, we do know quite a lot about period practice and from Mozart's letters we have a pretty good idea of what he liked, performance-wise.

Of course we also know a lot about he mechanical workings of the instruments, what kind of strings and bows and how violins were set up, etc. And we can look at the music, scales, arpeggiated sections and compare how they are produced and sound on a period instrument as opposed to a modern piano and see that there is more separation between the notes on the older instruments and one has to work hard to avoid blurring the figuration on a modern grand. Especially if one uses the pedal.

So, authenticity is not an issue since we can't really produce the same sound with 100% certainty - but it makes sense to try as best we can using the tools and scholarship we have available.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

San Antone said:


> You re characterizing the HIP view in a rather obsolete fashion.


Maybe, but the dogmatists are out there in force.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

If everyone was perfectly happy with 1780 or 1820 pianos or woodwinds why were the instruments changed at all? It's not about Mozart or any particular composer. 
But overall people apparently were happier with newer instruments, otherwise there would have been a wildly zigzagging course for many decades between instruments with different characteristics (maybe there was for a while around 1800), not overall a comparably monotonous change towards louder instruments with more homogeneous characteristics in all registers until we got to the modern concert grand. 

To me it seems Levin is somehow cheating in that spot because his period instrument is louder than the Steinway. I don't deny the advantages he points out, although I think the period instrument in general "loses" in lyrical melodic and slower music for the very reasons that make the more "mercurial" so vivid. And I think that it's far from obvious where the advantage lies in the end.

It's been a while I heard it and I would even assume that they might have tinkered with the microphones to support the keyboard better but my main HIP Mozart is the Bilson/Gardiner box and in he "symphonic" concertos (at least K 466, 467, 482, 491 and 503) the keyboard at "full power" still sounds rather puny and overtaxed vs. the orchestra. I have a recording (either Van Oort or Badura-Skoda) where the 3 strings threaten to overwhelm the keyboard in Mozart's piano *quartets*.
I never got a complete HIP Beethoven concerto set (although I have two for the symphonies) because I found the keyboard so puny on the two single discs I have (Newman with 2+4 and Badura-Skoda with 4+Triple).


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Kreisler jr said:


> So the "boring homogeneity" deplored by those who prefer period instruments was apparently an important goal in the development of newer instruments during this time. There might have been dissidents but overall musicians and audiences apparently preferred the newer instruments and took the changes not as zero-sum but as improvements. They were not satisfied with the instruments and the changes/improvements went overwhelmingly in one direction.


Good point, essentially indisputable...the trend has certainly been towards improvement of range, dynamics, tone quality, evenness, etc.
Don't forget, Berlioz wrote "Symphony Fanastique" for ophicleides, which he intensely disliked ["like an escaped bull jumping around in a drawing room"]...as soon as the valve Tubas became available, Berlioz quickly switched over, to great effect...huge improvement...


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

dissident said:


> Maybe, but the dogmatists are out there in force.


Depends on one's perspective. You see dogmatists in force; I just see individuals who prefer period instruments.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> PIf everyone was perfectly happy with 1780 or 1820 pianos or woodwinds why were the instruments changed at all? It's not about Mozart or any particular composer.
> But overall people apparently were happier with newer instruments, otherwise there would have been a wildly zigzagging course for many decades...


True, or we'd still be playing fortepianos.


Bulldog said:


> Depends on one's perspective. You see dogmatists in force; I just see individuals who prefer period instruments.


That would be fine if that's as far as it went. But I hear and read people who say that Richter and Rilling got it wrong and that that style of performance is illegitimate. It's wrong wrong wrong.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> I don't agree that HIP demonstrates anything of the kind. One of the flaws of humanity, IMO, is a compulsion to constantly seek technological "improvements."


I absolutely agree with this. In general, historical or historical reproductions produce a more characterful and individual sound, even between the same instruments, than the more homogeneous sound of their modern counterparts. Lest those who despise HIP performance get all bent out of shape up over that statement, I'm not saying the HIP is therefore better and that historical instruments (apart from the Bach trumpet which is genuinely a better instrument and for a reason) are therefore better, but I prefer them for that reason. And that's down to the instrument, not the player.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

vtpoet said:


> I absolutely agree with this. In general, historical or historical reproductions produce a more characterful and individual sound, even between the same instruments, than the more homogeneous sound of their modern counterparts. Lest those who despise HIP performance get all bent out of shape up over that statement, I'm not saying the HIP is therefore better and that historical instruments (apart from the Bach trumpet which is genuinely a better instrument and for a reason) are therefore better, but I prefer them for that reason. And that's down to the instrument, not the player.


Every instrument group is different. Take the natural horn that Brahms loved. The music sounds so much more beautiful, to my ears, than when played on the modern horn. And I feel the same for gut strings, bows, and Baroque set-up for violins. And this doesn't even get into tuning, vibrato, and tempo.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> I absolutely agree with this. In general, historical or historical reproductions produce a more characterful and individual sound, even between the same instruments, than the more homogeneous sound of their modern counterparts. Lest those who despise HIP performance get all bent out of shape up over that statement, I'm not saying the HIP is therefore better and that historical instruments (apart from the Bach trumpet which is genuinely a better instrument and for a reason) are therefore better, but I prefer them for that reason. And that's down to the instrument, not the player.


If the fortepiano was absolutely sufficient, why aren't we still playing them? As pointed out earlier, Beethoven was looking for improvements. If the harpsichord was sufficient, why was there a fortepiano? And on and on. The Baroque horn, yeah, and the Baroque oboe is superior to the modern imo. But the Boehm flute is absolutely an improvement, sorry. That said, I love the harpsichord and clavichord (I wish I had one or the other, especially maybe a pedal clavichord).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Ingélou said:


> My former violin teacher (the director of an HIP baroque ensemble) told me that once one of the soloist's strings broke in the middle of a rehearsal and somebody handed him another violin, a cheap modern reproduction unlike the one he was playing. Fiddle Guru expected the sound his friend was producing to be different - but it wasn't, because the violinist's personality was the deciding factor.


I heard an almost identical anecdote concerning a pianist. I was told that a professional pianist happened to sit down at one of those boxy little uprights that are practically made of cardboard and made it sound like a concert grand (according to the one telling the tale). Obviously, the pianist didn't change the sound quality of the church basement spinet. What the individual was hearing was a professional musician playing professionally on a crappy little piano that had never been played professionally. So, to the listener, it "sounded better". I'm tempted to say the same thing happened as concerns the violin, but I'll keep an open mind.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> If the fortepiano was absolutely sufficient, why aren't we still playing them? As pointed out earlier, Beethoven was looking for improvements.


For one thing, the music changed. But there is no reason (other than personal preference) to play the older music with the new instruments.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> If the fortepiano was absolutely sufficient, why aren't we still playing them? As pointed out earlier, Beethoven was looking for improvements.


We *are*. And new recordings of Beethoven played on the instruments for which he composed are being released in ever greater number. I guess I reject the premise of your question.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> If everyone was perfectly happy with 1780 or 1820 pianos or woodwinds why were the instruments changed at all? It's not about Mozart or any particular composer.


If everyone _wasn't_ happy with the instruments of 1780 or 1820, then why did they compose for them? I mean, the absurdity of your question is as absurd as mine.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> We *are*. And new recordings of Beethoven played on the instruments for which he composed are being released in ever greater number. I guess I reject the premise of your question.


Specialists are. Regular civilians aren't, and among virtuosi not very many at all.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> If everyone _wasn't_ happy with the instruments of 1780 or 1820, then why did they compose for them? I mean, the absurdity of your question is as absurd as mine.


Because they weren't piano manufacturers and that's what they had. Beethoven complained about the weakness of the fortepianos of his day.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Specialists are. Regular civilians aren't, and among virtuosi not very many at all.


I think the trend has been for some while to see an increase in HIP/PI recordings. And more and more of Romantic music, Liszt, Chopin, on period pianos, Brahms symphonies with smaller orchestras and natural horns, etc.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Here's why I don't think Perlman would be capable of producing the same sound on a baroque violin as on a modern violin:






And getting back to Hurwitz. It's why I question Hurwitz's presumption (if I'm interpreting him correctly) that the HIP sound is a result of the players rather than the instruments. I mean, certainly, players have some control over the sound produced by a baroque violin, but I'm tempted to think it just comes down to listeners simply not liking the sound of period instruments.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I think the trend has been for some while to see an increase in HIP/PI recordings. And more and more of Romantic music, Liszt, Chopin, on period pianos, Brahms symphonies with smaller orchestras and natural horns, etc.


