History’s greatest composers wrote for their pianos, and a new Slate article by Jan Swafford argues that only an old piano can play Beethoven‘s Moonlight Sonata as Beethoven intended it. In fact, “music from the 18th and 19th centuries doesn’t just sound different now than on the original instruments; some of it can’t even be played as written on modern pianos.” Today, musical recordings drive the classical piano scene, encouraging the dominance of Steinways and the “standardization of pianos,” Swafford writes. “In the days of Beethoven and Schubert, it was a matter of one man or woman (such as the legendary Nannette Streicher) with hammers, saws, planes, and chisels, and there were myriad visions of what a piano could be.”[%comments]
The Piano Matters
TAGS: music
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While I think there is a significant amount of truth in Swafford’s article, he omits the contrasting argument: that many of us strongly prefer the more consistent and sonorous sounds of the modern pianos. This was the basis for the entire period instrument phenomenon for orchestral music. Yes, there are musical costs to using modern instruments, but there are also significant musical benefits. There is a similar trade off in the richer-sounding LP versus the hissless CD. Given how badly Beethoven damaged the pianos of his day (when he was playing them), it isn’t clear to me that he would prefer his piano music to be played on period instruments.
And Michael Jackson should only be listened to on cassette tapes, and Dances With Wolves should only be watched on VHS using a VCR.
(Side note: I had to grapple for a moment to remember what the appliance is called that you would use to play a VHS)
I’d say it’s more like if rock musicians universally stopped using all electric guitars except for Gibson Les Pauls. You could play songs written for Fender Stratocasters, etc for them, but it wouldn’t sound the same or as good.
Standardization in any art medium is a step backward.
As far as David’s movie comment is concerned:
I watched an 80s movie called The Adventures of Baron Munchausen on blue ray. I’d seen it on VHS and even DVD on regular TV and it looked fine but in blue ray on an HD television you can see the brush strokes on the back drops. This movie was clearly not meant for blue ray.
Matt: you’re right, it wasn’t meant for Blu-Ray; it was meant to be a projected 35mm film image in a darkened cinema, using 1980s projection equipment.
Conversion to digital changes some aspects of the image, including things like contrast and colour balance. That can result in some things becoming apparent that were invisible (or very hard to spot) in the original 35mm print. Ideally, the DVD producers would fix any problems this causes, but that doesn’t always happen.
For similar reasons, a lot of movie special effects are less convincing when movies are shown on TV.
– Phil
There’s also a place in the UK called Finchcocks devoted to this very concept:
http://www.finchcocks.co.uk/
though it’s worth mentioning as a counterbalance to the “you haven’t heard it till you’ve heard it on the original instrument” argument that at least one of Beethoven’s sonatas had a fast movement that was not physically playable during his lifetime, because the repetition lever (which facilitates fast repetition) had yet to be added to the piano action.
You’re supposed to see the brush strokes, Matt. They were clearly visible in the movie theater.
I’m a little confused – for anyone reasonably interested in the topic this has been well known for a considerable while. I have recordings of Mozart Piano Concertos with period instruments (including the piano) that are about 20 years old – and those aren’t obscure recordings, but performed by the Academy of Ancient Music. The Beethoven birthhouse in Bonn has issued CD recordings on Beethovens Piano that they own and use for concerts. A period piano is used as a Recitativo instrument in Rene Jacobs Grammy winning Marriage of Figaro recording, etc. – this is not to say this shouldn’t be written about, but acting as if this is something super new, only known to a fringe group of musical mavericks and the 200 people attending their concerts is a bit strange at this point.