Performance
styles on the fortepiano c. 1790-1815
A mixture of styles is to be expected from a composer
whose piano style has so much in common with the London school, yet who
preferred to play on Viennese pianos throughout his life. David
Rowland on Beethoven
Nineteenth-century critics identified two European
schools of pianoforte performance. The 'London school' was associated with
such pianist-composers as Clementi, J.B. Cramer, J.L. Dussek and John
Field. It was distinguished, according to Czerny, by its 'beautiful
cantabile and fine legato combined with the use of the pedals'. This was
due in part to the style of English pianos, which were known for their
relatively heavy touch and rounded sonority.
By contrast, the pianists of the Viennese school were,
as Kalkbrenner wrote, 'especially noted for the precision, clarity and
rapidity of their execution'. He continued, moreover, 'the instruments
made in that city are extremely easy to play, and, in order to avoid the
sounds becoming confused, they are fitted with dampers right up to the
highest note; as a result they have a marked dry quality, even in sostenuto
passages, since one sound does not get mixed with the next.'
This description is clearly applicable to the piano on
which the present recording is played. Built in Vienna in about 1800 by
Johann Schantz (1762-1828), this instrument is preserved in virtually
original condition at the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori in
Florence, Italy, and was restored in 1991 by Donatella Degiampietro.
Instead of pedals it has two knee-levers, the left one for raising the
dampers, the right one for bringing the moderator-a strip of cloth-between
the hammers and the strings in order to mute the sound. This was a
standard arrangement on Viennese pianos of the period. (This particular
instrument also has a 'bassoon stop' consisting of a roll of parchment
fitted to a wooden bar: when the bass strings are played with the
parchment touching them, a buzzing effect is produced. This stop is not,
however, used in the present recording: Czerny describes it as a childish
toy which a serious player would disdain to use.) Like many other
fortepianos of its period, it is very lightly constructed and has much
smaller hammers and thinner strings than a modern piano. The listener
should remember that the dynamic range is relatively small, and, when
listening to this recording, should not turn the volume up too high!
Beethoven (1770-1827) had a high opinion of the
instruments of Johann Schantz: he described them as 'good and durable',
and recommended them to his friends Therese Malfatti and Joseph von Varena.
We also know from one of his letters, however, that he had a Schantz that
he did not like-but then Beethoven was rarely satisfied with his pianos:
in a letter to the maker Johann Andreas Streicher, dated 19 November 1796,
Beethoven even complained of an instrument being too good:
The day before yesterday I received your forte piano,
which has really turned out to be superb. Anyone else would do everything
to hang on to it, and-here you can have a good laugh-I would be telling a
lie if I didn't say that it is too good for me. Why? Because it robs me of
the freedom to create my own sound. But that should not stop you from
making all your forte pianos in this way; I'd say you will find few who
have such crazy ideas. Beethoven, Briefwechsel I, Letter 23
Beethoven clearly liked a light action, although he
owned and played different types of piano. While his performance was
described as incredibly virtuosic, he was also reportedly a master of the
soft and legato touch. Czerny, Beethoven's pupil, writes of his
'tremendous power, unequalled bravura and dexterity', while Mähler tells
us that his hands were very still, his touch quiet and smooth. Baron de
Tremont wrote: 'But how could you judge how he played? His musical ideas
simply overwhelmed you.' Although Vienna was full of pianists when
Beethoven arrived in 1792 to study with Haydn, he soon established himself
as a composer and as a virtuoso. His style was characterised by its
singing legato, an effect largely regarded as impossible on the
instruments of the day: even after Mozart's death, the short, choppy,
detached manner of playing was still the fashion.
According to Czerny, Beethoven used the damper pedal
more frequently than the indications in his published compositions would
lead one to believe: sometimes he applied the pedal throughout a whole
movement! In 1842, Czerny wrote that when Beethoven continued to hold the
pedal throughout a whole passage in the slow movement of the third piano
concerto, it 'sounded well on the less resonant instruments of the day,
especially when the shifting pedal [i.e. una corda] was used as
well'. On the other hand Beethoven's rivals, Hummel and his supporters,
accused him of maltreating the piano by the way in which used the pedal,
'creating nothing but confused noise'.
French and English pianists were also noted for their
extensive use of the pedal. Kalkbrenner, who had studied in Paris with
Adam, was irritated by the ultra-effective damping mechanism of the
Viennese piano. Finding it quite impossible to execute a cantabile
passage, he decided to take action: 'I suddenly had the idea of putting a
piece of cork under the bar of the upper dampers so that the last two
octaves hardly damped at all; in this way I succeeded in conquering the
dryness that separated the sound of one note from the next.'
In some of the earliest pianos the dampers were raised
by means of handstops. Obviously the player could not operate these while
both his hands were busy playing: it is therefore probable that pianists
sometimes played whole movements or sections with the dampers raised.
Instruments also existed in which the raised position of the dampers was
normal, the player lowering them onto the strings for special effect.
