Josef Suk

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
I don't prefer the fortepiano on grounds of the sound of these instruments per se, but rather on their suitability for the notes that Beethoven wrote. The fact that so much of B's piano music is clearly not suitable of the modern instrument is the reason, I suggest, why so much of it is is mis-interpreted. If B had miraculously came into possession of a modern Steinway do you think he would have wrote music for it in the same manner as the compositions he did write?!!

Rod

I know we are never going to agree on this point, but I don't understand why you think so much of B's piano music is clearly not suitable for the modern piano - why not ? Had Beethoven possessed a Steinway, I doubt that his music would have been any different as the sonatas are really orchestrally conceived, and in that sense they are not really suitable for any keyboard instrument !
Also Beethoven had no hangups re. transposing the Sonata Op.14 no.1 into an entirely different medium - the string quartet - surely it is less of a leap than that to go from a Graf to a Steinway ?
With regard to the Hanover Band , I'm with you on that one - I have heard them perform live, and they are electric !

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
I know we are never going to agree on this point, but I don't understand why you think so much of B's piano music is clearly not suitable for the modern piano - why not ? Had Beethoven possessed a Steinway, I doubt that his music would have been any different as the sonatas are really orchestrally conceived, and in that sense they are not really suitable for any keyboard instrument !
Also Beethoven had no hangups re. transposing the Sonata Op.14 no.1 into an entirely different medium - the string quartet - surely it is less of a leap than that to go from a Graf to a Steinway ?
With regard to the Hanover Band , I'm with you on that one - I have heard them perform live, and they are electric !

On the subgect of op14, if ever proof was needed that B was not composing for some fantasy Steinway it is these two sonatas. They may be orchestrally conceived but it is the tone of the instrument that concerns me. Too many passages of B simply do not sound effective on the thick toned modern piano as far as I am concerned. If you have heard op2/3 on a 5 octave Schantz for eg, compared to the bombast one usually hears on a modern grand, you would understand. If you could prove to me that B would have wrote the above pieces in exactly the same way had he access to a Steinway, I would rate him less as a piano composer.

Regarding The Hanover Band, they are first rate with Baroque also. Their recent recording of Serse (Handel opera) is the first choice for that piece. Critics may say 'too much brass' hearing this relatively small ensemble's B symphonies, but they were saying that at the premiere of the First Symphony ('it sounded like a wind band')! If others don't like it don't blame the Hanover Band, blame Beethoven!

Rod

[Chris]

If Beethoven had no notion of a Steinway, and his music just happened to sound better on one, how does that make him a less great composer? How do you factor in something that doesn't exist?

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"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
If Beethoven had no notion of a Steinway, and his music just happened to sound better on one, how does that make him a less great composer? How do you factor in something that doesn't exist?

The fact is, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't sound better on a Steinway, it sounds worse regardless of the mechanical flaws possessed by the older instruments, thus the factor you mention does not come into play and in my opinion never will. I suspect Beethoven would not want to think even his own arrangements of his own pieces for different instruments were better than the originals.

Rod

[Chris]

Originally posted by Rod:
The fact is, as far as I am concerned, it doesn't sound better on a Steinway, it sounds worse regardless of the mechanical flaws possessed by the older instruments, thus the factor you mention does not come into play and in my opinion never will. I suspect Beethoven would not want to think even his own arrangements of his own pieces for different instruments were better than the originals.

Rod

But that's not the issue. The fact is that Beethoven could not have planned for things that didn't exist. How you think they sound now has nothing to do with it. Here's an example of what I mean. A computer game may be programmed to run on an nVidia TNT2 Ultra graphics card. This is the card the developers have who make the game, and their vision takes shape through this card. Then, a year later, nVidia releases the GeForce DDR. You play the game on a machine with this new card. The game you play is no longer the game the programmers concieved, because its instructions are executed differently by this new hardware. There may be good things and bad things about this new card. There will be some who prefer to play the game with the older card, and some who prefer to play it with the newer card. The point is, the programmers could not have known what the game would be like on this new card, and even though they specifically programmed the game for the old card, some will certainly like it on the new one better. This doesn't mean they should have made a different game because there was something that might come later that some people would think enhanced the experience.


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"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
But that's not the issue. The fact is that Beethoven could not have planned for things that didn't exist. How you think they sound now has nothing to do with it. Here's an example of what I mean. A computer game may be programmed to run on an nVidia TNT2 Ultra graphics card. This is the card the developers have who make the game, and their vision takes shape through this card. Then, a year later, nVidia releases the GeForce DDR. You play the game on a machine with this new card. The game you play is no longer the game the programmers concieved, because its instructions are executed differently by this new hardware. There may be good things and bad things about this new card. There will be some who prefer to play the game with the older card, and some who prefer to play it with the newer card. The point is, the programmers could not have known what the game would be like on this new card, and even though they specifically programmed the game for the old card, some will certainly like it on the new one better. This doesn't mean they should have made a different game because there was something that might come later that some people would think enhanced the experience.

Yes, they will like it on the new card if it sounded better, but what would they think if (as with myself) it sounded worse. There is every indication that Beethoven thought the same. He even sent his much vaunted Broadwood to Streichers to have it re-voiced in the Viennese style! From a discussion with Czerny in the conversation books B apparently was praising Streicher's instruments as late as 1823. I cound give you more examples from B's own lips. Most writers I have read that have studied the issue have come to the same conclusion as myself, my position is not radical. I recommed a book by William Newman 'Beethoven on Beethoven' regarding this topic. Even Barry Cooper praises the Badura-Skoda recordings I recommend, using an original Graf, in his Beethoven Compendium.

Rod

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
But that's not the issue. The fact is that Beethoven could not have planned for things that didn't exist...

