# Rossini Question



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

In the comic operas of Rossini, is the harpsichord or the fortepiano the more musically/historically correct instrument to accompany the recitatives? Most performances and recordings of _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_ I've heard have used harpsichord. Same with _La Cenerentola_ and (as far as I can recall) _Il Turco in Italia_, whereas the Teldec recording of _L'Italiana in Algeri_ I own uses a fortepiano (i.e. a sort of early, muted-sounding piano). I always think of the harpsichord as an 18th-century instrument and the fortepiano as more early-19th century, and of course Rossini's comedies were all written in the 1810's. Therefore, it seems like the fortepiano would be "correct," but can anyone more musically knowledgable than I give some insight into this issue?


----------



## Revenant (Aug 27, 2013)

It was an era of transition. Iirc the pianoforte was developed circa 1801. It depends when they became widely available and how rapid was the training and retraining of musicians and composers before it was widely accepted as the official successor of the harpsichord. I would guessestimate around 1821. The development from classical to romantic accelerated in that decade and the pianoforte being a rounder and warmer sound may have contributed to that.

_Edit: I apologize Bellinilover, I posted the above from my iPhone. I miswrote 1801 because of a brain fa*t: I was thinking of 1821 (again iirc the year that Rossini produced Tancredi and a couple of years before Semiramide and the end of his recitative secco usage). Of course Cristiani invented/developed the pianoforte around 1701. The question remains, as mentioned in another post, when did the pianoforte come into its own and in general use. I remember reading in Paul Johnson's short bio of Mozart that in the early 19th century the sale of pianos among the public began to surge, as more were produced and the purchase price came down. For that reason more scores were written and composers made more money from the sale of their scores (too late to help Mozart, but benefitted Stanzl, at least for a while)._


----------



## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I attended once a seminar on Rossini given by Alberto Zedda. According to him, basically recitative was almost always secco iduring the first two decades of the 19th century in Italy, and that was also Rossini's practice. It was accompanied by keyboard, more often a fortepiano, though harpshichord could also be used now and then, along with a violoncello and double bass. So, both options are possible, but fortepiano was the preferred solution.

For comedies, secco recitative survived some time after the 1820s, but for serious opera is was discontinued. _Semiramide_ was the first opera that Rossini scored using only accompanied recitative. In fact, secco recitative in Rossini's operas was often written by collaborators.


----------



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I see. So it was a transitional era, with the harpsichord sort of hanging around for a while until it was phased out for opera. In my opinion, the fortepiano is better for Rossini, because I think of the fortepiano as "the sound of the Regency period." For example, if you've ever heard the score for the 1995 BBC adaptation of Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (I forget the name of the composer), you'll know that it makes extensive use of the fortepiano.


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Revenant said:


> It was an era of transition. Iirc the pianoforte was developed circa 1801. It depends when they became widely available and how rapid was the training and retraining of musicians and composers before it was widely accepted as the official successor of the harpsichord. I would guessestimate around 1821.


Are you serious? Not to mention that by 1801 the catalogue of works for pianoforte by famous composers was already super-duper-turbo-mega extensive, Rossini himself have written - as most of Italian composers of that era - quite a number of early songs before his operatic hits, and what instrument do you think was used for accompaniament?


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It appears the first pianoforte was built around 1700. It was gradually improved; by about 1740 Sebastian Bach signed on as a sales agent for Silbermann's instruments after being critical of earlier attempts (an actual bill of sale survives). His Musical Offering may have been written with the pianoforte in mind, since King Frederick was a great fan of the instrument and owned several.

Almost all of Haydn's, Mozart's, and Beethoven's keyboard works were written for early versions of the pianoforte, now often called fortepianos. If there's a definitional dividing line between fortepianos and pianofortes, I don't know what it is.


----------



## David Parry (Dec 10, 2014)

*No doubt*



KenOC said:


> It appears the first pianoforte was built around 1700. It was gradually improved; by about 1740 Sebastian Bach signed on as a sales agent for Silbermann's instruments after being critical of earlier attempts (an actual bill of sale survives). His Musical Offering may have been written with the pianoforte in mind, since King Frederick was a great fan of the instrument and owned several.
> 
> Almost all of Haydn's, Mozart's, and Beethoven's keyboard works were written for early versions of the pianoforte, now often called fortepianos. If there's a definitional dividing line between fortepianos and pianofortes, I don't know what it is.


There is no doubt in my mind that recitatives from probably Idomeneo but certainly Le nozze di Figaro on should be performed using a piano. The harpsichord became redundant as soon as a piano became available, for obvious reasons.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Fortepiano was still a common instrument in the early 19th century, I'm quite positive that harpsichord had pretty much become obsolete by the 1780s or 1790s with the fortepiano and square pianos becoming more popular instruments. The pianoforte I think became more common in the 1820s onwards.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> It appears the first pianoforte was built around 1700. It was gradually improved; by about 1740 Sebastian Bach signed on as a sales agent for Silbermann's instruments after being critical of earlier attempts (an actual bill of sale survives). His Musical Offering may have been written with the pianoforte in mind, since King Frederick was a great fan of the instrument and owned several.
> 
> Almost all of Haydn's, Mozart's, and Beethoven's keyboard works were written for early versions of the pianoforte, now often called fortepianos. If there's a definitional dividing line between fortepianos and pianofortes, I don't know what it is.


I'm pretty sure the pedals on most fortepianos were operated by the knees, but on a pianoforte the foot-pedal mechanism was more common. There may also be a few things in terms of hammer action which are different, bit I don't know off the top of my head.


----------



## DonAlfonso (Oct 4, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I'm pretty sure the pedals on most fortepianos were operated by the knees, but on a pianoforte the foot-pedal mechanism was more common. There may also be a few things in terms of hammer action which are different, bit I don't know off the top of my head.


There were fortepianos with hand stops (including the first ones made) as well.
There was unending development from the early 18th the late 19th centuries in construction, actions and range. Mozart wrote for instruments with a range of about 5 octaves, Beethoven's last piano works used about 6 octaves.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From Wiki:
-------------------------------------------------
The use of "fortepiano" to refer specifically to early pianos appears to be recent. Even the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary does not record this usage, noting only that "fortepiano" is "an early name of the pianoforte".
-------------------------------------------------
In other words, where the fortepiano ends and the pianoforte begins is not a very meaningful question. In the notes to Schiff's recent Diabelli's, played on a piano of Beethoven's time, the issue is avoided neatly by calling his instrument a "hammerflugel."


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Being that Rossini was during the same time as Beethoven, I would vote for the fortepiano as being the proper instrument for his operas.

My stepdad who is an expert on Rossini says it's a mixture of both dependent on either instrument. Barber of Seville he says is harpsichord.

I don't have access to the original scores to see what it says.


----------



## LauraVirella (Dec 29, 2017)

Here you go:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recitative


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

LauraVirella said:


> Here you go:
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recitative


Thanks you for sharing Laura, welcome to Talk Classical also.


----------

