Piano history and musical performance

Background

The earliest pianos by Cristofori (ca. 1700) were lightweight objects, hardly sturdier in framing than a contemporary harpsichord, with thin strings of low tensile strength steel and brass and small, tubular-shaped hammers. During the Classical era, when pianos first became used widely by important composers, the piano was only somewhat more robust than in Cristofori's time; see fortepiano. It was during the period from about 1790 to 1870 that most of the important changes were made that created the modern piano:

An increase in pitch range, from five octaves (see image at right) to the modern standard of seven and 1/3 octaves.

iron framing, culminating in the single-piece cast iron frame

ultra-tough steel strings, with three strings per note in the upper 2/3 of the instrument's range

felt hammers

cross-stringing

the repetition action

in general, an enormous increase in weight and robustness. A modern Steinway Model D weighs 480 kg (990 lb), about six times the weight of a late 18th century Stein piano. [1]

The hammers and action became much heavier, so that the touch (keyweight) of a modern piano is several times heavier than that of an 18th-century piano.

The prototype of the modern piano, with all of these changes in place, was exhibited to general acclaim by Steinway at the Paris exhibition of 1867; by about 1900, most leading piano manufacturers had incorporated most of these changes.

These huge changes in the piano have somewhat vexing consequences for musical performance. The problem is that much of the most widely admired piano repertoire was composed for a type of instrument that is very different from the modern instruments on which this music is normally performed today. The greatest difference is in the pianos used by the composers of the Classical era; for example, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. But lesser difference are found for later composers as well. The music of the early Romantics, such as Chopin and Schumann—and even of still later composers (see below) --was written for pianos substantially different from ours.

One view that is sometimes taken is that these composers were dissatisfied with their pianos, and in fact were writing visionary "music of the future" with a more robust sound in mind. This view is perhaps plausible in the case of Beethoven, who composed at the beginning of the era of piano growth. However, many aspects of earlier music can be mentioned suggesting that it was composed very much with contemporary instruments in mind. It is these aspects that raise the greatest difficulties when a performer attempts to render earlier works on a modern instrument.

Historically informed performance

Not all performers attempt to adapt the older music to the modern instruments: participants in the historically informed performance movement have constructed new copies of the old instruments and used them (or occasionally, restored originals) in performance. This form of musical exploration, which has been widely pursued for the music of the Classical era, has provided important new insights and interpretations of the music. It has also made it possible to get a clearer idea of what a Classical composer meant in specifying particular pedaling directions; thus, performances of Beethoven's works on historical pianos can and typically do respect the composer's own pedal marks.

Differences in pianos used by later composers

Although most of the scholarly focus on differences in pianos covers the Classical era, it is also true that even in the Romantic era—and later—the pianos for which the great composers wrote were not the same as the pianos that are generally used today in performing their music.

Brahms

One example is the last piano owned by Johannes Brahms. This instrument was made in 1868 by the Streicher firm, which was run by the descendants of the great pioneer 18th century maker Johann Andreas Stein. It was given by the Streicher company to Brahms in 1873 and was kept and used by him for composition until his death in 1897. The piano was evidently destroyed during the Second World War. Piano scholar Edwin Good (1986; see References below) has examined a very similar Streicher piano made in 1870, with the goal of finding out more about Brahms's instrument. This 1870 Streicher has leather (not felt) hammers, a rather light metal frame (with just two tension bars), a range of just seven octaves (four notes short of the modern range), straight (rather than cross-) stringing, and a rather light Viennese action, a more robust version of the kind created a century earlier by Stein.

Good observes (p. 201): "the tone, especially in the bass, is open, has relatively strong higher partials than a Steinway would have, and gives a somewhat distinct, though not hard, sound." He goes on to note the implications of these differences for the performance of Brahms's music:

"to hear Brahms's music on an instrument like the Streicher is to realize that the thick textures we associate with his work, the sometimes muddy chords in the bass and the occasionally woolly sonorities, come cleaner and clearer on a lighter, straight-strung piano. Those textures, then, are not a fault of Brahms's piano composition. To be sure, any sensitive pianist can avoid making Brahms sound murky on a modern piano. The point is that the modern pianist must strive to avoid that effect, must work at lightening the dark colors, where Brahms himself, playing his Streicher, did not have to work at it."

Although the revival of later such 19th century pianos has not been pursued to anywhere near the extent seen in the Classical fortepiano, the effort has from time to time been made; for instance, the pianist Jörg Demus has issued a recording of Brahms's works as performed on pianos of his day. [2]

Ravel

Good (1986) also describes an 1894 piano made by the Erard company of Paris. This instrument is straight- (not cross-) strung, has only seven octaves, and uses iron bracing but not a full frame. According to Good (p. 216) "[while] some Erards were the equal in volume and richness of Steinways and Bechsteins ..., the "typical" Erard sound was lighter than that of its competitors." He goes on to say "though Claude Debussy preferred the Bechstein, Maurice Ravel liked the glassy sound of the Erard."

Thus, even for major composers of the first part of the 20th century, the possibility exists that performers might profitably experiment with what would count as "authentic" pianos, in light of the particular composer's own musical preferences. To this end the pianist Gwendolyn Mok has recently made commercial recordings of Ravel's music on an 1875 Erard piano; see External Links below.