The Walter Klavier that Mozart purchas’d in 1784 had a separate pedal board attachment of 32 keys (4 octaves C to c’) not unlike organ pedals in order to add depth to the overall sound - for use in his larger Klavier concerti e.g. K. 466 in d-minor c. Feb 1785… Later that year the 21 year old English organist Thomas Attwood had come to Vienna to learn the art of fugal composition from M. himself [1 August 1785 - 3 March 1787]- writes Attwood : 24 July 1785 ‘The afternoon was quite warm but when I met M. located one storey up in his Landstrasse residence I found him very busily at work completing a String Quartet at his stand-up writing table quite fully & elaborately drest for such a hot day-but to my great surprise when I shook his hand it was cold as ice…’ ‘He had in his Study a large Walter fortepiano to which he had attach’d at the bottom a pedal-board resembling organ pedals with a 32-key range from C to c’ which acted like a second piano…’ Can you procure a 32 note 4-octave string pedal board to demonstrate how much deeper & richer the sound of his forte piano must have been in performance with the A tun’d down somewhat to A=425Hz which is far closer to Mozart’s own pitch to judge from the two tuning forks own’d by his father Leopold back home in Salzburg …
Very well expressed. The sounds of the original instruments are an integral part of the music itself. Any organist who has played on organs of different periods and different countries will tell you this. The music takes on a completely different life when played on native instruments. Playing on modern instruments, then becomes an adaptation of some kind because one must change the way one plays to suite the different sounds of the instrument, just as Kristian demonstrated with the Pathetique. As an organist, that becomes even more essential. I would say that some organ music never sounds good on non-period organs, especially when the organ is tuned in modern equal temperament. That can turn the whole harmonic spectrum of the music topsy-turvy, as the dissonances are no longer so obvious, and the perfect consonance at cadences is now vibrating because of the sharp major thirds.
Fact is that compositions of Bach or Beethoven sounds great on a Steinway piano too, though this kind of pianos did not exists at the time the composition was written. This shows that the geniality of a composer is not tied to an instrument. This is what I understand listening to this very good presentation.
Mozart piano concerto's are still mostly heard or recorded on the modern grand, it surprises me a little that there arent more performances on the forte piano of Mozart Haydn and schubert.
Kristian compares the sound of the wooden "hammerklavier"/fortepiano with the modern metal-sound of Steinway for example. Very good. These Fortepiano instruments fit to the music of the late 18th to the middle of the 19th century. All in all I prefer the sound of hammerklavier/fortepiano instruments for the music of those composers who used it - and there are many after Beethovens time like Brahms and Chopin. If you hear a concert -as I do with my Sennheiser headphones- by Mozart or Beethoven with that instruments and an orchestra that is not overpacked with violins, you hear a big variety of instruments. For me, this is the test of recordings: How differentiated is the sound especially in the Forte passages. Compare by yourself.
Mr. Bezuidenhout, you eloquently state your position, but I respectfully disagree. I think historically composers and top performers have welcomed technical improvements in instruments, and I think Mozart would be thrilled with the modern Bechstein grand. The biggest difference between the modern piano and the fortepiano is not cross- vs. linear stringing, but introduction of the metal frame, which allowed much higher string tensions and brought completely new sound texture and volume.
I often find today's chamber music with the grand piano and steel strings way too loud for my liking given the small hall, church or private home it's usually played in. I feel modern instruments with their bigger more aggressive sounds are ill-suited for chamber music unless in a big hall but then it defeats the purpose and loses intimacy.
The Walter Klavier that Mozart purchas’d in 1784 had a separate pedal board attachment of 32 keys (4 octaves C to c’) not unlike organ pedals in order to add depth to the overall sound - for use in his larger Klavier concerti e.g. K. 466 in d-minor c. Feb 1785…
Later that year the 21 year old English organist Thomas Attwood had come to Vienna to learn the art of fugal composition from M. himself [1 August 1785 - 3 March 1787]- writes Attwood :
24 July 1785
‘The afternoon was quite warm but when I met M. located one storey up in his Landstrasse residence I found him very busily at work completing a String Quartet at his stand-up writing table quite fully & elaborately drest for such a hot day-but to my great surprise when I shook his hand it was cold as ice…’
‘He had in his Study a large Walter fortepiano to which he had attach’d at the bottom a pedal-board resembling organ pedals with a 32-key range from C to c’ which acted like a second piano…’
Can you procure a 32 note 4-octave string pedal board to demonstrate how much deeper & richer the sound of his forte piano must have been in performance with the A tun’d down somewhat to A=425Hz which is far closer to Mozart’s own pitch to judge from the two tuning forks own’d by his father Leopold back home in Salzburg …
Thoughtful, articulate. And indicative of the way an instrument informs one of how the composer imagined the music.
Very well expressed. The sounds of the original instruments are an integral part of the music itself. Any organist who has played on organs of different periods and different countries will tell you this. The music takes on a completely different life when played on native instruments. Playing on modern instruments, then becomes an adaptation of some kind because one must change the way one plays to suite the different sounds of the instrument, just as Kristian demonstrated with the Pathetique. As an organist, that becomes even more essential. I would say that some organ music never sounds good on non-period organs, especially when the organ is tuned in modern equal temperament. That can turn the whole harmonic spectrum of the music topsy-turvy, as the dissonances are no longer so obvious, and the perfect consonance at cadences is now vibrating because of the sharp major thirds.
Fact is that compositions of Bach or Beethoven sounds great on a Steinway piano too, though this kind of pianos did not exists at the time the composition was written. This shows that the geniality of a composer is not tied to an instrument. This is what I understand listening to this very good presentation.
Thank you. Very informative.
Exactly the way Mozart wanted you to hear his music.
Mozart piano concerto's are still mostly heard or recorded on the modern grand, it surprises me a little that there arent more performances on the forte piano of Mozart Haydn and schubert.
Kristian compares the sound of the wooden "hammerklavier"/fortepiano with the modern metal-sound of Steinway for example. Very good. These Fortepiano instruments fit to the music of the late 18th to the middle of the 19th century.
All in all I prefer the sound of hammerklavier/fortepiano instruments for the music of those composers who used it - and there are many after Beethovens time like Brahms and Chopin. If you hear a concert -as I do with my Sennheiser headphones- by Mozart or Beethoven with that instruments and an orchestra that is not overpacked with violins, you hear a big variety of instruments. For me, this is the test of recordings: How differentiated is the sound especially in the Forte passages. Compare by yourself.
Early Beethoven sounds radical on a Fortepiano.
Mr. Bezuidenhout, you eloquently state your position, but I respectfully disagree. I think historically composers and top performers have welcomed technical improvements in instruments, and I think Mozart would be thrilled with the modern Bechstein grand. The biggest difference between the modern piano and the fortepiano is not cross- vs. linear stringing, but introduction of the metal frame, which allowed much higher string tensions and brought completely new sound texture and volume.
I often find today's chamber music with the grand piano and steel strings way too loud for my liking given the small hall, church or private home it's usually played in. I feel modern instruments with their bigger more aggressive sounds are ill-suited for chamber music unless in a big hall but then it defeats the purpose and loses intimacy.
Unbelievable that he talked about the instrument for 8 minutes and never mentioned the name of it. Only “this instrument”, “this kind of piano”...
@@d.s.5103 No, this is a Walter replica made by Paul McNulty.
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