The difference post-1860 would probably be more about tuning than the actual construction, although Brahms' own piano had its own characteristics that probably influenced his late piano music. But then to be HIP you'd have to play that piano.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Specialists are. Regular civilians aren't, and among virtuosi not very many at all.


Specialist? Was that even mean? Schiff isn't a "specialist", and he's shifting to the fortepiano. Badura Skoda was also not a "specialist" but re-recorded the entirety of Schubert's sonatas on the foretepiano before he died. And regular civilians? Sure they are. They're buying HIP performances every day.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

dissident said:


> That's interesting. Why the dividing line at 1750? Why is galant and on "anything goes" but things before are not? I don't get it.


I am afraid I am no more able to explain the pricking of my ears than I am the stirring of my loins. Vexatious things, both of them!


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Because they weren't piano manufacturers and that's what they had. Beethoven complained about the weakness of the fortepianos of his day.


Well, if you're going to keep playing that card, then let's also discuss Beethoven's preference for the lighter Viennese piano over the heavier English models and let's talk about his love for his Waldstein. By your standards, all Beethoven should be performed on the W̶a̶l̶d̶s̶t̶e̶i̶n̶ Broadwood because he said something-something about his Broadwood.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Well, if you're going to keep playing that card, then let's also discuss Beethoven's preference for the lighter Viennese piano over the heavier English models...


He thought the action on the earlier English pianos was too heavy. He apparently loved his Broadwood though, what he could hear of it by 1818.


> ...and let's talk about his love for his Waldstein. By your standards, all Beethoven should be performed on the Waldstein because he said something-something about his Waldstein.


By *your* standards. I'm not a HIP enthusiast.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> The difference post-1860 would probably be more about tuning than the actual construction, although Brahms' own piano had its own characteristics that probably influenced his late piano music. But then to be HIP you'd have to play that piano.


No, it's historically _informed_, not exact replication. They are not aiming for re-enactments when they perform.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> He thought the action on the earlier English pianos was too heavy. He apparently loved his Broadwood though, what he could hear of it by 1818.
> By *your* standards. I'm not a HIP enthusiast.


Thanks. I meant _Broadwood_, not Waldstein. And yes, he thought the action was too heavy on the earlier English pianos and preferred the lighter Viennese pianos. So what does this mean as concerns the modern grand? Would Beethoven have approved of the modern concert grand? One simply can't make that assumption. The same goes for Mozart. They might have admired certain qualities of the modern grand, but disliked others. Modern listeners who dislike HIP obviously want to project their own preferences on these composers because it validates their own preferences, but it's nonsense and unnecessary.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> No, it's historically _informed_, not exact replication. They are not aiming for re-enactments when they perform.


So most modern grands would be sufficient.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> So most modern grands would be sufficient.


Not if one is hoping to reproduce _or come nearer to_ what the composer expected to hear. No.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

vtpoet said:


> Thanks. I meant _Broadwood_, not Waldstein. And yes, he thought the action was too heavy on the earlier English pianos and preferred the lighter Viennese pianos. So what does this mean as concerns the modern grand? Would Beethoven have approved of the modern concert grand? One simply can't make that assumption. The same goes for Mozart. They might have admired certain qualities of the modern grand, but disliked others. Modern listeners who dislike HIP obviously want to project their own preferences on these composers because it validates their own preferences, but it's nonsense and unnecessary.


The entire debate, such as it is, is nonsense. We have the best of both worlds and there is no need to create an either/or dichotomy. There appears to be a lot of all-or-nothing polemic surrounding the HIP issue (mainly from its foes) - and it is silly, IMO.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> The entire debate, such as it is, is nonsense. We have the best of both worlds and there is no need to create an either/or dichotomy. There appears to be a lot of all-or-nothing polemic surrounding the HIP issue (mainly from its foes) - and it is silly, IMO.


Couldn't agree more. And picking sides wasn't really the aim of my initial post. Just want to be clear about that.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Thanks. I meant _Broadwood_, not Waldstein. And yes, he thought the action was too heavy on the earlier English pianos and preferred the lighter Viennese pianos. So what does this mean as concerns the modern grand? Would Beethoven have approved of the modern concert grand? One simply can't make that assumption. The same goes for Mozart. They might have admired certain qualities of the modern grand, but disliked others. Modern listeners who dislike HIP obviously want to project their own preferences on these composers because it validates their own preferences, but it's nonsense and unnecessary.


I'll refer you to a little article I posted earlier:

https://www.cpr.org/2020/09/19/he-w...nos-of-beethovens-time-werent-enough-for-him/



vtpoet said:


> Not if one is hoping to reproduce what he composer expected to hear. No.


Well then that's replication.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> So most modern grands would be sufficient.


One can use a modern grand and play the music with a historically informed style, e.g. refrain from using the sustain pedal. Schiff does this when he plays Bach. It is more common with orchestral music, i.e. to play with a HIP consciousness but using modern instruments. A number of conductors have done this.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> I'll refer you to a little article I posted earlier:


//"He said soon before he died, "The piano is and remains an inadequate instrument."//

I love how the article makes all sorts of assumptions concerning Beethoven's meaning. What did he mean by inadequate? Well, the author of the article appears to know: He obviously meant something like the modern grand. Right? Such rubbish. It makes for a very tidy "just so" story, however. Isn't it wonderful that we can now play Beethoven on the instrument for which he clearly intended his music? - the modern grand! Lucky us!

What we do know is that he didn't write his sonatas for the modern grand, he wrote them for the pianos of the time, like his Broadwood, which he very much liked.



dissident said:


> Well then that's replication.


Call it whatever you want. Ultimately, it's playing a composer's music on the instruments for which he wrote them. That's not to say that performing Bach or Mozart on the modern grand is wrong. It's only wrong if one thinks that modern instruments are faithful to what a composer like Mozart imagined when he composed for the pianoforte.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> //"He said soon before he died, "The piano is and remains an inadequate instrument."//
> 
> I love how the article makes all sorts of assumptions concerning Beethoven's meaning. What did he mean by inadequate? Well, the author of the article appears to know: He obviously meant something like the modern grand. Right?


That's not what the author of the article said...

"...Would Beethoven like it? Who knows. Huge sound -- great; stiffer action-maybe not."


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

just my opinion - modern strings have a sour and mushy sound in baroque works.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Bulldog said:


> just my opinion - modern strings have a sour and mushy sound in baroque works.


I agree. I follow the example of Fournier and Isserlis and prefer gut on my cello. Metal strings are harsh.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> That's not what the author of the article said...


You're right. I was going by the title:

"*He Wanted Larger And Louder: The Pianos Of Beethoven's Time Weren't Enough For Him*"

Which somewhat contradicts his closing statement, but not necessarily I suppose.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

They obviously had to use the instruments of the time, no matter how unhappy they were with them. However, they were developing rather quickly in certain periods. 
Beethoven even ignored the compass of the current keyboard in his first piano concerto. 
I think the idea that they were happy with everything and the music perfectly fit the instruments is in some cases (such as Beethoven and the contemporary fortepiano) as naive as the idea "they would certainly have loved the Steinway".

If the instruments are perfect, one could explain *some* change just by experimentation. But directed and in many respects almost monotonous change, namely in keyboard, wind and brass from the late 18th to the mid-19th century mostly into the "boring", loud and homogeneous direction cannot be explained if people were not happier with the changed instruments, that is they saw the changes not as zero-sum but overall as improvements. Sure, there were some dissidents (such as Brahms preference for the natural horn) but the advantages in the woodwind and brass were tremendous and most composers eagerly used them. The same was probably true for the keyboard and there was no turning back as most music was contemporary.

I think there is some need for nuances here. Some balances are difficult to impossible with modern instruments, e.g. the 2nd Brandenburg, in general, I don't much like harpsichord combined with modern instruments. Baroque chamber (and most orchestral except Royal Fireworks is basically chamber music) is usually better with old instruments, I think.

OTOH as I wrote above, a fortepiano is just too puny to hold even half of its own against a Beethovenian orchestra (except maybe in the B flat major concerto), the fortepianist has to hack at full power and still sounds puny (but now also ugly) even in the larger Mozart concertos. It's not always clear on recordings (and it might be because of the more penetrating sound) but I have been told that in the concerto by CPE Bach for fortepiano and harpsichord the fortepiano is in danger being overwhelmed by the harpsichord!