Beethoven is known to have been very keen on the
shifting pedal (the key action was shifted to the right so that the
hammers would strike one of two, or two of three strings only, i.e. una
corda). Although the idea goes back to Cristofori-in his 1726 gravicembalo
col piano e forte the action can be moved by hand-it was late in
arriving in Vienna. The first una corda instrument to be heard
there was almost certainly the Longman and Broderip which Haydn brought
back from London in 1795. (Una corda pianos had appeared in England
as early as the Americus Backers piano of 1771.) The first Viennese
instrument known to have the device was a piano made by Walter in 1802,
and the earliest una corda markings in Beethoven's music appeared
in 1806. It is therefore appropriate to play his earlier music, such as
the Pathétique published in 1799, on an instrument which does not
have this device.
Beethoven's technique retained many traditional
elements. He used arpeggiated chords, which were still in use in the first
half of the nineteenth century, and which Czerny considered could be
applied in slow movements. Another old-fashioned feature was his use of
'rhythmic accent' which, as Schindler reports, Beethoven employed quite
forcefully much of the time. H.C. Koch defines this kind of accent in his Musiklexicon
of 1802, 'as if holding back for a moment on such an accented note.'
In 1803 Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) wrote to the
Bonn publisher Simrock:
Beethoven is taking more trouble over me than I would
ever have believed. I have a lesson three times a week, usually lasting
from one o'clock until half past two. I will soon be able to play his
Sonate Pathétique in such a way that you will enjoy it, for the precision
that he demands is hard to imagine. Beethoven, Briefwechsel I, Letter
136
Beethoven established his own particular style in
Vienna, such that Czerny regarded him and Ries (his pupil, secretary and
copyist) as a 'school' quite distinct from those of Dussek, Clementi or
even Mozart and Hummel. Ries studied the piano with Beethoven from 1801 to
1805, but went to Albrechtsberger to learn composition. He was unjustly
accused by his contemporaries of imitating Beethoven too much in his
compositions, though at the same time, his playing was praised in the Allgemeine
Musikalische Zeitung (1807, No.10) for its originality:
Ries always played with conscientious bravura…precise,
secure and well-prepared, even if he did not share our Hummel's immaculate
perfection and neatness; in Adagio movements (and indeed any cantabile
passages) he had little more to offer than any player can learn to do-in
that respect he was more like Hummel.
The teacher-pupil relationship became a long friendship,
though it was not without its difficulties. Ferdinand Ries' father was a
prominent Bonn violinist and had been Beethoven's violin teacher. He had
supported Beethoven just after the death of his mother when his family was
in difficulties. Beethoven did not forget this, and his support of Ries
was partly conditioned by his gratitude. Ries made his debut at an
Augarten Concert in 1804, playing Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with
his own cadenza. In 1808 relations were strained when Ries showed an
interest in a position in Kassel which had previously been offered to
Beethoven, who had refused it. They did not correspond until Beethoven
wrote to him in London in September 1814: 'I am in my heart truly happy to
hear that things are going well for you.' (Briefwechsel III, Letter 742)
It was around this time that Ries composed his Twelve
Trifles. After many years of travelling in the hope of getting a
secure position, Ries enjoyed much success in London, becoming a
fashionable teacher among wealthy merchants and bankers, many of them of
German origin. Not only was his originality as a composer recognised, he
was also celebrated as one of the finest performers of the day.
The London music journal Harmonicon wrote in
1824:
His hand is powerful and his execution is certain and
often surprising. But his playing is most distinguished from that of all
others by its romantic wildness...He produces an effect upon those who
enter his style, which can only be compared to that arising from the most
unexpected combinations and transitions of the Aeolian harp.
We find this popular effect in the Trifle in C
major, when Ries requires the pedal to be held down for several bars which
are marked pp. These bars are reminiscent of the fashionable contemporary
excesses of the time which Beethoven himself had criticised in 1796 in a
letter to the Viennese piano-maker Johann Andreas Streicher:
The manner in which people play the piano is surely the
most uncultivated way in which any instrument was ever yet played. You'd
often think you were listening to a harp, and I am delighted…that you
are one of the few people who feel and understand that someone can make
the piano sing as long as they have a sense of feeling. I hope the time
will come when the harp and the piano are seen as two completely different
instruments. Beethoven, Briefwechsel I, Letter 22
During his first visit to London to take part in
Solomon's concerts in 1791, Beethoven's teacher Haydn met Jan Ladislav
Dussek (1760-1812), one of the earliest touring concert pianists.
