All the piano teachers and tuners I have met seem to be for modern pianos over the fortepiano, but I am the opposite.
Listening extensively to fortepianos, Beethoven's piano works sound so much better on a (good condition of course) fortepiano. It is like they are in 3D!
The strings resound much more fully, there are nuances in the notes that are missing in a modern piano, the emotional depth is greater.
Once you hear Ronald Brautigam play the piano sonatas on fortepiano on unequal temperament that is IT! Hammerklavier played by him is OMG.
And the same for him playing Haydn sonatas too!!! What a revelation that was!- Haydn came alive in away he does not on a modern piano.
And unequal temperament- oh yes!!!
For anyone interested Ronald can be found on you tube and Amazon.
And there is this guy Eben Goresko who demonstrates unequal temperaments on you tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBt6APk21tU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5CUUFtl6A
Chopin's funeral march is hair raising....
Oh by the way, anyone know what temperament Beethoven used? I think I heard somewhere it was Young.
Here's a modern piano playing the C sharp minor in Good Temperament:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiX5Xjtb7-E
Oh I like it much better! Notice how the strings resound so much more fully?
Here's an article about historical tunings:
http://www.kylegann.com/histune.html
I find what he says here fascinating, and after listeneing mostly to unequal temperements, I am inclined to agree:
My teacher, Ben Johnston, was convinced that our tuning is responsible for much of our cultural psychology, the fact that we are so geared toward progress and action and violence and so little attuned to introspection, contentment, and acquiesence. Equal temperament could be described as the musical equivalent to eating a lot of red meat and processed sugars and watching violent action films. The music doesn't turn your attention inward, it makes you want to go out and work off your nervous energy on something.
On a more subtle level, after I've been immersed in just intonation for a couple of weeks, equal temperament music begins to sound insipid, bland, colorless. There are only eleven types of intervals available instead of the potential several dozen that exist in even the simplest just system, and you don't get gradations of different sizes of major third or major sixths the way you do in just tuning. On a piano in just intonation, moving from one tonic to another changes the whole interval makeup of the key, and you get a really specific, visceral feel for where you are on the pitch map. That feeling disappears in bland, all-keys-the-same equal temperament.
Far beyond the mere theoretical purity, playing in just intonation for long periods sensitizes me to a myriad colors, and coming back to the equal tempered world is like seeing everything click back into black and white. It's a disappointing readjustment.
http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html
Listening extensively to fortepianos, Beethoven's piano works sound so much better on a (good condition of course) fortepiano. It is like they are in 3D!
The strings resound much more fully, there are nuances in the notes that are missing in a modern piano, the emotional depth is greater.
Once you hear Ronald Brautigam play the piano sonatas on fortepiano on unequal temperament that is IT! Hammerklavier played by him is OMG.
And the same for him playing Haydn sonatas too!!! What a revelation that was!- Haydn came alive in away he does not on a modern piano.
And unequal temperament- oh yes!!!
For anyone interested Ronald can be found on you tube and Amazon.
And there is this guy Eben Goresko who demonstrates unequal temperaments on you tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBt6APk21tU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5CUUFtl6A
Chopin's funeral march is hair raising....
Oh by the way, anyone know what temperament Beethoven used? I think I heard somewhere it was Young.
Here's a modern piano playing the C sharp minor in Good Temperament:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiX5Xjtb7-E
Oh I like it much better! Notice how the strings resound so much more fully?
Here's an article about historical tunings:
http://www.kylegann.com/histune.html
I find what he says here fascinating, and after listeneing mostly to unequal temperements, I am inclined to agree:
My teacher, Ben Johnston, was convinced that our tuning is responsible for much of our cultural psychology, the fact that we are so geared toward progress and action and violence and so little attuned to introspection, contentment, and acquiesence. Equal temperament could be described as the musical equivalent to eating a lot of red meat and processed sugars and watching violent action films. The music doesn't turn your attention inward, it makes you want to go out and work off your nervous energy on something.
On a more subtle level, after I've been immersed in just intonation for a couple of weeks, equal temperament music begins to sound insipid, bland, colorless. There are only eleven types of intervals available instead of the potential several dozen that exist in even the simplest just system, and you don't get gradations of different sizes of major third or major sixths the way you do in just tuning. On a piano in just intonation, moving from one tonic to another changes the whole interval makeup of the key, and you get a really specific, visceral feel for where you are on the pitch map. That feeling disappears in bland, all-keys-the-same equal temperament.
Far beyond the mere theoretical purity, playing in just intonation for long periods sensitizes me to a myriad colors, and coming back to the equal tempered world is like seeing everything click back into black and white. It's a disappointing readjustment.
http://www.kylegann.com/tuning.html
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