Fortepiano works with chamber music or solo on recordings. I have most of Haydn's, Mozart's and a fair amount of Beethoven and Schubert with old instruments and I prefer all baroque keyboard (except occasionally Bach and Scarlatti) on harpsichord,
But overall I still don't like the sound of the fortepiano much most of the time and a few passages where some special una corda or damper or whatever effect does create a very special sound are for me usually not worth the disadvantages.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Bulldog said:


> just my opinion - modern strings have a sour and mushy sound in baroque works.


I would second that. I find I much prefer the sound of "gut" strings even if they can be more strident. And how much of that stridency is the player vs. the instrument... That is the question.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> I think the idea that they were happy with everything and the music perfectly fit the instruments is in some cases (such as Beethoven and the contemporary fortepiano) as naive as the idea "they would certainly have loved the Steinway".


..........exactly.............


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> I would second that. I find I much prefer the sound of "gut" strings even if they can be more strident. And how much of that stridency is the player vs. the instrument... That is the question.


Gut strings are actually much "warmer" and have more of a "vocal" quality.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> ...a fortepiano is just too puny to hold even half of its own against a Beethovenian orchestra (except maybe in the B flat major concerto), the fortepianist has to hack at full power and still sounds puny (but now also ugly) even in the larger Mozart concertos.


That's an interesting observation. You're right that some recordings make the pianoforte disappear into the orchestra, but then Mozart's orchestras and audiences could be much smaller than a modern performance and the placement of the pianoforte relative to the audience was very different let alone the size of the "auditorium" (which was sometimes more like a large room). Reproducing this on a modern recording is as important as the instruments themselves in my opinion. For solo performances, I much prefer the pianoforte over the modern grand. Pianofortes can sound very different from each other and each has its own personality.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> I think the idea that they were happy with everything and the music perfectly fit the instruments is in some cases (such as Beethoven and the contemporary fortepiano) as naive as the idea "they would certainly have loved the Steinway".


Right, this whole notion concerning what composers liked or might have liked (in terms of modern instruments) is a red herring. The point of historically informed performance isn't to say that such and such are the instruments a composer "preferred", but that _this is the soundscape and instruments the composer was imagining and attempting to exploit and this is what that might have sounded like_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The modern piano is great for performing Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Brahms. But do listen to George Winston's variations on Pachelbel's canon. It's hard to believe a tone quality (I'm not sure how to describe it. "New-agey"? Maybe.) like that is compatible for all kinds of idiomatic aesthetics spanning 3 centuries. I'm sorry but I think it's the non-HIP advocates who have to reconsider if they're too narrowminded.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> The modern piano is great for performing Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Brahms. But do listen to George Winston's variations on Pachelbel's canon. It's hard to believe a tone quality (I'm not sure how to describe it. "New-agey"? Maybe.) like that is compatible for all kinds of idiomatic aesthetics spanning 3 centuries. I'm sorry but I think it's the non-HIP advocates who has to reconsider if they're too narrowminded.


There's a lot of HIP that I like. Some I don't. I do prefer to hear Mozart concertos and Beethoven on modern pianos, although recordings of Beethoven sonatas on period pianos are very interesting.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Right, this whole notion concerning what composers liked or might have liked (in terms of modern instruments) is a red herring. The point of historically informed performance isn't to say that such and such are the instruments a composer "preferred", but that _this is the soundscape and instruments the composer was imagining and attempting to exploit and this is what that might have sounded like_.


How can you be sure what "soundscapes...the composer was imagining"? Did the soundscape that Bach imagined in composing the cantatas include female voices?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> How can you be sure what "soundscapes...the composer was imagining"? Did the soundscape that Bach imagined in composing the cantatas include female voices?


You could probably answer that question as easily as I could. What interests me more is the larger point you're getting at? And I'm not sure what it is?

*Edit:* I would add that you can be sure that an 18th century composer was not imagining modern instruments, their sounds or their range and capabilities insofar as they differed from their own.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

dissident said:


> How can you be sure what "soundscapes...the composer was imagining"? Did the soundscape that Bach imagined in composing the cantatas include female voices?


Very probably not.

I don't care that much about what the composers imagined. (For all we know they would have expected rather different sounds depending on circumstances; Handel basically made a slightly different version of Messiah for any performance he was personally directing.)
I am more open to arguments such as Levin makes in one spot linked above that e.g. the bass of a historical piano is clearer and some balances better. It's just that I have a hard time agreeing with all these claims because I think the fortepiano can also sound horribly tinkly in the higher register or clunky overall and the weak sustainment of the tone is a disadvantage in slow/lyrical music. I was going through my recordings of Beethoven sonatas a few weeks ago and I should pick up again and listen to Brautigam (I have about 2/3 of his sonatas).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> I am more open to arguments such as Levin makes in one spot linked above that e.g. the bass of a historical piano is clearer and some balances better.


Right, but Levin's whole point concerns what the composer was imagining when he composed music for the fortepiano. Those qualities of the fortepiano were part and parcel of the final composition. I mean, you may say you don't care much about what the composers imagined, but being open to arguments concerning a period instrument's sound production is essentially the same thing. And, yes, I've heard some fortepianos I don't care for. I'm not a big fan of Vermeulen's fortepiano. Have to say. I try to be, but I'm not. Maybe it's the micing that's the problem?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> You could probably answer that question as easily as I could. What interests me more is the larger point you're getting at? And I'm not sure what it is?


The point being, as you well know, that if you're going to be historically informed then you can have no mixed choir. That wasn't the apparent soundscape Bach was imagining. You also can't have your Gould Goldbergs.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> OTOH as I wrote above, a fortepiano is just too puny to hold even half of its own against a Beethovenian orchestra (except maybe in the B flat major concerto), the fortepianist has to hack at full power and still sounds puny (but now also ugly) even in the larger Mozart concertos. It's not always clear on recordings (and it might be because of the more penetrating sound) but I have been told that in the concerto by CPE Bach for fortepiano and harpsichord the fortepiano is in danger being overwhelmed by the harpsichord!


This fortepianist discusses Mozart's chamber music-like approach to the piano concerto, which contrasts with the 19th century practice of heroic soloists leading the orchestra:




The claim that the fortepiano is punier than the harpsichord is so ridiculous that it does not warrant a serious consideration. Good luck finding a professional who agrees with it.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> The point being, as you well know, that if you're going to be historically informed then you can have no mixed choir. That wasn't the apparent soundscape Bach was imagining. You also can't have your Gould Goldbergs.


Yes, but if you're interested in what Bach may have been imagining when composing the cantatas, there's always the Leonhardt and Harnoncourt cycle. And if you're interested in the Goldbergs on the harpsichord, there are plenty of those. So I'm not sure what your point is? You seem to think that I don't approve of modern instrument performances of pre-20th century music, but that's not the case. You can have a historically informed performance on modern instruments. You can also find performances on modern instruments with modern sensibilities that completely ignore HIP, but those are either mono or "living stereo". Modern performances that don't reckon with HIP one way or another are increasingly rare when music prior to the 19th century is being performed.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Yes, but if you're interested in what Bach may have been imagining when composing the cantatas, there's always the Leonhardt and Harnoncourt cycle. And if you're interested in the Goldbergs on the harpsichord, there are plenty of those. So I'm not sure what your point is? You seem to think that I don't approve of modern instrument performances of pre-20th century music, but that's not the case. You can have a historically informed performance on modern instruments. You can also find performances on modern instruments with modern sensibilities that completely ignore HIP, but those are either mono or "living stereo". Modern performances that don't reckon with HIP one way or another are increasingly rare when music prior to the 19th century is being performed.


Well then I don't have an argument with you. My argument is with those that say anything but HIP is invalid. And they are out there.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

If the instruments used by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are obsolete, aren't their "musical ideas/philosophies/idioms" also? Their expressions were restricted by the limitations of the instruments of their time, according to the anti-HIP argument. How can we call them the greatest of all time?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> If the instruments used by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are obsolete, aren't their "musical ideas/philosophies/idioms" also? ...


No, considering that until the 70s they were translated pretty well by modern instruments. I've seen/heard bits of the Art of Fugue played on partially-filled soda bottles and even then it still didn't sound half bad.


> Their expressions were restricted by the limitations of the instruments of their time, according to the anti-HIP argument.