Dussek had already spent two years in London after fleeing the French
Revolution. He appeared together with Haydn at Solomon's concerts, lent
him his finest pianoforte, and was praised by Haydn for his remarkable
talents. By 1790, when the Sonatas Op. 13 appeared, Dussek had become one
of the most fashionable teachers of his day, his lessons commanding
virtually unprecedented fees. Haydn wrote to Dussek's father on 26
February, 1792, 'You have one of the most upright, moral and, in music,
most eminent of men for a son. I love him just as you do.' Dussek was born
in Caslav in Bohemia. His father was a music teacher and, according to
Burney, a fine organist. Burney also described the school where Dussek's
father taught: 'The organist and cantor, Mr Johann Dulsik…had 4
clavichords with little boys practising on them all: his son of 9 years
old was a very good performer.' After 1778, J.L. Dussek travelled: he
worked in Mecheln as a piano-teacher; he went to Hamburg where he played a
recital on an English fortepiano and probably studied with C.P.E. Bach; he
travelled to Russia, Paris and London and became well acquainted with
contemporary pianos. He was known as 'le beau Dussek'; a review of one of
his Paris concerts in 1808 speaks of 'a magic quality in his performance
and charm of expression, that made them truly irresistible.' The composer
Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari recorded in his anecdotes (published in London
in 1830): 'He never appeared to be distressed by anything. He was a great
player and a naturally gifted composer.'
Like Beethoven, Dussek was one of the earliest masters
of pedalling. Kalkbrenner claimed that Dussek invariably used the pedal
while the harmony remained unchanged, and kept the dampers almost
constantly lifted when he played in public. In the title of Dussek's
Sonata Op. 13 No. 2 we read, 'avec Accompagnement d'un Violon ad
libitum'. The notion of the ad libitum accompaniment originated
in French harpsichord music of the period 1730-60. Louis-Gabriel
Guillemain wrote in 1745 that such sonatas can be performed with or
without violin, as 'they will lose none of their melody, for all that is
in the harpsichord part; thus it will be convenient for those who do not
have a violin always at hand when they want to play some of these pieces.'
The real vogue for accompanied keyboard music, however, arrived with the
first generation of fortepiano/harpsichord players and composers who lived
in Paris in the 1760s and 1770s. Dussek probably encountered this style
during the years 1786-89 which he spent in Paris. For private
music-making, accompanied keyboard sonatas were the favourite form. The
accompanying violin part normally contained little independent material.
This is also the case in Dussek's Sonata Op. 13 No. 2, although it does
contain useful information for the keyboard player, such as slurs and
articulation marks which are absent in the piano part.
The Rondo in Beethoven, Dussek and Ries
The simple tuneful rondo, though disdained by
serious critics and composers like Forkel, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart and J.
Cramer, was very popular. In this form composers used popular song or
dance melodies and even borrowed arias from opera buffa. Rondos
were written both as independent pieces and as movements within sonatas or
symphonies. The third movement of the Dussek sonata recorded here seems to
combine opera buffa elements with those of the virtuoso bravura
piece. For this reason the 'popular' effect on the fortepiano of using the
moderator and simultaneously raising the dampers seemed particularly
appropriate: this style was advocated by Milchmeier in his tutor,
published in Dresden in 1797.
The Pathétique sounds more intimate, if less
full of pathos, with the subtle sound of this piano than on a modern
grand. The Rondo takes on a light character, and it is possible to
do justice to the description, 'not stormy but with the expression of a
lament' which Czerny claims is how Beethoven envisaged this movement. It
is true that Beethoven never indicated in his music that the moderator
should be used, though he was one of the first German composers to put any
pedal marks in his music, but it is of particular interest that he
indicates that the moderator should not be used when he writes senza
sordino at the beginning of the First movement of the Moonlight Sonata -
he knew that the average musician would use this popular effect unless
asked not to. The use of the moderator in this Rondo is therefore
justified, even if it lends the movement a slightly 'folky' flavour. This
brings it a little closer in line with the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century vogue for rondos of a light and cheerful character.
Ferdinand Ries' Trifle in D major, also in rondo form, uses a
syncopated Scottish-type rhythm, reminiscent of some of Beethoven's
arrangements of Scottish Songs. Ries' pedal indications are also
'popular': in the Trifle in C-major he suggests taking off the
dampers for several bars in succession where it is also marked pp.
Ella Sevskaya
Bibliography
Ludwig van Beethoven: Briefwechsel Gesamtausgabe
(ed. S. Brandenburg) I & III (Munich 1996). English translations of
quotations here by Christopher Stembridge
Howard Craw: A Biography and Thematic Catalog of the
Works of J. L. Dussek (1760-1812) (diss. University of South
California, 1964)
Michael Cole: The Pianoforte in the Classical Era (Oxford,
1998)
Carl Czerny: Über den richtigen Vortrag der
sämtlichen Beethoven'schen Klavierwerke, ed. P. Badura-Skoda (Vienna,
1963)
Cecil Hill: The Music of Ferdinand Ries: a Thematic
Catalogue (Armidale, NSW, 1977)
Glynn Jenkins: The Legato Touch and the 'ordinary'
manner of keyboard playing from 1750-1850 (Ph. D., Cambridge, 1976)
Hans Kann: Introduction to: J.B. Cramer, 21 Etüden
für Klavier nebst Fingerübungen von Beethoven (Vienna, 1974)
Katalin Komlós: Fortepianos and their music
(Oxford, 1995).
Richard Maunder: Keyboard Instruments in
Eighteenth-Century Vienna (Oxford, 1998)
David Rowland: A History of Pianoforte Pedalling (Cambridge,
1993)