To be honest I'm not totaly sure what your angle is with this posting, so if I miss your point you must forgive, but I will make this remark. As far as I am concerned, a first rate professional piece of music must be composed with a specific instrument in mind. If it is any good it will sound the best with that specific instrument, regardless for future development, because the nuances of that instrument will have be reconised and made use of in the composition.

With Beethoven piano music, the essential element is the Viennese action, regardless of its keyboard compass etc, with the simple light action (and thus relatively light stringing) and small leather covered hammers. This is the essence of the instrument for which B was writing.

English actioned pianos of this time are not served so well by B's music, for their sound is rather too muddy for B's dynamic style, but became the modern standard because concert pianists demanded ever more volume - the increased size and weight of action required for this is more suited to the English action as the weight can be counterbalanced so that the keys do not become unplayable - something that cannot be done with the Viennese action, whose scope for increased volume is strictly limited because the extra weight is directly felt via the keys.

Beethoven was asked by someone about composing more music for the flute, B said that the instrument was too underdeveloped for him to make use of it as he would wish, so he did not write so much for it. Thus with the flute B was a realist and wrote for it as best as the instrument would allow and no more, and his flute music sounds no better with todays technically superior instrument.

Following this logic there must have been pianos in Vienna that served his purpose. B wrote as the instruments of the day allowed and no more - hence the 'moonlight' was written for a 5 octave piano, and not some then none existant ideal 7 octave instrument.

Rod

[Peter]

When J.C. Bach published his 2nd and 3rd sets of keyboard concertos, they were described as being for 'Cembalo' or pianoforte. Even Beethoven's Op.2 were offered as 'pour le clavecin ou pianoforte'. Now it is quite obvious that Beethoven's sonatas cannot possibly be performed as he wrote them on a harpsichord, yet he had no objection to this publication that I am aware of. Surely the Harpsichord is far less satisfactory instrument to perform Beethoven on than a Steinway ?

[Chris]

Rod:

I'm not trying to say that he wrote for something that he thought would come later. I just don't agree that nothing can sound better on an instrument that it was not originally written for when that instrument did not exist. I have no idea what Beethoven would think, but on some level, I don't really care - I listen to them the way I like them. Remember all of the times I have expressed fondness for the sound of the pianoforte. (That is not to say I don't like the fortepiano in certain pieces, of course.)

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"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:

When J.C. Bach published his 2nd and 3rd sets of keyboard concertos, they were described as being for 'Cembalo' or pianoforte. Even Beethoven's Op.2 were offered as 'pour le clavecin ou pianoforte'. Now it is quite obvious that Beethoven's sonatas cannot possibly be performed as he wrote them on a harpsichord, yet he had no objection to this publication that I am aware of. Surely the Harpsichord is far less satisfactory instrument to perform Beethoven on than a Steinway ?

I believe far later Beethoven sonatas than op2 were published 'for piano or harp'. This was done purely for commercial reasons, the harp at that time still being a popular instrument. B was never one to let purism get totally in the way of making money, nor were his publishers.

Rod


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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
Rod:

I'm not trying to say that he wrote for something that he thought would come later. I just don't agree that nothing can sound better on an instrument that it was not originally written for when that instrument did not exist. I have no idea what Beethoven would think, but on some level, I don't really care - I listen to them the way I like them. Remember all of the times I have expressed fondness for the sound of the pianoforte. (That is not to say I don't like the fortepiano in certain pieces, of course.)

I am not totally against the use of the modern piano, for in the right hands it is still capable of producing a large proportion of the 'musical message'. I still listen to many B recordings using Steinways. But ultimately these perfomances are transcriptions because the nature of the instrument always reveals itself, to gain the complete message requires the original instrument. The nature of perfomances today in large halls by definition precludes the use of instruments like the Walter as they are simply not loud enough (one even struggles to hear a Steinway at some halls I've been to), but I do not regard listening under these circumstances as the ideal.

Rod

[Chris]

Rod:

You could almost say that about playing something on a Yamaha that was written on a Steinway, though (granted, that's a little less severe than your case). Not that I disagree, I just don't find it that important what the original vision was (that did not take into account something we have now) vs. what I like to hear coming out of the speakers. *Shrug*

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"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
Rod:

You could almost say that about playing something on a Yamaha that was written on a Steinway, though (granted, that's a little less severe than your case). Not that I disagree, I just don't find it that important what the original vision was (that did not take into account something we have now) vs. what I like to hear coming out of the speakers. *Shrug*

For many people this business is simply not an issue as they like Beethoven played as we usually hear it. In this respect I could be regarded as less of a Beethoven fan, because frankly I find B's music not too engaging played like this - I have many B CDs that I will never play again. On the otherhand you could say I am the ultimate fan as I demand the ultimate from and for the music, things that a lot of others are not concerned about, and am not at all satisfied until I get it.

You pays ya money and takes ya choice!

Rod

[Chris]

Originally posted by Rod:

You pays ya money and takes ya choice!
Rod

Quite true. That reminds me of something else I was thinking of, though, regarding authentic recordings. Isn't appropriate tempering an even more fundamental thing than instrument choice? Wouldn't true "period" recordings want to reflect that more (as well as the exact frequency of A)? It just seems more important to me.


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"Wagner's music is better than it sounds." - Mark Twain

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chris:
Quite true. That reminds me of something else I was thinking of, though, regarding authentic recordings. Isn't appropriate tempering an even more fundamental thing than instrument choice? Wouldn't true "period" recordings want to reflect that more (as well as the exact frequency of A)? It just seems more important to me.

These matters are also important. Tempering has always been an issue, for which there is no easy answer, unless you can provide me with one! This could be a topic in its own right. But regarding the frequency of A, todays standard is clearly too high for music of this period and earlier.

Rod



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