No, that would be the HIP argument. The music of Bach and Mozart is somehow imprisoned in harpsichords, clavichords, shorter fingerboards, "dead hand" string playing and fortepianos, and it must not stray outside those confines.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Let's set aside our preferences, and talk about what's objective here. Face it; the modern grand doesn't really have a place or a voice of its own in Mozart performances. It's always an impersonator who tries to be someone else rather than himself.
If the modern grand is really what every late 18th century keyboard music composer/performer dreamed of having access to, why does everyone today play the music on it like this: 



(Take note of Bilson's words, "this lovely sort of Baroque angel kind of Mozart", or Bezuidenhout's, "this kind of constant "mezzo piano" on the Steinway".) If you play Mozart on the modern grand yourselves, try playing anything over the level of mezzo-piano in the bass; it sounds dreadfully awkward. So the greater range (in dynamics and pitch) of the modern grand is totally useless in Mozart. Its supposed "advantages" only become hindrance.

Unlike the fortepiano, the modern grand is limitlessly abundant, available/accessible virtually everywhere; so the "lazy mindset" is to simply just play the modern grand (the same kind of piano used in all modern genres today, jazz, pop and whatnot, omg!) and pretend it would be a good substitute/alternative to the 18th century fortepiano in Mozart performances. But every non-HIP Mozart performer on the modern grand today knows; all they're doing is simply trying their best to mimic the sound of the 18th century fortepiano. Yep. That's all they're doing. Face it. So _FAKE_.

To my knowledge, not a single famous practitioner of Mozart non-HIP has publicly advocated the use of the modern grand in Mozart performances; because they all know, in the back of their minds, that it's wrong. So why not just get used to the _REAL_ thing? Why can't we just accept Mozart's music as it is written, instead of trying to "change" it according to our wishful thinking?
Let's not resort to the logical fallacy, "there's no evidence the HIPs of today are what Mozart would have approved of either."
There's obviously a difference (a huge one, in fact) between "putting in an effort to revive the authentic practices" VS "simply resorting to the 'lazy mindset'". I completely agree with Bilson and the others that proper articulation in Mozart performances is very important. Look at the autograph score of 590/iv, for instance. Let's stop pretending like Mozart would have approved of the terrible "run-on sentences" of non-HIP.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> Face it; the modern grand doesn't really have a place or a voice of its own in Mozart performances.


..............QED..............


> The modern grand is limitlessly abundant, available/accessible virtually everywhere;


I don't have one. Right now I just have a digital and sometimes will use Pianoteq along with it. But the question to be answered is if the modern grand is so bad and the fortepiano so good, where'd the fortepianos go?


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## Michael122 (Sep 16, 2021)

Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven would all have _killed_ to have a modern grand piano.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

dissident said:


> But the question to be answered is if the modern grand is so bad and the fortepiano so good, where'd the fortepianos go?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Right. But why'd the superior fortepiano go the way of the dodo?


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> But the question to be answered is if the modern grand is so bad and the fortepiano so good, where'd the fortepianos go?


That question is not nearly as clever as you may think. The answer is that the harpsichord and fortepiano went to the same place Mozart and Bach went. They were both left behind along with their instruments while Beethoven, then Schumann, then Brahms, then Wagner, then Stravinsky and a myriad other composers became household names. Composers were supplanted just like their instruments. By the 20th century, classical music, as a whole, along with the concert grand, went to the same place as the fortepiano. Further, and in the meantime, more recordings with fortepiano (and other period instruments) are appearing and being sold than with the modern grand piano. So, the real question is, if the modern grand is so great, why are so many of the newest recordings on the fortepiano? Badura Skoda's last complete Schubert cycle, on the fortepiano. Vermeulen's complete recordings of Schubert, on the fortepiano. Most of the latest recordings of the complete Mozart piano concerti are on fortepianos: Bilson, Jos van Immerseel, Robert Levin, Alexei Lubimov and Bezuidenhout (Sonatas), Safronitsky, and most recently Brautigam. Podger and Faust accompanied by fortepianos on their complete Mozart violin sonatas. What do all these professional top-selling musicians know about the piano that you don't? The question to be answered is if the modern grand is so good and the fortepiano so bad, where'd the concert grands go? Why is the concert grand going the way of the dodo?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> That question is not nearly as clever as you may think.


And essentially answering "they went away" in 500 words isn't as clever as you might think.


> So, the real question is, if the modern grand is so great, why are so many of the newest recordings on the fortepiano?


One reason may be boredom with the familiar. The old and once-forgotten becomes new again. Actually I don't think the modern grand is the ultimate. I get bored with the sameness of the sound as well, but most tinkly fortepianos don't do it for me either, just as they didn't do it for Beethoven and those after him. I'd rather listen to a harpsichord or clavichord. I don't see fortepiano playing becoming widespread among any group except Mozart specialists.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Right. But why'd the superior fortepiano go the way of the dodo?


It hasn't. There are several makers producing new fortepianos based on historical models. Just as there are new harpsichords being made, and have been for decades.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> It hasn't. There are several makers producing new fortepianos based on historical models. Just as there are new harpsichords being made, and have been for decades.


But that's a fairly recent phenomenon that coincides with HIP. There wasn't some continuous underground market for fortepianos post-1820.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

dissident said:


> I don't see fortepiano playing becoming widespread among any group except Mozart specialists.


That's also what makes the whole non-HIP business "cheap" as art. _"The lazy way is the easy way."_ 


hammeredklavier said:


> the "masses" are "brainwashed" into thinking the terrible run-on sentences they hear in non-HIP Mozart performances are what Mozart actually intended.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> That's also what makes the whole non-HIP business "cheap" as art. _"The lazy way is the easy way."_


Alright, I'm an amateur. Why should I shell out money for a fortepiano just to play Mozart? What that kind of attitude is going to do is endanger Mozart's music. It becomes a museum artifact.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

dissident said:


> But that's a fairly recent phenomenon that coincides with HIP. There wasn't some continuous underground market for fortepianos post-1820.


Common people in 1750~1800 weren't interested in Bach. He must have been a bad composer.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> Common people in 1750~1800 weren't interested in Bach. He must have been a bad composer.


Huh? Most "common people" still aren't. They're also not playing fortepianos. Btw,


> Unlike the fortepiano, the modern grand is limitlessly abundant, available/accessible virtually everywhere; so the "lazy mindset" is to simply just play the modern grand (the same kind of piano used in all modern genres today, jazz, pop and whatnot, omg!)


That's what's known as "versatility". An instrument fit only for playing the music of a handful of composers for most people is just not...practical. What de facto "banning" of playing any composer pre-Chopin on a modern piano will do ultimately is put Mozart et al even more hopelessly into a niche which eventually dies.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> And essentially answering "they went away" in 500 words isn't as clever as you might think.


It was a silly and leading question. What can I say?



dissident said:


> I don't see fortepiano playing becoming widespread among any group except Mozart specialists.


Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, but not Brahms? Why am I _*not*_ seeing Brahms played on a 1760s Silbermann by a fortepiano "specialist"? I mean, what could _*possibly*_ explain it?!? I'll forgo the 500 words and assume you already know the answer.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> It was a silly and leading question. What can I say?
> 
> Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, but not Brahms? Why am I _*not*_ seeing Brahms played on a 1760s Silbermann by a fortepiano "specialist"? I mean, what could _*possibly*_ explain it?!? I'll forgo the 500 words and assume you already know the answer.


I can't play Brahms on a fortepiano, but I can play Brahms, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Webern, Gershwin and Joplin on a modern piano. Oh, what ever shall I choose?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> But that's a fairly recent phenomenon that coincides with HIP. There wasn't some continuous underground market for fortepianos post-1820.


So? There was a gap but because of demand beginning roughly in the '70s refurbished or newly made instruments have come onto the market. Now, and for some time, there is a active market for instruments made in the period style. 20th century composers have written new works for harpsichord, and may have for the fortepiano as well.

What is your agenda? What do you have against period instrument performance?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> So? There was a gap but because of demand beginning roughly in the '70s refurbished or newly made instruments have come onto the market. Now, and for some time, there is a active market for instruments made in the period style. 20th century composers have written new works for harpsichord, and may have for the fortepiano as well.
> 
> What is your agenda? What do you have against period instrument performance?


:lol: There's that agenda word again. I don't have anything at all against period performance except the idea that that's the only way to go.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> :lol: There's that agenda word again. I don't have anything at all against period performance except the idea that that's the only way to go.


Who has that idea? I certainly don't.

However, I am very grateful for HIP since it has rekindled interest in composers such as *Alessandro Scarlatti* with complete recordings of his operas and cantatas and most of his entire catalog of works. And these are fantastic performances, using the period instruments and practices, bringing alive the music in pristine quality.

I doubt that would have happened without the HIP phenomenon.

And this has been repeated for countless other Baroque composers, as well as earlier period music. Now that the HIP style has reached into the 19th century, old chestnuts have now been presented liked cleaned and restored master paintings.

