New Piano Sound

[Amalie]

An interesting article on an Australian built piano.

The Stuart Piano: recreating the Beethoven-era sound. Gerard Willems.

"This is an utterly different sound to other piano's and Willems is covinced it is what Beethoven heard in his inner ear"
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...072833664.html


How would we know the sound that Beethoven ideally wanted?



[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited March 02, 2004).]

[Shane]

Originally posted by Amalie:
An interesting article on an Australian built piano.

The Stuart Piano: recreating the Beethoven-era sound. Gerard Willems.

"This is an utterly different sound to other piano's and Willems is covinced it is what Beethoven heard in his inner ear"
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...072833664.html


How would we know the sound that Beethoven ideally wanted?

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited March 02, 2004).]

Amalie,

very interesting. i would certainly like to listen to it or even better play it. but you r point is very true, we dont know exactly what beethoven's piano or desired piano sounded like. nonetheless, they have put in a good effort to restore the old tradition.

Shane

[urtextmeister]

I can tell this article was not written for discerning musicians or music-lovers. The writer seems to imply that recreating music in an authentic manner is new and revolutionary concept.
What I find strange is that the piano is obviously not a re-creation of one from Beethoven's time. It appears to be the same dimensions of a modern Steinway and probably uses similar materials.
So they looked at the Baerenreiter edition. I imagine most pianists who have recorded the concertos have at least consulted this edition. It is a fairly standard, though very expensive, edition.
I don't think there is a lot of authenticity to this project.
What I did find interesting about this article was a couple points about style and interpretation. About the phrasing I think Willems is right. The modern concept of classic/romantic music is long phrases. In Beethoven this is often promoted as a means of delineating the structure, the architecture of the piece. However, if one looks at fingering, bowing, and other clues from the general era, shorter phrases (more "breath pauses" as Willems calls them) are indicated.
Similarly, the overwhelming ideal right now for an instrumentalist or singer is to have lower, middle and upper registers that blend and are consistent with each other. This was not the case with earlier instruments (voices I am not sure about).

Some of these stylistic issues, I think, have become aesthetic issues. We, as a classical music culture, have certain concepts of beauty that have more or less remained constant for most of the 19th and all of the 20th century.
Meanwhile, the authentic types have been quietly trying to shift some of these "standards."

Personally, I am somewhat torn. I am intrigued by authentic performances, but I am still in love with the grand romantic tradition. For instance, Willems lists Brendel as a Beethoven player who missed the boat. I think he is one the great Beethoven interpreters.

I am looking forward to Rod responding to some of this...

[Rod]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:

I am looking forward to Rod responding to some of this...

I know about this Australian piano and don't regard it as authentic by any meaning of the word. If you want to hear a piano that sounds something like what was in Beethoven's mind I'll be uploading the Op.30 mp3s tomorrow.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin