Playing with a period piano

I would say it is absolute nonsense. Certainly, knowing the sonic capabilities of an instrument from that era helps to better understand the author's intentions, but to go as far as saying that one needs Beethoven's period piano is quite a stretch.

I find that music is a universal language beyond fashions, styles, and any other practice relating to an era. The genius of a modern performer lies precisely in the ability to grasp the message and give it new life with whatever they have at hand at the moment. Interpretations are a very thorny issue, but I agree with Simone. Certainly, knowing these instruments deeply will enrich the idea you form about that music and why it was composed in that way for those instruments, but ultimately everything will come back to our own days and you will be the one who has to deal with it.

If you really want to have an idea of how they would sound, you always have the possibility of using ancient instrument libraries. Realsample offers a series of ancient instruments sampled in an excellent way, and playable on the Kontakt player. It is not like owning them for real, but they are very realistic nonetheless.

This is the address.

http://www.realsamples.de/

Some examples:

It will be Giovanni... But I am left with the idea that if you really want to get an idea of how CLA harpsichords and fortepianos sound, the best way is to try them.

Be, if one has the possibility, there is no doubt that it is the best thing. Besides, who better than you can say... the fact remains that you won't find a harpsichord, or an Erard piano from 1873, as we hear in the first mp3 at the top, in any musical instrument store.

No it's not true, but there are artisans who do it, and usually if you ask to try one they don't say no

TheSimon wrote:

I would say it is absolute nonsense. Certainly, knowing the sonic capabilities of an instrument from that era helps to better understand the author's intentions, but to go as far as saying that Beethoven's period piano is necessary is quite a stretch.

I agree too. It's nonsense.

In fact: if there is someone you can hurt by using an instrument from their era, it is Beethoven.

The current piano (the best ones) was reached step by step precisely to serve with increasing dignity the sonorities inherent in his late sonatas (but also in the stratospheric Waldstein).

So... why fly low when you can fly high?

Well...If for the late sonatas you play a Viennese instrument from the late 700s...Ok if you play a Clementi or a Broadwood from the 20s-30s...Or an Erard... Let's talk about it!

Of course, if Beethoven and company had had the chance to play on modern pianos, who knows what their reaction would have been. From the little I have read, Beethoven was always rather enthusiastic about trying out new instruments.

Well Mozart was already enthusiastic about the Stein and Walter instruments from the 70s-80s

Yes, yes... the usual thorny matter.

Giovanni wrote:

1873 Erard piano, as we hear in the first mp3 at the top in every musical instrument shop.

In reality, the difference between an 1873 Erard and a modern piano is much less marked, even if instruments from the second half of the 1800s are not my field; even compared to an 1837 Erard, for example, which I heard playing Schumann—there, the difference is decidedly more marked, but essentially, the further back in time one goes, the more differences there are... If we do not consider the instruments of Silbermann and Cristofori, or instruments from the 1740s-50s, but starting from the Viennese instruments of Stein and Walter, the big difference is already noticeable starting from instruments from 20-30 years later, even by the same Walter; a Walter from 1796 is almost entirely different from a Walter & Söhne from 1820, or between a Stein from the 1770s and a Streicher from the 1829-30s, and Nanette Streicher was Stein's daughter! The other great difference occurs when Erard begins to produce his instruments around the 1830s, and then Pleyel, adapting and perfecting the English instruments of John Broadwood & Sons.

But in terms of timbre, the further we go into the 1800s, the more the instruments resemble modern ones, especially from Pleyel and Erard... And from 1857, the first Steinweg/Steinway.

If we reasoned this way, we would have to perform only music composed after 1950, a period in which piano technology and evolution seem to have stabilized and standardized. And if we want to be even more pedantic, an instrument from the 2010s does not sound like an instrument from the 1980s, even though both were built using more or less the same criteria. It is true that one must adapt to the instrument being played and not be too much of a philologist. For example, a fortepiano from Beethoven's era has an earlier sound decay compared to that of a modern piano. Well, I don't care—with all due respect—if Beethoven wrote on the score of the "Moonlight" sonata that it should be played without a mute (meaning without dampers, so with the sustain pedal down): I play it by changing the pedal as in any other piece; otherwise, it would be an absolute mess, certainly not what Beethoven intended by removing the mute on an instrument of that era.

But is the mute really a pedal that placed a layer of felt between hammers and strings...

Thank you Antares86. I had been misinformed by one of my teachers (as usual).

Consider that instruments from the 20s-30s, especially those of Viennese manufacture, also had 6 pedals; an example is: 1 string, trills, bassoon, una corda (soft pedal), sostenuto (double soft pedal), and resonance

This is the mixture I like!!..

The curious thing is that if the string pedal is mainly used to decrease the sound volume (even if improperly), apart from the Turkish music which consists of a series of Turkish cymbals and drums, all the other pedals including the lute pedal if desired (unlike the mute, it uses a layer of parchment) are all effects and were not used to reduce/increase the volume, something that would actually be feasible both with mutes and with the lute; I imagine Beethoven prescribed not to use the mute because at the time it was quite fashionable, as were the Turkish music elements.

antares86 wrote:

But truly the mute is a pedal that placed a layer of felt between hammers and strings...

but are you sure?... that is the mute, as far as I know.

I have a feeling that Francescopianist's teacher might be right.

This discussion about the mutes in the adagio of the Moonlight Sonata had already come up many years ago, in Armando's old forum; and even then a user pointed out that the 'mutes' are the dampers, not the felt of the 'mute' (of the pf against the wall)