IMO the HIP movement has enlivened the entire Classical music enterprise.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> Unlike the fortepiano, the modern grand is limitlessly abundant, available/accessible virtually everywhere; so the "lazy mindset" is to simply just play the modern grand (the same kind of piano used in all modern genres today, jazz, pop and whatnot, omg!) and pretend it would be a good substitute/alternative to the 18th century fortepiano in Mozart performances. But every non-HIP Mozart performer on the modern grand today knows; *all they're doing is simply trying their best to mimic the sound of the 18th century fortepiano.*


I don't think that this is the case any more than people playing Bach or Scarlatti on a modern piano are trying to imitate the sound of an 18th century harpsichord. 
Instead they are using the possibilities of the modern piano in the way they see fit for playing Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven etc. This obviously excludes some stuff a modern piano cannot do but also includes stuff an old piano cannot do or do so well, e.g. it gives more options for slow tempi because a modern instruments sustains the tone for longer. You may not like it or show what is "historically wrong" but they are not mimicking or faking anything.

And one should not ignore the practical aspect. It's not only buying and maintaining the instruments; artists have to travel with it whereas many normal pianists usually use the Grands provided by the concert halls. Historical instruments are often too weak for modern halls, so one has to play in smaller halls which can be economically not feasible etc.
Then there are mixed recitals. It's not that Haydn's or Mozart's solo piano music is the most popular compared with Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin etc. so a purely late 18th century recital may not be as attractive to audience (although with the rise of HIP and specialization this is probably less concerning nowadays than 30 years ago).


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> I can't play Brahms on a fortepiano, but I can play Brahms, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Webern, Gershwin and Joplin on a modern piano. Oh, what ever shall I choose?


That's funny. I just spent the afternoon listening to Isabella Faust and Alexander Melnikov play a Brahms Horn Trio and Violin Sonatas on a period piano and violin. But we shall now call them "Mozart Specialists". [Rolls Eyes...]


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> That's funny. I just spent the afternoon listening to Isabella Faust and Alexander Melnikov play a Brahms Horn Trio and Violin Sonatas on a period piano and violin. But we shall now call them "Mozart Specialists". [Rolls Eyes...]


Was the piano a fortepiano? If not, it's not really such a clever comeback. If so, it wasn't "historically informed".


SanAntone said:


> Who has that idea? I certainly don't.


Why do you ask that when hanmeredklavier just made a series of comments saying that? Are you trying to imply that I just made it up as a straw man? Of course there are people who hold that idea.


> And these are fantastic performances, using the period instruments and practices, bringing alive the music in pristine quality.


You go on about how "replication" is not the goal but yet go on about a "pristine quality" which may or may not actually be there, unless these performers were lucky enough to get hold of an original tape recording of the debuts of these works.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Was the piano a fortepiano? If not, it's not really such a clever comeback. If so, it wasn't "historically informed".


It was an 1875 Bösendorfer piano restored by Edwin Beunk and Johan Wennink. So, indeed, historically informed. And all, according to you, by "Mozart Specialists". I mean, because, who but "Mozart Specialists" are playing anything other than Modern Concert Grands these days?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> It was an 1875 Bösendorfer piano restored by Edwin Beunk and Johan Wennink. So, indeed, historically informed. And all, according to you, by "Mozart Specialists". I mean, because, who but "Mozart Specialists" are playing anything other than Modern Concert Grands these days?


A modern grand which was actually new when Brahms was alive and active. And Brahms played a Streicher, not a Bösendorfer. So not completely "historically informed". And no, the "Mozart specialists" comment concerned the fortepiano.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> A modern grand which was actually new when Brahms was alive and active. No, the "Mozart specialists" comment concerned the fortepiano.


And another "Mozart Specialist", playing Beethoven and Schubert and Brahms on Fortepianos:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/arts/music/piano-brahms-andras-schiff.html

"_Several years ago, Schiff acquired an 1820 fortepiano, which was used to make recordings of two double albums with Schubert's late piano works. Schiff says: "Playing the Brahms concertos on a modern piano with modern orchestras, there were always balance problems. And I found, especially in the second B-flat Concerto, that it was just physically and psychologically very hard to play. Somehow, with this Blüthner piano, the physical difficulties disappear. The keys are a tiny bit narrower, so the stretches are not so tiring, and the action is much lighter. So there is not this colossal physical work involved." In recent interviews, Schiff has criticised the increasing homogeneity of piano performance, with modern Steinways used for repertoire of every era._ "

So, all that's left for you is to quibble over what constitutes a fortepiano vs. a modern grand. And I see the quibbling is already underway...


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> And another "Mozart Specialist", playing Beethoven and Schubert and Brahms on Fortepianos:
> 
> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/arts/music/piano-brahms-andras-schiff.html
> 
> ...


OK, you got me there. We can say "Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and (mostly) early Beethoven specialists". And anyway during Beethoven's middle period the fortepiano started to evolve into the modern grand. Beethoven's Broadwood sounds closer to the modern version than it does to a 1790s Walter, on which you really can't play Beethoven's late piano music. The basic point remains: the fortepiano is fit only for a handful of composers and would be impractical for anybody *except* specialists. The issue isn't really about the inherent virtues of the fortepiano but whether or not that's the "correct" or indeed *only* instrument to use for these composers.


> So, all that's left for you is to quibble over what constitutes a fortepiano vs. a modern grand


It's not a quibble, it's an important point if you're going to be historically informed. By the way,


> Schiff has criticised the increasing homogeneity of piano performance, with modern Steinways used for repertoire of every era. "


I absolutely agree with Schiff there. But if Schiff chooses to play Bach would his first choice be a fortepiano or a modern one?

PS --


> playing Beethoven and Schubert and Brahms on Fortepianos:


The Blüthner referred to is *not* a fortepiano but an 1859 model.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I'd like to know what kind of "balance problems" Schiff has in mind for the 2nd Brahms concerto. If anything, for the *first* Brahms you need the biggest, loudest piano you can, for that main theme of the first movement. 
As I said above I have read a lot of claims about balance problems and modern pianos drowning strings in chamber music or so. But my listening experience on recordings has been exactly the opposite. If anything the fortepiano seems too weak, even vs. a single cello or violin, certainly against any orchestra larger than a dozen of players or so.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> It's not a quibble, it's an important point if you're going to be historically informed. By the way...


It's quibbling. Any performance that chooses as its instrument one that the composer would have been familiar with (and that's not a modern instrument) is, to some extent, going to be historically informed. So I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make by quibbling over whether the piano can be considered a "fortepiano"? Regardless of the nomenclature, it's historically informed. The term "fortepiano" was originally just another word for "piano" but is used in modern times to designate pianos that aren't, more or less, the modern concert grand-and that includes the pianos played by Schumann and Brahms.










_"Conrad Graf (1782-1851), maker of this six and one-half octave piano, was one of the most important fortepiano makers in Vienna between 1822-42. In 1824 Graf was appointed Austrian court keyboard instrument maker and in 1835 received a gold medal at the Austrian Industrial Products Exhibition. Composers such as Beethoven, Czerny, Schubert, Schumann, Kalkbrenner, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, and Brahms, as well as the Empress of Russia, the Queen of Saxony, and the Archduke and Archduchess of Austria owned Graf pianos. This instrument was probably made the year before Robert Schumann's Graf piano, a period that includes many of the greatest works of the piano repertoire."_

And here is an Erard Grand Fortepiano:










And here is Brahms First Piano Concerto performed on an Erard Fortepiano:


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> And here is Brahms First Piano Concerto performed on an Erard Fortepiano:


That is not not not I repeat NOT a fortepiano. That is an early modern grand and it would be just as historically inaccurate to play Mozart on that as to play Mozart on a Steinway D.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> That is not not not I repeat NOT a fortepiano. That is an early modern grand and it would be just as historically inaccurate to play Mozart on that as to play Mozart on a Steinway D.


Who has played Mozart on an 1850s Erard and calls it a period instrument? I doubt anyone has or would. However, it would be appropriate for Brahms, which was the example you responded to.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Who has played Mozart on an 1850s Erard and calls it a period instrument? I doubt anyone has or would. However, it would be appropriate for Brahms, which was the example you responded to.


That wasn't the point. The point is that it's not a fortepiano.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Kreisler jr said:


> But my listening experience on recordings has been exactly the opposite. If anything the fortepiano seems too weak, even vs. a single cello or violin, certainly against any orchestra larger than a dozen of players or so.


I agree. I never liked the Bilson/Gardiner recordings of Mozart's Piano Concertos for this reason. My theory, which is purely speculative, is that they initially miced the fortepiano the same way they miced a modern grand, and what you ended up with was a thoroughly drowned period piano. I have noticed that recorded performances have gotten much better at bringing the period pianos to the fore; and that probably more accurately reflects how audiences heard these performances back in the day-in much smaller spaces with much smaller attendees.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> That wasn't the point. The point is that it's not a fortepiano.


I mean, after all, what do the makers and restorers of these fortepianos, and the museums who house them and musicians who perform them, and who all call them fortepianos, know as compared to _*you*_? Clearly, you need to go out and correct every last one of them... They're all wrong and you're right.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> I mean, after all, what do the makers and restorers of these fortepianos, and the museums who house them and musicians who perform them, and who all call them fortepianos, know as compared to _*you*_?


Oh, give me a break...if that 1859 Blüthner is a fortepiano then so is a Bechstein made 50 years ago.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Oh, give me a break...if that 1859 Blüthner is a fortepiano then so is a Bechstein made 50 years ago.


They're all wrong and you're right. Yeah, give me a break.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> They're all wrong and you're right. Yeah, give me a break.





> Today, the name fortepiano is generally reserved to designate instruments built according to 18th-century specifications.
> 
> Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote for the fortepiano, and his personal instrument is preserved in Salzburg, Austria. Beethoven's practices changed with his instrument - he composed for the 18th-century fortepiano during his early career, and later for versions of the modern piano.


https://philharmonia.org/learn-and-listen/baroque-instruments/fortepiano/


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Yes, I know. And here is a little article on the Dolmetsch Beethoven Fortepianos built at the end of the 19th century:

"_Of the three 'Beethoven' fortepianos made by Arnold Dolmetsch at the end of the nineteenth century while he was based at Charlotte Street, London, that mentioned in a letter from Elodie (Dolmetsch's second wife) to the painter William Rothenstein (written 24th March 1901), made for Cecil Rhodes, must be the furthest travelled. The great empire-builder, when Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, bought and had restored, for his personal use, the house Groote Schuur (the name means 'great granary', revealing its original status in the seventeenth century). For this work he commissioned the young architect Herbert Baker, who made and acquired many outstanding pieces of furniture. The sturdy pillar-like legs which are a hallmark of his style also adorn the fortepiano, which is cased with coromandel wood._"

https://www.dolmetsch.com/Groote.htm

Now hurry. Run along and tell them how they're all wrong. Take your article with you.... You're going to be very busy.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> That wasn't the point. The point is that it's not a fortepiano.


Who said it was?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Yes, I know. And here is a little article on the Dolmetsch Beethoven Fortepianos built at the end of the 19th century:
> 
> "_Of the three 'Beethoven' fortepianos made by Arnold Dolmetsch at the end of the nineteenth century while he was based at Charlotte Street, London, that mentioned in a letter from Elodie (Dolmetsch's second wife) to the painter William Rothenstein (written 24th March 1901), made for Cecil Rhodes, must be the furthest travelled. The great empire-builder, when Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, bought and had restored, for his personal use, the house Groote Schuur (the name means 'great granary', revealing its original status in the seventeenth century). For this work he commissioned the young architect Herbert Baker, who made and acquired many outstanding pieces of furniture. The sturdy pillar-like legs which are a hallmark of his style also adorn the fortepiano, which is cased with coromandel wood._"
> 
> ...


If it was built according to 18th century specs then it was indeed a fortepiano. So?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Who said it was?


:lol: ....Uhhhhhh...do you even read comments that I respond to before jumping in with "who has ever said that?"


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Oh, give me a break...if that 1859 Blüthner is a fortepiano then so is a Bechstein made 50 years ago.


There seems to be some issue of semantics. A forte-piano is a general term for a keyboard instrument used in the late 18th and early 19th century prior to the evolution to the modern grand piano. There were several periods of transition, with the Erards and other pre-modern piano acting as transitional instruments. While they are heavier than the original forte-piano, they are still not equivalent to the modern grand. I'm not sure if they had a wooden frame which would make them closer to the forte-piano or a metal frame making them closer to the modern grand.

But in any event it is not worth debating terminology, IMO.

*The important point is that for each period prior to the appearance of the full blown modern piano there were classes of keyboard instruments that most likely are appropriate for composers during those same periods.*


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> :lol: ....Uhhhhhh...do you even read comments that I respond to before jumping in with "who has ever said that?"


I don't often follow conversations other than those I am involved in - but I've caught up. See my post above. However, what had caught my eye was the post featuring a *Brahms* concerto which you replied about *Mozart* .... which seemed to be a non sequitor.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

San Antone said:


> There seems to be some issue of semantics. A forte-piano is a general term for a keyboard instrument used in the late 18th and early 19th century prior to the evolution to the modern grand piano


Right. Period. End of.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I don't often follow conversations other than those I am involved in - but I've caught up. See my post above.


But you jump in anyway to nitpick whatever I say.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> But you jump in anyway to nitpick whatever I say.


Because you seem to go on and on, debating points of no real consequence, IMO - and the one I responded to appeared to be a non sequitor, as I said.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Because you seem to go on and on, debating points of no real consequence, IMO - and the one I responded to appeared to be a non sequitor, as I said.


Yet here you are. You don't go on and on? I was never conversing with you anyway.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Whether it is a forte-piano from 1790 or an Erard from 1856, both instruments are period instruments suitable for different composers of those eras, whereas a modern grand is not a period instrument except for the 20th century.

That is the point.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> If it was built according to 18th century specs then it was indeed a fortepiano. So?


Right. And the pianofortes Brahms played on right up until the last decade of the 19th century shared those specs. Regarding the 1859 Blüthner, it was indeed a fortepiano; but it seems you don't understand what differentiates fortepianos from modern pianos. Or maybe it's just that everybody else is wrong.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> Yet here you are. You don't go on and on? I was never conversing with you anyway.


This is an open thread, about a subject I am interested in, and I can free to comment on any post, whether it was addressed to me or not - especially if it contains questionable information.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Right. And the pianofortes Brahms played on right up until the last decade of the 19th century shared those specs.


Oh really? Judging from the pics, no. Range is in accord with an 18th century instrument which is most definitely not Brahmsian. The strings are straight and it appears to have a wood soundboard.


> Regarding the 1859 Blüthner, it was indeed a fortepiano; but it seems you don't understand what differentiates fortepianos from modern pianos.


No, I think it's you who's having a problem telling the difference if you can't tell an 1859 Blüthner from a 1790 Walter.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> This is an open thread, about a subject I am interested in, and I can free to comment on any post, whether it was addressed to me or not - especially if it contains questionable information.


And so do I. If you think it's of no consequence, move on.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Maybe this will be helpful from Wikipedia:

*A fortepiano [ˌfɔrteˈpjaːno] is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the late-18th to early-19th century instruments for which Haydn, Mozart, and the younger Beethoven wrote their piano music. Starting in Beethoven's time, the fortepiano began a period of steady evolution, culminating in the late 19th century with the modern grand. The earlier fortepiano became obsolete and was absent from the musical scene for many decades. In the 20th century the fortepiano was revived, following the rise of interest in historically informed performance. Fortepianos are built for this purpose today in specialist workshops.*


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> Maybe this will be helpful from Wikipedia:[/B]


And here's another good article:

https://jameshuntingford.com/an-aside-post/

It's especially helpful in that it lists the mechanical and structural features that differentiate the modern pianos of the very late 19th century from the fortepianos Schumann and Brahms would have used for most of their careers. Among them:

*-Brass strings and iron strings.*
Modern pianos have steel strings, the lower strings of which are wound with copper to increase girth (lowering the pitch) without a marked increase in mass (and therefore extra tension on the frame - copper is much lighter than steel). Copper winding was a 19th century development.

*-Straight stringing.*
Fortepiano strings were parallel to each other and to the case; the modern piano is cross-strung, with two choirs of strings crossing in an 'X' shape. Cross-stringing helps to focus sound on the centre of the soundboard, and create large 'walls' or 'masses' of sound, which is very appealing for music of the late 19th century, aiding the long unfolding melodies of romantic music.

Which is probably why a piano like this, built in 1899:










Is still considered a Fortepiano (called the *"Erard" Grand Fortepiano*) or at least until dissadent scurries off and corrects them.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven ... - apparently composers who conceived their music with what certain members consider "obsolete instruments"... But some of those members are so convinced of the existence of "objective values" in certain other topics, to the extent that they believe there is a clear "hierarchy" between modern composers and Bach, Mozart, Beethoven... If Mozart was "stuck in his time" in terms of instruments, wouldn't it be also plausible to suggest he was stuck in his time period in terms of musical philosophy as well? What if a jazz fan asks "wow.. you still listen to music this old? Do you also keep a powdered wig in your closet? Oh my..." How would you answer that? Just cause you substitute the period instruments with their modern counterparts, the "essence" doesn't change. What's wrong with playing music 200 years old with instruments 200 years old? You can't pretend the music isn't an ancient relic, while the instruments are.


hammeredklavier said:


> But it sometimes feels as though someone is telling me: "Wow.. HK.. you like this stuff? You poor thing!"
> "It's as if Mozart felt he had to reassure his audience that he would not lose them in a Gothic labyrinth in which their enlightened sensibilities would be darkened for all eternity. The poor things." -Woodduck


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> And here's another good article:
> 
> https://jameshuntingford.com/an-aside-post/
> 
> ...


I don't have to correct anything. From your own source:


> Despite this variety, there are still a number of common features that distinguish fortepianos from the ubiquitous piano of the present day.
> 
> These features include:
> *-A much lighter case.*
> ...


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I think of it similarly to the typewriter.

We've all used/seen manual typewriters, then they were replaced by electric models with the type-ball used by the IBM Selectric, which remained the most common piece of office equipment well into the computer age. However, manual typewriters were still in use, mainly portable field machines that had no access to electricity. I still have one and use it to address envelopes since it is easier than using my desktop computer/printer.

Even as piano technology developed, and new things such as multiple stringing, hammers covered in felt or leather, cast iron frames, additional pedals, composers would likely still have had in their possession an earlier instrument without _all_ of the latest improvements.

Most performers interested in HIP/PI will choose an instrument they feel certain would have been in *common circulation* during a composers lifetime, certainly at the time a specific work were composed - even if it were not the most advanced version of a 19th century piano.

There is a world of difference in the sound of an 1850s Erard or Pleyel and the Steinway modern grand piano.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> There is a world of difference in the sound of an 1850s Erard or Pleyel and the Steinway modern grand piano.


There's a "world of difference" between an 18th century fortepiano and a modern grand. That difference diminishes considerably by the mid-19th century. There isn't a "world of difference" between that 1859 Blüthner and a modern grand.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> There's a "world of difference" between an 18th century fortepiano and a modern grand. That difference diminishes considerably by the mid-19th century. There isn't a "world of difference" between that 1859 Blüthner and a modern grand.


An opinion. One I don't think that is shard by many pianists.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> An opinion. One I don't think that is shard by many pianists.


And that's also an opinion. One that's unverified by polling "many pianists".


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> I don't have to correct anything. From your own source:


Which defines the Erard as a fortepiano because, at the very least, it's straight-strung and the damper/sostenuto is a knee-lever. But also dissident:



dissident said:


> That is not not not I repeat NOT a fortepiano. That is an early modern grand...


Nah. Nothing to correct there. Nothing at all...


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> And that's also an opinion. One that's unverified by polling "many pianists".


Tell you what. You find links where pianists say there's little difference between a 19th century fortepiano and a modern grand and I'll find all the quotes where pianists describe the difference. Let's strart with the Schiff I already quoted above. Wanna play that game? If so, your turn.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Tell you what. You find links where pianists say there's little difference between ....


I didn't say "little difference", I said there's not a "world of difference". If there were it really wouldn't be feasible to play Brahms at all on a modern piano.

But sure. From what I can tell Schiff was mostly referring to ergonomic differences. In sound, none of those performances of Brahms on period instruments linked so far sound radically different from performances on modern instruments.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> I didn't say "little difference", I said there's not a "world of difference". If there were it really wouldn't be feasible to play Brahms at all on a modern piano.


Yeah, that's what I thought...

More quibbling, so go out and find all those professional pianists who say there isn't "a world of difference".


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

There's also the issue of tuning. Well temperament on a Steinway or any other piano instead of equal temperament could make a significant difference.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> More quibbling, so go out and find all those professional pianists who say there isn't "a world of difference".


The burden of proof isn't on me.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> In sound, none of those performances of Brahms on period instruments linked so far sound radically different from performances on modern instruments.


Yeah. Schiff disagrees with you. In the very same article:

"It's a very problematic hall. There are always seats where the piano is covered by the orchestra. And for the first time in my life, in the Schumann with this orchestra it was absolutely without any problems: the balance, the way the piano came across, the way the orchestral parts came across. So after the Schumann I thought, Let's try the Brahms. Playing the Brahms concertos on a modern piano with modern orchestras, there were always balance problems."

But next you'll quibble that you meant "radically". I mean, because what does "radically" mean? Whatever you want it to. I'm sure.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Yeah. Schiff disagrees with you. In the very same article:
> 
> "It's a very problematic hall. There are always seats where the piano is covered by the orchestra. And for the first time in my life, in the Schumann with this orchestra it was absolutely without any problems: the balance, the way the piano came across, the way the orchestral parts came across. So after the Schumann I thought, Let's try the Brahms. Playing the Brahms concertos on a modern piano with modern orchestras, there were always balance problems."
> 
> But next you'll quibble that you meant "radically". I mean, because what does "radically" mean? Whatever you want it to. I'm sure.


Yes, but is it a fortepiano? Hey if we want to make that 1859 Blüthner the "standard", it's fine by me. I think it sounds great. It still wouldn't be acceptable for Mozart though.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> The burden of proof isn't on me.


LOL. It is if it's _your_ argument and you want me or anyone else to take you seriously.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> LOL. It is if it's your argument and you want me or anyone else to take you seriously.


You're the one beclowning yourself, sorry. "Brahms played a fortepiano thoughout his life, just like this 61-key specimen right here."

Done.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Yes, but is it a fortepiano? Hey if we want to make that 1859 Blüthner the "standard", it's fine by me. I think it sounds great. It still wouldn't be acceptable for Mozart though.


Who's the "we" making the 1859 Blüthner the "standard"? You and your straw man?


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> You're the one beclowning yourself, sorry...


Yeah. Okay. I'm done. I've made my points. I leave it to anyone else who wants to take it up from here.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Who's the "we" making the 1859 Blüthner the "standard". You and your straw man?


Oh the old straw man defense where there is no straw man. "We" is generic. Humanity.

NOW done.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

dissident said:


> And that's also an opinion. One that's unverified by polling "many pianists".


Well, as a professional musician I have worked with pianists for over 50 years, and there's one thing they all share: they are very picky about the pianos they meet in various venues. They find differences between one Steinway D and another. Keith Jarrett was incredibly picky about the piano, and refused to perform a concert if the piano was not up to his standard.

So, I can say with some confidence that if they hear and feel differences in one modern grand and another, there are even greater differences between a modern grand and one from 1859.

So, yeah, I've observed a kind of poll of probably hundreds of pianists over the decades.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Well, as a professional musician I have worked with pianists for over 50 years, and there's one thing they all share: they are very picky about the pianos they meet in various venues. They find differences between one Steinway D and another. Keith Jarrett was incredibly picky about the piano, and refused to perform a concert if the piano was not up to his standard.
> 
> So, I can say with some confidence that if they hear and feel differences in one modern grand and another, there are even greater differences between a modern grand and one from 1859.
> 
> So, yeah, I've observed a kind of poll of probably hundreds of pianists over the decades.


Not very relevant unless you asked specifically about the topic at hand.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

dissident said:


> Not very relevant unless you asked specifically about the topic at hand.


It's highly revelant, because it's based on actual musical experience.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Bulldog said:


> It's highly revelant, because it's based on actual musical experience.


OK..................


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Due to structural differences, the pianos of 1846 were less resonant and the player could hold down the pedal for an entire phrase to give a "floating feeling" to the music. Today, if a performer holds down the pedal for an entire phrase the music would sound like a blur and the harmonic progression could be lost."
The message of a Pianist: Chopin's Pedal Markings in Barcarolle F# Major Op.60 | Alisha Walker


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Due to structural differences, the pianos of 1846 were less resonant and the player could hold down the pedal for an entire phrase to give a "floating feeling" to the music. Today, if a performer holds down the pedal for an entire phrase the music would sound like a blur and the harmonic progression could be lost."
> The message of a Pianist: Chopin's Pedal Markings in Barcarolle F# Major Op.60 | Alisha Walker


But it still wouldn't be a fortepiano. And the dichotomy now is always Pleyel/Erard/Graf/old Blüthner vs Steinway. Modern pianos also have their own characteristics and there are more out there than just Steinway, regardless of how frequently they're recorded. A Bechstein is different from a Steinway which is different from a Yamaha which is different from a Kawai which is different from a Bösendorfer. And even though I'm not a pro I've played all the above except a Bösendorfer so I'm speaking from that hallowed direct experience.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> But it still wouldn't be a fortepiano.


Yes, all those historians, museums, musicians, piano builders and restorers are wrong. And you're right.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Yes, all those historians, museums, musicians, piano builders and restorers are wrong. And you're right.


You mean like this one?


> Today the term fortepiano is generally reserved for instruments made before 1830, or copies of them.


https://www.squarepianos.com/fortepiano.html

If you want to die on that clown hill, be my guest.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

You just don't seem to grasp (or obstinately refuse to) the difference between the appellation "fortepiano" as a modern development and convenience primarily meant to distinguish between the lighter fortepianos of the classical era versus the heavier fortepianos of the Romantics, with the meaning of *Fortepiano* as it relates to the mechanics and structure of pianos. The pianos of the 1830s to 60s still have more in common, design-wise, with Mozart and Beethoven's piano. Why does this matter? Because it goes some way toward explaining why pianists like Schiff have switched to these later fortepianos rather than continue using a modern concert grand.

"Chopin lovers always look for a opportunity to play on 1840 Pleyel grand pianos or pianinos similar to Chopin pianos. *We know that Chopin was still living when the modern piano came on the scene and he clearly said and preferred his ''fortepiano*''!

Schumann and Brahms were still playing on Viennese action pianos (without metal frame or with one or two frame pianos like Benignus Seidner ca.1840 of this collection) in their last years. Chopin used to play only on Viennese fortepianos similar to what Beethoven used before coming to Paris and playing on Pleyel."

And an 1842 Pleyel Fortepiano, identified as such, as a *Fortepiano*:










And so this:

"*Fortepianos* from *1830-60*
Mendelssoh and Schumann period pianos

As the previous period categories of this collection presents the Mozart/Haydn period and then Beethoven/Schubert period, this period focuses on the pianos made in Mendelssohn and Schumann time. Of course they lived longer than 10 years but the main instruments they had available in their time were Viennese type fortepianos. (*can also be found in Mendelssohn and Schumann houses today*).

Even Chopin in his early period knew almost only such Viennese type fortepianos before traveling to Paris.

In this period piano makers in Vienna were making pianos much more robust than before, heavier hammers and bigger bodies, thicker soundboards...but still no use of metal frame!

Slowly around 1840 one and then two pieces of metal frames appeared above the soundboard first in treble, then in other registers until they went on and made a whole metal frame on the piano in 1850-60s with way too much heavier strings and hammers and twice or three times heavier bodies which I believe *from that point our golden age of fortepianos* is finished! so that's why there is no more next generation pianos in this collection for I am not going to show you the whole history of piano from de zwolle and Cristofori to Steinway! but presenting you only fortepianos of the pre modern times.

So the fortepiano in 1830-40 still had a transparency and different timber and resonance without too much tension and deserves this chapter to be dedicated too. It is perfect for its own period music and although piano makers even in Vienna were almost making pianos fast like London mass products, the quality and Viennese taste was still not scarified to modern standards of the new fashion which had began already in London and short after in Paris."

There are a lot of historians, piano builders, composers and performers on this hill. And you're not one of them.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> You just don't seem to grasp (or obstinately refuse to) the difference between the appellation "fortepiano" as a modern development and convenience primarily meant to distinguish between the lighter fortepianos of the classical era versus the heavier fortepianos of the Romantics, with the meaning of Fortepiano as it relates to the mechanics and structure of pianos.


That's a face-saving game of semantics. It's been pretty clear all along, or I would assume that it has been clear, that I mean "pianoforte" in the sense of the instrument considered suitable for HIP use in the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Brahms' Streicher, though very different from a modern Steinway, is NOT such a fortepiano. Nor is Chopin's 1848 Pleyel. Nor is this 1859 Erard:




Enough.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Brahms' Streicher, though very different from a modern Steinway, is NOT such a fortepiano. Nor is Chopin's 1848 Pleyel. Nor is this 1859 Erard:


Right, it's not as if it doesn't say "Pianoforte" right in the title of the Youtube video:

*F. Liszt: Sonata in B minor. Ilya Poletaev, pianoforte Erard (1859)*

And you talk about face saving? As if I can't go back through this thread and find you contradicting yourself? Here's what you said about the Erard Fortepiano as concerns this post

The HIP Sound: The Instrument vs. Player

You wrote:



dissident said:


> That is not not not I repeat NOT a fortepiano. That is an early modern grand and it would be just as historically inaccurate to play Mozart on that as to play Mozart on a Steinway D.


There was no hedging about "such a fortepiano"; or that what you _really_ meant was that it wasn't a "fortepiano" that Mozart would have played. I mean, duh. That only came later. You flatly and wrongly stated that this was NOT a fortepiano, wrongly calling it an "early modern grand". I can only assume at some point you realized you were wrong and retroactively decided to reinterpret what you wrote. Be that as it may, I'll take your historical revisionism as a sign that you now agree (with the Youtube video you yourself posted!) that what the performer is playing is a fortepiano-built with straight strings and on a wooden frame. I mean, look at the video.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Right, it's not as if it doesn't say "Pianoforte" right in the title of the Youtube video:


But it's from 1859 and it's not a modern Steinway, so it's as much entitled to be a "fortepiano" as Brahms' 1870s Streicher or the 1859 Blüthner or the 1848 Pleyel in vtpoetworld. Only they're not, not in the currently understood sense of the term.


> There was no hedging about "such a fortepiano";


No hedging needed. That was the understanding until Brahms' piano was compared to some 61-key fortepiano commissioned by Cecil Rhodes in the 1890s or whatever. Now really. Enough.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> But it's from 1859 and it's not a modern Steinway, so it's as much entitled to be a "fortepiano" as Brahms' 1870s Stretcher or the 1859 Blüthner or the 1848 Pleyel in vtpoetworld. Only they're not, not in the currently understood sense of the term.


Right. Because the Youtube video was posted in 1859 and nobody would *currently* call that piano a fortepiano or a pianoforte in the "currently understood sense of the term". [Rolls. Eyes.]


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Right. Because the Youtube video was posted in 1859 and nobody would *currently* call that piano a fortepiano or a pianoforte in the "currently understood sense of the term". [Rolls. Eyes.]


If the Blüthner, Pleyel and Streicher are, that one can be too. Now go play your semantic games with someone else. (Rolls. Eyes.)


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Now go play your semantic games with someone else. (Rolls. Eyes.)





dissident said:


> That is not not not I repeat NOT a fortepiano.





dissident said:


> I mean "pianoforte" in the sense of the instrument considered suitable for HIP use in the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Brahms' Streicher, though very different from a modern Steinway, is NOT such a fortepiano.





dissident said:


> The Blüthner referred to is *not* a fortepiano but an 1859 model.


"Model." But after he himself posts a youtube video with an 1859 Erard Pianoforte, writes:



dissident said:


> If the Blüthner, Pleyel and Streicher are, that one can be too.





dissident said:


> I didn't say "little difference", I said there's not a "world of difference".


Then complains about semantics...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The discussion is veering a bit away from the thread content into personal comments. Please try to comment on HIP related issues and not other members.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

.................deleted while I go play my fortepiano...er, pianoforte...er, thing that it's a no-no to play Mozart on.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Canadian pianist Glenn Gould spoke highly of Switched-On Bach, saying: "The whole record, in fact, is one of the most startling achievements of the recording industry in this generation and certainly one of the great feats in the history of 'keyboard' performance"."




So nowadays, one doesn't need an orchestra to perform it.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Canadian pianist Glenn Gould spoke highly of Switched-On Bach...


I grew up on Switched-On Brandenburgs, playing my vinyl until the grooves were smooth. I still love Carlos's version of the Brandenburgs, but her later recordings (like this one of the double concerto) I never liked as much. She was working with the next generation Moog and whereas, with the Brandenburgs, she really had to sweat to create and recreate the sounds of the instruments, in her later recordings she seemed more taken with the weird bleeps and blurps the newer moog more easily created, and so you get the wonky version above-where the music is at the service of the moog rather than the other way around. That's just my subjective opinion though.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I remember _Switched-on Bach_ - back when "she" was *Walter Carlos*. But it was only interesting for a minute.


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